Is He That Good? Part 2-Thoughts on Peter

Friday, November 19th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Last thought…I’m reminded of Peter.  Jesus called Peter to be His disciple when Peter was catching fish, Peter’s profession at the time.  Peter was humbled by Jesus’ miraculous catch of fish and asked Jesus to leave him for he was a sinful man.  And yet Jesus didn’t leave Peter.  Maybe this is my epiphany…I’m a sinful person who often doesn’t have “enough faith”  (really, there’s no such thing) and yet Jesus continues to save me and help me right where I’m at and that draws me to Him.

Peter was a very zealous disciple of Christ and wanted to follow Jesus whole-heartedly, even sometimes without thinking.  As Jesus was on trial and soon to be lead into crucifixcion, Peter denied being His Follower three times.  Jesus had prophesied this, but Peter didn’t believe it could happen and then it did.  After Jesus died, Peter went back to fishing.  I interpret this as a kind of giving up on Peter’s part.  Maybe he thought the Jesus phase of his life had ended with Jesus’ death.  And then suddenly the resurrected Jesus meets Peter at his nets, just as He had in the beginning of calling him to be his disciple.  And He asks Peter to go and do ministry for Him and does it by reconfirming the love that Peter and Jesus have for one another.

I feel like going back to South Africa to take care of abandoned babies would be my fishing full circle.  I want to trust Jesus in this, but even as I write I am so incredibly exhausted and not quite out of sickness yet, although I’ve had some successes lately.  What does this mean?  And can I trust Jesus in this?  And can I just trust that Jesus is good, whether He does things exactly the way I heard Him say or not?  ”God, I’m a believer.  Please help me believe.”

Is He That Good? (visions and confirmations for the future)

Friday, November 19th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Hello blog friends!  This morning I’ve been struggling with the fact that I’m not exactly sure what God wants me to do with my life right now.  It seems like God is confirming me going back, but my health is not up to par yet.  It could get up to par soon, but when exactly I don’t know.  My health needs to be up to par, obviously, for me to leave the country.  And yet this is how I’ve sensed God calling me….

About a month ago, my parents and I were at a prayer meeting praying against a spirit of infirmity or sickness.  Obviously both my mom (who struggles with migraine headaches) and I wanted to be there because we were seeking healing.  Although so far these prayer times haven’t cured me, they have made me feel so much better.  My health has been having its ups and down over these few months and healing prayer times always bring me up from a down period.

Anyways, towards the end of this time, God really put it on my heart to go back to South Africa at Christmastime to take care of abandoned babies/children.  This is the very same orphanage that I worked at before and God used this time immensely in my life and as a catalyst to call me to minister among prostituted women.  It really set me down the current pathway that I have been on lately.  The timing of working there came after a “dark night of the soul” period in my life when I was seriously doubting what God was doing in my life and if He cared.  It was really going to South Africa that got me out of that time.  It made me realize that God still loved me and had a plan for my life and it motivated me to continue walking with God.

During that night of prayer a month ago, God put going there on my heart again.  I pulled a Virgin Mary and said back to God, “Okay God, but how for I am still sick?”  And yet I just kept going and asked God how I should fly.  He said that I would go there on the way back to Ethiopia.  He seemed to say that I should fly British Airways.  I’ve flown British before to get to Johannesburg.  And then I asked Him why and he mentioned how I’ve always wanted to see London at Christmastime.  That’s true I always have because I’ve heard that it’s beautiful with all of its decorations.  Plus, it makes sense to go to a cold place at Christmastime to me, having been raised in the Northern Hemisphere : )!

So, I told people at the prayer meeting what God had spoken to me and I asked them to pray for confirmation of what God had spoken.  They prayed over me, layed hands on me, and anointed me with oil.  Well, something amazing happened the following morning.  I noticed two emails from a person who worked at this orphanage.  One was to say sorry that she hadn’t contacted me lately and the other one was about a little baby who I’d taken care of.  Crazy thing is, that over a year ago a fellow worker and I asked about this special baby and hadn’t heard back.  He was a favorite baby of both of ours and he had tested positively for brain damage and therefore it would be very difficult for him to be adopted (most people don’t adopt disabled children-it’s a special calling) and he would most likely have to go into foster care (not the best option, particularly for a disabled child).  So our effort to contact our friend was just us wanting to check up on him and see how things in his life had progressed. 

Well, the second email I received less than 24 hours after this prayer for confirmation, revealed that he had indeed been adopted and was living in Europe.  This is a total miracle that he was even adopted and it’s a total miracle that I got this email so soon after I asked for confirmation.  Only God could have done this confirmation and worked halfway across the world to get my friend to email me at the opportune time. 

So, the question in my heart is, “Could God really send me back so soon?”  Is He really that good?  Should I trust Him in this confirmation?  Could He grant me health and an opportunity to go back to the mission field in a matter of a month or a few weeks?  It seems impossible.  I want to believe that He could do that for me and He has done it before.  When I was 2 years old, I survived meninigitis.  When I was a teenager, I grew out of epilepsy.  I’ve survived pneumonia and a horrendous car accident that broke my arm and gave me a concussion.  I want to have perfect faith to believe God every time, but I don’t.  I also want to know that “Even when we are faithless, He is faithful,” that Him doing His work doesn’t depend on me having perfect faith.  And yet I’m reminded of a person who responded to Jesus who lacked faith in what He could do and I say in response, “I’m a believer.  Help me believe.”

Job Journey, Part 2

Thursday, November 18th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

The other day, the Holy Spirit said to me, “You do not live in a fair world.”  This world is fallen and it’s difficult to understand why suffering is allowed when we have a God who prevents it and does prevent some of it on a daily, hourly basis. 

I can tell you that I have come to know God in a much more intimate way lately than I have in years when I was healthy.  I can tell you that in times when I’m healthy enough to do things that I haven’t been able to do in months, the joy of doing them is so much sweeter.  Sometimes I ask myself if God will restore me fully to health, or even better health through all of this.  I know that He could and I know that when I start to hold onto that possibility I obsess more about the minute details of my life and focus on Him less.  Is it good?  No, but I don’t think that if I focus on God perfectly He will reward me.  Besides, it’s impossible to focus on Him perfectly.

Another thing that God has said to me in this is “You don’t deserve to be well.”  This came from a time of studying a part in  Genesis when God blessed Jacob and told him his descendants would be as numerous as the stars right after he sinned against his family members.  Jacob didn’t deserve that blessing.  I don’t deserve to be healthy.  It just doesn’t work like that.  Crap happens to good people and bad people.  I have friends who can’t conceive children who would make wonderful parents and I know prostituted women who have reaped beautiful children from their prostitution.  Our world just isn’t so cut and dry and I think that when we expect it to be, that’s when we get disappointed.

I was watching an Oprah episode a few weeks ago.  It was about a couple who lost all three of their children instantly in an accident–two girls and a boy.  It was awful.  The couple talked about the grief they went through–coming home to an empty house, considering suicide because the pain was so bad, etc.  But they also talked about how they grew in love for each other and made a pact to never commit suicide.  And the story continued…after they had these three children, one of them had their tubes tied because they decided that they didn’t want anymore children.  After the accident they had their tubes untied and tried to have children again via invitro fertilization.  Do you know what happened?  They got pregnant with triplets–two girls and a boy, the exact same gender of the kids they had before.

So, real life Job stories happen.  They happen, I guess, all of the time.   And so that leaves me to wonder…God when this is all over, will I get fully restored and more healthwise, ministrywise and in my relationship with You?  I have sensed God confirming it and that’s for another post, but I want to hope that it could happen.  And more than that, I want to hope in Him, that He is good, whether He restores me the way I want Him to or not.

Job Journey (as in the dude in the Bible), Part I

Thursday, November 18th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

In case you’re not familiar with the story, it’s nuts.  And yet it is a good story to go to when life sucks and you’re just not sure what to do with it and you want to know what God says about suffering.  Job is a guy in the Bible and his book is all about the suffering that he went through in his life.  In the beginning of the story, Job has this tremendous life.  He has lots of wealth, kids, a wife, friends, etc.  And he has a very devoted faith in God.  Satan comes to God and says basically, “I bet if I get rid of all that’s near and dear to Job, he won’t want to follow you anymore.”  And so Job loses it all–his wealth, his kids, and eventually his friends and wife turn out to not be that supportive in the long run.  His wife says “Curse God and die.”  After all this, Job goes through a time of questioning God and realizes that God’s ways are higher than his own.  At the end of the story, Job has another wife, the same number of kids that he had before they all died, and twice the wealth that he had before.  It’s after that that all of his friends come back to him.  Weird how that works out in life.

What’s most amazing about this story is that God gives Satan permission to do damage in Job’s life.  Jesus also talks in the Gospels about how spiritual warfare will be allowed until He returns to earth and fully ransoms His people.  This is difficult to stomach theologically, but when you’re going through a tough time yourself it’s not only difficult, it’s horrible and confusing.  That’s just the honest truth for me.

It leads to lots of questions about why and how.  And yet at the end of this story, God fully restores Job to what he had before.  God doesn’t like the fact that Job suffered, but I think God knows that pain and suffering are incredible teachers in this life and He has a purpose in it.  Job ends up trusting God in the midst of his trial.  Now it’s easy to say that oh God restored Job back after he learned the lessons God had for him.  I think there is some truth to that, but I don’t think we’re supposed to focus on “getting the struggle right” as a means to the end of getting everything back to normal again.  I just don’t think it works that way.

I DON’T HAVE CANCER!!!!

Thursday, November 18th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Well blog friends, in case you haven’t read via email or facebook….I DON’T HAVE CANCER!!!!  YAY!!!!  The cyst shrunk a bit more than halfway from Friday to Tuesday when I had an ultra sound.  This is a huge relief.  The OBGYN said that my cyst is not cancerous.  So, my symptoms are being caused by the double bacterial infection I have and the inefficiency in absorbing fats.  I have been taking supplements and eating a very picky diet lately which all seem to be helping and believe it or not I’m looking at going back to Ethiopia.  It’s something that I’ve sensed God putting on my heart so I’m praying about it and looking into it.  More on that in another post.  Thank you so much for all of your prayers, support, and love during this time.  They have been so precious to me!!!

Being Scared

Sunday, November 14th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I’m so numb right now that I don’t know what to write, but I will say that I am definitely scared.  It’s Sunday and as the minutes and hours tick by until I can call doctors on Monday morning, I find myself worrying.  This is the most difficult thing I have ever been through in my entire life.  That’s for sure.

I have a small ovarian cyst in my left ovary.  It is small, 2.1 x 2.4 centimeters, with some liquid.  The prognosis for these kinds of cysts is that they are not cancerous (90-95%), but today I was reading that if you have symptoms (which I definitely have had), there’s more of a chance that you have cancer.  So, am I in that 5-10% group?  Maybe and that’s just plain scary.

I’m asking God to be the “perfect love that drives out my fear”  (I John 4:18).  I don’t know what else to say.

A Health Update

Thursday, November 11th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Here’s yet another email with a current health update…(The last paragraph is the final update to this update if you want to know what’s going on today)
Well, it’s hard to believe but the comprehensive stool test did not reveal candida, but it did reveal a possible bacterial infection and an inability to digest fats (probably why I’ve lost so much weight).  The reason that I thought I had candida is because a bacterial infection has similar symptoms to candida.  And the reason that the candida diet has been helping is because it’s the same diet one would use to fight a bacterial infection the natural way.  So, I can’t believe this.  It could really be very simple to fix.  I just need to take yet another antibiotic probably and take food enzymes to help my body to digest fats.  This comprehensive stool test is awesome and I can’t believe that it took this long to get a diagnosis that actually seems quite simple to solve.  It’s just been such a long journey that I’m having a hard time believing that it’s so easy to fix. 
 
Crazy enough, this is what the doctors did for me in Ethiopia all of the time.  They would analyze my stool, tell me I had a bacterial infection, prescribe an antibiotic and the whole appointment was done in an hour. It’s amazing to me that doctors in my Ethiopia maybe could have dealt with this better than the labs here because I found out about this test from a friend who has had major health problems, not from my regular health care providers who tested the crap out of me (pun intended! : ).  But at the same time it’s really good to know that I can’t digest fats because this reveals an irritation in my pancreas most likely and if that hadn’t been taken care of it could have caused something worse like pancreatic cancer which leaves very few survivors.  One of the doctors did tell me that taking too many antibiotics can cause your pancreas to get irritated so now it’s just a matter of finding the right kind of antibiotic to treat this infection without irritating my pancreas and taking the enzymes and of course loading up on probiotics afterwards so my body stays healthy. 
An update from this update…some doctors don’t think I have a bacterial infection.  Some do.  I having been having pain on the upper left side of my abdomen lately and so I’m having a cat scan on Friday.  Hopefully I’ll get the results on Monday.  I’m still looking into the pancreatic enzymes possibility as well.
 

An Email To A Friend

Thursday, November 11th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

In an effort to save time and energy, I am copying part of an email to a friend.  This is a friend who lost her father to cancer about a year and a half ago.  We’ve been emailing about how we’re really doing as we go through tough times.  Here was part of my answer…
Thanks for the question about the spiritual/emotional toll this has had.  Emotionally this has been a roller coaster.  Last night I sobbed like a baby and curled up in the fetal position.  This illness has caused me to have some depression.  And then other times, I’m watching a funny thing on TV and laughing really hard.  I feel like I’m not completely myself since this illness causes mood swings too.  It’s tough.
 
Spiritually, it has also been a roller coaster.  I started off totally trusting that God was going to bring good from all of this without any doubt.  Then as it went on for weeks and I didn’t get any test results that revealed a thing I started to get mad and sad.  I still feel mad and sad at God sometimes.  I will never truly understand why He does not prevent us from experiencing incredible pain.  All I can figure is that sin sucks and Adam and Eve really made a HUGE mistake.  This pain and suffering thing was not God’s original idea.  I have taken much comfort in the fact that Jesus suffered much while HE was here on earth.  That He cared enough to experience the full dimensions of the tragedies that we experience here on earth.  Without that I don’t think I could follow Him, honestly.  If He didn’t come close to understanding the sometimes crappy existence we have down here, I certainly couldn’t follow Him at all. 
But maybe more importantly, I’ve been listening to a sermon on the Song of Songs (I would HIGHLY recommend this!!  It’s at www.mikebickle.org under recommended sermons) and realizing that following God is more like a marriage and I need His Constant pursuing love desperately as I go through a difficult time.  And a marriage requires honesty.  So, I’m starting to get more brutally honest with God—”I’m so angry because I feel like you’re not caring for me and yet something in me tells me that I desperately need you right now and I don’t know what to do with that!”  And I sense God answering me back!  Amazing!  HE can obviously handle my rants at Him.  That’s good because something tells me that this won’t be the last time.  Yesterday the sense from the Holy Spirit was this “Ruth, why won’t you relinquish and give your love to me?”  I think I want to punish God first by not giving Him my love even though that’s wrong and not what I need.  I want to make Him suffer and then I’ll go back to Him.  Not very nice of me.  So last night I asked God to help me to want to give my love to Him again.  I kind of gave in but not completely.  So yeah, I’m totally with you on that I can’t be an atheist thing.  I need a loving God and to believe that there just isn’t one in existence at all is just incredibly depressing.  It’s worse than fighting with a loving God.
 
That’s it.  The End : )

Finding The Courage To Write…

Thursday, November 11th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Hi family, friends, and fellow bloggers.  Well, it’s been over three months of dealing with health issues and I have not written in this blog during that entire time until today.  It’s been a very difficult time–the most difficult in my life to date I think.  The diagnosis possibilities have changed much over the last few months.  I’ve had many many tests done without much results.  I’ve wanted to update this blog with info about my health and life but sometimes I just don’t want to face it all and or I’m not sure what to share.  Also, it makes me sad even to go to this blog because it’s titled Adventures In Ethiopia and I’m clearly not in Ethiopia right now and that has been quite the grieving process for me.  Maybe I should call it Adventures in Life instead, because life is an adventure whether or not we realize it.  It takes just as much courage to live abroad and do ministry as it does to sit on a couch for many hours of the day and face the fact that you’re sick, you might know what it is, but you’re not better yet and you don’t know when/if healthy days will come.  Okay, sorry if that sounds depressing.  I’m just being honest.

The End Of An Era

Sunday, June 6th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Cindy and I in front of Kaldi's-the Starbuck's of Ethiopia

Cindy and I in front of Kaldi's-the Starbuck's of Ethiopia

I feel like a chapter of my life in Ethiopia is ending.  Cindy will be leaving Ethiopia for good before I come back next time.  It is strange to think of her not being there when I get back.  We tended to call each other and or get together about once a week after we stopped being roommates and finished our teaching jobs.  She has become a dear friend to me, and some of the best family I have had in Ethiopia thus far.  I will miss her a lot but am hoping to stop by Holland again some time on my way to or from Ethiopia so I can visit her and her boyfriend Andrew.  Love and miss you, Cindy!

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