Visions

The thief comes only to steal, slaughter, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10

It's been a while since my last entry, but the streams of lessons, memories and revelations have definitely not run dry. About four weeks ago I spent three hours laboriously typing from the depths of my soul, only to have my computer freeze and the whole thing deleted! Well, it was good reminder to save my work as I go along (think I will do that right now, as a matter of fact). 
I am sitting here finalizing the curriculum for my homeschool lessons this year. Yes! God has been leading us to homeschool and I have been following. I will blog more about this later, but the kids and I are so excited. So, as I meander through the net trying to get the best deals on books, I can't stop thinking about the most recent lesson the Lord, Himself, has taught me. A lesson about Vision. 
The Bible says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he." Proverbs 29:18. Well, I think most mothers (and fathers) can relate; the times I've had the most vivid visions have been during my pregnancies. The planning, the hoping, the dreaming. Envisioning life with your new child. During my last pregnancy, this was multiplied. Two boys! Two little babies at the same time! The worry, the excitement, the unknown. I spent most of my time preparing for what I envisioned life would be. 
The day I found out Julian had died was a day when all of my planning, all of my excitement, all of my hope, died, too. It has definitely been a lot to recover from. I fell not only into a depression after my delivery of the boys, but a place of tremendous fear. I was afraid of my own shadow. If one of the kids coughed, I thought This is it, they are going to be taken, too. 
It was like I was still in the bottom of the ship hiding from the storm, but the seas were calm and the sun was out (psychologists would call this Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). All I could see around me was loss and the fact that anything in life can happen at any time. I started to become physically ill to the point where I had to see many doctors who all concurred that in six months time I will need a pacemaker. I have no history (family or otherwise) of any heart problems, was very healthy and in great shape before my pregnancy, yet, I had developed this unexplained heart condition. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Provers 13:12. 
A few days later I went to church where my pastor's wife had called out to me during service to tell me God was healing my heart. I will blog more about this awesome day later, too. Four days after that I returned to the doctor without any symptoms and have been symptom free ever since. But God didn't just heal my physical heart. He started to heal my soul. I felt a lifting of all of that fear. I started to say, "Okay God, I am going to believe You, again."
The journey to wholeness has been so much like spiritual rehabilitation. Learning to walk, learning to eat, learning to use my hands. But I was still just barely making it. I lost a sense of who I was, who my family was, and more importantly, who my God is. I didn't want to move on. I didn't know what to make of my twinless twin or my four (or five?) children. Lost vision. I had gotten to the point where I didn't fear myself or my children dying at any given moment, but in a way, I had still given up. I assumed an, "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen, there is nothing you can do about it. Why even pray? Just surrender" attitude. But it wasn't God I was surrendering to. It was to defeat. The feeling that no matter what I do, things will be as they are and that is the end of that. I just need to keep going through my Christian walk and wait for Jesus to come take me back...but that isn't living! That isn't the abundant life our Savior Jesus died to give us. That is hopelessness and lack of vision. And of course that is what the enemy wants because it will destroy you. But could I believe God, again? Could I really stand upon His Word after such a huge let down and so much pain? The answer: yes.
Yes! We can trust the Lord. And now, He was asking me to pray for vision. To step out in bold faith and start taking back the ground the enemy had stolen from my life. How? By believing. I started to pray for an increase in faith and a vision. I need to see God for who He is and to know who I am, again.
I have been feeling like my spiritual legs are even stronger than before. Maybe because I know of great loss and pain, that I don't have to fear it. I can see how God's grace was sufficient for me. Think about all the things in life that you dread. I'd say of my top 5, I've experienced 3 (the only two I have left are tsunamis and snakes, and please God, let's keep it like that?). But those three no longer have a hold on me. Been there, done that. And my God is still greater. 
So I'd ask my dearly loved readers, what is it that you have just accepted defeat for in your life? Let's stand together in faith and pray for the vision that we need to continue. Let's resist the thief who comes to kill and destroy, by holding on to the victory we have received in Jesus. He didn't want us just to get by, He wanted us to LIVE. There is no going back, only forward- so live without fear!

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his son is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. (Psalm 42: 5,8)