Lesson Turned Discipline

God has given humans the unique capacity to observe their own thoughts.  Resulting in the possibility to monitor our thoughts and make choices about out thoughts.  “Worry is largely a matter of thinking about things at the wrong time” ~ Sarah Young from Jesus Today.  

I often subscribe to the philosophy that where matters of the heart and mind are concerned, timing is everything.  Thirty years ago when I was going through a heart breaking gut wrenching divorce and custody battle I would find my stomach growing into  knots.  I soon learned to stop and consider what I was thinking about at the time when I would feel this physical pain in my stomach.  99.9% of the time I was reflecting on mean words spoken to me or by me, jealous thoughts of the “other woman”, hateful acts, etc. 

I made a conscious effort when I would catch myself thinking about these things, to start singing praises to God.  By this time in my life I had been a Christian for about 10 years.  And since I love to sing, I had learned a lot of praise songs over the years.  And there were a few short stanzas I would sing over and over, many times through tears, many times with voice breaking because of the raw emotion I was feeling at the time.  By doing so each and every time my spirit was lifted out of the miry den of self absorption to a higher plane of God focus.  At first this praise discipline would result in only minutes of higher relief, but with lots and lots of practice it became second nature to praise God in song when feeling hurt and pain. 

 

Eleven months ago my adult son passed away 10 days after receiving a heart transplant.  The new heart did not give out; his weakened body succumbed to a massive infection that  quickly fought all antibiotics.  I was at home in my pjs at 10pm when I got the call from my daughter that Byron was dying.  Nurses and doctors had been performing CPR for over 25 minutes at this point.  After being advised by the doctor that it was time to let Byron go, I hung up.  My husband was 250 miles away; my other daughter and her husband were at the hospital.  I got dressed, headed to the hospital 40 minutes a way. 

During that 40 minute drive I went into default mode after years of discipline training and sang praise songs to God.  I knew this was my only survival.  Who knew that a lesson - turned discipline - 30 years prior would be my survival kit to get me through the darkest night of my life?  God knew.