"let's all say it together..."

I guess the thankful posts could begin to get a little old if anybody actually read this (which I doubt), but I have been so totally overwhelmed lately by God's goodness that it has to find an outlet somewhere.

I've taken up the new and fascinating hobby of reading other people's blogs. I'm sure there are some happy, normal-lifed folks out there writing blogs... but the vast majority of blogs I'm finding are all about a person's mystery disease and all its attending maladies or daily updates on a child's NICU progress or treatment for some horribly deforming congenital issue... and it seems that every last one of them, no matter what the main topic is, has at least a little something in it about miscarriages or pregnancy problems at the very least. I'm talking pretty downer stuff. Not that they're all downer blogs... far from it actually. I've discovered several women of wonderfully amazing faith in these "random" blogs I stumbled upon. I feel very sure that there is absolutely nothing random about me finding them, actually... but I think I already addressed that briefly in another blog.

All of it has added up to one big, huge, ginormous question for me... WHO AM I?

...or maybe an even better and even HUGER question would be... Who the heck do I THINK I am?

I remember when I found out I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant and I remember wondering... actually forming the thoughts, "How is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me? Stuff like this just doesn't happen to me..." As if I was some kind of fairy princess living in a bubble... all favored by God and totally removed from those things that happen to mere mortals.

What I'm coming to realize (which I feel like is the big reason for me "happening" upon so many similar blogs) is the truth of it all. I am the merest mortal of them all and am just as susceptible to all the sad, hard, hurtful things here as the next guy. I could be the one battling cancer, I could be the one looking through my tears each day at my child's deformities wondering what the world was going to do with him when I wasn't there to shield him from it, I could be the one missing a piece of myself and taking flowers to little gravestone, I could be suffering any number of horrible trials, I could be struggling, fighting every day for my own life and the life of my child. I shudder at the reckless thoughts I've had... that I might be "special" in God's sight. Thank God for His mercy.

But... every morning my husband kisses me goodbye before going to work. I wake up to the bright little face of a perfectly healthy and normal little boy. My entire immediate family is healthy and whole. I go about each day in complete normalcy and never really wonder about whether or not the next day is going to be anything but normal all over again.

Who am I?

Why is God's hand so faithfully over my family?

How am I one of the ones who is so blessed beyond measure?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Because I know me. And I know that I have to be one of the vilest, darkest, back-slidden, doubting sinners out of all of God's creation. I take it all for granted. The amount of thankfulness in my heart is absolutely ludicrous and I'm totally ashamed.

The amount of temporal blessings in my life is overwhelming in and of itself, but if they were all gone...

One night in July 1999, God looked down on a little punk 13 year old girl with a bad attitude and gave her another chance. How many times had I turned Him away? Some very large scary number, I'm sure, but He overlooked it. Somehow in the midst of the upset fit I was throwing that night, my heart was right and God was close. I had known my entire life that Jesus died for me, but on that night as I lay stretched out across my bed praying some unutterable prayer from the depths of my being, His blood was applied to my doorposts.

Who am I?

I don't know.

What I do know is this... God knows. And He knew when He saved me. He knew what I mess I was then and He knew about all the messes I would make from that point on. He knew I would spit in His face so many times. He knew I would totally slander His name and His cause by my actions. He knew that I was going to forget about Him time and again. He knew what kind of unworthy servant I was going to make... and on and on and on...

...and He saved me anyway.

How can I be thankful enough for that? How can I even approach being thankful enough?

I don't know.

...but I'm going to start trying a whole lot harder.


I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Psalm 116:1