The One About My Wart.

I think its funny that God has taken someone such as myself that used to be so worried about self consciousness and allowed me to talk so openly about such things as bowels and now warts. I really appreciate God's sense of humor in my life. Alot of people with Bowel disease don't even tell people about it because its embarassing. The way I look at it ,you all crap. So I do so 8 to 10 times more than you. What's the big deal?

I used to be so paranoid about every little thing about me. Basically,what people thought of me. I didn't wear shorts for about 10 years because I believed my legs were too skinny to display. Satan tried to attack me in every way fathomable in terms of lack of self worth. I'm seeing now God's humor and plan was so much cooler then my own insecure dillusions. And maybe they weren't even dillusions. Maybe people did have negative things to say about me . Who cares. My friend Dave told me not too long ago one of the most poignant things I have ever heard. I told him I was always worried about pleasing people,doing and saying the "right" things. He said, "It's none of your business if people like you." I try to live by that mantra now. Not with a lack of self awareness,but with a comfort level that if I like myself and allow God to work in my character,the rest will fall into place.

God has taken me so far. Before I got bowel disease I was the most shy person I knew. I would go to teachers in High school and ask to be opted out of oral presentations. If they wouldn't let me , I would often just stay home faking illness that day. I remember the times I did speak in front of class I would stutter and couldn't even get words out. I started to become more secure my Junior and Senior year, but was still very shy in many regards.

When I was asked to coach basketball after I graduated, I said no because I couldn't fathom speaking in front of people consistently. God had other plans and long story short I was led to change my mind, and coach. Thank God I did. Those 8 years taught me so much and brought so many memories to me. Now public speech is one of my favorite things to do when I'm well prepared and passionate about what I'm speaking about.

I could have easily looked at what's happened to me since October 20th,1997 as a bad joke. It was right around the time in my life that I was finally fitting in socially that a pooping disease struck. A freaking pooping disease!!?? Really though? How awful right? I will write in the future about my journey down the road of 50,000 plus bowel movements since 1997. To put that in persepective,you have had about 4700 in that same time.

How funny though when you think about it. The paranoid self conscious kid was forced to deal with bowel disease,going bald at 21 because of medication, having to wear glasses again due to vision breakdown from disease and medication, and the topic of today's blog, warts on my fingers. I believe you have to talk about what embarasses you to make it feasably livable.

Truth be told, I believe "warts" are only so "gross" because the word "wart" is just so unflattering and grotesque sounding. What if we called it " Treading Water in the Ocean", or "Kissing in the Rain?" I bet people wouldn't be as grossed out by them. But the word wart creates its own stigma,and let's be honest,they aren't the prettiest things anyways. But the word itself wreaks more havoc on the immunovirus's attrocity then realistically necessary.

So all that being said, I'm gonna talk about my finger warts. Crohn's disease is basically an idiotic immune system fighting good organs,thinking it's fighting bad bacteria off. Well, from my confused immune system came a immunovirus in the form of one small wart. The first one formed about 5 years ago on my index finger above my knuckle. It started small and I never treated it for years. Eventually a bunch started forming. The original had recently in the last year become so raised,ugly,and big that i covered it with either bandaides,duct tape, or sports tape everytime I went out .

Well......I got really frustrated last week with them. I have tried alot of things to no avail. Freezing ,burning, using salcyllic acid,and cutting them off,among other things. Some of them went away,but then others word form . This original beast of a wart wouldn't budge. So the last few months I havent done much with them out of frustration,and the fact treating them hurts like the dickens (Ha)... so........

2 Saturdays ago I was annoyed, and prayed. I remember praying not in request, but in a way that I truly believed it was already done. I prayed for God to take away my warts,and actually in a moment of complete solace believed it to be fact as I prayed it. It's not easy achieving this level of prayer and it caught me off guard. The 'no doubt prayer' is a challenge because your mind can not fathom God's power with its wordly capacity. The mind is trained to worry,and doubt,and hem,and haw. Really though : Try going thru a day only thinking about God. Just keep saying his name over and over and not allowing yourself to think of one other thing, and see how long you can do this for. I think I did it for 45 seconds once before I started to think about an organic peanut butter sandwich and to worry about my lack of tennis skills. It's really hard. So when I prayed this prayer with unwavering faith ,I was ecstatic that it actually happened.......... And what happened next????????????

Monday morning I woke up and looked down at my finger and the "originator" had disappeared. Now for this to happen without treatment ,after five years of making itself at home on my finger,was so incredible that I jumped up looking for it. I searched my couch (I sleep on my couch because it's more comfortable then any of your beds are), deep and wide. The wart was not there. Now at risk of sounding like David Karesh to any of you non believers out there, I have to say this as truth : God zapped my wart and buried it as I slept, 2 days after praying a prayer in the rarified air of total faith. I look at it now and can't even see the root. There is even an indentation going inward. So it went from outward, awkward, ugly looking wart to inward skin that is a little red and healing,with no signs of any root or substance. Huh? God. Does. Miracles. In . His .Time. And. Within. His. Greater.Plan. ....... Pass me the kool-aid..

To me this was symbolic of something much more. My body has failed me . God knows it. God didn't do it,But God is fully aware of what I am going thru. He doesn't care if i die with a thousand warts on my finger though. My life is pointless if I don't see him and share what I see in him. I think its so cool that he took the original wart and not another one . By the way the others appear to be slowing fading too. But the fact he took the original is just confirmation of his true grace in my life . The years the locusts have stolen are going to be restored. He doesn't want to heal me without fixing the root of all the problems because what good am I if the body is well but the spirit is still rooted in discourse?..It starts with fixing the source of the slow fade.,the first wart if you will. You don't start assembling something in the middle of the directions. You start at one. So symbolically taking the mother wart away overnight after 5 plus years means so much more then the absence of this ugly sucker. Thank You Lord..More please........

Song Link : This song by Newsboys does and will always move me. It's the song that was playing when I got in my car a year and a half ago after My co-worker told me thanks to me praying for his brother ( well he said " keep up that crazy Sh&#!",but you get the point,) ..but after praying for his brother he told me that whatever "crazy Sh*&" I did caused his schizophrenic brother to walk out of his room after 6 months of not leaving it except to use the bathroom, and to come into the living room to watch tv and talk. And he had only told me about his brother because I had told him about my "visitation " from God that night. Another story for another time. But basically this song represents me realizing God was doing miracles and wanted to use me to show others how amazing he really was..This song moves me everytime I hear it,because of what it represented in my life that day in March of 2009,and what it means in the eternal echoing's as well. Read the words as it plays...So powerful......Enjoy,and may your warts be like a kiss in the rain from now on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sDiLPPNKEM