Shrinking and Growing?

      Lots of times through my lifetime of being involved in churches and ministry and Bible college, I have been told to never be afraid to tell my story of what has been done in me through Christ. Those of you that know me well, know that I am not one to be afraid to tell anyone anything about myself ever. I am very forth coming with just about every type of information available, but I've never felt like I had a story of any significance at all to tell. I never had a drug addiction or suicidal thoughts or a drinking problem or slept with multiple people or parents that hated me or anything else. I didn't have a huge moment of when I decided to become a Christian as opposed to living a lifestyle of sin or anything like that. I lived a pretty non-climactic life surrounded by my Christian family and my Christian friends and I chose to follow Christ because it's what the right thing to do was and still is. 

    I have never really thought of myself as a sick person at all, but looking at my medical history, I would definitely fall into that classification. I had 14 hospitalizations before I was 2 (near-miss SIDS, allergic reaction causing my gastrointestinal system to shut down, asthma, allergies, etc, I can't name them all, but my mom definitely could) and a ridiculous amount since them. I've had 14 surgeries (4 surgeries to repair a broken arm, 3 torn meniscus, tonsils and adenoids out (age 3), c-section, hysteroscopy, 4 sinus surgeries including basically an entire rebuild), 3 broken bones, more sprains, tears and strains then I could count and have been diagnosed with 3 chronic conditions (PCOS, Hashimoto's disease, and asthma) and have more allergies then what I could even list if I tried. I am crazy accident prone, but the other side of that is that I have been just a sick person. I never ever thought that the healing from these issues would grow to be my testimony, but I'm thinking that is the way that this is all headed. 

    Last night I was shopping and was talking to two girls who were both extremely extremely overweight and I mentioned that I had lost 28 lbs since this summer and the quick question is "HOW?!" because lets be honest, every fluffy girl wants to be skinny. Every single one ever. If they say they don't, they are lying to themselves and to you. We all want to be healthy. I started sharing with them where I was before June this year. At that moment I realized exactly how sick I was. It is not normal for every doctor you see to honestly know your entire chart without needing to look at it for a refresher. I began sharing with them how we eat, that I exercise regularly and they looked at me like this is something they've heard hundreds of times and were honestly sick of hearing. I then began sharing with them all of the documented objective improvements that I have had health wise and all of the failures I had had in losing weight before and I saw a glimmer of hope for health in them. I saw the flicker of "well maybe this will work" in a string of absolutely hopeless feelings that had been seen in our conversation up until this point. Both of them had similar experiences to mine health wise up until now and were frustrated with the lack of results that they have had. So maybe through this experience not only am I being shrunk and shaped, I'm being grown and toned spiritually and emotionally as well. Maybe God is using this experience for me to be able to give hope to others and to help them find success as well.