A Love Such As This

How many of you have self-esteem issues? I've had them my entire life. It's hard not to living in today's world, where standards get higher and higher and many people have unrealistic expectations. I grew up being performance based. I just really thought if I could do things well, or appear a certain way, that I would be accepted and loved. I thought I had to earn it. It's what the world teaches isn't it? Reality hits again and again, for me it started rather young. And my God was always there, before I could even understand in what ways He was there.

I remember a movie that was quite a hit in the 70's called "Love Story." The famous line from Love Story was "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Well in real life that's not true. But, when you are loved with an Agape love, that only God himself can succeed at loving you with, that can be true.

You see my friend, there is nothing, absolutely nothing you will ever find like the love of God. It is unconditional, everlasting, eternal, nothing can separate you from His love. It is so huge it extends to the ends of the earth literally, it is beyond compare. "Agape" love is a Greek term that means charitable, sacrificial love. It is generous, it never thinks of itself. What kind of love would sacrifice a part of it's own self to save an ungrateful, miserable people from themselves, so they could spend eternity with a perfect Father? He sent His own son, made of flesh and blood to suffer for us, to take all of our horrible sin, past, present, future onto himself. Have you ever really thought about that, what it must have been like for the Father, for the Son?

This is a love that is not performance based; we do not have to measure up. When we fail, He is there to comfort us and give us strength to get back up and try again, and to redirect us. He never looks down on us, He sees us as we will one day be, not as we are right now. He sees the beauty in us that we cannot.

He knows our frail, weak humanity, He made us this way. God wants us to reach out to Him for what we need. He is happy to help us, and loves for us to acknowledge all that He does. He is my hope and my joy, everyday. Some days He is more my hope and others more my joy. It gives me such peace to know that I have Him always and that what He is preparing for me and for us, is beyond our imaginations. His love in unlike any love any of us has ever experienced. I pray that you will give yourself over to Him fully, and truly know the incredible love He has for you.

There may be people and circumstances in this world that challenge your perception of yourself, but know that you have God and He loves you more than you could imagine loving anyone. He would do anything for you. If you don't believe me, read it in the Bible, it says so!

Ultimate Forgiveness

It's so amazing to me when I hear the stories, the incredible stories of impossible forgiveness. Have you heard them?

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32

There is the story of the little boy who's parents were missionaries. His father was among a group who were slaughtered by a tribe in Equador, yet he grew up to become one of their family. You can see a version of his story in the movie," The End of The Spear." and read more about it here: http://www1.cbn.com/end-spear-true-story

Then there's the story of the mom who's teenage son was murdered by another teenager. After 6 months, she regularly visited the boy in prison and brought him gifts. When he was released, she took him into her home, and later took him as her own son. To read more about this story you can go here: http://mariashriver.com/jack-kornfield-ive-been-thinking-the-heart-of-forgiveness/ 

How can people forgive in such extravagant ways when so many of us have trouble even accepting the relatively minor things that others have done to us? How can you step into someone's life who has hurt you so badly? Perhaps the answer lies at the cross where the ultimate story of forgiveness took place; the story that many gloss over or minimize with the commercial aspects of the Easter holiday. God sent His only son to live to teach, heal and deliver, only to be abandoned and tortured. And he took the most horrible punishment for all of our sins, and still asked God to forgive us for what was done to him.

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13

Jesus isn't just the ultimate sacrifice, but also our example. And when we ask, and are ready to surrender, we are given the grace to be able to forgive things we could not imagine forgiving. I am one who has had to do that. By the grace of God only, for it was Him through me that did the forgiving. That day I was set free from things I didn't know held me captive. My whole life changed.

Forgiveness is an act that in most cases is never known by the person being forgiven. By forgiving, we break the chains of anger, sadness and bitterness that keep us held to the past, and unable to move forward. A counselor once described unforgiveness as going through life feeling like you are juggling balls or carrying a heavy ball and chain all the time! How very exhausting and distracting that is! When we refuse to forgive, we put a roadblock in our own way to true repentance as God tells us more than once in scripture that we must forgive in order to be forgiven.

 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:14-15

I pray that you can meditate upon and reach out to God to help you forgive and be free and then experience the peace that knows no understanding.

In Hindsight

Thirteen months is a long time right? I think it is. Thirteen months is how long it is since my husband's store closed and he was out of a job. Thank God he is part of a union! He was guaranteed a job, so he was reassigned to a part time job 90 miles away. He made enough that it didn't pay to get a temporary job waiting for a job where we lived and that is how we lived for quite a while. Meanwhile, the roof fell in. Not just figuratively as in everything seemed to go wrong, but literally as in part of our roof just fell in! Not only did it fall in, but because it was due to a faulty repair of the people who owned the house before us, our homeowner's insurance did not cover it. My health got worse, we had family illness to deal with, pipes burst, you name it and it happened.

We prayed and we prayed. People would say "I'll pray for you" and "You're in a hard season," and being the Christians that we are, we just kept going, sucked it up and had occasional meltdowns. Thank God we have our faith! What this "hard season" did for us was to bring us closer to God in a way we haven't been before. It made us focus on Him in new ways. And more than anything, it made us realize what is truly important.

When jobs didn't work out, and the savings was just about gone, we felt times of weakness and despair. Where was God? Why hadn't He answered? What did He want from us? Questions swirled around in my head. As my faith was worn down, and my strength became weakness, the most incredible thing happened. I was lifted in a way I hadn't been in a long time. I surrendered completely and was functioning fully in God's strength, feeling a renewal of hope and joy. I would wake and He would replenish my cup. He would fill my emptiness. I did not realize the striving I had done until I had no energy to strive with. Sometimes we need to get to that place of desperation to give it all to Him!

Are you in that place of need and desperation? I invite you to get on your knees and lay it down to the One who will take it and make You new. Even if you have done this before, you can do it again. You are so loved, and the Lord wants to give you the best of Him. Look at the ultimate sacrifice He made of His own son for each of us! You can trust Him with it all, and in return receive the peace than knows no understanding. I know I did.

And regarding the job and my health: my husband's company created a new full time position for him that wasn't there. I had surgery and am doing better than I have been in a long time, and the roof is no longer falling in! God is so good, and He uses everything for the good!

In Whom Do You Trust?

Trust has always been a scary word for me; many would say with good reason. From the time I was a little girl, I had my trust violated. I grew up on an inner city block with the tough girls, but I wasn't one of them. I was always gentle and afraid of hurting people, so I was the one that got hurt. As a teenager in the suburbs, I was the victim of crime at fourteen years old. So who did I put my trust in- me! 

I grew up in church and I knew all about Jesus, but it wasn't until I was an adult that I actually knew Jesus. With a mind and a heart that was so afraid of losing control, it was so difficult to trust in God. Surrender only seemed to come in desperation. Does this sound familiar? Trust and faith are very hard things to achieve. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus tells his followers that if they had the faith of a mustard seed, they could tell a mountain to move and it would. 

Life happens, so of course over the years, the trust issues accumulated. This is something I have worked on for a long time. When I was a single mother, control was the word of the day. Self control may be a virtue, but we will never have control over everything. Having control is truly an illusion; at best we may feel in control. 

Through prayer and study of the Word, I am finally getting to the point of really putting trust in my Lord and Savior. I can honestly say I have true faith. This is something that I asked Him to help me with and He really has. 

Isn't it incredible to think that we can go to God and ask Him to help us do what He wants us to do and He will? Through looking back at all the times I needed Him and He got me through, I realized how faithful He has always been. He has never forsaken me. He has always loved me with no bounds, He has always helped me. Most of all, I have things in my life that have been resolved with no explanation, and I know that it was from Him. He showed me how much I can trust Him and put my faith in Him!

Oh what a wonderful God I serve! I lay my burdens at His feet every day. It is so freeing to not carry that weight anymore. I trust Him with it all. Sometimes I take those burdens back and I have to do it again. It's a process that hopefully will lessen over time. I never thought I could trust like this, but through Him and with Him through me I can. Not only do I trust in the Lord, but He has been healing the trust issues as well. 

My trust used to be in me, now my trust is in God. In whom do you really trust? 
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Reprint from 5/2016
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Sometimes I Wish

Sometimes I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. You set impossible standards for yourself. I see in you the person you dreamed you would be. I see the things you never thought you could do, how many obstacles you have gotten past and how many times you have overcome.

Sometimes I wish you could stop for a bit and revel in how far you have come. I want you to look back and see where you were. Remember the person you once were and cherish the incredible person you are now.

Sometimes I wish you could see past the brave, confident woman I try to portray myself to be and know that I am not much different than you are. I learned to be a fighter, I didn't have a choice. I have a perfectly molded mask I wear when the need is there. Sometimes I don't know when to take it off. That's when I wish I was more like you.

Sometimes I wish there wasn't a reason to learn all I did, as a lot of that learning came from a lot of pain. When I remember, I can feel the sharp edges of emotion like a perfect storm descending upon me from different directions. I don't believe in regrets or what if's- but sometimes I wish I could write my own story from the beginning; starting fresh with blank white pages.

Sometimes I wish all of these things, and then I realize, once more, that I am who I am meant to be, and so are you. The person who I am is a culmination of the experiences I have had, what I have learned from them and how God used it all to shape what is now a life full of meaning and purpose. Through it all, God left me with a soft heart, so I could know others' pain and support them through. I stand up for what I believe in and I fight for others who cannot fight for themselves. Yet I still have this soft heart, and when I pay a price for standing up and stepping out, it can hurt a lot. Sometimes I wish my heart didn't feel so heavy, but I praise God that it is full. I can say that I have really lived, I have known such deep pain, but I have also known incredible feelings of joy. I think back to C.S. Lewis' "Shadow Lands," the story of his own life. C.S. Lewis played it safe for many years, until the American poet Joy Gresham stole his heart. The story is one of finding true happiness; the love of a lifetime, and also of suffering the devastating loss of that love. We risk pain every time we try, every time we step out. I love his quote that pain rouses a deaf world.

And so, I wish for all and for myself, that you are brave enough to step out, open enough to dance with the wind, wise enough to step slowly but deliberately, patient enough to take one step at a time and to always remember that it isn't the destination, but the journey that matters. My journey is like climbing a mountain. Walking with my Savior and helping others in their fights is an uphill climb. How amazing it is finding that beautiful place where one can rest and look out, to see a breathtaking view. In my weakness and humanity I wish so many things, but then, I look up, find I am a little closer to Heaven, and thank God for that mountain view.
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Reprint from 2012