Overwhelming Weight and Sufficient Grace

For years I lived in an oppressive situation.  Struggling for air,  I fought to keep my head above the water that worked to swallow me whole. I almost drowned.  In a situation that felt hopeless and dark my determination to survive brought me to a place of brokenness in a way that only Jesus could restore.

Years later, I am finding myself yet again facing great amounts of oppression but this time it is a spiritual attack.  An attack with an overwhelming weight looking to crush and destroy.  The devastating blows of these spiritual attacks leaves me nowhere else to go but my knees. 

The enemy wants me.  He wants my marriage, my family, my ministry and each of those things which God has placed before me to live out according to His purpose for my life. This is my reality. 

Daily it is an exhausting battle as I struggle to do the right thing but fear and doubt flood my mind leaving me to question whether I am strong enough to fight against each attack. 

My faith is so much stronger than what it once was but I recognize my own weakness.  Though failure is not an option, I am still susceptible to the attacks.

  With each fiery arrow released in my direction, my spirit weakens.  In my own strength, I am vulnerable.  On my own, I cannot fight this continued battle and win. 

The difference in the person I am today and the person I was years ago is that I recognize the power of the enemy when I am vulnerable. I acknowledge in ways that are so evident to me today that in order to win this battle, I have to surrender every aspect of my life into the hands of my Heavenly Daddy.

He is longing to fight for me.  He is waiting for me to look up at His face and say, “I can’t do this!”  He longs to rescue me, to stand on the front lines of my battle and fight for me! 

The words echo through my head…

The Eternal your God is standing right here among you,

And He is the champion who will rescue you…

Zephaniah 3:17

Now in my weakness, I call upon the only One who can rescue me from the grasp of my enemy.  The one who seeks to devour my life.  The life that Jesus traded for His own.   The enemy lurks around each corner and he is waiting to steal, kill and destroy every good and perfect thing God has placed in my life. 

But I know, this battle belongs to the Lord!  I know this war is raging in the spiritual realms and my enemy wants nothing more than to declare my weakness before my God. 

But not today! Today, I surrender.  I will overcome but it won’t be because of anything that I do.  My victory will come at the hands of my Heavenly Daddy whose grace alone is sufficient for me!  And it is only His grace that gives me the strength I need in my darkest and weakest moments.  (2 Corinthians 12:9)

There is victory!  Jesus won the battle when He defeated death but now I must trust Him enough to fight this battle for me. 

Hey, Death!  What happened to your big win?

Hey, Death!  What happened to your sting?

Sin came into this world, and death’s sting followed.  Then sin took aim at the law and gained power over those who follow the law.  Thank God, then, for our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, the Liberating King, who brought us victory over the grave.

1 Corinthians 15:55-57

A Broken Angel, A Shattered Heart and One Extravagant Christmas Miracle

 Constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Living in a state of anxious thoughts that God can’t bless me.  I cannot be this happy.  I am divorced. My home is broken.  God is angry with me.  He doesn't want me.

Because of a bad decision, a sin I committed at the age of 15, I lived many years dealing with the consequences.  I also lived believing God was angry with me and had no true purpose for my life.  I lived my life wanting to serve Him and did so in hopes of gaining His approval. Wanting His love. But never feeling worthy.  I felt my life could not be used because of my sins.  My past haunted me daily.  

Almost six years ago I embarked on a journey down a very dark path that drew me closer to Jesus.  As I was cast out by a church and turned away by friends and family, I learned what following Jesus truly meant.  I learned how to listen to His voice and follow His leading.  For the first time, I embraced His love and understood and accepted His grace.  

When you make a choice to go against the beliefs and advice of others and hold fast to what you know to be true, you expose yourself to great challenges.  Defying another, especially a pastor, leaves you vulnerable to enormous ridicule and loneliness.  When you make a choice to follow the Holy Spirit as He leads, you don’t always win the favor of those around you.  

That was me.  I had spent hours and hours upon my knees in prayer.  Praying for so many things.  Looking for answers.  Looking for change.  When the Spirit began moving in my life and I stood up against those who attempted to manipulate me into following their voice, I faced severe consequence.  But those consequences changed my life forever and grew my faith in ways I never thought possible.

I was left totally on my own.  My church, my friends and certain family abandoned me.  They cast me aside.  At the time, it was devastating.  It was heartbreaking. But now it has become one of the greatest blessings and lessons in my life.  

God taught me to trust Him in all things.  Even when it seemed all hope was lost and I felt like I was sinking, He was there.

When you are dealing with storms, often through the darkness, God parts the clouds and gives you a beautiful glimpse of His love.  In dark moments He reveals to you those things or people in your life you need to separate yourself from but also those you need to pull closer.  He provides when all hope feels lost and emptiness is overwhelming. I experienced those moments. They became precious and intimate gifts from my Heavenly Daddy as He made His presence known in my life.  

When the gossip spread that I was running from God, having an affair, and had walked away from my faith, He intervened and revealed Himself in mighty ways.  From simple messages from those who loved me to finding bags of groceries at my front door, His presence was undeniable.  From each verbal attack from those who questioned my character and made me doubt myself, God spoke into my heart and reminded me I was His and He had great plans for me. Though others walked away, His presence never left me.  His arms were always there to hold me up as He embraced me with His love.

The past couple of years have been amazing.   God has blessed and provided for my children and me in more ways than I can write in one post.  But this Christmas He sent me a precious reminder. Many months ago, my daughter broke something of mine that was very special to me.  It was something from my previous life that held a significant place in my heart. It had served as a reminder of God's faithfulness through my trials and storms.  The day it broke, my heart shattered.  But God.  

On December 1, 2012 God gave me the most wonderful blessing I had had in many years.  He gave me my husband. Some know our story, others have formulated their own version but to summarize, we were two broken people, God redeemed and gave to one another.  My husband is my dream come true.  This Christmas God used him to remind me of His restoring love.  

Unbeknownst to me, but not my boys, my husband had collected the pieces of my broken angel and was determined to repair the damage. He spent months gluing back the many broken pieces. Each time I left the house (which was rare) he would pull out those pieces working to repair what I had lost.  Behind the scenes he worked to restore the brokenness.  

On Christmas morning, as I pulled the angel out of the bright red bag, overwhelming joy flooded my heart.  As I took it all in my mind immediately went to the love of my Heavenly Daddy.  For years my shattered heart laid a broken mess.  Broken and unraveled, I needed fixing.  

But God.  He scooped up all my broken pieces and one by one began putting them back together.  It took time allowing for the “glue” to dry. It took great precision as each piece now fit a little differently. And some were no longer needed. Things didn’t go back the way they had once been but instead fit together in a new and more beautiful way.  

He took the entire broken and shattered mess I had become and turned it into a masterpiece that became a display of His restoring love and grace.  A magnificent portrait of His faithfulness.  Just as my husband restored my angel.

My husband is a beautiful reflection and reminder of God’s love and faithfulness.  His love is something I have never experienced.  Each day because of his love for me, I get a taste of how my Heavenly Daddy loves me.  So complete and selfless.

I look at my life and see what others do not.  Many feel pity for my children and sadness for what we’ve endured. Heavy hearted because they come from a broken home.  But God has shown me something different.  Each time my children smile and laugh, I am reminded that God restored our broken home.  He put together all the broken pieces of our lives and gave us something beautiful.  A home full of love.  A home where He is welcome. He took our shattered broken mess and turned it into a extravagant tapestry of His love and grace.

How enduring is God’s loyal love;

the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion.

Here they are, every morning new!

Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day.

Have courage, for the Eternal is all that I will need.

My soul boasts, “Hope in God; just wait.”

It is good,  The Eternal One is good to those who expect Him,

to those who seek Him wholeheartedly.

It is good to wait quietly

for the Eternal to make things right again.

Lamentations 3:22-26

God, a box and a slippery slope: No room for grace

I am divorced and remarried.  In my younger years my feelings on those topics varied greatly from where they do today.  I used to judge the divorced and saw them as ungodly. Their story did not matter to me. My focus was the choice made to walk away from a covenant put together before God.  I was judgmental and ignorant.  

I love people with all the answers. Everything in their world seen as black and white.  No room left for error.  No room for grace. Sadly I must admit, I used to be that person.  

As someone who spent the entire first half of her life believing that divorce was an abomination against God, I will be the first to admit my own ignorance.  I grew up assuming, from what I was told, divorced people were not in God’s will and could not be blessed.  I heard, accepted and preached it. I put God in a box and did like many people, used it to manipulate and control.

You see for years, my God was not big. The God I followed could easily fit into a box. That has changed. You may be asking where exactly I am going with this. Here’s the thing, over the course of the last few months, I have come upon several discussions over sin and what constitutes sin.  From there the discussions turned into who can commit what sin and truly be saved. I got caught up in the discussion and started measuring sin which in my opinion is a slippery slope. Those discussions served as a distraction.  They kept me from what is truly important.  Following Jesus.

So all this "discussion" turned into distraction led me to doubt.  Not in my faith but the people of my faith.  Wondering who I should follow.  Questioning my allegiance and loyalty. Am I too wrapped up in following people?   With that said, I’ve spent a great deal of time asking for direction and discernment. During this time, John 3:16 has played repeatedly in my head.  The words, “whosoever believeth in Him should not perish” have played over again like a song on repeat.  

I grew up in church.  The first verse I remember memorizing was John 3:16, and it was the King James version.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only  begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

To this day, I remember that verse word for word.  It has been so hidden away in my heart, surprisingly enough, I often forget the words and their great gospel message. 

So now I am going back to the start.  Back to the essentials of my faith.  

God made a way when He sent Jesus. He loved us so much He gave up the life of His Son to save us even in the midst of our sinful ways. John 3:16 tells us that if we believe in Him, we are His. Believe what?  God is Holy and Jesus is the Son of God. We are sinners separated from God and in need of a Savior. Jesus lived a perfect life. He took our sin and our punishment when He was nailed to the cross.  Three days later, He rose from the dead. 

If we believe those things while placing our faith and trust in Christ alone for forgiveness and repent of our sin, we are born again and become a child of God. The “basics” of my faith.

So as of today, I am walking away.  I am turning away from those who “believe” they have God figured out.  I am going back to my Bible and I am going to follow Jesus.  To read His words, His teachings and follow His Truth while I seek after His will for my life.  A fresh start.  I spent years of my life following the teachings of men and trusting their interpretations of scripture as gospel truth but it ends today.  I want to know Jesus.  To follow Him more intimately.  To do that I have to seek Him with my whole heart and allow the voices of the world to fade away.  

My journey begins today.  I challenge you to turn off the world around you and focus solely on His voice.  It’s time to meet with Jesus.

Come thou fount: Blessings and Backwards Thinking

Spend much time in a church setting and you’re likely to hear the phrase, “he/she/they are so blessed.”  I grew up hearing that phrase used repeatedly.  If people had money and/or nice things, “they were blessed.”  I grew up with the idea that people with stuff were under God’s  “favor.”

Imagine my surprise at 30 when I realized that the “stuff” in my life was not the real blessing.  My stuff at the time consisted of a half a million dollar home, a sports car, a luxury mom mobile and the opportunity to purchase whatever I wanted.  I believed that I was “blessed.”  How could I not?  Every person who walked through the doors of my home verbally reminded me how “blessed” I was.  Really?  Then why was I so incredibly unhappy.  Why did my life feel empty?  

Now I believe there are those who are financially blessed.  People who have made God the center of their world and are faithful to follow Him wholeheartedly.  I believe He (financially) blesses those who are good stewards and generous with what they have.  Those not pretending to have and be something they are not.  

In my past life we spent money recklessly and obtained it in deceptive ways.  The “blessings” in my life were acquired in ways that would not have pleased God.  It took time to realize what was happening.  But God lifted the veil and revealed why I felt such misery. Stuff did not equal joy.  Stuff satisfied for a brief time and then faded.  I wanted more.  I heard the voices telling me I was blessed.  I believed the voices because of what I saw but the feelings did not line up to the words.

As time passed God began showing me how backwards my thinking about blessings.  At 35, smack dab in the middle of a divorce,  I had no home, no car and no stuff.  I was happy.  What?   That could not be possible.  Especially in the world in which I lived.  The people whom I surrounded myself with at the time all believed stuff meant God had blessed our lives.  Were we wrong?  Ask God and He’ll answer.

It did not take long to see the true blessings in my life as I began to experience joy.  I finally understood contentment from walking with Jesus. It didn’t mean an easy life.  In fact, as I began making hard choices, I realized the difficulty in following Jesus.  It meant making choices that didn’t go with the natural order of the world.  It meant making hard choices causing pain and fear.  But I realized those dark patches and trials created intense moments of growth.  

As my faith in God and obedience to His calling increased the joy and happiness I experienced increased as well. I learned when I was down to nothing, He provided what I needed.  When all seemed lost, He saved the day.  God began moving in my life and I reaped the true blessings of following Him.  Blessings of grace, streams of mercy, peace, joy, hope and His redeeming and rescuing love.  Blessings that brought more to my life than anything else ever had and it was amazing!

I had a lot of bad “blessings” in my previous life.  Many “things” and people had to go.  In the beginning letting go proved difficult.  It was hard to let go of what I had been told was God’s blessing.  But as His true blessings were revealed, my heart leapt with thankfulness at His faithfulness in all things.  I have learned to cherish those who understand love and grace.  Those who understand His true blessings.  I have learned to cherish those things He has provided to care for my children and me.  An amazing marriage to a man who loves God and puts my needs before his own.  A home that provides all we need and does not drain me of my joy.  A car that though it is on its last leg continuously carts us back and forth to school, church and wherever else we need to go. (not to mention taught me a lot about prayer :-)  And for the first time in my adult life, friendships that go deeper than the surface.  Relationships where Jesus is at the center and true joy is found.

I can be honest and admit there are days when I wish we didn’t struggle to pay a bill or we could take the kids on a fancy vacation but God.  But God so sweetly reminds me of the tremendous blessings He has bestowed by a simple gesture from my husband or an act of kindness from a friend and then tears of joy flow for the blessings I have finally found.

But blessed is the one who trusts in Me alone;

the Eternal will be his confidence.

He is like a tree planted by water,

sending out its roots beside the stream.

It does not fear the heat or even drought.

Its leaves stay green and its fruit is dependable no

matter what it faces.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Obstacles and old signs: Freedom from a failed system

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:32

God is setting me free from my
past. He is breaking the chains of
the obstacles that I once found as my security.  Obstacles standing in the way of God being my Father. I am on a new road still surrounded by old signs. God is making it clear those old signs are nothing more than myths to prop up a failed system.

I used to believe that suffering was a sign of God's disappointment in my life.  I'm learning that suffering often indicates something different. It is a new work being done so that I am free to experience Him more deeply and follow Him faithfully.

Walking by faith and following Him is not easy. It means going against the grain which means my circumstances will not just fall into place and line up to the journey I am taking. There is resistance at every turn.  So God must teach me how to walk with Him.

Only through His teaching and my brokenness along with total surrender am I able to experience His great joy and peace.

God will always provide the right direction. He knows me better than anyone else and knows my needs better than anyone else. He provides better than anyone else. 

He is bringing me into a life aligned with Him. Instead of rescuing me from the things I'm having to endure, He chooses to use every trial and circumstance to show me what true faith, true freedom and life really are when I live a life surrendered.

God is leading me on an incredible journey. It is more amazing  than anything I can imagine. By following Him in obedience, His work in my life will not only astound and amaze but bring glory to His name.

Evil and goodness: The cry for revenge

Feelings.  We women have a plethora of feelings.  Our feelings can drive us in all sorts of crazy directions.  Sometimes when we are dealing with hurt, it is incredibly hard to rein those feelings in and look for truth at the heart of a situation.

Every second of every day, evil is at work.  Not a minute passes by that evil is not attempting to trip us up or get us tangled in the mess that feelings can bring.  When we are hurting, human nature cries for revenge.  We want payback.  We want to see someone get what is coming to them.  Those feelings can drive us to do evil things.  That is where truth steps in and we let go of feelings.

Romans 12:21 says that we are “not to be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good.”  Not particularly the thing in which we want to do when we are hurting.  It is much easier to lash out. It feels good to get those feelings out.  In that moment anyway.  Later when conviction sets in, we realize what we have said or done to hurt another and begin feeling worse. Suddenly our troubles have grown.  We have created quite the mess.

There is a reason why we are told to overcome evil with good.  There is a reason why we are told in Ephesians to be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. (4:32)  When we walk a life professing to follow Jesus, we are to promote peace, kindness, love and forgiveness.  When someone has wronged us, we are  to turn the other cheek.  We are to follow the example set for us by Jesus.  If we want forgiveness from God then we must offer forgiveness to others. Personally, it frustrates me.  It is hard when my family is constantly being hurt. Truthfully, I am tired of being bullied.  I am tired of people who use their power to abuse others.  However, I follow an awesome God.  He sent His Son to give up His life for me and so I choose to be a reflection of His Son.  I choose to forgive and do good. I choose to overcome evil with good and God blesses when we choose good.  

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.

Galatians 6:9-10

A man, a fish and a second chance: What happens when we run?

Do you believe in second chances?  What about the Creator of Universe giving second chances? Arguments go both ways but for me, I am a die hard believer in the fact that God does give second chances.  In fact, I am living breathing proof that He is the giver of second chances.

Whether you grew up in church you are probably familiar with the story about a man named Jonah and his encounter with a large fish.  You may not know the details but you’re familiar with the points.  Let me give you a quick synopsis.  

• Jonah was a prophet chosen by God to speak on His behalf
• Jonah was told by God to travel to Nineveh and deliver a message that He would destroy the city.  Nineveh was a wicked place and the fiercest enemy of Jonah’s people.
• Jonah boards a ship and “runs” in the opposite direction towards Tarshish.  A city as far to the west as any Israelite had ever traveled.
• The ship encounters a horrible storm in which the lives of the sailors on the ship are threatened.  The sailors ask Jonah to call out to his God and ask for favor.
• Jonah admits to the sailors that the storm is his fault as he is running away from God  and volunteers to be thrown overboard in order to save them.
• The sailors are terrified to throw one of God’s people overboard and attempt to row back to shore but fail.  They finally throw Jonah off the ship.
• Jonah does not die but instead is swallowed by a large fish and stays there for three days and three nights.  
• While in the belly of the fish, Jonah cries out to God and thanks Him for saving him from  being swallowed up by the sea.  Jonah has a change of heart and chooses to obey God’s command to go to Nineveh. The fish “spits” Jonah out right back where he started.
• God comes to Jonah a second time.  Back to the place he first started and God gives Jonah the exact same message: Go to Nineveh and give them my message.
• Having learned his lesson the hard way, Jonah travels to Nineveh.

Wow.  Quite the story.  Hard to accept? A man being swallowed by a fish?  Maybe.  But I consider it to be true.  I also believe it to be a beautiful story of second chances.  An amazing story of God’s grace and redemption.  

How often do we hear God’s voice and walk in the opposite direction due to fear or pride?  I know I have on more than one occasion.  I have allowed fear to take the reins and lead me down into the belly of the fish. A place where I felt all hope was lost until I cried out to God to save me.  And He has.

It is easy to get lost in this crazy world.  There are so many wrong turns we can take, each leading us down a winding path of chaos and destruction but there is also a pathway leading out.  Residence in the belly of a fish does not have to last forever.

Nineteen years ago I was married for the first time.  I made a choice for myself.  I thought it was the right choice.  I thought I was doing the right thing.  Do you see the “I” in each of those statements? The “I” was my downfall.  For as much as I wanted to be doing the right thing, I was  far from it.  At twenty, I had been living in the belly of the fish for many years.  Unlike Jonah, I was unaware because my relationship with Jesus was distant.  I knew Him and “followed” Him the way in which I understood, but it was not with the entirety of my life.  I lacked the understanding of giving Him complete control and surrendering everything to Him.  Choices and all.  At the time, my understanding of God’s will was lacking.  

When I got married, I married believing it was forever.  Divorce was not an option and did not exist in my vocabulary.  Even knowing I was not where God wanted me, I recognized I had to endure the consequences of my choice. And so I forged ahead and accepted the path I had chosen.

One of the greatest discoveries for me in my thirty nine years of existence is this: When we are a follower of Jesus yet choose to go our own way without Him, we will fail.  No matter how hard we try, how much work we put into the fight, if we go at it alone, we will not succeed.  God cannot fix what is broken if we will not release it to Him.  

We also cannot force someone else to “be fixed” or to choose Jesus.  It is unfortunate and sad when Jesus is not in the picture because all hell breaks loose. Things falls apart and when you are left hanging by a thread, sometimes you have to let go and trust.

That was me.  Sitting in the belly of the fish crying out to God asking for clarity and direction.  I wanted to be rescued.  I desired to be right where He wanted me.

What a revelation when you realize that God allows things to happen in order for you to find Him.  He shakes us up to expose what is truly in our heart. He allows us to make our own choices.  We are not His puppets.  We choose whether to go left or right completely on our own.  If we choose wrong, we face the music.  We fight through the consequences.  We get swallowed up by the fish and God waits.  

Then through our tears and repentance, He rescues.  He picks us up and sets our feet right back where we were before we took that wrong turn and says, “Let’s do this again. But this time, let’s do it My way.”

Think of Jonah. He ran in the opposite direction.  God chose him to deliver this great message that would save a people group and he ran. His disobedience led to consequences that involved spending three dreadful days in the smelly darkness of a fish. However it led to a heart that softened to God’s purpose for his life.  For Jonah, the fish was the provision that saved his life and led to a complete redo.  Back to square one. The opportunity to say yes a second time.  WOW!  A second attempt to be used by the Creator of the Universe.  To be a part of His story.  

For me, my redo became me saying “I do” a second time.  The opportunity to find love and to experience marriage the way in which He designed.  To love like I have never known.  To be loved in a way that I cannot put into words.  To walk each day with my best friend as we share God’s love with those in our life.  He has given me a purpose and message to share His love and grace while offering hope to those who have none.  To continue telling His story of second chances.

Second chances are real.  God DOES give second chances when we choose to trust His hand and His leading.  He does not give up on us when we’re ready to give on ourselves.  He extends His grace and pours Himself into us making us usable.  Our mess can become His message if we say yes!

  

 

Tears, puffy eyes and broken hearts: Need to be rescued?

I am writing this while my heart is heavy.  It’s hurting.  I do not normally write when I feel this way but today is different.  

I typically spend my days attempting to find ways to encourage others through things I write. I try my best to be positive and thankful always looking for the good in things.  But days come when even I have a hard time finding the “happy” moments. Today I’m writing from a real place. Today I hurt.

I feel rejected and unloved.  Left out and tossed aside. Unimportant to those around me. Hurting is tiring but keeping it all inside is exhausting.

God already knows my heart.  He knows how I’m feeling.  He knows the origin of the hurt.  The tears I’ve cried.  He’s recorded every one and so there is no need to pretend with Him.  

You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each on in your book.

Psalm 56:8

Today I’m allowing Him the room to comfort and console. Allowing Him to touch those sensitive places in my heart that I try to hide from everyone else.  I often try to conceal the wounds that cut deep and leave me vulnerable but today I am going to release them.  

Today I am resting in His promises.  Today I am trusting in His unfailing love for me.  Though others may find me less important or expendable, He cherishes me.  He loves me.  He in fact sings over me.

For the Lord your God is living among you.

He is a mighty Savior.

He will take delight in your with gladness.

With His love, He will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

Zephaniah 3:17

Not every day can be filled with butterflies and roses.  Some days involve tears and puffy eyes.  Some days I have to remove the mask and trust that God is present and working through the hurt in my life.  Some days I need to let the tears fall. Some days I am brokenhearted.

No matter your hurt.  No matter the pain you feel, God loves you. His love quiets and comforts. He is close to those whose hearts are broken.  Don’t be afraid to cry out in your loneliness or pain. He is closer than you know and listening ready with arms wide open to rescue your broken heart.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;

He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Psalm 34:18