Yesterday was nine weeks into my recovery, and the bubble went “POOF!”

The bubble didn’t go “POOF,” at six weeks, and it didn’t go “POOF,” at seven weeks and it didn’t even go “POOF,” at eight weeks, even though I was told it would be between 6-8 weeks! No, God‘s timing is not man’s timing. And even though I prayed it would be six weeks God knew it would be nine.

I woke up yesterday morning, the morning that marked nine weeks after my surgery when the gas bubble was placed in my eye in order to perform the surgery, and the bubble was gone! God took it away in His timing, not my timing and not the timing of the medical professionals, HIS TIMING!

I am learning much about God‘s timing and the one thing I know most about it is, IT’S NOT MY TIMING!

Nine weeks ago my timing was to be in Southern California with my four grand children splashing in the ocean waves and digging in the sand. But God’s timing was for me to be cared for by a Christian surgeon when my retina detached from my right eye.

My timing was to fly in an airplane halfway across the country to attend a family wedding! God’s timing was for me to heal with my eye parallel to the ground for several weeks and not go above 1000 feet.

My timing was to spend much of my summer helping my children with their children while they had mission trips, children’s camps, and many events! God’s timing was for my children and even my grandchildren to care for me while I healed.

My timing was to heal quickly, even quicker than the doctors said. But God’s timing was for me to heal slowly so that I would not miss the fact that He was in control and I was not!

This emergency surgery in my life has taught me many lessons, some I’m sure I will continue to learn as the days and weeks and months pass by. But one lesson I know for sure that I have learned, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that God’s timing is perfect and mine is not! The best part of this lesson is that I am thrilled that His timing is perfect. He knows everything and I do not!

I can plan but only God can perfectly provide!

God provides all that I need, when I need it, perfectly on time!

THIS HAS BEEN A JOURNEY OF FAITH! I HAVE HAD TO TRUST GOD FOR HIS PLAN AND LET GO OF MINE!

He has perfectly provided all that I have needed when I have needed it.

God knows what I do not know and my faith has increased as I have trusted Him for His timing!

TRUTH BOMB

God’s timing is perfectly on time every time!

“Trust in The Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Speak Truth Love

I have had a fetish for bubbles ever since I was a little girl! 

Balloons, not so much! An early childhood party game scarred me for life and made me a ballon hater! Do you know the game I’m talking about? Everyone at the party lines up in two lines, like a relay. There is a chair in front of each line about 100 feet in front of you and it is facing you. Each willing or unwilling participant in line is handed a balloon that is fully blown up. When the “master of ceremonies,“ or parent in most cases, counts to three and says go, everyone runs forward to the chair and places the balloon on it. Then that same person begins sitting on the balloon over and over until it POPS!

That’s right, you heard me, you sit on it until it pops! What sadistic adult decided this was a great game for kids to play. It sounds like a gunshot goes off the minute you land plop flat on the surface of a hard chair! I need to say no more to express to you why I am a balloon hater! 

Bubbles however, I am in love with those beautiful, translucent, soft floating, silent-popping, gems which quietly fall in beautiful goodness!

My grandma blew bubbles with me when I was young and we would laugh and chase them to see how many we could pop before they popped. Now I blow bubbles with my grandchildren and we run and laugh and chase them and try to see how many we can pop before they pop by themselves!

Bubbles are beautiful to watch as they float slowly down to earth and seem to capture every beautiful piece of light behind them! You can see through them in their transparency, but until they pop there is still only a partial complete picture.

Right now, I am looking at life through a bubble. Yesterday marked week eight of my healing journey. I fully expected to be writing this Blog in celebration of my recovery being complete. There is no greater lesson that I have learned through this eight week journey then that God is in control of the outcome and not me! 

I am still seeing life through a bubble. A literal bubble, a gas bubble that still remains in my eye from surgery 8 weeks ago! I have vision, but much like those beautiful translucent bubbles I enjoy blowing and chasing, it is partial and unclear. 

As this bubble persists, I am reminded of a spiritual truth that it represents!

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” 

 I Corinthians 13:12

This scripture speaks to the spiritual Truth that until we see Jesus face-to-face everything else we see is dim. It is simply a reflection of the perfection that awaits for us in heaven!

Perfection is not possible on this earth. We are flawed, imperfect and only a mere reflection of what we will be in heaven when we are made perfect! The world we live in is also flawed and imperfect. As beautiful as the trees are as they stand tall full of green leaves, the season will change and the leaves will turn and wither and fall and they will stand bare and imperfect! 

So, I am choosing to thank God today that my bubble has not yet gone, “Poof,” and that I am still seeing imperfectly through it! Because it continues to teach me that even though things are not perfect now, they will be perfect on the day I see Jesus face-to-face! 

PRAISE HIM!

TRUTH BOMB

True perfection will only be seen when we see Jesus face-to-face!

Speak Truth Love

I had my blog pre-written for this week. It was exciting and celebratory and I was going to tell you that my bubble went, “POOF!”

The last time I had gone to see my surgeon that’s what he had said to me.

“The gas bubble I had to put in your eyes to operate, will continue to dissipate down to the bottom of your right eye. It will then look like a pebble and, “Poof,” it will be gone!”

Yesterday marks 7 weeks into my recovery… I have been waiting for two weeks for the “Poof”, and it has not happened!

I am still in the waiting. I have a gas bubble in the bottom of my right eye that still impairs my vision and leaves it blurry. It is moving constantly and as a very good friend of mine described it, it is like the bubble in a level! I am waiting for balance to return back to my vision!

Know, if I have come off in my blogs sounding impatient…that’s because I am! I was told it would take 6-8 weeks for the bubble to fully dissipate, but I was completely leaning on the side of six weeks, not seven and moving into eight!  

I want to share with you that I have learned to be patient… But I’m not sure that I have I also want to share with you that I have learned great perseverance… But I’m not sure that I have? And I would really love to tell you that I have learned to be content in all situations… But let’s face it, I’m not the apostle Paul!

But what I can tell you is I have learned to walk side by side with my God.

He truly has been the only one that I could see clearly during this entire seven weeks! I have been gently reminded by Him that His desire is to walk with me, to talk with me and to just be with me! He doesn’t require me having 2020 vision, or being whole or even healed, He just requires my presence! 

“And they heard The sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you!”

Genesis 3:8-9

From the beginning of creation God has wanted to walk with His children. God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, this was no first time occurrence, it was a regular occurrence. It was obvious that God expected His children to be there waiting for Him and looking for Him.

When He did not see them He called out to them!

God created them out of nothing and He put His own breath of life and His very own spirit into them, and then He wanted to walk with them!

One of the greatest lessons that I have learned from this frustratingly long process is that God is also waiting for me. He is waiting for me to slow down!

He is waiting for me to stop focusing on what I want and focus on desiring Him! He is waiting for me to take my eyes off of my circumstances and look to Him! He is not only waiting for me to, “BE STILL AND KNOW.” He is also longing for me to walk with Him!

Walking is an action, it is a movement, and walking together means we are in sync with each other! We can walk and communicate with each other or we can just walk and simply be together.

I am in awe that the God of the entire universe that created every living being desires to walk with me! 

While I am waiting for my bubble to go

“POOF,” and long after it is gone, I will walk with God!

I praise God for the quiet that has been forced into my life and caused me to realize my great God desires to walk with me!

TRUTH BOMB

GOD DESIRES TO MEET HIS CHILDREN IN THE GARDEN FOR A WALK!

God desires to walk with all of His children! Will you slow down long enough to meet Him in the garden for a walk?

Speak Truth Love

Yesterday marked week 6 of my healing journey. 12 hours after my emergency surgery to re-attach my detached retina, my surgeon told me that it would be a long recovery, and that my cooperation would be critical to regaining my eyesight. I was thinking he was talking about two weeks, maybe three. And even if needed, it couldn’t be more than four weeks. 

But my surgeon looked directly at me and said, “It will be a 6-8 week healing process.”  I sure was hoping it would be closer to the six weeks. But today I find myself, one day past my 6 week mark, and I am still waiting. 

Sure, there has been much healing that has taken place. While I cannot say my right eye looks normal again just yet, it is day by day returning to its former appearance. I am no longer having to lay face down with my eye parallel to the ground for hours on end. The eyedrops I am required to take have been reduced from 4 drops, 4 times a day, to 2 drops, 2 times a day. Vision has begun to return to my right eye, and I can now see well out of the top of it. And that bothersome gas bubble has slowly started to dissipate. But it still remains at the bottom of my right eye, as a nagging reminder that I am still waiting. 

So, the question for how I am going to live my life currently remains in the waiting. Granted, there are times of frustration and fatigue. But through it all, I choose to worship. I choose to worship the God who has stood beside me through the beginning of this, and who will take me through to the end of this! My mantra has been, “While I wait, I will worship.” That phrase comes from a song I find myself singing over and again, to remind myself. Lincoln Brewster sings, “I live by faith, and not by sight. Sometimes miracles take time…”  

These words have become the capstone of my waiting for God’s healing. It is one thing to say these words when I have complete eyesight in two healthy eyes, and I have often sung this song in the past. But as I sing these words now in worship to my God, they have a more profound meaning than ever before. I have learned not to take my sight for granted. I came face to face with the fact that I could lose my sight, in a day. But my faith and my expression of my faith to God in worship is not dependent on what I can physically see! It is completely dependent on what I spiritually know!

My God is faithful. My God is true. My God heals. And my God delivers. And I will worship Him no matter what. Whether I have my sight physically, or whether I only have my sight spiritually!

Lincoln Brewster comes near to the end of the song: “Though I don’t understand it, I will worship with my pain. You are God, You are worthy. You are with me all the way.” It is easier to worship God when life is good and we have things going our way. But God is worthy of our worship at all times, because He is there with us through all times, even through the dark valleys, and life’s disappointments!

“So while I wait, I will worship. Lord, I’ll worship Your name.

Though I don’t have all the answers, still I trust You all the same.”  So while I am still in this waiting game, I will choose to worship God, for He is worthy of all my praise.  

The Israelites, still in slavery in Egypt, hearing Moses, responded, “And they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.”  Exodus 4:31

Isn’t that interesting? The Israelites worshiped God, even before He lifted one mighty finger to deliver them. That they understood that God cared about them in their suffering, was reason enough to worship! I too have felt and experienced my God’s compassionate care in my waiting. So what will I do while I wait? I will worship the Lord!

TRUTH BOMB

Our God is worthy of our worship, even while we wait!

Speak Truth Love