3 years.

   Last night I got home pretty late. I drove home from a friend's house completely nodding off, but I made it. When I got home, I went on facebook before bed, because honestly I NEEDED to. Kidding. I'm just a weenie who can't wait until morning.
   For some reason, the though popped into my brain that it had been three years since my first hip surgery. I wanted to post a status about it, and then I decided to link an old blog post to it. I searched through my old posts to find one worthy of facebook, and I ended up just reading through most of my old posts and marveling at how much God has grown me since then.
   He has brought me through so much, and yet I live my life as if I am entitled to it. I spent a couple hours reading through the first extremely depressing posts about the surgery, which slowly turned reflection into what God was doing in my life.
    At some point something clicked with me, and God got a hold of my heart. Reading those posts just left me speechless about how ungrateful I am about my life today. If I didn't have those surgeries, I would have arthritis in my hips today, and I'd barely be able to walk. But because God loves me so much, He revealed by a miracle that I needed surgery.
   I am just so thankful of the life I have right now. God has blessed me with joyous memories and trials that have grown me into a stronger woman of God. I do believe blessings come through trials. I believe God works all things together for our good. This includes our addictions, our failures, our weaknesses, our triumphs, pride, talents, selfishness, and inability. God uses these to refine us like gold in the fire.
   So after I read through a bunch of my old blog posts, I stopped and prayed. Really prayed this time. It wasn't rushed or just prayed to get in some interaction with God. It was the first time I felt like I had finally slowed down enough to mean my prayer. (At 4 in the morning, anyone can feel slowed down enough for pretty much anything.)
   I started praising God for His amazing grace in my life, apologizing for living a life unworthy of what He's given me, and asking for wisdom to discern how to handle the many freedoms I now have in my life.
   What I mean by that is, I've never been thin or beautiful before. I've never had to deal with the temptation that comes with men. I see how much freedom I have with my body, and it's been really hard to remain pure.  When I was heavy, no guy would even look at me the way they do now, so by default I never had to deal with it. With all this freedom, comes so much difficulty. I like the way guys look at me, and sometimes I'm tempted to do really stupid things.
   Now that I'm not recovering from surgery, or in the process of losing weight, waiting to get back into school, or going through life without any friends, I have so much more freedom, so many more choices. I can do so much with my time. When I was stuck and had no where else to go, following God was so easy. Now, I'm dealing with all of the choices that come with freedom, and I'm sinking under the weight.
   ....So I prayed for wisdom and self discipline. I prayed to find my security in Christ alone, and not other guys. I prayed for the Holy Spirit to fill me until there is nothing left of myself. I prayed for the motivation to get up and go to work the next day because it was now 5am, and I would be running on about 5 hours of sleep for the rest of the day.
   After I prayed for that and everyone on my prayer board, I turned on a podcast by Tim Keller about work, based in Genesis, and tried to go to sleep. I drifted off with thankfulness and praise of God on my lips. I just thanked God over and over for all He has done in my life and for who He is. I'm so in love with God. Enough from me. I have to go to work now. God bless.

Proverbs 16:7-9
When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord,
he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.

8 Better a little with righteousness
than much gain with injustice.

9 In his heart a man plans his course,
but the Lord determines his steps.