Okay so I have some stories to tell. And I have selfishly been keeping them to myself. But I realize that these amazing things happen because of GOD-- by and through and IN HIM. To not share about them and what HE has done-- is like that metaphor about a stagnant lake/body of water. If the water doesn't pour out and just sits there full, it gets stale, putrid, motionless. Well yeah, I don't want to be those things, do you?! So I am pouring back out what was poured into me. Joy shared IS multiplied. So why not share? It really IS caring.
So here goes it. Saturday I had a big garage sale at my grandparents house. The morning of I woke up REALLY early (in the 5 am neighborhood) to set up and set everything out. I had really prepared for this thing by putting signs all over the neighborhood the night before, gathering up items from family members and carrying them all to one spot in the yard a few days before, posting on various garagesale websites to advertise. Needless to say, I was raring to go! So as my alarm goes off I said a couple prayers before getting out of bed-- putting on the armor of God for the day and such. Then I stand up (no lights on) bulldoze my way down the hall, into the bathroom and took a spill for the worst. Let's just say my face and the counter broke the fall. I honestly don't know if I tripped or passed out from getting up to fast-- I can't remember much of it until the crash, bang, boom happened. I tried piecing it together later but it is still hard to make sense of. All I know is that when my eye/face hit that counter I let out a LOUD "NOOOO!!" Quickly followed by "MOMMMM!" She heard the crash and called out, "Did you fall??" Little did she know it was my face that fell. In. To. THE. COUNTER. Ouch. I ran over to the freezer covering my eye as it was pounding and throbbing with pain, and reached for a bag of frozen corn. When I stuck the bag on my eye it hurt even worse, so I proceeded to pull it off and saw blood all over the bag. My stomach turned. I started to cry, and looked at my mom saying "I'm scared! I'm scared!" The look on her face made it even worse as she looked at the blood on my face and eye. Which in turn made me assume the VERY worst. Because my eye hit so hard, I was imagining that my eyeball itself was bleeding and it had punctured and I was going to lose the eye all together. My thoughts were racing, my stomach was tumbling, my heart was pounding, body shaking, arms and hands numb (from adrenaline and fear I guess). My mom ran toward my grandparents room, since we were all there for the garage sale thank God. She turned the light on and called for him to come quickly. I am sure that was a rude awakening him and my grandma were not excited about. Gosh it is hard to not expect the worst when you are woken that way. Grandpa and grandma come rushing in-- I still cannot even look in the mirror because I am so scared at how bad it is. Mom is grabbing our purses and saying we are going to the ER and I am going to need stitches. I then get really, really queasy and light-headed. I went over to the sink thinking I was going to vomit or pass-out. Grandpa calmed me down big time and had me lay down and drink some water and breathe deeply. In the midst of all this I was also pretty upset that we were going to have to cancel this whole thing I had spent so much time and work on. Okay, back to the point. So Grandpa gets a better look at the laceration and wipes the blood off my cheek and eye to see that it is only two smaller cuts on and beside my eyelid. He waits for it to clot and has mom get me a mirror so I can look at it. He knows this will calm me down once I can see that it is not as bad as I am imagining. Once I saw it, it really did calm me down. It felt MUCH worse than it looked. I knew the bruising might be pretty bad, but everything was going to be OK. WOW. Talk about God's protection. Now let me tell you-- in the midst of the storm and chaos of all of this-- satan was trying to get me to doubt. He was whispering-- "oh look, you had JUST prayed, and put on the armor of God. Look what good that did you. Pointless. You got hurt anyways." LIES, LIES I tell you. Immediately God's Truth came flooding in-- "NO WAY. THAT WAS GOD'S PROTECTION. Are you kidding me?! That could have been SO bad. One centimeter off and it would have been your eyeball. That armor and GOD Himself was protecting you." Thank God I had just put the armor on.
Grandma, Grandpa, Mom (and God of course) comforted me back to normal, and before you know it I was on my merry way setting up for the big day ahead. The garage sale was a HUGE hit. It is safe to say we had over 200-300 people come and shop with us. Let me also say that there is NO WAY that after all of that, that I could have done any of that work without GOD'S strength in my weakness. His grace is sufficient. He had grace upon grace-- I still cannot believe all that I did following that head injury. Only in Christ could I have done that. Major praise to HIM. It was SUCH a blessed day. So many Divine Appointments. More stories to come. God bless!! Jesus LOVES YOU PERFECTLY in your imperfections. HE is perfect, you don't have to be. xoxox
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