Ezra...

So today in our daily QT at work, we were reading out of Ezra 1. I don't know about you... but I could've never told you what can be read in the book of Ezra. In my mind I consider it a "lost book" if you will. It's one of those books that I always skip over. I've recently realized that I stick to my favorite books of the Bible and RARELY go beyond them. I've been quite pleased with the QT book we've been going through at CCA because I find that it goes through all those "lost books" of the Bible, and I'm reading and learning so much that I never knew was even in the Bible. I am constantly thinking to myself, "that's in the Bible?? I had NO idea!" It's really made me aware of how little I know the God I call my Everything. I feel pretty vulnerable with this confession, but I've just been really challenged by that. Sorry for the tangent, that's not the point of this story. Back to Ezra 1.

Take some time to read Ezra 1 if you have a minute, it's only 11 verses. Basically, it's just about God's restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem, and really just the restoration of God's people after immense times of suffering and trials. 2 big things I got out of this:

1st, verse two says: ² "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:" 'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah." It just really made me think about how much we need to pray for world leaders like Cyrus. He was completely in tune with the Lord, and did exactly as the Lord asked him to. How amazing would it be to have leaders like this in today's messy world?
2nd, this whole story was just so encouraging, as it paints such a beautiful picture of God's faithfulness to restoring what is damaged and broken. In His PERFECT timing, He restores His chosen people and the Temple of Jerusalem. I was just so encouraged that even though my life has it's messy and broken parts, God is going to be faithful to restore all that was lost. It makes me look at times of trail with a smile, knowing that God is going to show up in bigger and better ways than I could've ever thought in the end. Patience Ashley. Patience.

I'm definitely not a Bible scholar, but this is just one average girl's take on this snipet of God's word... I hope you can be encouraged to wait patiently for the restoration :)

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On a COMPLETELY different note, I had quite an adventure/ordeal at a Korean hospital today that I feel like you should know about....

So basically God gave me rocks in the place of the muscles that should be in my shoulders and neck. I've always dealt with back/shoulder pain, but it's gotten a lot worse in the past year. Then, last week I started having really bad pain in pulses down my arms and into my hands every now and then, usually at night. This really freaked me out, and basically I thought I was dying. I'm seriously turning into a hypochondriac, and it's kind of ridiculous. Anyway. I was telling Caroline about it today, and she said she had gone to a physical therapist here last semester and that she wanted to go for neck pain anyway, so she would take me today. We got to the doctor around 4:30, and after quite a dilemma over the spelling of my name in Korean, I finally was able to have the consultation with a doctor. After telling him my symptoms through my bestie and translator, Caroline, he got very serious. He basically said my symptoms were very serious because of the pulsating pain through my arms. He explained that he was 99% sure that I had a herniated disc in my back that was causing the problem. At this point I was really freaked out because I was pretty sure that's not something I wanted to have wrong with me. I was sent in for about a million xrays and a CT scan to diagnose the problem. As worried as I was, I was actually THOUROUGHLY amused by this whole process. Caroline obviously couldn't go in with me to the testing rooms, so it was just me and the Korean girl who probably lost rock, paper, scissors (how all important decisions are made in Korea) for who had to be stuck treating the foriegner. It was hilarous, because I couldn't understand how I was supposed to position my body for these tests, so she basically was forced to move me around like a rag doll into the positions she needed me to be in. So funny. Poor girl.

After all that, there was some waiting, and then the results. Good news is there was no herniated disc as far as he could tell, bad news is my spine is pretty crooked. However, he was confident that after a few weeks of PT and visits with a chiropractor, it could be corrected quite a bit. I was pretty excited that it wasn't as serious as he thought in the beginning, I'm just praying that all this will give me some relief of all this pain... I'm only 22! I'm way too young to be having so many back/neck problems :(

Finally, Caroline and I headed upstairs to the PT area. This part was pretty much awesomely relaxing. First, we were placed on these massage beds that massage your whole body. Amazing. Next we get connected to these suction cup like things on our hurting areas, and it sends electric shocks into your muscles. Then we are transferred to another room onto these heated beds. So cozy and relaxing. While you're on the heated beds, you're connected to another type of electric pulse machine... I'm not really sure what the difference is. Finally, I saw the Physical Therapist/Chiropractor. That was not so much fun. While he was massaging my neck/shoulders/back I wanted to SCREAM! It hurt SO bad. Then I was twisted and turned and popped in all different directions. This was also super amusing with the language barrier. I feel so bad for the stress I cause these doctors by forcing them to use their VERY limited English....

So yeah. That was my EXTREMELY lengthy evening in the hospital. A simple idea of a shoulder massage turned into quite the ordeal. I'm glad though to be hopefully getting some relief soon. I have to see the PT every other day for the next 2 weeks. That means a lot of time commitment, but I guess I don't have a choice...

Sorry this turned into a novel, I just thought I should give a quick update. Miss you all.

Lyrics for today... SO GOOD. You can listen to it by clicking HERE
"Everything" by Tim Hughes
God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping

God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
You are everything