I’m linking up with Holly Gerth at God-Sized Dreams today and this prompt really whalloped me over the head, so I decided to make it today’s prescription.
Could someone maybe have shared that little tidbit of information with me 10 years ago when I had my first grand-mal seizure?
I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. I was too wrapped up in my own little pity party to hear what anyone else was trying to tell me…including God.
When I had the very first seizure and had to stop driving, I remember having the thought, “Okay God. I have no idea what’s going on but maybe you want David and I to spend more time together. Only one driver in the family will certainly increase some together time.” So I went with it. Briefly.
It wasn’t long before I got impatient (which is nothing like me 
,) and started searching not for the why this happened, but how to fix me. So instead of being alone with God, I brought in doctors, nutritionists, books, medicine, friends, chiropractors, needles (the acupuncture kind)…anything or anyone I thought would “fix” me. I’m sure the pharmacist in me (you know, the science nerd) wanted to know the answer—the cure. For seven years I searched for that cure. Then, in the midst of all that great fixing I was doing, I ended up hooked on narcotics. What a genius.
So all of this could have been avoided if I’d just let God “pull me aside for a bit?” UUGGGHHHH! I hope not. We do need to be still and listen. We do need to soak up the wisdom He as for us in his word. We do need to talk to Him…constantly. But sometimes, He needs to teach us more. And I think God was preparing me for one of his God-Sized Dreams, it just took me a few years to hear what he was trying to tell me.
As a pharmacist, I was essentially a drug dealer. Just legal.
Pain pills. Sleeping pills. Mood-stabelizing pills. Anti-anxiety pills. Antipsychotics. Amphetamines. So many addictive medications people are so desperate for. Sure I could tell them how to take them, the side effects, cautions, interactions…but no matter how much information I could give them, I had absolutely no understanding of the desperate, lonely place they were in. Their personal prison of drugs. Sure, they are prescription drugs, so our society accepts them as the norm. No one realizes the havoc they wreak internally and externally.
Yes, I’d say God pulled me aside for a bit. Seven years of a bit. But WOW, I never would have guessed the plan and purpose He had for me. Once I finally listened and heard, He healed me of it all…overnight. The good-old-fashioned-miracle kinda healing. My hubby, my kids, my parents, my in-laws, my friends…they all saw it. And God made it evident. No question about it. I was healed.
The paradigm shift God gave me during those seven years gave me a whole new perspective on people. God calls us to…
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
(Matthew 22: 37-40)
Love God. Love People. That’s it.
He doesn’t exclude drug addicts, sex offenders, homosexuals…no one. Do we have to love what they do? No. God just calls us to love them. Not their stereotype. Not their addiction. Not their appearance.
And I have to add how incredibly freeing it is to realize we are not the judge, God is.
So if something happens that interrupts your life, on matter how big or how small, seek God. See if He’s trying to pull you aside for a bit. Maybe if you listen a little better than I did it won’t take seven years! But however long it takes, trust me. It’s worth it.
