that breath you just took...

As you grow older, you tend to take more and more for granted.

Well, I guess even when you're little you tend to unconsciously take everything for granted. The protection of your parents, the stability of the highchair you're sitting in, and hold of your car seat. You just assume whatever you have is there, will work, will hold you, will protect you, and that it always will.

The breath you just took, the math homework that you're procrastinating on(which yes, is actually teaching you something! who knew, right?), your sister that's sitting in the other room, your dad who's at work across town.
The ability to pray to a God that will actually listen to your cries of pain, and your friends who seem to care so much about you, especially in a time like this.

We take things for granted. Things that we ought not because of the love that God pours out on us, the blessings He gives! We deserve nothing that He gives us. We deserve nothing at all apart from complete separation from God. Which yes, makes me stop and think some more and honestly scares me.

A friend that I have got into the habit of emailing recently just sent me an email that made me stop and think about all I have and how much I take for granted everything I have.

This friend of mine is a part of a swim team, and she loves it. She swims all the time, has practice 3 or 4 times a week, competitions on weekends, the whole shabang. And she loves it. The only thing she hates about swimming? Her asthma.

I had no clue she had this condition until she emailed me about the previous day during practice when she had an asthma attack. She told me how she felt, and how people make comments toward her about her slacking off.

Her coach once said, "You wouldn't run too fast either if you only had a quarter of the air you're suppose to have running through your body." Which made the people who commented stop dead in what they were saying.

She also told me how blessed she feels to HAVE asthma, and how the situation of her asthma has caused her to draw nearer to God.
To trust Him, literally, for every single breath she inhales and exhales.

Can you imagine?! Not knowing what the next hour, the next moment, the next second would bring. You could immediately become deprived of air at that second, not know what to do, your lungs screaming "Breathe!" over and over when you can't do such a thing.

She literally has to trust God for every single breath she takes.

Along with taking things for granted, we often have trouble trusting God with everything we have. We think we know all the answers, we think we know what's good for us and how to handle a situation better, so we isolate ourselves off from everyone and everything that's trying to help us- including God.

Last year I had the opportunity to join a girls bible study filled with 7th grade girls for an extra class offered in the middle school. I think there was only 4 or 5 of us and personally I like smaller groups better, so I loved it. It gave us more of an open feeling than to have a group of 10 or 15 watching and listening and monitoring every single thing you said.

Anyways, while the topic of trust is burning through my mind these past few days...how to trust God in any situation, especially the one I'm going through right now, a part of the book we went through by Max Lucado jumped in my mind and caused me to pull the book out again and go through that chapter regarding trust.

"You trust the work of a light switch, so you flip it. You have faith that the doorknob you're about to turn will work, so you turn it.
You regularly trust power you cannot see to do a work that you cannot accomplish.
God invites you to do the very same thing with Him."

God, help me to trust You like that. I know that isolating everyone off isn't helping me. And although I'm not in a situation of life or death, I feel like I am.

It seems to be a bit more sunny today in more ways than one.
Loves.
Remey.