Not demanding but depending

June 29, 2003
Fourth Baptist Church ? morning service
Alisha Vecter wife of Jeremy Vecter of Maranatha Baptist Bible College

?Good morning,
   It is an extreme blessing, it really is, to be with you, with the music cal as well as this morning. It?s a special blessing because it?s been just recently I have been able to start traveling and singing with my husband. We were here a year ago for Father?s Day. But I?m just still getting better and its such a blessing to be back.
   This coming July 13th my husband and I will be celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary. And we are very thankful for the seven years God has given to us. Though they have been some of the most difficult years of our lives. Some of you may know this but for those of you who don?t I have some severe health problems. When my husband married me he knew he was getting a sick girl. However, I was seeing improvements, and we thought I was on the road to wellness but the Lord had other plans. Shortly after we were married, this has nothing to do with my husband, but I became completely bed ridden. My health declined rapidly, I became so weak I couldn?t walk, I couldn?t brush my own hair, I couldn?t brush my teeth, I was completely under the care of someone else. Focusing was so difficult for me to look around the room, to read, or write, to listen, to do anything was to exhausting. So I pretty much just laid there. And it wasw truely God?s grace that sustained me, but it was also during this time that he taught me many things. And one thing it was to find liberty in the midst of affliction. I want to share that obviously I am getting better, I?m about eighty-five percent well. And its because we finally found that about four and a half years ago that the root of my problem was my jaw. I had a jaw surgery before my senior year at high school and apparently my jaw slid out of place. And because it was right once and then back off my body couldn?t adjust fast enough and my brain and other vital glands and organs started short circuiting and my body started shutting down because of that. And it took five years before we finally found the answer and it was a dentist in Illinois whose been working on my jaw for about four and half years, and I?ve been out of a wheel chair now for two years. And I?m continuing to see improvement; and for those of you who have known about this and prayed, thank you so much, obviously this is an answer to your prayers. And please continue because I want to be one hundred percent, if God wills.
   So what I?d like to share with you, shortly after we found the root of the problem, that?s when I became the most discouraged. By God?s grace I did not slip into depression through the whole illness. And truly it was because of God?s grace and the hope and the promises that I knew that I was in the center of His will and He was in control of my life. However, after I knew that I had the promise of getting better, but it was not going to be a quick fix, (which is what you always hope for), I saw myself three steps forward, two steps back; five steps forward and six steps back. That?s the way of the healing process and I began getting very ?sick and tired? of being sick and tired. I wanted to be well. I wanted to be the wife that I?ve never been able to be. I had little nieces and nephews that were being born and growing up without their aunt to play with them. And basically I was looking more and more on what I wanted and less on what God was doing in my life. And God graciously led me to a Christian lady who helped me see that my focus was on myself and not on God. I lost my vertical focus because I wanted what I wanted. It?s OK to ask but my heart wasn?t just asking, I was pretty much demanding God to heal me. And I needed to see that I could serve Him just as I was. There are many lessons to learn that in affliction its hard to see that God wants you that way. And God wanted me for His purpose and I was pleasing Him just as I was, not by doing but by being. And I needed to remember that true liberty doesn?t lie in the removal of the affliction but in our heart?s surrender to God?s will. I don?t know if theres any of you who are facing physical affliction or maybe some spiritual, emotional, but maybe your heart needs this gentle reminder as mine did. Whether God gives grace by removing the affliction or whether he gives grace to endure it; we must allow this grace to work in and through us by surrendering to Him. In this we find true freedom and true joy and He is glorified".