matthew 10:28

Nov 8, 2015

A few years ago when I was dealing with the lump in my breast a dear friend wrote this scripture, Matthew 10:28 down for me.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

It has stuck in my head ever since and helped me to realize that staying alive is not the most important thing (even though it is SUPER important to me to stay alive and raise my babies and lavish nurturing, snuggles, and read alouds on my future grandchildren). Loving God, loving His children, keeping covenants, and becoming like Him are the most important things.

A few years ago, I heard a talk about prayer and the somewhat rote prayers we sometimes say at the end of meetings to “bless us to get home safely.” The speaker talked about how that is a nice sentiment and physical safety is important, but that we need to understand its place in our lives. He told us that we need to be far more concerned about our spiritual safety than our physical safety. Instantly this scripture came to my mind and I decided to focus more on developing spiritually than on merely staying alive.

Since this whole connective tissue blessing/nightmare started, I have been praying to come through it with more faith, more love, more kindness, more patience, more acceptance, and more gratitude and not more bitterness, more flippancy, or more hardness. The reality is, this could kill me. I don’t think it is going to, but it could. People with EDS do die of it. The collagen in their blood vessels finally cannot stay firm enough to effectively transport blood and oxygen and they die. Or their nervous system shuts down. Or they fall and get injured so badly that they wither away in bed. It happens. I don’t at all think that I am that serious of a case, but in the midst of really hard weeks, it does cross my mind, and then this scripture comes to me and I remember that my focus needs to be on becoming like Christ. I am doing all I can to be healthy and strong, but that needs to be my secondary focus. My first focus must be giving God my heart and trusting Him to walk with me and help me become like Him.