Giving up control

As I write this article, I am only a day away from undergoing an operation to remove my gallbladder. It is an operation I postponed for almost 12 years because I was too afraid. It wasn't serious until around 4 years back when I started getting severe pains and was advised surgery but I wasn't ready for it. Besides that I had to attend the very first session of the Ministry of the Word on the same day on which the operation was planned, so I decided to go for the sessions instead and to my surprise the pains went away and thankfully I never experienced them again.

However, the stone didn't go anywhere and I tried homeopathy, for along time after but to no avail. I think I would try anything rather than go for an operation because, hospitals scared me so much. The bad experiences I had before, of being critical in hospital and of losing my mom due to mistakes the doctors made, had somehow affected me so badly that I was putting myself in much more danger delaying the operation. As you might imagine, in all of this, I was battling it out with God, asking him to cure me. I have seen him work miracles in my life before and I just couldn't deal with the fact that he wasn't curing me now.

I even went for a retreat hoping that I might get cured but funny enough, the woman who was supposed to pray over me, advised me to go for the surgery as she had done herself. I was angry, its not how I wanted things to go and I ended up zoning out for the rest of the retreat. I really wanted things to go the way I wanted, somehow I felt God wasn't on the same page. With all my stubbornness, my gallbladder was taking the hit, getting swollen up, way beyond the normal limit, but I still wasn't ready mentally to go ahead with the operation. I tried out different doctors and different medicines, losing a lot of money in the process before finally giving up, or at least I thought I was giving up. I was so tired fighting with God, I decided to let him have his way, so I decided to go ahead with the operation.

I walked into the hospital having planned the date of the operation and everything, only to be sent back twice as the doctor wasn't available. That kind of annoyed me, because now I wanted to just get it over with and it seemed like God was delaying it. I realize now, that while I felt like I was going along with God's will, I hadn't really given up control, I was trying to plan out everything. Looking back, the delay was just what I needed as it allowed me to enjoy sports day in my parish that week. However, I didn't learn from my mistake and I rescheduled all my plans and fixed another date in my head only to have it rejected by the doctor, who pushed the operation by another week. Just enough time for me to enjoy yet another party which was lined up and to enjoy all the food I may not be able to eat after the operation. I found out only after that even my sister happens to have leave on the dates of my operation. The past week really helped me prepare myself, mentally, financially and spiritually. I couldn't have planned it all so perfectly. God never allows you to go through something, when your not ready for it, he prepares you and I am so grateful to him for that.

Only yesterday, I danced the night away, without any fear, knowing that whatever God does, it is for my good. There will be many who will question, why would God allow you to go through this? You know, in my life, I have seen such amazing things happen to me, yet I never questioned, why God allowed such amazing things to happen to me, so why question now? My prayer to God was always, use me for your glory, so if he thinks it is important for me to go through with this, I need to trust him. As a kid, I remember how much I hated injections, yet my parents forced me to go and get my shots and I was so mad at them. However, they knew something I didn't, they knew what was best for me. If we trust our earthly parents so much, our heavenly Father, deserves so much more.

Comments

The Turning point

Around 7 years ago, I questioned everything, including the existence of a God. I went to mass like a regular Catholic, but I didn't utter a word for that whole one hour. It was a routine, a reason to meet friends. I did pray occasionally when I needed something, but after a point of time I stopped doing even that because I found it pointless, not a single prayer was answered. Was there a God? Then came the darkness I hear whispers of my mother going for a checkup, I see on her face something is wrong, but I don't understand it. I push the thought away because just a few days later, my sister suddenly cries out in pain. She cannot breath, she is gasping and is rushed to the hospital at night. Her lungs were filling up with water and the doctors don't seem to know what to do with it. My parents ask me to stay with my sister in hospital one day because my mother had to go for a lung biopsy. I knew they were doing it to detect cancer but I didn't want to think '

Tempting, Isn't it?

Oscar Wilde, once said "I can resist everything except temptation." However the Bible would disagree, "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (1Corinthians 10:13) Temptations on their own are not the problem, it is only when we give into them that they lead us down the path of sin. On the contrary, resisting them actually makes us stronger and holier. The reason we fall into sin is because temptations appear in the disguise of something good. Greek mythology speaks of Sirens, which were dangerous monsters that used to sing sweet enchanting music to lure sailors on to rocky shores resulting in shipwrecks and death. In the same way even sin entered the world when Eve, decided to eat the forbidden fruit, which on its own seemed harmless and was probably tasty but in her doing so, she defied God, bringing destruction to herself and to the h

Do we Catholics really eat the body of Christ?

I would be lying if I told you that I always believed in the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. In fact it was only recently, after much reading, it all began to come together for me. I had 4 questions to which I needed answers and here is what I found: Why did Jesus need to give us his body? In order to understand this, we need to go to the very beginning, to Genesis. It was in the garden of Eden that man's obedience to God was tested, Jesus was also in a garden when his obedience to God was tested, the garden of Gethsemane. Adam failed the test and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, Jesus chose the right tree, he chose the tree of life. The cross was also called the tree in the Bible, "cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). Before sin, Adam walked with God in the garden and seen the face of God but after he sinned he hid from God's presence. Sin brought distance between God and man, it also brought death i

Are statues in churches idolatrous?

Most people often accuse Catholics of idolatry by quoting Exodus 20:4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." This verse is in the context of the first commandment 'I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. Since the Israelites never seen God, they resorted to making images of created things and worshiped it as god which was prohibited then and still holds true for us today. However, does it mean that God prohibited the making of all statues? God himself ordered the making of statues Just 5 chapters after the prohibition on making idols, God orders the making of enormous gold cherubim on the mercy seat of the Ark of the covenant in Exodus 25. The Ark of the covenant was revered by the whole of Israel and was considered most sacred. Hence it is clear that, God did not have an issue with all statues, but only

Understanding the mass through the Prophet Isaiah

I have been going to church ever since I was a kid and it became more of a habit as I didn't really understand what was happening during the mass. I would stand when the congregation stood, sit when they sat, I wouldn't utter a single prayer, grumble when the sermon was too long and wait for the mass to end. However, it all changed after I read Isaiah 6 which describes the 'call of Isaiah'. When I first read the passage, it didn't really affect me, but standing there during mass, the verses just shot out at me. I began to realize that what Isaiah described in the Old Testament foreshadowed the Eucharist that we celebrate today. Going to church had a whole new meaning for me ever since... What should we look forward to at mass? Isaiah went to the Temple of Jerusalem in 742 BC where he saw a vision of God on a high throne and he felt the glory of God fill the temple. There he saw the Seraphim, meaning 'fiery beings' attending to the one on the throne

Wrestling with Scripture

Search This Blog