“Lord, I am ready to do whatever you want me to do, no matter what.”

That was a hard surrender, and it still is. But not as much, because as I was about to finish The Promise, our pastor challenged us (as in our congregation) to read Radical by David Platt. Not only to read it, but to do the challenge and meet with him after Sunday morning service as a small group and be accountability partners for each other. So I rushed to finish The Promise so I could read Radical when the hubby was done with it. Oh, that was harsh reading. Convicting. See, I’ve been feeling the call to work with the youth for a few weeks, and then right after that, the pastor started preaching/teaching us to start working on discipling. “Coincidentally.” Well, The Promise followed by Radical was just what I need to convince me that I needed to volunteer to help with the youth whether I want to or not. (Kids scare me, by the way.) See, I was discipled by a young lady from when I was 10 to 15. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that is exactly what she was doing with me. (That story is a post in itself.) And I digress.

The day after I finished Radical, I got a book in the mail that I only vaguely remember ordering. Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand. Where those other books had begun to put life in perspective, Tortured for Christ rounded it out. Those of you on Facebook who saw my Sunday status, this book precipitated that. For those of you who aren’t on Facebook, why not? Everybody’s doing it. LOL Seriously, though this is what I posted: “owns multiple Bibles in multiple translations while Christians in many areas of the world cannot get even one Bible and suffer persecution and torture for their faith. I’ve taken my freedom for granted. How about you?”

Well, how about me. What now? What am I going to sacrifice and to whom am I going to give? What am I going to give up that will truly be a sacrifice?

This turned out longer than I expected. My intent was a quick update to keep the blog “active,” but the more I wrote, the more I wrote, and it still ended up vague and all over the place with the need for expansion. So it will be multi-part, and maybe I won’t take 2 or 3 weeks to finish and post part 2. I’ve read 4 books in the last month, two of which I read last week. That’s not really why I haven’t been blogging, but, well, ok the last 2 I was reading when I could have been blogging.

Anyway, I was having some emotional issues over the summer once I finished school. Wild bouncing from high to low to high to low, and trying to keep it in rather than explode it on others. Particularly the low which tended to get angry. For a couple of weeks, SSgt Nemec was back with all her bitter issues. But, while I was on vacation, I got up every morning and walked, and prayed. I had already decided the problem was me, so I asked God to change me and my attitude. I was still having a hard time keeping my thoughts in check, though, with all my wild imagination of different scenarios that all centered around conflict. And then I happened across a Joyce Meyer video.

Ok, I will state right up front, Joyce Meyer has always rubbed me the wrong way. But I had watched one video of hers earlier in the year (again by “chance”) that just happened to be about submission which was something I was struggling with at the time. Well this one was about thoughts and about allowing our minds to just go where ever and dwell on whatever. I saw that she had a book called Battlefield of the Mind, and so I got it and read it. Within a week of reading it, I found myself in the middle of some drama which I will not go into. While some of the book I read with some skepticism, there was much from that book that helped me get my wild imaginations under control. Not on my own power, mind you, but I had the awareness of what was behind those wild thoughts and so every time I found myself dwelling on a scenario, I prayed.

Following that, I picked up a book that was recommended to my hubby by the pastor of the church we first went to a couple years ago. He had recommended Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala also, and that was a great book, so I started reading The Promise by Tony Evans. The Promise is about the Holy Spirit, and that was a great follow up to Battlefield of the Mind. It was while reading this one, that I thought that the drama happening in my life just might be there to break me and that last vestige of pride (self-righteousness) I was clinging to. Whether that was the intent or not, that’s what happened. I was broken. I was reduced back to that insecure “little ignorant girl from Birdtown,” so overwhelmed by life that all I could do was surrender. The kind of surrender that I should have done when I was 12, but didn’t until a couple of weeks ago.

“Lord, I am ready to do whatever you want me to do, no matter what.”