Control

What a ride this year has been so far. I prayed and asked others to pray for a quick sale to our home and it happened. Now I am praying that my husband and I will find a new home. I have given that control more to my husband about what he wants. I have to be careful with the stress of it. It is not worth it to me physically or emotionally not to give my husband this control. I trust my husband to make the right decision for us as a family. He’s done it for years. I have to remember what is important to him is not to me, so I will have to give up the choosing of a house to him.

God’s tool with me appears to be to wake me up in the middle night, so I will write and work it out with him. He has nagged me for almost a year about a particular verse that drives me crazy. I have fought about this in my arrogance, because I know the reason why the verse was written and whom it was intended for. The reason why is because I am coming up on the anniversary of not having an attack in almost year. He is reminding me of my prayer during that time.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)

I can’t stand this verse because it is the harshest judgment in my opinion that God ever gave to Christians in  regarding love and the church. No one even teaches it that way, or interprets it that way. It is a beautiful verse describing what God's love is, but also a rebuke to christians in how they love him and their abuse of his love.  Unless we are Jesus Christ, or Paul himself please use it carefully towards another. We are rebuking them in how the love God. Talk about offensive and damaging to the heart. This verse about actions, not feelings. Our actions reflect our love of Christ and what we do to others in relationships. The best way to think about it is, would you want that action done to you? Would we do that to ourselves?  God is telling us this is what we do to him through our definition of what we think love is. We abuse it, we take liberties with it, we pervert it to our own control and then we do it to others. I understand the reason why we do it, because it says love. Remove love, it, is and not in verses 4-6 and this is what we do to God. This is how we abuse the gift of his son’s murder on the cross.

This is the current situation in the United States Government. They are abusing and taking liberties with our love of country. We are telling them no and they are guilt tripping us. They are abusing us with this verse and that is their motive. They want control of our lives and how we live it. Our next president is going to love God above all things not worldly views because it is not good for this country. The current president wants control of your life and he is using our love against us. How many of us are willing to give up control of our choices, our life, our money, and our purpose for this man? Plain and simple.

I do not like the abuse and liberties that are taken through love. I actually hate it. That is a vile game we play with another, and we should be ashamed of it. I know I am. I have read this verse at least a thousand times, studied hard over the last year. I feel like every theologians interpretation of what he means. He gave me the final part that I was missing in the verse, and pounded it with me at 3 am in the morning. He told me this is what I needed to do after a fight with my husband. He told my husband the same thing. We both cried in church Sunday morning over the pain and damage of what we have done in our abuse and liberty of our love for each other. We were damaging God every time we didn’t change it because of our selfishness and pride.

                                                “It does not insist on its own way;”

“All right, number 6 we learned, in verse 5, love does not behave itself rudely. Rude people are self-centered. They are saying, "I will do what I want the way I want whether you like it or not," and that's rude. But love is never rude, love always takes into consideration how someone else is going to feel, how they're going to respond so it never behaves rudely. It's never indifferent of the feelings of others, it's never contemptuous or disdainful of other's attitudes and proprieties. Seventh, and we're still reviewing, this is really the key to the whole section: "Love seeks not its own," verse 5 says, "Love seeks not its own." Love is not selfish. And the Corinthians, of course, were so very selfish, they sought only personal edification, personal satisfaction. Love seeks the satisfaction and the edification of others. It is selfless.” John MacArthur, The Perfection of Love. Grace to You Website

December 7th of this year will be the anniversary of me not having an MS attack for the first time in almost 10 years. I remember sitting in my doctor’s office in so much pain; physically and emotionally. I remember the poison of the very drugs that cure me when I am sick. I remember the taste of them in the back of my throat as it went through my blood stream. I remember wanting to vomit because they are so hard on my stomach. I remember the IV in my arm for over 3 hours a day. I remember begging God to stop, because I couldn’t take anymore. I remember the conversations with my doctor. I remember my parents and my step-mom being in so much pain, and being so angry. I remember looking at my dad, seeing the pain in his eyes, not being able to get well after surgery, mourning the death his mother, because his daughter was so sick.

I remember that my MS was attacking me with so much pain that I could barely move. I remember I could no longer feel my face. It was like having Novocain shots constantly that would not go away. My feet and body burned so bad that the idea of being touched terrified me. I was so weak I couldn’t pick up my children. I remember my mom crying because she was so angry. All I kept hearing in my head when I looked at her was what she said when she found out I was sick; I just don’t want you to be in pain. She was witnessing the pain consume my body from this disease and she couldn‘t take it away. She almost lost it. She couldn’t take anymore.

I prayed to God to break me. I prayed and begged for him to show me what he wanted me to do and give up while I was hooked to that IV. I remember the list that he gave me. I pray he tests me to see if I am willing to give it up for him. I pray that he breaks me over and over until I get it. I haven’t been sick for year because of that. The harsh version is because I got rid of the bullshit in my life that does matter in my relationship with him. I set the boundaries of what is acceptable according to what he has laid on my heart to follow. I will fight this at every turn not to go through that again. I’ll give him what he wants.

There are very few individuals that have seen me when I am this sick, including family members. The ones that have, I love and cherish and they feel that same way about me. They are with me during the whole treatment on and off. They take turns caring for me, my husband and my children. They know my heart and they know what I am capable of, because they have seen it. They have heard it, witnessed it and been their in every part of this journey. That right there is love. What a gift. What an incredible blessing. This is what I most thankful for in my life next to my husband and children.

Fight it. Give him what he needs. I know that it is not easy to do. I am not going to pretend that we will have to give up a lot; we will. Paul said this verse to Corinthian Church and he actually died for God teaching his words. It is not worth it in the end not to give him the control he wants. My illness is my gift from God for this very reason. It is about giving everything up that does not matter, or have reason for being there.
Most of all I remember my husband’s eyes when looking at me terrified that, that attack would put me in a wheelchair this time. He has that look in his eyes every time. Nothing is worth anything in the world to me to see that fear and pain in his eyes. I have stepped back from relationships this year, and I am continuing to give up more. I don’t do as much anymore. God is not done yet. My sole purpose is to take care of my boys and my husband. Nothing will interfere with that again. Nothing.