Giving God Control.

We all have a dream job. There are careers that we wish we could do for the rest of our lives. Ever since I was in the 10th grade, I knew I wanted to become an FBI agent and become a criminal profiler. Growing up I knew I wanted to do something that made a difference, I just wasn’t quite sure what I wanted. Becoming a police officer often crossed my mind being that I come from a family of cops. But I still wasn’t sure until I had my first ever psychology class in the 10th grade and I fell in love with the way that our brains work. That is what I wanted to do!

For the next several years I planned out every single step that I needed to take in order to become a profiler. How many years of college I needed to take, what internship I would need, what job, where to live and how to train my body. 

After graduating from high school I felt as though I needed to take at least a year off from school to better prepare myself for my future career as an agent. Little did I know that during that year my life would change completely. 

During that year I began to pass out and seizure and would be in constant pain. My family and I had no idea what was going on. I had never experienced anything like that in my life.

I kept going to the hospital and I was just always told that it was all in my head, that there was nothing wrong with me. But there was. I was diagnosed with endometriosis a few months later. For those of you that don’t know what this is it is when the cells in your uterus start growing on other places. You basically always have internal bleeding. This disease can cause infertility, weight gain, chronic fatigue, fainting, seizures and so much more.

After finding this out and finding out that it would only get worse, because there is no cure, I knew that my chances of becoming an agent were gone. God had so much more planned for me than I knew about.

After realizing that becoming an agent was no longer a reality I began to ask God what it was that He wanted me to do. I had to give Him all of the control. Because it is not about us in this life, it’s about doing what we can to help build up God’s kingdom. What can we do to worship God daily? What can we do to make sure that His name is known nation to nation? This is what I began asking myself. This is what I began to ask God.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend and act like it was the easiest decision because it wasn’t. I would constantly be pushing myself to exercise or not take as much medication so that I would tell my body what I wanted it to do. I was trying to be the one in total control over my body and my life. I didn’t want some disease telling me what I was and wasn’t going to do. This was my plan and I was going to make it happen no matter what. 

I was selfish. It wasn’t my disease telling me what I was and wasn’t going to do. It was God. I just kept ignoring Him because I refused to come to terms with His plan because it didn’t fit into mine.

Everyone’s story is different, but for me, what you’re reading, blog posts are what it is that He wants me to do. I realize that to some of you that might sound really crazy. But to me I feel as though I can tell my story and have God speak through me to talk to others. We have all heard the saying that, “The internet is forever”. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. So rather it is 5 days from now or 5 years from now, maybe one day someone will read one of these blogs and realize just how much God loves them. That even though you wanted to do one thing with your life but that dream got taken away doesn’t mean that you are still not meant to do so many incredible things.

I had to realize my idea of a perfect life and career was exactly that, my idea. Not God’s. We can plan and prepare ourselves all we want to, but unless we are giving God that full control, things just might change. So step out of God’s way and let Him take over. It’s time we built up His kingdom and not ours!

Surgery Story

Dealing with a disease is a lot harder than you might think. And one without a cure can be even worse. For those that don’t know I have something called endometriosis. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically when the tissue that is supposed to grow on the inside of your uterus begins to grow on other places in the pelvic area. It can even spread up to your heart and lungs. So now that you know that, here is my surgery story. That one that shook me the most.

It all started about 6 or 7 years ago. I would horrible pain all the time. I always thought that it was super normal because the pain was mainly there when I would have my cycle.

Fast forward to a few years later the pain just continued to get worse and worse over the years. It was getting too hard to ignore. I kept going to the hospital and I was just always told that it was all in my head, that there was nothing wrong with me. So at some point you begin to believe it.

At one point my right side continued to become more and more painful every single day. So I went to the ER a few times and on my second or third visit they finally found something. I had a cyst rupture on each of my ovaries. So they referred me to a gynecologist. (The best one I might add.)

So when I went to see her after only five minutes talking to her about my pain and what it felt like she immediately looked at me and said, “I think you have something that is called endometriosis.” Those words have both helped me and hurt me since hearing them that day. The one thing with diagnosing endometriosis is that is can only be done through surgery.

So a few months later I had my first surgery where I was officially diagnosed with endometriosis and where they also took out my appendix at the same time due to too much tissue growth from the endo on it. And ever since that day my life has never been the same.

There are four stages with endo. And depending on what stage determines how many and when you need surgery. I am now at a stage four and have had three surgeries since 2014. And the last one that I had has been the hardest to deal with. One thing that was tough about this one was that on average the surgery lasts about 45 minutes to an hour. Mine lasted almost 3 hours. This is because I had way more tissue than the doctor expected. She had to go in and scrap and burn the lining of my uterus out as well as any other spot that had the tissue on there. 

After the surgery was over it took me several hours to come to. I hurt to move, to talk and even breath at some points. But at this point I didn’t know yet just how bad it was. After Michael told me everything that the doctor had told him it began to fully sink in. I have something that is going to cause me to never have a a normal life. 

These surgeries are what has become normal for Michael and I. A cabinet full of 8 different medications is now normal. Almost two doctor visits a month is now normal. Not being able to have children is normal. That was the point when I realized that this disease has taken over my life.

I don’t say all of this to get pity or attention. I say all of this because people need to be more aware of endometriosis. It effects 1 in 10 women yet no one knows about it until you or someone you know is diagnosed with it. There is no cure. There is medication and surgery. So can we all take a moment after we read this to pray for the ladies that have this? And the spouses of those that have it? Because it is a daily struggle and we need awareness.

Chain Breaking Freedom

Today we got to celebrate freedom. For many people freedom can mean many different things. For some it means that they have the right to say what they want. For others it means they have the right to worship how they wish without the fear of death. And for me, freedom means Jesus.

Having a relationship with Jesus is the best decision that I could have ever made. I used to not fully understand what it meant to have a relationship with Him. It was something that I had always heard but didn’t quite understand. But now that I have one I truly get it. 

When you date someone you’re in a relationship with them. You want to spend all of your spare time with them. You stay up all night and just talk because you just want to hear their voice. You trust them to hold you in your darkest times. You trust them with your darkest of secrets. You just want them all the time. That to me is what it means to have a relationship with Him. I want Him always. I want to stay up just talking to Him. He will stretch out his arms when I’m upset. And I can trust Him with my darkest of secrets.

But going back to freedom. I am able to have freedom because of Him. My chains have been broken. Sin can no longer keep me in shackles. Psalm 118:5 says this, “Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free.” He saw me when I was blind and made me see.

In the song “No Longer Slaves” the chorus says, “I’m not longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.” That is true freedom. We are all a child of God. We are all able to seek the freedom that God has offered to us. God sending His one and only son to die on the cross has offered up the ultimate freedom! 

You too can have that freedom. It is not just for the people that “have it all together” despite what people may think. His blood shed for me and for you. With each and every drop was a promise of love and freedom. Jesus bled all of the blood out of his body, think about that, every last ounce was poured out. He took literally everything inside of Himself and poured it out to give you that love and to give you that freedom. Go to Him and be set free.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” -John 8:36

When you face loss. (1928-2013)

Losing a loved one can be incredibly difficult. And it is unfortunately something that we all have to face at some point in our life. For me, that first person that I lost was my grandmother. (This blog will be a bit different from the rest that I have done. However, I still would like to share this story.)

My grandmother was such a wonderful woman! I didn’t quite understand who she was exactly until after she had passed away. She was kind, generous, humble, funny, wise and everything that you would imagine a truly devoted follower of Christ to look like. She would fall asleep every single night holding and reading her Bible. She would pray all the time for everyone, not just those that she loved,but even those that she might not care for so much. She was a walking, talking, breathing example of Jesus.

Five years ago yesterday my grandmother passed away in her sleep. It was super hard then to understand the news. But to be honest, the older I get the harder it becomes at times. When she passed away it was hard because I had never truly understood what it meant to lose someone. I was sad because my grandmother had passed away but I didn’t fully understand what was to come with her passing. I felt anger, fear, depression, confusion, but that was just the flesh part of me. But for her I felt joy and happiness, because she was finally home with Jesus. The place that she would talk about often with such excitement.

While she was still here on earth I loved her so much, and I still do. But I didn’t quite appreciate her as much as I should have. I didn’t take in the wisdom that she would often speak to me and the rest of my family. I loved her, but there were times I just didn’t understand her. How could someone love Jesus so much? I was so confused! I believed in Jesus at the time but didn’t have a full relationship with him. I went to church but didn’t walk with him.

Sometimes we don’t appreciate who we have in our lives until they are gone. After she passed away and I had gone through all of the stages of grief I began to really understand who she was as a person. I began to understand just how kind her sweet soul was. I prayed to God every single day for me to be able to get through her passing. And He did so by helping to really understand her. Now that I know who she was it makes me so happy to have had her in my life for as long as I did. Because of my grandmother I now understand what it looks like to walk with Christ. 

She has helped to shape me into the Christ follower that I am and want to continue to strengthen. Because of her kind words and examples I feel as though I can now understand that joy that she felt and would talk about daily. That same joy that she loved telling others about! I am who I am because of her. I love you grandma!

For Father’s Day

My father and I  have always had a great bond. I think that it all started 25 years ago when my mom  went into labor with me on my dad’s birthday, although I wasn’t actually born until the day after. And so this is where it all began you see, I am one of the lucky ones that has a good relationship with my father. Both my earthly father and my Heavenly Father.

There are so many people out there that since they have a bad relationship with their earthly father think that, that is how God would also treat them. So if their father left them, they think that God will also leave them. If their father told them that they weren’t worthy of anything, they also think that God feels the same way. If their father doesn’t love them, they will also think that God doesn’t love them either.

This type of thinking can be very dangerous. God is so much more than our bad thoughts about our own father. God will never leave you, (Deuteronomy 31:8). God thinks that you are worthy, (John 3:16). God does love you, (John 3:16-17, Romans 5:8). 

God will never leave you! We need to be sure that we never confuse God’s silence with His absence. There is a huge difference between the two. Did you know that there is a 400 year gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament? During that 400 years God was completely silent. But also during that 400 years there were several things that were invented. Things such as, a new language, a new transportation system, as well as many others. All of which would continue on into the New Testament. If God had been absent, those things wouldn’t have happened. He is quiet at times to help prepare us for what is to come.

We are worthy! Not just of His love but of His grace. I know that most people think of John 3:16 as a love verse, and it is, but I also think that this verse also shows us how worthy we are. We are worthy because Jesus has made us worthy. The word “anyone” is in that verse, “anyone that believes”. That includes those that may not really have that father figure in their life. That includes those that feel like they aren’t worthy of love because of something they do or something that they have done in the past. You are worthy because of the cross.

God loves you! As you have noticed, I again put down John 3:16-17. I put 17 because it shows that God wanted to save us through Jesus Christ. But I also put in Romans 5:8. It says, “But God shows His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We are all always sinning against God. But He still sent Jesus to die for us on that cross, regardless of what we have done. We are all deserving of Hell. But through the grace and love of God we can be spared from that death. God loves us enough that even though it is what we deserve we have that option to accept His love and grace. Even those that may not choose that path with Him, He still loves you!

So for those of you that look at God like you look at your own father in the ways that I have described, please take these words that God has spoken through me and just really understand them. Please understand that God has so much more planned for you then you could have for yourself. Just trust in Him. I know that not having a good relationship with your earthly father can cause a bad one with the Heavenly one, but please don’t let it. Let God be that missing piece.

Hardening instead of Healing

Church is a place where you can go to where your heart should be healed. But what happens when the place and the people harden your heart instead of heal it? Well, this just so happens to be part of my story. (Warning! This will be more of a longer blog. But I do feel as though all that is stated in this is very important in today’s church world.)

As I share this part of my story I would like to go ahead and say that I will not be mentioning names of people nor the name of the church. I will also be leaving out some of the details as they are too personal to share or they were someone else’s story. 

I tell this part of my journey not to bad mouth people, but to better educate people that this sort of thing is still happening in the church. And to also tell others that may have gone through something similar how to cope with it and be able to move on.

The story takes place over about a years time. But to save on making everyone read an incredibly long blog, here is what I will say about it all. We started out absolutely loving this church. We felt so loved by everyone that was around us. We felt The Holy Spirit’s presence everywhere. Then everything took a turn for the worse. You could slowly feel the presence of the Holy Spirit slipping out. We weren’t even allowed to say the words Holy Spirit with the fear of offending someone! God was no longer welcome in that church.

So of course you are going to ask yourself, “How can you have church without God?” You can’t. This is where everything started to go very badly. Friendships were lost and broken. Rumors were spread and trust was broken. People only began to care about themselves and not others. People were putting themselves on the throne instead of God. People were wanting to be worshipped instead of God. People began leaving the church and not even looking back. People were also getting kicked out due to nonsensical reasons. Then when tragedy struck for me and my husband, we had a miscarriage, two people in the church cared enough to show us God’s grace and God’s love. The pastor was not one of those people.

Then feeling down in the dumps my husband had a talk with one of the staff members about some things. One of those things being help. We needed help! But instead of that help, my husband was called in the pastor’s office the very next day and was fired. (He was on staff in the worship band). Not only was he fired but we were also kicked out of the church. I’m not going to go into detail as to everything that was said but I will put it this way, it was something that caused us to harden our hearts enough to where we had no interest in going to church for about ten months. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t just what was said in that last meeting, but a mixture of things throughout that year.

So what happens when the church hardens your heart? It feels as though it is almost impossible to ever return to a church with the fear of the same thing happening again. To this day my husband and I still have some problems letting people from church in due to this happening to us. We are so scared of it all happening over again. Of letting people in just to be hurt again. But this is where the Lord comes in. This is where we realize that with Him, ANYTHING is possible.

Now I’m not going to lie, it was very hard to return to any church. We wanted to, but we just didn’t feel like we had to for quite awhile. But then one day God opened up our eyes. We were beginning to turn to other forms of comfort instead of seeking the One that is the comforter. God began to show us that the path that we were heading down was a very dangerous and sinful one. We began to feel all of the guilt and anger at ourselves for what we had been doing. We had decided to let the enemy win by not seeking God in our most desperate time of need.

But thanks to God’s grace and forgiveness we have been able to put all of that behind us! Without the power of prayer I don’t know how we would have been able to cope with any of this. But God heard our cry and our pain and felt the hurt in our hearts. So because of God’s amazing love for us we are now attending a church where God’s presence is felt all around. Where the very love that is talked about in God’s Word is lived out by each and every person in that place. Where the church is a people and not a building. God has forgiven us and helped us with the process of healing. We still have a little ways to go, but we are on the right track.

If you or anyone that you know has gone through something similar to ours just remember that God loves you! That nothing you say or do could ever stop Him from caring for you! And though it may be difficult to start going back to church, God has allowed for this to happen so that you may grow more love for Him. And that this can now be apart of your story to maybe help others with one day!

I again did not write this to speak ill of anyone. But rather to tell the raw truth of what is still happening in churches all over world. We think we have done better with following God’s Word, when in all reality, there is always be at least one Pharisee in every church. We must stop letting Satan in and let God take back over!

Why Bug Talks?

Many of you may be asking yourself, why Bug Talks? Why the name? Why the blogs? What do these blogs mean to you? Well if this is what you were wondering about here is all of the explanation that you need to know. All of the most important people in my life call me Bug. It has been my nickname for as long as I can remember. When my precious nephew says, “I love you Bug”, the world is okay in those moments. Because it is the precious love of a child. And this is the same type of love that God has called us to have!  (Matthew 18:3)

So, to answer the next question of why the blogs, it is because I want God to use me and use His words through me to try and help people as much as possible. For those of you that know me well know that I’ve never had a huge problem with opening up. I do this because I feel as though I have nothing to hide. That whatever has happened in my life has happened because God wants me to use it for His glory. I feel like with these blog posts I will be able to let God use me more easily and hopefully reach people through each word that is written on this page.

However, there are certain things that I have left private, not out of shame or embarrassment, but because I felt as though God wasn’t quite ready for me to share those things with others. I truly feel, as stated before, that certain things happen to us because God wants to use it! There are no coincidences with God, it is all in His perfect timing.

These blogs mean that I get to tell others about my good times and my bad times and how God has used each and every one of those moments for me to get closer to Him. I will go ahead and admit how there were times that getting closer to God wasn’t something that I was really wanting to do. It definitely took me some time to realize that it was what I was truly needing. I pray that these words will reach people. That perhaps someone has gone through something similar and God wants them to hear these words to come back home.

So to answer your question on why Bug Talks, it is because God has called me to it.

Celebrating a Childless Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is such an amazing day for us to honor our mothers! But for some of us this day may seem to bring more tears than laughter and smiles. I know that for some those tears come because you lost your mother. But for others, those tears come because we are unable to become mothers. Some of those tears come because we have lost a child.

These types of losses can often be incredibly hard to understand. I can’t speak from personal experience of the first example, however, I can with the last two. Finding out that becoming a mother may never be a possibility for me has always been incredibly difficult. But when you finally become pregnant and then lose that baby, you feel as though your heart may never feel full again. Especially when that same thing happens a second time. And even though certain days are tough there is one thing that will always help me to get through, knowing that God is still in total control.

Although at first there were many times when I doubted and questioned God’s love, grace, goodness, and kindness. I couldn’t quite seem to understand how a God that claimed to be so loving and caring would let my baby die. I was so angry! No matter how many times I tried to pray my heart just wasn’t in it. I couldn’t pray to a God that would allow such hurt to come over me and my husband. Months and months went by and I still had absolutely no desire to talk to God. I didn’t want to tell God my hearts desires when He knew them and took them away. How do you allow yourself to want a relationship with someone who could hurt you so deeply?

These questions and thoughts would often seem to race through my mind. It was not very often that I wouldn’t be angry. And even though I would often ask myself these things and would continue to be angry, I knew the answer to every single doubt and question that I had. These things happened because I am so loved. God did those things because He had things planned for me that I didn’t yet understand. God knew that I would be a changed person because of this. That my husband would be a changed person because of this.

Even though everything was hard last year, we are closer to God now because of what He put us through. In times like what my husband and I went through is when we need to cling closer to God, not turn away from Him. I learned this the hard way. Even though I knew this in my heart I had absolutely no desire to believe it. To be totally honest there are times I still struggle and still hurt and wonder why! But then I realize that I am still so loved, so blessed, and that God’s grace is there for me whenever I want to accept it. 

I also realized that I was so angry at God because how could He possibly understand what I was going through? He did. He lost His son too. God did know exactly how I felt. He knew the hurt and pain that came with losing a child. And even though He did lose His child, He is still the loving God that I am so happy to have a relationship with. Even though Jesus did die on that cross he rose again and we can have so much comfort in knowing that! And in knowing that I have the comfort in knowing that I will again see my children. Until that day they will stay in the loving arms of the father.

So on this Mother’s Day as difficult as it may be for those who have experienced a loss, remember that clinging close to God will always give you the comfort that you need. Because we are so very loved by Him.