So it’s been a while since I last posted a blog. Life for the past few months has been… well… life. And I was struggling. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. It was hard. It felt never ending. But I managed to put my brave face on every day, which is more tiring than I thought. This is probably why I missed out on so many months of potential blogging. But I’m back and I’ve learned so much in my hiatus that I cannot wait to share. The first has to do with my brave face.

For about 11 months (starting in July of last year), I was dealing with an chronic illness. It was nothing too big or life-threatening. Just a thing I had to deal with, a pain really. It was a small matter, or at least that’s how it probably looked to everyone else. Medically speaking, it was, in fact, a small matter. Take the medicine and deal with it. Nothing big.

But it was kind of big, at least to me. I had never had to deal with something like it before. It was practically my whole world for a year. It consumed me. Every thought, every moment was constantly brought back to the fact that I did not feel well and that was the way it was.

And then I fell into this way of thinking for a while…

Do you ever just feel bad for asking God for stuff? I know that’s stupid and kind of a misguided way of thinking, but I have had that thought. Especially for the little things, like asking God to make my (non-life- threatening, not-too-painful) pain go away. I guess in my head, I want to ask God for big important things, things that help others and bring more good into the world, things that aren’t selfish.

I always feel like I’m being selfish when I pray (no matter how unselfish my prayer may be). So I try to consciously ask for things for other people. I try to ignore the things I want or think I need and pray instead for something I know someone else needs. Yeah. I know it’s stupid to think that God can’t handle both simultaneously with equal attention. He can. I guess I just feel like He shouldn’t have to. Like I want God to focus on their needs and help them because I worry for them.

But in actuality, I know God can do both. He can perform miracles in other countries while soothing my little pain. He can bless someone somewhere else while making me feel better.

However, that’s not my only problem. I also hate asking God to do (little) things for me because I’m afraid I’m asking for something that is against his will, which is a constant mental debate and worry of mine. What if I’m supposed to have this pain right now for a reason far beyond my understanding? What if God is working on something and if he answers my prayer, I’ll be interrupting a grand plan? And we all know God’s plans are for our ultimate good, right? (Romans 8:28) So what if I have to struggle now for everything to be all good later? If that’s the case, I don’t want God to do the little thing I asked now. In fact, I don’t want to even ask God to do it. I don’t even want to put that on his mind.

That’s how my train of thought goes when I have pains from my illness or I’m a little stressed or I have to do something I don’t want to. That’s how I think. And yeah…I know it’s wrong. I know that’s not how God operates. I know he isn’t making me suffer just for the sake of making me suffer. I know that his grand plan isn’t sidetracked by a little prayer. And I know that if I ask God to heal me now and he decides to do it, everything and everyone will be just fine. Because he’s God and he’s got this.

Sometimes though I get a little backwards in my thinking. I take a wrong turn and misrepresent God, particularly in my moments of struggle. In those times, I need to be reminded of who God is and how he moves. So if you think like me sometimes and your daily struggles make you want filter your prayers before sending them up to God, let’s try to remember this:

God is good. God is almighty. God is omnipresent. He can help me with any and everything and at the same time help everyone else. I have to believe him. And most of all, I have to trust him. God’s got this.

Let’s keep reminding ourselves of this.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)