My 10 year spiritual journey with God and with Heart Failure

ok, all I can say is this journey has been amazing. It's not been without it's tears or it's pain. I've struggled thru the years. I've had ups and I've had downs. I've been thru the valley and stood on the mountain top. I never asked "why me" but I can't say I've never been without fear. I have learned the fear came when I took my eyes off God and focused on my situation instead of the power my God has and the love he has for me. Being at the 10 year mark now I can look back and see how God's hands have been on me the entire time. He's set things in motion for me before I even knew I would need them. He was working the entire time providing for me the right people at all the right time. He's given me opportunities I would have never had if I had not been diagnosed with this disease. The most important thing thou is how he has changed my heart. Thru this experience I have learned to never doubt God and that impossible should not even be a word I use. Nothing is impossible with God, absolutely nothing. He can take a heart barely beating and after 10 years make it strong again. Sunday I shared my update with my church family and shared a little bit about other things God has been working on me over the past years. God truly had to break my will and break my heart before he could give me this healing. I truly believe that and I see that now. I wanted to share that here also. I believe God uses others to help change us. Maybe my story will help someone else, I don't know. Maybe you'll just find it silly. I hope that's not the case.


I've had lots of selfishness God's been working on me over the past couple of years. God brought this all to light in me by using several different people,... one big one being Francis Chan. Then last year our church got a new pastor. Pastor Drew came along and reinforced the same things I had been listening to Francis Chan say. I Listened to lots of Francis Chan's online messages last year and realized how much selfishness I really had in my own life. God has also used Pastor Drew to speak some of the same things to me....yes, I'm a hard head and usually have to hear things more than once before the light bulb goes off! I heard God ask me why I wanted to be healed and I had to take a good look at what that answer was and changes had to come. I really did at that time only want healed for myself and really had no desire to get outside my comfort zone and let God use me the way he really wanted to use me. Years before, God had really put conviction on my husband Steve and myself over entertainment choices. We truly heard God say to us, my spirit lives in you. My eyes are your eyes, my ears are your ears and my mouth is your mouth. Be careful what you fill them with and what comes out and we heard him say what is in the heart is what will show in your life so protect it. He was not talking about my physical heart but my spiritual heart. We all know that Hollywood glamorizes sin. I think that's one thing we can all agree on. God really broke our hearts over things that were in tv shows, movies, music, etc. When heard him clearly say to us, why do you watch the very things I "hate"....yes, we heard the word hate because God hates sin. I can remember the night we finally got serious about it. We were watching an episode of a popular show "CSI". Steve has always loved the crime scene shows but this particular night there was a scene in the show at a srip club. Basically, the scene was a half dressed girl dancing around a pole. God spoke to both of us that night and I remember telling Steve I wouldn't give him my blessing to head over to a strip club where he would see this same thing so I certainly was not going to put it on a silver platter and allow him to watch it in the comfort of our own living room. I would say this was probably about 8 or 9 years ago. We turned off the tv and started really discussing this and seeking God about this area of our life. We felt very strong conviction about this and heard God say be careful what you allow in the living room of your heart because this is where I live. You have been purchased with a price. You belong to me. Your body is no longer your own but you are to be a living sacrifice for me and for us, that also meant our entertainment had to change. We started looking at everything so differently and really seeking God on this and this is what we heard him say to us....If a tv program, movie or music glorifies a sin it's not for you. This was really tough for me because I loved my "lifetime" movies, my sitcoms, movies, etc but we knew we needed to listen to the spirit so we started cleaning our entertainment closet so to speak. For us, that meant if it was something we didn't allow in our home, we no longer view it in the form of entertainment so that also means language. We don't use foul language, we don't allow Jocelyn to use foul language so even if the show has just foul language, we heard God say it's not for us. We believe language is something God wants to change in a person he calls his own so we couldn't ignore that in our entertainment choices either. Basically we heard God say to us, "Is what you are watching beneficial to you in any way?" So, we made the choice to follow God on this issue. Our rules were no shows that glorify anything that breaks our Father's heart. We made big changes in this area but I was still holding onto 1 program I knew God wanted out of my life. To some, this may seem really silly but God was convicting me on this and I was refusing to listen to him. I kept saying, I have given everything thing else up...just let me keep this one thing. It was my soap opera, "The Young and the Restless." I watched or listened to it faithfully. Working from home made it so easy to just take my lunch break for that hour and sit in front of the tv and really get into the messes that Hollywood created in the lives of these fictional characters. Some of you would probably say just that...it's not real, they are just fictional characters playing a part but what does that show glorify? Really, there is no other way to answer but to say it glorifies sin. It's full of premarital sex, it's full of men and women cheating on their spouses, it's full of deceit, full of immorality, bascially full of filth not fit for a daughter of the King. This is the one thing I had not given up. You know, you think you're doing good....you get kind of proud of what you've given up and the difference it's made in your life, etc all the while ignoring that one thing you still need to throw out but aren't willing to do. Pride comes before a fall, I've learned that and that's a painful lesson to learn. Well, that was me until early 2009. This is when I finally obeyed and gave it up for good. What I have learned is that God replaced everything he asked us to give up with his goodness...things that are so much better. Instead of watching the junk, we spend more time in his word and I can't tell you the difference it makes when you fill your heart and mind with his word instead of what the world has to offer. This may sound silly to you, but I felt like a burden was gone after I finally obeyed what God was telling me to do. I truly don't think it's coincindence that for the first time my heart function increased to 35%, which is considered safe from the risk of sudden cardiac death and it came after obedience on an issue God was dealing with me on. After that, God started working on other areas in my life he wanted to see change. I've been selfish for many years. God has broken my heart for others and opened my eyes up to needs of others. I truly have felt a calling on my life in this area. I ask him daily to show me needs that he can meet thru me. I am learning to move when he says move. I know I shared this story before but my heart was broken one day when I cleaned out my own closet and had at least 10 bags of clothes that I no longer wear. Mostly because I lost weight but God said to me, "why do you have all this stuff when there are people wearing tattered clothes and those that can't afford a new pair of shoes, etc?" "Why is your pantry full but you're not sharing with anyone that is hungry?" "Why do you ignore the needs of others when I have so richly blessed you?" These truths hurt, they did but I realized I was a selfish, spoiled brat that truly thought the world revolved around her and that God just wanted to make me happy and give me a comfortable life. That statement couldn't be further fromt the truth and if that is what you believe about your own life, you're listening to the same lie I listened to. This isn't the abundant life God is talking about. It's not how much you can get out of this life. It's not about all your stuff. God asked me where my treasures were and I couldn't say at that time they were in heaven. I was getting far too comfortable with the world. I never did anything to help another person before God changed my heart. I never made sacrifices, true sacrifices. I've learned if you don't feel it, if you're not truly giving up something and feeling it, it's not a true sacrifice. It's easy to give when it doesn't cost you anything. God has given me a heart for others that I don't think I would have had if not for this 10 year journey I've been on with my heart. I actually feel like I'm living now because I am no longer a consumer...I'm a doer. God truly has broken my heart in many ways to bring about healing.....I don't think it would have ever come if I had kept saying no to things I knew he was telling me I needed to be doing. I hope that point is what I got across when I gave my testimony at church. Obedience is what God wants from his children. He really doesn't have to listen to children that are disobedient and unwilling to change and to do his will. Nothing that has happened in my life came because I'm anything special.....I can do nothing without him guiding me but for him to do that, I have to listen and obey and move when he says move. For years I wanted healing for me, just to live longer and be with my family never giving much thought to others and doing anything to help when I knew about needs that God had blessed me with the ability to meet. I liked my comfort, really I loved my comfort. I was selfish....plain and simple. I can still be at times. He's still working on me but I'm moving when he says move and I'm doing what he says to do. I still mess up and don't get it right. I'm not perfect but really the spiritual healing that has taken place is more amazing to me than the physical healing that has taken place. I'm not who I was just 5 or 6 years ago. Not even 2 years ago. Things break my heart now that I never gave a 2nd thought to before. So many things I just can't do anymore because I know they are not beneficial to me in anyway. I've been a Christian since I was 12 but I look back and see what little I really accomplished for Christ because of the selfishness I had in me. My life was about me...I thought I had grown so much during the initial stages of my diagnosis but I look back now and see how much further I needed to go and how much deeper I needed to go with God. I'm not who I was, that's for sure and I still have growing and changing to do but I can say this journey has been amazing and so worth it. all the pain and all the tears that came before the healing brought me closer to God and I wouldn't change that for the world. If I had stayed a healthy person and never had this disease, I would still be that selfish, spoiled rotten brat that thought the world revolved around her. I was a pretty ugly person and I see all that now. Heart disease saved my life and changed my heart in more than just a physical way.

I know this is very long but I would ask, can you honestly say you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind? Are you filling any of those areas with the pollution of the world? I was...and for me that was sin. Are there things that need to change in your life that you're holding onto like I was? Do you really love your neighbors as yourself? I didn't, and that was sin. So, the real miracle here is the change that God made in my spiritual heart. I am completely different and that's a miracle. Jesus says, if you love me you will obey what I command. I picked a word for this year and it was obedience. I prayed about that and that's the word God gave me. funny, huh? Not really. God knows what he's doing and he absolutely knew what needed to change in my life. He knows all about you too. Ask him to help you in the areas he wants you to give completely to him.

This last part is taken from an aritlce I read about obedience to God. It doesn't give the name of the person who wrote it but it touched me so maybe it will touch you also. I didn't write this part though!

Jesus is very concerned about us and he wants us to do more than participate in good works. He wants us to believe in him. He wants to take us higher than the world and he wants us to be like him. When we are obedient to God, we are doing just that. Knowing him, loving him and having a personal, intimate relationship with him. To do this, we must be attentive to God's laws. This is not an option because you can't have an intimate relationship with Jesus and trample on the words he taught. Obedience to God is living God's word because you want to and enjoy being filled with the love of Jesus. Following the commandments step wise won't do. Reading the Bible diligently won't do. We have to take the words into our hearts. When we make the transition from calling ourselves a good Christian to being someone who is having a deep personal and intimate relationship with the Lord, then we can have the highest of joys, the deepest of peace, and receive the fullest measure of God's love and power each and every day of our lives.

ok...this is back to me now. It's funny when I think of this. God gave me healing and made my physical heart smaller but before that could happen he had to "enlarge" my spiritual heart for him. So, I guess I can still say I have an enlarged heart but it's so much better now! I'll leave you with this verse now. Psalm 119:32 I wil run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.

I am so humbled by what God has done for me and I love him now more than ever but not because he gave me healing in a physical sense. Because he changed me, really changed me and I'm so glad he did. It was a true matter of the heart.