My God-in-a-box and Being Offended at Healings

I've always had a hard time with the "gifts of healing" mentioned in the Bible.
Some of you may not believe that God moves today... but I assure you from personal experience... everything the New Testament talks about?  Yeah.  I've experienced it.
Even though the movements of the Holy Spirit are as legit as I say, I've still had a hard time with what I feel about "healing".

I've had a hard time with healing because I've never been able to wrap my mind around why God DOESN'T heal. And to be honest, I've been offended at some of His decisions in this matter.

But something happened that began to change that.

Every summer I ended up rolling both my ankles.  Then... I would limp until right before the next summer.  I did this for about 3 or 4 years and it was really the most frustrating thing for me.
But I decided to get prayer for it again because the new church I began to go to believes strongly that God is in the business of physical healing.

You know what?  I could run and jump after I got prayer.  And I haven't rolled my ankle again.  Its been almost 5 years.

Not that I didn't believe God could heal.  I definitely believed He could. 
I just somehow believed that healing was always up to my faith - whether I was praying for someone or whether I was getting prayer for it.

And I was just... really wrong.

Then I went to India.
And in India, I didn't even have to have really deep or extravagant prayers.  People were getting healed - bones were entirely mended, ear aches and tummy aches and deaf - everyone.  People were getting healed.
These people weren't even Jesus-followers.
So...why does it feel like pulling teeth when I pray for these things to happen back in the US?

These are questions I wonder if people usually ask when coming back from short term mission trips like mine.

Because in India, you can buy idols anywhere.  And it was actually a little bit of a spiritual shock for me because when I was standing in front of shelves and shelves of idols at these stores it hit me like a ton of bricks that the idols themselves actually had no creepy spiritual presence to them.

And right as I had this thought, the Lord imprinted a truth into my heart.
"They only have demonic influence when they are prayed to."  Otherwise... they're statues.

But here's the thing:  the idea of a god or gods is acknowledged and overtly accepted in the country of India as well as other countries.

The US as a general people have begun to lean towards no acknowledgement of a higher power beyond their own capabilities.  We're intellectual and philosophical.  We don't accept that we can't understand everything.  If we can't understand something, we will make ourselves understand or we will make it small enough to wrap our minds around.

I know some people will not agree with me about that last statement. 
Though I believe that understanding and wisdom and knowledge are wonderful things to have and to be fluent in, I don't believe that it is wise to think that we can know the whole of something which is vast.

God is one of those things - He is one of those Persons - who is vast and beyond our understanding.

So... coming home to the States I asked the Lord, "Lord... um hey.  Why don't you heal here the way you heal people there?"

And you know what He said?

"You have whittled Me down and gotten rid of the parts of Me you don't like or understand.  What you're left with isn't Me - but an idol.  When you pray to that god, he can't heal you... Because you got rid of the  parts you don't understand of Me.  And those are the parts that heal, that do miracles and unexplainable things."

But at least we have a little wooden idol of god in our pocket right?

I'm determined to let God be as big as He actually is.
I am so tired of little gods and my big head.

On India, Changed Plans and Answered Prayers

My heart was beating and the anticipation grew.

The speaker was speaking and my very core knew.

I was going to sign up for this trip. I would sign up for this trip.

Not a single amount of hesitation could stop me.  Finances?  God would provide.

…Strange.  I always worry about finances.

But I knew that I knew that I knew I was definitely going to Mozambique.

I was going on this trip.

A Testimony: Waiting and Praying for our Future Spouses

This particular blog post has been a long time coming.  I've probably thought about writing this for the last 4 months or so, but one might understand that an idea, as good as it is, takes time to really formulate into something worth producing.

Another reason I'd like to write is because no one really talks about this stuff very much and I for one would be encouraged by someone's willingness to share their heart IN THE PROCESS, not necessarily just at its completion.
In fact, I was just complaining about how there aren't really any books out there about praying and waiting in this arena that aren't written either for a. teenage girls or written by b. a married person/married people.

What about my story?

Books written by married couples about waiting while single can indicate that marriage is the reward of being a "good girl" or a "good boy" for God. Does that mean I haven't been as faithful or whatever?
 Now! I've been immensely blessed by these books and they have their place!  But what about folks like me?

This post is certainly not a book, but its meant to encourage those who wait.