pray for me as i undergo surgery...

So yeah, God is showing me things about myself again. I actually asked him tonight to do surgery on me, specifically in the area of how I relate to him. And yeah, that was kinda scary. I have had actual surgery once. Five years ago, on my knee. And that was incredibly painful. This surgery I am talking about now is spiritual surgery - on my heart. Open heart surgery if you will.

I haven't been relating to God in healthy ways. While my picture of him has healed significantly over the last year, he brought it to my attention tonight that there's more to do. And there's not just a simple quick-fix for the problem either. It's going to be painful. And it will require perseverance on my part, following the Doctor's orders explicitly, doing all the rehab necessary, etc... In a way I am kinda excited about it.

In other news, I started the Believing God study by Beth Moore today with my friend and mentor Debbie, the wife of the president of the college. We watched a 50-minute video for the first session and already I am blown away by the profundity of what I learned and what I have yet to learn. She was talking about the promised land and what that looks life for us today and on earth. My promised land, and your's too, is a place where my theology meets my reality. They aren't separate. But I so often live like they are separate, like I am just waiting or passing time until I get to the Promised Land. So another prayer of mine this year would be that my theology and my reality begin to coalesce.

I bought myself a blue bracelet today. And now you're thinking, "Why is that blog-worthy?" And now I will tell you why. In Numbers 15, the Israelites are instructed to wear tassels on their garments with blue cords attached to each tassel to remind them of God's commands and to obey them and they will be consecrated. And elsewhere in the Bible it says that it shall be written on the right hand: "I am the Lord." So Debbie and I are combining the two passages and wearing blue bracelets on our right hands to remind us that He is God, that He is the Lord. We talked about doing just blue cords since that's what they wore on their tassels; but I wanted something a little more wearable, a little more feminine.

And yet another prayer of mine this year is that God would transform my noun belief into a verb of believing. I want to be active in believing in God and not just have a belief in him. Does that make sense? Most of all I really pray that this study would have deep effects in my spiritual walk that would send earthquakes throughout every aspect of my life.

There was a whole gammut of emotions that I went through today. And currently, I am content and at peace. Full of hope that God's promises and his Word will become real to me this year in never-before-seen ways. Full of life. Full of love.