Task Accomplished!

Being the child of an abusive alcoholic, I was never really taught how to receive or give love.  I’ve spent the majority of my life looking for love in all the wrong places and trying to earn the love of others.  Other than loving my mother and my siblings I think my first experience with truly loving someone was when I held my first child for the first time.  For months after she was born I was overwhelmed with the emotional attachment.  I had never experienced anything more powerful. When I was pregnant with my second child, for months prior to her being born I was concerned that I would not be able to love her as much as I did my first child.  I somehow felt that I would have to divide my love between them.  However, when she was born there was no division of love.  I loved them both equally.  My love was simply multiplied.  When I adopted our oldest daughter, she had been led to believe by others that I would never love her as much as I do my biological children.  However, one thing I have learned about love is that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, love comes from the heart.  I came to love Holly just as much as I did my biological children.  Joshua is my grandson who I am raising and I couldn’t love him any more if her were my child.

Other than loving my children and my grandson I love my husband more than anything on this earth. He is my soul-mate, my best friend, my partner in life, my provider, my protector and my greatest supporter.  Ephesians 5:22-24 tells us “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”  I love my husband dearly.  I respect him, trust him, appreciate him, believe in him and have faith in him.  I share a connection, a bond with him that I’ve never experienced with anyone else.

Ephesians 5:25 tells the husbands, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  As God’s children, we are the church.  The Lord loved us enough that he died on the cross for us before we were born, knew Him or ever loved Him. I know my husband loves me enough that he would give his life for me.  If he didn’t he would have never made the decision to go to Afghanistan and risk his life to care for and provide for me.

When the Lord revealed to me that He was not first in my life because my husband was, I was a bit overwhelmed.  I was willing to be obedient to Him but wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to actually do that.  It seemed like a huge task to me and I knew I was going to need the Lord’s help.  Deuteronomy 6:5 tells us “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your strength.”  Luke 14:26 says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.”

For a while after the Lord sent Steve to Afghanistan in order to make room for Himself in my life to help me come to put Him first and love Him above all others, I was angry and pouted with Him.  I was confused!  In Ephesians He tells us to love each and in Luke He tells us to hate our parents, our spouses, our siblings, etc.   Then I realized He didn’t mean for us to hate them, we are simply to love Him above all others and put Him first in our lives.

I was finally able to put Him first in my life. I was able to do this when I realized my desire to seek Him and be obedient to Him in order to remain in His will and purpose for my life comes first.  It was a rearrangement of priorities.  Over the course of my life I had developed a pattern of putting everyone else’s needs and wants before my own which often meant stepping out of the Lord’s will and purpose for my life.  However, I was still left with the challenge of loving Him above all others.

The Lord recently reminded me of a conversation our oldest daughter, Holly and I had after her dad and I had gotten married in which we were discussing love.  She told me that she was glad her dad and I had met and gotten married because he loved me a lot and he was happy.  She went on to say that he loved her also.  I could sense she was feeling that perhaps his love for me might mean his love was divided between us.  Much like I thought being a mother to multiple children would mean dividing my love between them.  I tried to reassure her by explaining to her that the love a husband feels for his wife and the love he feels for his children is in many ways a different kind of love, neither of which is less valuable or meaningful than the other.

I pondered this for a while and the various relationships in my life such as my husband, my children and grandchild, my mother, my siblings, etc.  I experienced my feelings changing for the Lord when He revealed to me that my relationship with Him is the most intimate relationship I will ever experience because though Steve knows me, Steve will never know my inner most thoughts, feelings and desires the way the Lord does.  The Lord knows my thoughts before I actually think them.  He knows my feelings before I actually feel them.  He knows my desires before I actually desire them.  Steve grew to love me.  The Lord loved me enough to die for me before I was ever born.  If that is the only thing the Lord ever did for me that was more than enough.  I began to have feelings unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. A sense of peace and comfort that is unexplainable.  Then the Lord revealed to me a hierarchy of love.  We are to love Him above all others.  Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.  Wives submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord, because the husband is the head of us as Christ is the head of the church.  This does not mean that we love anyone less or that our love is divided.  Just as I love my children in a different way than I love my husband doesn’t mean I love my children any less.  The love I have for my husband is a more intimate love because we are one and he knows me like no one else on this earth does.  The love I have for the Lord does not mean I love my husband any less.  The love I have for the Lord is a more intimate love because my relationship with Him is the most intimate relationship I will ever experience.  Task accomplished!  Lord I love You above all others and You are first in my life.

Turn Pain Into Joy

For the vast majority of my life I did not seek a personal relationship with the Lord.  Though I knew Him, I didn’t read His Word, communicate with Him through prayer, and seek His will and purpose for my life or His guidance and direction.  I drifted around like the lost child that I was feeling sorry myself and blaming everyone and everything around me for the painful things I had experienced in my life.  Not only was I being subjected to painful experiences but I was inflicting my pain onto others by doing and saying hurtful things.

The devil is the great deceiver who comes to steal, kill and destroy.  1 Peter 5:8 says “Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  For so many years I was certainly not self-controlled and found myself in many bad situations as a result of bad choices and others who were not self-controlled.   The horrible things I have done and/or experienced in life were definitely the work of the devil. I was allowing him to use me in order to try to destroy others as he was using them to try to destroy me.  It took me realizing this to be able to forgive those who hurt me.  I don’t blame those people any longer because I realize they, like me were simply poor and lost souls who were also deceived.

Verses 9 through 11 goes on to tell us to “Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  To Him be the power for ever and ever amen.”  In my opinion, it is impossible to ‘stand firm in the faith’ without being in an intimate and personal relationship with the Lord.  It is through His Word that we obtain the knowledge required to discern His truths from the lies in order to not be deceived.  It is through communication and prayer with Him that we learn to recognize His voice and adhere to His guidance, direction and leading.  When we are not doing these things we open ourselves up and subject ourselves to painful experiences in life.

The amazing thing is that God knew the choices and mistakes we were going to make before He created us and put us in this world, yet He loved us enough to create us anyway.  He loved us enough to send His only begotten Son to die on the cross for us in order to be reconciled with Him.  God is a God who gives us free will to make our own choices and decisions.  He knew the suffering we would endure from our choices before He created us.  It is from this suffering that we learn obedience while He cultivates us into the unique individuals He created us to become.  Hebrews 5:8 teaches us that Jesus himself learned obedience through suffering although He was the Son and once He was made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.  Who are we to look at our experiences in life and feel we deserve to learn obedience through any other means.  The Son became the source of eternal salvation, what is He preparing you and I to become?

For many years I walked around with my head hung in shame and self-condemnation for the mistakes I had made through the course of my life.  It took me realizing that those things which the devil intended to destroy me, the Lord intends to use for my benefit and the benefit of His kingdom.  I can see now why the devil has tried so hard to destroy me.  He has wanted to destroy me because I have made so many mistakes in my life, been hurt so much and hurt so many that the Lord can use me as powerful weapon.  The wonderful thing is that my God is a miracle working God who can turn it all around.  All of the pain and suffering I have experienced and inflicted, He can use for my good and the good of others. 

The other day I was looking at the statistics of my blog and realized it is being viewed in fifteen countries around the world.  It is my prayer that the Lord is using me to encourage some of you to never give up, to seek Him and find hope in Him.  I know the Lord has to be using me to reach others because the devil tries to tell me every day that I am wasting my time when I sit down to write my post.  I refuse to be deceived any longer.  I WILL stand firm in my faith and I WILL be obedient to the Lord and I WILL allow Him to use me, my pain, my suffering and my experiences to reach others and do good for His kingdom.  He will make all the pain and suffering worthwhile and meaningful.  He will turn my pain into joy.  He can take my mess and make it my message to lead others to Him.  He can turn your pain into joy also, if you will only be obedient and seek Him. God Bless!

How Great Is Thy Thankfulness?

Last week my husband’s pay check was what I consider to be a substantial one due to receiving a bonus.  I was sitting on my patio enjoying a few moments of warm sunshine when it suddenly occurred to me the amount I would have to write the check for to pay our tithes this week.  I could almost sense the Lord laughing as He asked, “Oh, how great is thy thankfulness now? Would you prefer I provide Steve a job earning less income so you wouldn’t have to write such sizeable checks?” I laughed and replied, “Oh Lord, not really, not yet!”

For so long writing the checks in order to pay our tithes to the church often meant having to cut back on our spending for things we felt we needed.  Granted, we have never really gone without our needs being met but so often it was painful to give.  Leviticus 27:30 tells us a tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord.  Malachi 3:8 says, “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.  But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings.” Proverbs 3:9-10 says to “Honor the Lord with your capital and sufficiency and with the firstfruits of all your income; so shall your storage places be filled with plenty, and your vats shall be overflowing with new wine.”

2 Corinthians 9:7 says “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  There are so many different opinions regarding tithing to the church now.   I personally recognize the fact that it's from God's mercy and grace that I recieve anything.  Therefore, I feel I should give 10% of everything He provides me.  When it was painful for us to give it was difficult to give cheerfully. For so long we did not pay our tithes because we didn’t feel we could afford to and we continued to struggle financially.  When we did pay them we gave not with a joyful heart but because we felt it was required of us even when it was painful to do so.  Deuteronomy 15:10 says “Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.”

Yesterday I could not wait to write that check and place it in the offering plate.  Why?  Because I am so extremely grateful for the blessings He has provided us enabling us to write a check for that amount and give with a joyful heart.  I can’t praise Him and thank Him enough for His blessings.  How great is thy thankfulness?  My thankfulness is off the charts!  Please don't feel that my intentions are to bragg about our  blessings.  It is my intention only to share with you how thankful I am for His blessings and a joyful heart.