Take an Aspirin and Call Me in the Morning

Yet, sometimes taking an aspirin doesn't do the trick. Well, technically, they never do the trick for me...they upset my stomach! I do, however, wish they had done the trick this time, though, because for the past four days, I've had the flu...only I didn't know until yesterday that I had the flu. I had been sick on Sunday, but I felt A-OK on Monday, and I even had a party with Quinn's little friends for her birthday. Yes, I did this not knowing I had something to give each and ever person that walked through my door! I feel horrible about that, but I never would've had people over if I thought I was really sick. I didn't even have a fever, for Pete's sake! Anyway, there are a lot of other things I would rather be doing today than sitting around blogging about having the flu!
I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, I watch entirely too much TV, and in the case of this flu, I've eaten entirely too much! Another thing I do entirely too much of is THINK! My word, what you can ponder while you are down and out in the bed is, at times funny (especially after I've taken my meds), depressing, life-altering, or just plain BORING! I have asked myself some tough questions and some dumb questions. I have thought a lot about where God has brought me from and where He's taken me, too.
I recently was faced going through something difficult in my life. I don't always know how to walk tough roads with people I love. Sometimes, God leads you to make tough decisions in regards to people you love that hurt some and are the healing agent for others. It's the tough love part I struggle with. And yet, when I read God's word, it is filled with that same kind of tough love. The times we see that He allows us to go through things that we think we cannot any longer bear, but He allows us to walk that road because He's promised us that we won't have to bear more than we can handle. It's times when we think we know the plan for our life, but He shows us another plan for our life that is meant to "prosper us and not to harm us." Even when our flesh makes decisions to harm us, God still has a plan that will NOT harm us! Life-breathing, isn't it? So, even as I sit here typing this seeing myself in the situations, it is still so difficult to breathe the words of life to people in my life that God has allowed me to be friends with, or invest in. God asks us to be real, though, and even in the times we are being real, others have to be at a place to accept it. I have been on the saying and receiving ends of this. I don't know which is harder. We say we want accountability, but do we? Do we only want it when we are going through happy stuff, or can we take it when we are going through the hard stuff, too? It's hard when I've had friends come to me that I have asked to hold me accountable and when they have to say the tough stuff to me in my darkest hour, well...I want to claw their eyeballs out. Being on the end of saying the tough stuff to someone in their darkest hour makes me sick and makes my heartache, even knowing it is for "the building up of the brethren." It has cost me relationships, but that doesn't make me want to stop loving people as God would. The reason I say that is because, at one time, it did make me not say what God would have me say. I would say that which would make them feel good at that time, never taking into account what needed to be said for the long term. I find that even being willing to "go there" God still uses down the road, too, because He words are the life-giving, heart-healing, path-altering words of life.
Yeah, well, maybe it's my meds that have me thinking all deep today, but maybe not. I read something today that one of my friends wrote. It went like this..."Some days are for wrapping up in a warm blanket like a cocoon and letting God minister to your soul, mind, and body." That is what today is for me, and what my hope is for people that God has called me to befriend, to influence, to invest in. It's never gonna be me that makes a difference and ministers to someones soul. It has to be God! Today I can bemoan the fact that I'm laid up here in bed and feel sorry for myself, or I can allow God to penetrate my heart and minister to me today. Maybe you are reading this today and thinking, "what does God have to offer me to minister to me at all?" He has Life! The Life He has given me is the life where everyday is like walking outside your door on the first day of Spring and just really BREATHING. It's everything...even in the darkest time or the roughest day.