a eulogy, a miracle && a sovereign GOD!

Okay, I have a confession::  I've been stressin' this blog entry all week!  It's silly, I know.  But I'm realizing that people are actually READING this and I guess it's kind of going to my head.  I knew that my Mom would be thankful to have this insight into our jungle life, but I really couldn't imagine it going too far beyond that!  Don't get me wrong; I couldn't be happier to hear that my stories are being read and enjoyed!  I love it!  But I have to keep writing as if I'm simply talking to my Mom.  If I think too much into it, the stories won't flow... I'll start trying too hard and I'll end up spending three hours on a single paragraph!
So, Mom!  Let me tell you about our week :)
We attempted deep sea fishing from a kayak; didn't come away with the marlin we envisioned, but we did have a good laugh about a potential eulogy if we stick with that pass-time:  "as inventive as they were, this couple didn't exactly plan ahead to the part where they actually caught an 800 pound fish and were then dragged around the bay in a kayak because they refused to surrender their $37 fishing pole!  We can't say they didn't have a good ride.. literally!"  On a safer note, Derek has set multiple snares around the property and is, indeed, closing in on a freezer full of ham!
We invited a couple from church over for dinner this last week and had an awesome time!  They weren't completely freaked out by our jungle life style, and I think they were pretty impressed with my toaster oven brownies :)  Knowing that they were coming definitely prompted us to take on some home-improvement jobs that we'd been putting off.  We hauled out two truck loads of trash, which is just the tip of the iceberg!  But it feels so good to have things cleaner and more organized.  Derek took a little drive one morning and came back with the door off of an old fertilizer shed on the property..  I was a little confused, but have learned there's (almost) always a method to his madness :)  Sure enough, a few hours later we had a table!!  I don't know how I ever lived without one until now!  We just never really thought about needing it until we started looking at things through the eyes of potential visitors.
I was VERY thankful that we weren't working in the fields on Wednesday when we experienced an all-time high temperature (since we've been here) 100*!  Derek, ingenious man that he is, got water hooked up right to our 'front door'!  It's not drinkable, but amazing in every other way and oh-so-convenient!  Our garden is rapidly expanding and with these hotter days coming, the water couldn't have arrived at a better time!  Derek also devised a way to hook the hose up to the frame of one of the greenhouses and voila! we have a shower with amazing pressure and I can actually use both hands to shampoo my hair!!  I continue to gain appreciation for the 'little things'; a home made pedicure, complete with pink nail polish!  Or fresh strawberries in my salad!!  Also, not quite such a 'little thing', but I'm grateful for my husband and his extensive back cracking abilities!  He informed me that he's basically a chiropractor, since he's been to so many of them! and I believe it!  I've had some fairly intense pain right between my spine and right shoulder this week.  It's tolerable up until a point where it feels like fire burning in my muscles, and then I have to lay down and Derek is able to pop back in what we're guessing might be a rib with the notion it wants to rearrange itself?!  The good news is; my God is a Healer! and I witnessed that healing power this week.  After a couple days with this pain, I realized I needed to ask other people to start praying for me, and mentioned it an email to my Mom.  About 15 minutes later we were driving in the truck and my little brother messaged me "Hey, how's your shoulder? Test it out right now!"  Without thinking I quickly did a little shrug motion and rotated it up and down and felt.... NOTHING!  I thought I must be losing my mind, and started moving my whole arm up and down- still feeling absolutely nothing!  The pain was gone!  I told Derek and we both started freaking out, I got out of the truck and started swinging my arm around!  There's no words to explain the massive relief I felt!  It was incredible!!  The pain has come back a few times since then, and Derek works his popping magic, but I was able to cut back on the massive amounts of Advil I'd been taking, and I believe with all my heart that God gave me a miracle!  I may not understand why I still feel that fiery pain on occasion, but I do know that God is 100% in control.  That's a huge part of what He's been revealing to me lately.
It all started when I was reading in 1 Samuel.  I came to chapter 16 verse 14 and it says "Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him." And I'm thinking I MUST have read that wrong because I'm fairly sure evil spirit's don't come from God?!  So, I read it again and sure enough, it says 'from the Lord!' So, I keep reading and it mentions it again a few verses later, and then again throughout the next few chapters!  Derek and I were pretty tripped up by this so I called my all-time favorite Bible scholar, my very own Dad!  He walked through it with us, reminding us that God IS sovereign and completely in control.  NOTHING happens outside of His knowledge and allowance, both good and bad.  This can be a really hard concept for me to grasp, but I know it has to do with the incredible fact that God is a gentleman and won't ever FORCE someone to follow Him.  The flip side of that is the fact that if you choose to NOT follow Him, He respects that decision and will let you go your own way, even though He knows what will come of that decision.  We read how Saul had chosen to do his own thing; blatantly disobeying the Lord on multiple occasions.  His actions lead up to this chapter where we find that he's not walking with the Spirit of the Lord anymore and there's an evil spirit tormenting Him.  We know God had the power to stop it, but He doesn't!  God allowed it, because that's the path Saul had chosen!  I'm just barely starting to wrap my mind around this, but what I take away from it, at this point, is that God is so much more powerful than I've ever realized!  This is pretty heavy stuff, and I know it's just the tip of the iceberg.  I may not always understand why certain things happen or why God allows pain, suffering, or even things like the bore beetle eating away at our coffee!!  But to know that God has the final say on every single thing, including forces of evil, is extremely comforting for me as a believer.  To know that He has my best interest in mind, and has a plan that is so beyond what I can imagine, is incredible.  Even when 'bad' happens, I can rest in the knowledge that God will bring good out of it- for those of us who love Him (Romans 8:28).
I have so many thoughts chasing each other around in my head, and I can't write them all out here.  God has really renewed this desire inside of me to KNOW more and to dig into the Bible, His letter to ME and I am experiencing Him on completely new levels!!  It's hard at times, but mostly it's incredible and life changing and I highly recommend it :)  That's what I'm leaving you with...  until next time!