“Give Thanks to God”

Verse of the Week: “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” Colossians 3:17 NLT

Today I give thanks to God.  It marks 10 months seizure free.  When I look back over the last 10 months, I see a lot but what I see the most is growth.  I have grown in my relationship with God so much as a result of struggling in the past 10 months and can actually say that I am at the point where I can 100% agree with Paul when he wrote:

“Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.  Each time he say, ‘My grace is all you need.  My power works best in weakness.’  So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me.  That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NLT

The funny thing is, I found this passage right around the time that I was diagnosed with epilepsy.  Right when I needed it most.  Right when I needed to hear that an apostle begged God to take his pain away from him.  But God didn’t take it, because He knew what was best for Paul.  Just like He didn’t take my epilepsy away when I begged Him to, because God’s perspective is eternal, while mine is momentary, because that’s all I physically can see.

In what seemed like a long time span, that was really was not at all, God has literally used epilepsy to actually be a blessing in several ways that I can already see, including being in the process of writing a book, graduating from high school a year early, and getting my pup (pictured above!)

As a result, I can now see that God put this obstacle in my life to strengthen me and stretch me so that He could use me and therefore I can be thankful for God’s ability to see the greater picture when I can only see what is happening in this moment. When we still give thanks to God in the deepest pain, that witnesses to our relationship with Jesus Christ the most powerfully.