Thoughtful Thursday – Reminiscing – God’s Working In My Life

I have been going through old writings. Some of them I may have already posted, but I feel as though I should start re-posting them as they are still relevant today and may be needed by someone new to this site. I am going to put these under the heading of Reminiscing. You can find them in the menu (under the picture above) if you miss any. Today’s is from August 27, 2020.

I come this morning, in humble joyousness for the work that the Lord God has done in my life. Our God is awesome. Powerful. Loving. Merciful. Gracious.

He has given me the love and power to overcome a past filled with pain and heartache. He has led me through battles that, without Him, would have crushed my soul. He has strengthened me as I faced this hostile world with only Him at my back. He has held me up as I faced down the lies and deception that were perpetrated against me.

He has wrapped me in His arms as I have cried out the tears and anguish that have overwhelmed me more times than I can count. He has given me the courage to face down my fears and hand them over to Him, conquering what Satan would have used for my destruction.

He has been my rock and my shield. My strength and my Hope.

He brought me through a childhood brain injury that the doctors said should have killed me, and, at the very least should have left me mentally impaired. He has brought me through subsequent injuries that, though not yet healed, I have full hope and expectation that He will deal with in His good time and pleasure.

I am sure of this, and declare His healing power as I sit now and listen to Lauren Daigle with an ear that had been completely deaf.

I had suffered from an ear infection while in Elementary School, and a burst ear drum in my right ear as a result of that infection. He healed that burst eardrum, not allowing it to take my hearing. Then as an adult, I had been to too many rock concerts, listened to too much music with headphones on, and had destroyed my hearing completely in my right ear.

Recently I had begun to ask for restoration of my hearing and began to listen to old Hymns, and Praise and Worship music more than ever. I felt led to pray that the power of the words and the praise in those songs would work through my ears and heal the damage. I had noticed a slight change, but nothing really significant.

It was Sunday, as I listened to the live streaming service from Faith Chapel in Syracuse, that I realized there was a wall between me and my Savior. I tried to feel Him with me and couldn‘t.

“Why can’t I feel You?’ I cried.

And right then Pastor Kelly took the stage and began to talk about fear, and the fact that we have not been given a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Even though I had thought I had already dealt with the fear, I felt a check in my spirit and felt the Spirit of God urging me to let go. I held my hands out and felt the fear leave me. The presence of the Lord, His love and strength filled me, and I was finally able to submit to Him in complete surrender.

Then Pastor Kelly walked to the woman playing the piano and this woman said that she had been given a word from the Lord. There was someone that was having a tickling, something, in their right ear; and the Lord wanted to heal it. My hands shot up as if on a string and I said, “That’s me, Lord. I claim this healing.”

A couple hours later, I was talking to my brother on the phone and as a test I put the phone to my right ear. I could hear him!

The level of his voice was loud, but the words were muffled, as if he was yelling through a wall. BUT I COULD HEAR HIM!

A little later, I was praying and thanking God for His answer to my prayer; and I asked Him why He had not restored my hearing completely. He reminded me of all the times that I had said I did not want to take so many pain pills that the pain from the aforementioned injuries would be dulled so much I would forget about the injury and do something to re-injure it or make it worse. (Been there, done that. Too many times to count.)

So I asked Him, “But what does that have to do with my ear?”

The answer that I got was “Because I don’t want you to forget Me.”

The words were as clear as if He had actually spoken them out loud and I knew immediately what He meant.

I become so engrossed with my day-to-day living that quite often God is relegated to the back of my thoughts – there should I need Him, but not front and center in my thoughts the way He deserves to be.

He was telling me that if He healed me completely, my past history showed that I would not be as focused on Him as I have been for the past few weeks; and He did not want to lose that immediate, unending connection that we have been having.

Tears rolled down my face as His love and concern for me filled me.

I had the TV on as I sat there, and within minutes of this exchange, I heard the pastor that was on ask the question “Why doesn’t God heal you completely?” And then he answered the question with: “Because He doesn’t want you to forget Him.”

I was overwhelmed at this affirmation of what He had just said to me. I hit the record button and saved the program onto the DVR.

Since then, I have been periodically covering my left ear, testing my hearing to see if there is any other improvement. I must say that I have had a constant earache since Sunday, but I am able to hear things that I would not have been able to hear before — the sound of the fan motor, the TV and of course the praise and worship songs.

And then yesterday my husband was telling me something and I plugged my left ear with a finger and asked him to continue talking to me in a normal voice. His voice was muffled, but where I would not have been able to hear anything a week ago, I could hear him enough to be able to repeat his question back to him and answer him.

And as I postscript …

I decided to play back the TV recording from Sunday as I was writing this to make sure I got the pastor’s exact words. I discovered the sermon was about forgetting God in our day to day living — and nowhere can I find the question and following answer that I heard Sunday afternoon.

© Drusilla Mott and https://drusillamott.wordpress.com, 2020, 2022

Seek Me first

With all the predictions of economic collapse and shortages and famine that are being thrown around, what are we to do? As believers in Christ, how are we to respond?

You see, I have long struggled with the issue of ‘prepping’ for a disaster. Does it show a lack of faith in God to stockpile provisions?

I’ve heard many believers talk about being prepared, to save up both items and finances in case something should happen. It is only common sense to be prepared.

But when does that preparedness become a lack of faith?

God has been taking me through a journey of discovery recently and I thought I would share it, with the disclaimer that this is for me. What you do yourself is up to you and is between you and God.

I had been attempting to at least try to set a little aside; but what I have been able to do won’t last the two of us much more than a week or two. We have neither the finances or the room to equip a fully stocked pantry for months and months. And, truth be told, it was worrying me.

But the Lord kept bringing me back to Elijah and the widow that used the last of her flour and oil to prepare him a cake during a great famine. And because she trusted and obeyed, God kept her flour and oil replenished until the famine was over.

And then this morning, as I looked at the flowers blooming in the garden, I felt a little nudge in my spirit and a reminder of where the garden started and how far He had multiplied it in the past few years.

You see, I had begun with very little in the flower garden. A plant here, a plant there. A bulb or two here, a bulb or two there. But God has continued to multiply them.

Five lily bulbs have now grown into massive mounds of plants that just keep spreading and multiplying to the point I am having to divide them and throw them away. A few poppy plants have also grown into many plants. The iris are increasing every year. A few blue fescue plants have turned into at least three dozen. As with the lilies, I am going to have to start digging them up and throwing them away because I do not have any more room in my tiny garden.

So as I looked at all the glorious color, I felt God reminding me of all of this and asking me,

“If I multiplied your flowers for you, do you not think

that I will multiply your food for you as well?”

And then I was reminded of Jesus feeding the group of five thousand, and the group of four thousand, with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish. They multiplied in his hands until every one was fed.

He also reminded me of how He fed the Israelites forty years in the wilderness with the manna each morning, making sure that everyone had enough – not an abundance but just enough for each day. Teaching them to rely on Him day to day.

And then He said

“Seek Me first and all this will be added unto you.”

Don’t you just love our God?

© Drusilla Mott and https://drusillamott.wordpress.com, 2022