Praises & other things...

God has performed yet another miracle. My aunt, whom I requested your prayer for back in October, who had 50% of her cells being cancerous (multiple myeloma, one of the worst!!), had a bone marrow biopsy done Friday. The results were made known to her on Monday...
SHE IS CANCER FREE! Now 0% of her cells are cancerous!
How awesome is that??
Some people go through their life not seeing any miracles (or not realizing that they're seeing the miracles), but my aunt gets to BE a miracle....TWICE. What a living testament.

I was cleaning the refrigerator the other day. It was completely filthy...dried crusty pickle juice, kool aid, juice, various fridge cheesery, you name it. Nasty. But I had always put it off as it's hard to empty everything & have it sitting around & having a 1 & 3-year old climbing all over you while you are spraying really strong cleaner.
So, we need food & the fridge was fairly empty & I knew it would be a good time.
So, I sprayed the kitchen antibacterial multi-purpose cleaner. And as I wiped the clear glass shelves off, the fridge seemed even dirtier. I rubbed & scratched on that dried pickle juice, only to expose more filth & the underside of the glass, which had gunk on it I didn't even know existed.
So what started out as me just wiping the tops of glass shelves transformed itself into an even bigger job.
As I wiped & saw more & more filth, I thought of the process of our transformation with God. When we ask Him to cleanse us, it might seem to us that we're just a little bit dirty. But as He sheds His light on us, we're made aware that it's more than just a bit of sin. As that bit of sin is washed away, we begin to see the things that were hidden, some jealousy, a bit of unhealthy competition... maybe some hautiness. And then you see back where the crisper is, maybe a tad of self-righteousness has dripped down, you see a little bit of self-reliance is stuck in the crevaces.
I've been a Christian most of my life, but I'd say that in the past year I've started to see my sin as it really is. Things I struggle daily with... somedays I might overcome them & the other days where I lazily refuse to deal with them.
In Corinthians, Paul tells the church that he dies daily. I'm no bible scholar (& you'd think after a yr & 1/2 of bible college, I might know exactly what he means by this) but I know that Paul had lots of struggle & I believe he refers to putting himself under submission each day.
I always liken everything to food (see my previous post wherein I eat a whole thing of bubble gum ice cream in 2 days time), so for me, forcing my body under submission could mean not becoming a glutton. For some, it's going a day without picking up the phone to call someone & gossip. For others, it'even worst (of course, sin is sin, so me using the word worst there is strictly objective).
But isn't it rather cool that we're able to be cleaned? That in our Christianity beliefs, we're lent this ability to pray directly to God & are forgiven, cleansed & handed tools (Holy Spirit, prayer, bible, other believers, etc.) to deal with our downfalls. And through those tools, we rub & scrape at that dried pickle juice, until we see a gleam.
Now....
on to my oven.