Zach's Birthday & Current Pre-Surgery Thoughts

It is Saturday night. Today we celebrated Zach's 30th birthday by going to dinner and out for ice cream. I just adore him. He's been such an incredible friend and part of my life since moving to Houston. He's just a great person and awesome man of God. Everyone should be so blessed to have a friend like him. So, um, yeah, I guess I just wanted the world to know that. :)

Now we are hanging out at his place. Everyone else is playing a game in the other room but I am just not feeling it tonight. Instead I'm listening to the new Hillsong CD "This Is Our God". GREAT CD! I am also writing this post. :)

There is only one full day between me and my hip surgery. I know I've been talking about it for a couple of months now but it still doesn't even come close to being real to me. I am not sure why or when it will hit me.

Am I scared? Nervous? Concerned? Worried?

A little. Not so much about the surgery itself but more about what this will mean for my life. I have only heard wonderful testimonies from people about how their hip replacements changed their lives for the better. Each person's account has been that they wished they had gotten it years before they did and that they would do it again in a heartbeat. Even so I have doubts and questions that won't subside.

What if I am the exception?
What if mine doesn't work properly?
What if mine breaks?
Or wears out quickly?
What if I over work it and pop it out of place?
What if it doesn't make a difference at all and it's all a waste?
What if I don't do the rehab like I'm supposed to and the joint's mobility is no better than it is presently?

Or...

What if it does go well and my entire life is changes?
What will my life look like a year from now?
Will being out of pain and able to be active change me in such a way physically that the person I am inside is unrecognizeable and disliked?
Or will I change and see that people judged me in a negative light thus making me critical of them, allowing bitterness to take root in me?

Yeah, so they are all crazy things that I'm allowing Satan to use to steal my peace. Still the thoughts are there. I suppose even the fact that I'm thinking about them should be enough for me to stand against them even now so as to never have to face them in reality.

It's funny how even good change can be scary. One thing that has really hit me during all of this is that we all too often cling to things in our life that are NOT good or of God just because they are comfortable and familiar. We'd rather live in bondage and torment because it is what we know than to walk in freedom due to the unfamiliarity of it.

The verse in Hebrews is coming to me right now..."let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...". I know it is out of context, but it is still flashing through my mind. Just the fact that we often cling to the things that hinder us rather than throwing them off strikes me. It is active thing we are being instructed to do. It is a choice. We can keep our little fingers wrapped tightly around those things like a dirty little security blanket that gets tangled in our feet and trips us up as we try to walk out our faith or we can release it, fix our eyes upon Christ as our security and RUN completely unfettered to anything of this world.

Yeah. It's a choice. We have to decide that we are ready to let it all go so that we can live out the plans He has for us.

I suppose I should now go and release all of these thoughts in order to run towards the freedom God is going to bring to my life through this surgery. Yeah, I'm tired. I'm going home and will think of all this as I make the drive.