Having my ear surgery was painful, but God taught me a lesson through it. A cyst was removed from my middle ear which was causing major problems. If it had not been removed, I would have been in trouble! The removal had to take place in order for it to function normally.

Sometimes God removes things in our lives. He loves us too much to leave us like we are. If He did, we would be headed for disaster! In His grace, He removes our idols — anything that we put before Him. He desires to remove our false thinking and poor attitudes, our self-centeredness and our pride. We all have areas in our lives that need to be removed. Having such things taken away can be painful, but we can be thankful because it has allowed us to see God as our Father! He knows just what we need and will do whatever it takes so that we can be closer to Him.

We don’t have to think about the painful removal; instead, we just need to think about being renewed in Him.

Tracy Traylor is a religion columnist for the Laurel Leader-Call.