Rainy days

Resting in the arms of the Almighty. What a quiet place to rest. Listening to the soft rains outside. It may seem dreary out there but it's preparation for a better day, a greener day. Growth happens under the heavy clouds. The sun is still there and will shine upon us again. Although it is shining on us now or there wouldn't be daylight. Sometimes we warm ourselves in the sun's rays but other times we grow under the cold spring rains. Both are needed to keep things in harmony.

I'm finding myself learning to rest...rest beside still waters. To be still and know God is at work. Fighting for me. Birthing His purposes into being for me. It's easy to get distracted by the busyness and brokeness of the world. It's easy to get down in the grayness of rainy days.

I'm clothing myself in the love of the Almighty.

I find security in Him.

I'm turning in caring what others think of me for who God says I am.

I'm trading in my fears as I wait for His full healing touch to be revealed in my life.

I am honored to rest in the quietness of the beauty of God.

His love and peace surround me like a royal robe.

I am honored to be loved by the King of kings. His love is never failing. He is ever faithful to me. Praise be to God.

I'm in a different season...a necessary season. I write this as I am waiting on the Lord to fulfill many promises He has given me. One being the healing of my body. In the waiting I could so easily get depressed and doubt, just as many of us wonder when we will ever see a sunny spring day. Yet I know the sunshine is coming. Joy is coming. My testimony is far beyond anthing I put in this blog. I'm looking forward to the day I can say all the Lord had done and is doing. He is good. He is faithful.

We can choose how to look at these cold, rainy days. They are either dreary and a pain or they are promises of growth at the dawn of a new season.    

Loving the way Jesus loves

Many months ago I found out about a situation where one of my loved ones was wronged in a way that cut me to the fiber of my being. It really rocked my world but I tried to stay well composed on the outside, walking very carefully in how I dealt with the situation. Honestly, I think it shook my world more then it did the person who was wronged. I dealt with the surface stuff that demanded my attention but because it was causing me so much pain I buried the rest of it. Or so I tried. I knew I should give it to God but that would mean I'd have to go through a process of dealing with the pain and I just had no energy left to deal with it at the time.

I've been carrying unforgivness toward the offender for months now. In the last couple of months I can feel my heart very slowly soften. I could hear the Lord whisper to me that I'm going to have to deal with this sooner or later. He won't allow me to continue to have my heart poisoned by unforgiveness.

This weekend I felt Him working on me about it more. This is what came to my mind.

What kind of a witness am I if I won't forgive someone else for what they've done to me or one of my loved ones. The world is full of vicious wolves ready to tell people how horrible they are. But there are much fewer who are willing to show God's unconditional love, grace and forgiveness to someone who has hurt them down to the depths of their soul.

It's so hard to do. It's so much easier to stay angry. It's so much more convenient...for me... to try and make that person disappear out of my life ...but that's not realistic. It doesn't change anything and it's unhealthy; for you, the offender and everyone who's watching you in your journey of life. I believe we usually underestimate how many lives we touch and how deeply we touch them.

Softening your hear and choosing to forgive is not easy! But we...I can not continue to walk in bitterness. Heaven help me!

My children have a front row seat to all I say and do. How I live speaks to them in ways I don't understand right now. They can either watch my heart continue to harden and be troubled and torn.

Or they can have a front row seat to the power of forgiving what many would see as unforgivable. To witness the love of God move in a family and close the gap of separation and pain that sin brings.

The choice seems obvious on paper. Yet my heart is torn between resistance and obedience, self-preservation and loving as Jesus does. I'm scared to go thru the healing process. To deal with the pain I shoved in some corner of my heart. The cleansing light of the Holy Spirit has a way of bringing us to those places in our heart. This is our Lord's saving grace. His revealing our sin to us gives us the opportunity to grow closer to Him. In the end we will have peace, joy and rest.

Going through the process of dealing with something I tried to bury is hard and it probably will have pain. However it's not so much about choosing to forgive as it is choosing to do what Christ wants me to do. It's about obedience and trusting God every step of the way. Remembering that all the while my sweet Savior will be pouring His healing power over the wound and the pain.

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6

I know that Jesus will never leave me or forsake me. He is ready and waiting to envelope me in His grace.

I choose to forgive but not one my own strength. I wouldn't dare try. My flesh would rather not move but in my spirit I know I must rely on Jesus to help me love and forgive as He does. I must remember that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Ephesians 6:12

I choose to surrender to loving the way Jesus loves.

Getting out of my box

My husband is such an out-of-the-box thinker. Occasionally this has been challenging in our marriage but overall it has been very good for me. Growing up I've always been a rule follower. Show me the list of what is expected of me. I need it concrete, in my hand, so I can know what is and isn't acceptable. They become like boundaries for me. However, it wasn't til after I met and married my husband I realized they also become walls for me.

I love to try and be as efficient as possible with our living space. I do my best to make things look nice with what I have. Not long ago my project was giving me more floor space in the schoolroom so I could arrange the kids' desks better. I kept looking at the schoolroom and could only see a few options. I moved my daughters desk then lay on the floor to stretch out my back. As I did I looked at the ceiling and realized how big the ceiling was. I knew the floor was the same size. Why couldn't I see a better way to organize this room? I prayed, “Lord, help me to see things out of the box here so I can use this room the best way.” Minutes later my husband came in the room and we started talking about how we were going to arrange things. Marc came up with a plan I never would have thought of. It took me a few minutes to rearrange my mind but his idea gave us much more space.

Again as I was reorganizing the schoolroom I was looking to move one of our shelves to the laundry room. There's a huge broom cabinet that was in the laundry room when we moved in. It wasn't fixed to the wall but it was a wall in my mind. Then my husband started saying that he could move the cabinet. “What! That thing is taller then you (and my husband is very tall),” I thought to myself. It was very out of the box for me. I was just planning around it rather then attempting to move it. Marc had no hesitation to move it. In the end he moved it to the opposite wall, rather easily as I cringed and worried the whole time, and it gave me the space I needed to move the other bookshelf there. I have my quiet time in the mornings in my laundry room and I as I was just sitting there, listening to the Lord telling me He hasn't forgotten me in my situation with my health and finances, I noticed the cabinet. What a wall that was for me. How impassible it was to me. Yet my husband did not hesitate and neither will the Lord hesitate to come in at just the right time and move my wall for me, effortlessly though I may cringe and worry the whole time.

                                     “For nothing is impossible with God.” Luke 1:37

Instead of always thinking “No, I can't” I need to remember that even if I can't God can. Will I trust Him to go before me? To move whatever He needs to out of my path or help me climb over if that's the way He wants me to go about it? What we see seems so real and fixed but to God it's temporal and easily removable. Even death was not to big of a thing for our Lord to overcome. Why would I ever fear or worry when God is right there with me? Lord, help me to always remember how mighty and powerful and big you are.

Overweight Christians

I wrote this several months ago but was to afraid to put it on my blog because I didn't want to offend anyone.  The title sounds so harsh to me so I've let it sit. Then I rediscovered it in a computer file I don't usually open (along with several others I haven't finished yet). It's just to good to let it sit in my computer. I need to stop being afraid and share it with you anyway. How ironic, that by withholding this, I made myself an overweight christian. Forgive me Lord for being a people pleaser and withholding what you shared with me.

Several months ago I heard the words overweight christian whispered in my heart as I was in the middle of deciding whether I was hungry enough to eat the PBJ I just made. It certainly got my attention and I began listening closer to what the Lord was trying to say to me. The Lord began to teach me what He meant by those words.

In America we are blessed to have an abundance food available to us. With this blessing, as with all blessings, comes a responsibility to use it correctly and with balance. It is evident in America that there is a growing problem of obesity. The pressure is enormous to stay looking thin and beautiful. Between magazines, movies, television commercials, even radio commercials it's hard to miss the mold the world says you should fit into. There are fad diets, exercise programs, pills, and health warnings among a multitude of other things to try to get you into shape as soon as possible.

Recently I saw this issue in a new light. In America we are also blessed to be able to go to any church or bible study any time we want without fear of harm or putting ourselves in danger. If you're not able to go anywhere there are sermons and seminars on T.V. or the internet. There are radio talk shows that help us with our walk with Christ as well as an overwhelming amount of books. You can find teachings on pretty much any subject out there. These are truly a blessing. Again, with blessing comes responsibility.

We need teaching. We need knowledge. We need to be informed on things, especially on the things of the Lord. Now that we've taken in these teachings, what are we to do with them? We eat physical food so our body has energy to live and move and function properly. We also take in spiritual food to give us spiritual energy to move with the leading of the Lord and to live according to God's way.

Yet when we take in the Word of God then do nothing with it, that knowledge sits there and is not a help for us or anyone else. It becomes stored in our spirit man waiting to be used. If we continue to not let God's Word put us into action, to not examine ourselves and change our hearts or ways according to what God is telling us or if we keep our hands from serving and feet from telling the Good News of Christ, then that knowledge compounds over time and make us slothful and sluggish in our walk with Christ. It can even make us hypocritical, judgmental and legalistic just like the Pharisees who do the actions but have no inward change or result. This is what is meant by the overweight Christian.

Just like being physically overweight the antidote is exercise. Exercise for the long haul, for a lifetime. Consistant and continuous. It's a lifestyle, not just a choice for the moment. Although little choices added together can make a lifestyle.

Just like with any good exercise program you should start by visiting your Dr. When checking with our Great Physician He will tell you exactly what you should and shouldn't be doing. He knows what you've taken in and how to use that efficently. He knows what you haven't taken in and therefore what you can't do at this time because you have yet to learn it. Each of us has a special plan and purpose outlined for us and we need to go to Him to receive instructions. He has your individual plan ready and waiting for you.

Even though our plans are individualized we are all in this together. Having an exercise buddy, also known as an accountablity partner, would be of great help to you.

What we really want is to have strong hearts for the Lord. Hearts that are serving and producing fruit. Hearts that are being doers of the Word and not just hearers of it. Others can see if we are doing this by how we are living our lives. When they know you are for real and doing what the Word says, they to will be inspired to live in accordance with what the Lord has shown them. This gets the blood in the body of Christ flowing. It also decreases tension because you aren't being hypocritical. People know you are true to the Lord.

As we continue to move in the opportunities the Lord gives us, our muscles will get stronger. We will develop a deeper relationship with the Lord and our influence will be greater. All the while remembering we are doing this for the Lord and no one else.

Like the people in Wall-E who got large enjoyed their food and sat in their hovering chairs, they lost their ability to walk. They were so blinded by luxury with their virtual TV right in front of them and robots to wait on them. They didn't even know they had a pool or jogging track. They didn't even realize who was sitting next to them. Their victory came when opposition came and their captain made a choice to get up and take it step by step. So our victory will come when we chose to walk step by step. No longer blinded to the gifts God has given us. No longer oblivious to the wonderful people right next to us. Small as those steps may be in the beginning before long, with strong muscles, we'll be running the race set out before us.