A love like this redefines what love is. We have often been taught that love is like the images that we see on the movie screen or perhaps our idea of love is derived from the disillusionment that many have experienced growing up in dysfunctional homes. But a love like this shatters those stereotypes and creates rules of its own. A love like this is one that not only chooses to listen but makes every effort to understand and one that has the capacity to selflessly relinquish the need to always be right.
A love like this is not always about what you “feel” but instead the realization that true love is a continuous and intentional decision to commit to another person. There will be many times that you find yourself annoyed, disappointed, or even angry with your partner but when you are intentional (purposeful and deliberate) in the way that you love you won’t lose sight of the commitment. In fact, you will have a better understanding that what you have committed yourself to is bigger than whatever the emotion is that is currently driving your actions. Timothy Keller gives the Christian version of what it means to fall in love. He says that it is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating and say, “I see who god is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that journey and partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to His throne.” What a beautiful sentiment! It is the idea that you have the foresight to see something in someone that they may not even see in themselves. Today’s women have become so caught up in wanting to be everything that a man is that they have lost sight of the fact that God created them to be everything that a man is NOT so that they can complement him. She has been masterfully designed to help him even when he doesn’t realize that he needs help. She is to be his eyes when he has lost sight of his vision and has been given the divine ability to pull out of him what God has placed in him. For a long time, I was convinced that a love like this did not exist. I desired a love that was not willing to give up and one that was worth fighting for. Not a love that I had to fight to keep but one that was worth fighting to maintain. I used to say that love was hard work until I realized that wasn’t true at all. Relationships are hard work and require sacrifice and compromise to maintain, but love…love is effortless. After thirty-five years of living and plenty of failed relationships I have learned that the most important element of love is friendship. It is the foundation that love should be built on. It is the idea that not only could you be madly in love with someone, but that you could actually like them as a person as well. When you develop a genuine friendship with a person that you are in love with, you can be certain that no matter what you face on your journey, you will always have your best friend by your side. If you are ever blessed to find a love like this, make sure that you are careful to protect it. The more you cherish love the more valuable it will become. If you have a man that respects himself, loves god, and recognizes your worth; make sure that you do your best to honor him. Too many times we cry, beg, and plead for God to send us a good man and when He does we mishandle the gift that we have been given. For this love I have prayed and for that reason will I cherish it….
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The word intimacy means a close familiarity or friendship. A closeness, attachment, or confidence. I read something the other day that was poetic to me. It said intimacy is not just about physical touch, but who you share your dreams and fears with. The sole person you give your attention to even when you have a number of other people seeking it. It is the person who has a place in your mind even when your thoughts are invaded with chaos. But, the problem that many of us have is that we are trying to offer that level of intimacy to others when we haven't offered it to God first.
About two months ago I began studying the Biblical meaning of "know." The Hebrew word for know is yada (yaw-dah'). In many instances in the Bible when it's recorded that someone knew another person, it is in the context of sexual intercourse. To me, that speaks to the intimacy of the word. It says that by allowing someone to know you on that level, you are in essence letting them in on a deeper regard. You are, in a way revealing your heart to them. This is a concept that I have struggled with. How much do I let people in on? How much of myself do I share without the fear of feeling violated? Because when I share intimacies about myself with other people, I expect them to hold it near or to protect it but time and time again when they haven't, I felt a deep sense of hurt. That's one reason the Bible admonishes us to guard our heart because out of it flows the issues of life. One translation even says that from it (the heart) flows the springs of life. In other words, it is the source of everything else in our lives. Our heart overflows into thoughts, words, and ultimately actions. That is why we have to be careful who we choose to share our heart with. The wrong connections can cause us to become contaminated. If you've ever seen a natural spring, it's a pool of water that flows to the surface from underground. These pools then flow into streams and creeks and are carried into larger water systems. So if there is a contaminate that is introduced into the spring, it can affect the whole source. Such as it is with the well spring of our heart. If our heart becomes toxic; it can spread to our family, our friends, our careers, or cause anything that we touch to become unhealthy. We can protect our hearts by: Taking control of our thought life- "The thought is the father of the deed" What you think becomes a part of who you are. The Bible says as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. We have the authority to cast down thoughts that do not align themselves with the knowledge of Christ. Don't allow negative thoughts to contaminate your well spring. Storing the word of God in our hearts- We are told that we should store His word in our hearts that we don't sin against Him. The only way to know what God wants for us is to spend time in His word. When you begin we study His word, you develop a relationship with Him and begin to know His heart towards you. Ask God to reveal your heart to the right person- Stop spending time becoming involved with people who are emotionally unavailable. We overlook all of the flashing stop signs just because we don't want to make our flesh uncomfortable and WAIT. If you seek God first, He will reveal your heart to the right person. Abraham prayed for a wife for his son Isaac and God answered his prayer with a sign and a drinking jar (Gen. 24). He may not come down to you with nailed scared hands, touch you on the shoulder, and say that's the one, but He will give you peace in your heart about your decision. The most important thing is that we can't continue to desire intimate relationships with other people without first building a healthy relationship with God. When we learn how to create an intimate relationship with Him, it will trickle into all other areas of our lives. One day I decided to begin to live out loud! I decided that it was time to stop living behind the curtain of my insecurities and allow my voice to be heard. I decided that it was time to live a life uncovered from the shame of my past, to stop allowing people to make me feel bad about what God had already delivered me from. I decided to stop letting the voices of my prior mistakes and disappointments silence me and to use the lessons that I had learned on my way to destiny as a road map to help someone else find their way.
Trust me, it wasn't easy and definitely something that I had to grow into. I didn't find my voice until I began to seek a deeper relationship with God because I had so many surface things that were holding me back. One of the major things was fear. The enemy uses fear to try to make us keep our voice hidden. Many times we are afraid to live a bold life because of what we think others will say or feel about us. The truth is, people are privately struggling with many of the issues that you have struggled with and they need to hear your story to know that God has a plan for their lives too. They need to know that if He can deliver you from the ugliness of your past, He can do the same for them. I also had to move pass the epidemic of people pleasing. I had a deep desire to want to be accepted. What I didn't realize is that no matter what I did, I could never fully live up to people's expectations of me. Instead I had to become content with being the best ME that I could be. The only person we truly have a responsibility to please is God. We are responsible for our own personal lives and accountable only to Him. In this process, I learned to stop being so hard on myself based on other people's opinions of who I was and where I was in life. There is a quote that I hang on to that says "Success lies not in being the best but in doing your best." Does that mean we shouldn't strive to be the best? Absolutely not! It simply means that success is not always measured by who makes it to the top first, but is heavily weighted on the journey. When you know that you've given your best and done all that you know to do, you don't have anything left to offer. We may all reach our pinnacle at different times but the important thing is that you stayed the course and finished well. I also had to recognize my own worth and stop giving people the authority to make me feel less than. When we truly know our worth, we stop allowing people to sell us short. At one point in my life, I felt the need to settle for "that'll do." But no longer! I am royalty, the daughter of a King, a royal heir. I deserve the very best of what life has to offer. So with that, I began to live out loud. I stop putting limitations on myself and began to walk in my purpose. The Bible tells us that little becomes much in the hands of God. Maybe you're still working on yourself...maybe you haven't quite found your voice or realized your worth. But, I admonish you to put the little that you have in the hands of God and allow Him to stand up in your life and make you great! On my way to destiny I realized that there is an anointing in "goodbye." We must understand that the anointing is God's ability in us, or that has been endowed upon us to allow us to do something with ease that would have otherwise been a struggle. Sometimes we have allowed some people to stay in our lives or we have remained in some places where we were not growing simply because we didn't know how to, or were just unwilling to let go for whatever reason.
This week I have been thinking a lot about "destiny." Next Saturday I was supposed to be standing on the beach in a beautiful gown marrying the man that I thought was the answer to my prayers. After ending the relationship, I can remember he said that we were supposed to be married but destiny got in the way. With the date fast approaching, I have been running that around over and over in my head. Then, I got it...I really got it...and a certain freedom came over me. First of all I had to realize destiny is about much more than our final stop. It is more about the journey that we are embarking on to become who God has purposed us to be. Destiny is a predetermined course of events. That lets me know that the things that happen to us while journeying through this life have come as no surprise to God. In fact, He has carefully orchestrated each event. So in my situation, we might have began planning a life with each other, but God's predestined plan was different for each of us. There are somethings that we are trying to hold on to that are not beneficial for where God is trying to take us and we have to be willing to announce the benediction over those things. Understand that some of those things are not necessarily bad. They may have simply run their course, the lesson has been learned, and it's time to say goodbye. Some of the things that we are holding on to might be creating a distraction and God is desiring to call you back to Him in this season. The good thing about it is that if God is calling you FROM something He has a plan to call you TO something better. I have always declared Jeremiah 29:11...For I know the thoughts that I think toward you saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. But what I have really been concerned with is....Lord what do you have for me in the end??? I know all of this is working for my good...but how does it play out in the end?? But on this new destiny walk, I am not as concerned about WHAT is at the end because I know WHO is at the end. So however He works it out, I know that it will be ok. My major concern as I travel this journey, is that I utilize all the tools that I have been given along the way to make me a better person. I am focused on learning from each lesson that I encounter along the way to my own personal greatness. I am convinced that God will continue to reveal His will for my life at each step of this journey. People always say God knows my heart, but on my way to my destiny, I pray that He will not only know my heart but I will know His. "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his desire . Then, desire when it is fully grown brings forth death." James 1:14-15
The bottom line is this: if temptation manages to deceive the mind, engage the emotions, and activate the will, then the result is sin (seperation from God). I read something the other day that said that although Eve knew the Tree of Knowledge was in the garden, it was not until the serpent brought it to her attention that she set her desire on it. Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with having desires. The Bible even tells us that God will give us the desires of our heart. But as we seek after those things, we must be careful not to try to obtain them the wrong way. God wants nothing more than to bless us with our heart's desires. He knows our thoughts and was aware of the things that we desired before they were ever even made clear to us. The problem is that we too often fail to seek HIS heart so that the desires of OUR heart are in line with HIS will. Even when we begin seeking God for a mate, we have to be careful that we don't let unhealthy desires and sinful temptations cause us to go about dating the wrong way. Many of us desire to be married to someone who loves and cherishes us, but we become weary in our waiting and instead of waiting on our very own "Adam" (the man that has been fashioned for us), we start desiring a "tree" that God does not want us to have. We'll start saying stuff like...Well I know he's not really in church and maybe he is a little controlling, but he's really cute...WRONG WAY! You have just allowed the enemy to deceive your mind by making you think "He's not that bad" or "I know I can get him to change." I am not here to stand in judgment of anyone because surly if God could change a filthy undone wretch like me, he can change anyone. Let me back that up..HE can change...HE can change...not you...HE can change. So what I'm saying is it might not be that he's not the right one but if you have identified all of those issues he may just not be the right one now. You need to allow GOD to do a work in him before you even consider entertaining that situation. Because if we give into our temptation to do it our own way, we will find ourselves emotionally engaged in an unfruitful relationship. And instead of finding the love and emotional intimacy that we yearn for, we'll be left feeling heartbroken and despondent. When God was saying all along...trust me to give you the desires of your heart..my way and in my time. But instead of being willing to be patient, we often find ourselves acting out of impulse like Eve. God probably would have given her the wisdom that she desired had she had been patient and continued to be obedient. In Genesis 3, we find the serpent deceptively asking Eve "Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" Eve knew that God had been clear in His commandment but she had become overcome with temptation. She allowed a little seed of doubt to root itself in temptation and blossom into sin. So it could be said that it was the doubt that lead to the willful act of disobedience. The enemy does not come to tempt you in an area that he knows you are strong in. There are certain things that he wouldn't even bring my way because I have no desire to indulge in. But he knows that if I am tempted it is only by my own desires that I might be drawn. That is why it is so important to continually seek the face of God. As we begin to study His word, seek to understand His ways, and develop a consistent prayer life we will begin to see that He will strengthen those weak areas. We must begin to pray that our every desire be aligned with God's will. No matter how big or how small the decision....seek God! Because when we truly begin to have a heart for Him, we will begin to pray in line with His vision for our lives. We will begin to seek His heart and wait in His hand. I prayed for a husband and the Lord kept showing me…ME. I began to pray harder and more fervently and even then He kept showing me myself. After experiencing divorce and painful failed relationships, I started to think “Lord is this Your way of telling me that marriage is not in Your will for my life?” But then I began to realize that God knows that I desire to be married. He knows that it is also my desire to marry a man that loves Him first and will seek to love me the way that He does. It is not that He does not desire those things for me; it is that He wants me to spend this time preparing myself for the man that He has chosen for me. 1 Corinthians 11:7-9 reminds us that the woman was created for the man, not the man for the woman. Now hold on all of my strong independent women….don’t lose me here. Although the Bible suggests that we are the weaker vessel, it does not suggest that we are less. In fact, this passage in 1 Corinthians speaks to how esteemed we are in our relationships. It says that we are the glory (something that brings praise or honor) of man.
It goes way back to the story of Adam and Eve. We find in Genesis where God had already created the Earth, given Adam dominion over everything, and given him the task of naming all of animals. The Bible says that out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, but when it came to Adam there was no one who complimented him. Realizing this, we’re told God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him and while sleeping, God took one of Adam’s ribs and created Eve, a helper fit for him. The creation of Eve speaks directly to her function. In the natural sense, the function of the rib as it relates to the ribcage is to protect and support. That is also God’s intention for the woman as it relates to the man in marriage. How does she do that? She protects him by covering him in prayer, she walks beside him supporting and encouraging him, and she builds him up. That is the function that she was specifically designed for. So when we as women begin to seek God for a husband we must understand that just as the man has great responsibility so do we. Many times we’re asking God to give us a husband while He is still developing in us what we will need to hold up the man that He has for us. I know that God knows everything about me. He has predestined me even for the man that He would have me to spend the rest of my life with. None of my past life experiences have come as a surprise to Him. Every situation in my life has been divinely orchestrated to form me into the woman that I am today. So in seeking God for a mate, I began to say Lord what is my function? The Lord began to show me that many times even in our singleness, He is developing us with what we need to be a blessing to our husbands. In the last year I have developed a very strong prayer life. There were times when I could not sleep and I would immediately begin to pray. One day the Lord revealed to me that He is developing a prayer life in me now because when He sends the man that He has for me He wants me to be equipped to pray over him and intercede on his behalf. On yesterday, I heard the man of God say that like David, there are times when God will anoint you NOW for AFTERWHILE. You might not understand it at this point in your life, but God is setting you up now to carry out what He has destined you to do even beyond this season. You must know that God has not forgotten about you and it is His will that you have the desires of your heart even as it relates to marriage but know that He wants the best for you and He also wants you to be at your best. God might be calling you to WAIT because He is developing you. We have been given MANY examples in Scripture of believers on whom God called to wait-Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, and Hannah to name a few. Their time of waiting on God’s hand was an integral part of their walk with God. The Bible exhorts us repeatedly to wait patiently for the hand of the Lord to work in our lives. It is human nature to think of periods of waiting as holding patterns with no discernable value. Instead, Scripture teaches that there are great blessings to be had in the actual waiting period. But, you must understand that the principle of Godly waiting does not mean being stagnant. You must be busy working to prepare yourself for the person that God has for you. The Bible tells us that No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly (Proverbs 18:22). God wants to bless you but if you want Him to send you a God-centered relationship, you must begin working now to live God- honoring lives so that when He sends you your mate you will be ready. “Take heart, daughter, he said, “Your faith has healed you…” Matthew 9:20-22
Many of us walk around with the weight of shame brought on by life, past decisions, or even guilt that has been inflicted on us by other people. Whether it be living though a broken marriage or divorce, failed relationships with friends and family, the past shame of sexual abuse or addiction, not feeling pretty enough or simply not feeling like we measure up to other people’s expectations of us…..SHAME! We find in Matthew 9:20-22 the healing of the woman who had suffered with the issue of blood for twelve years. In order to really understand her feeling of shame, you must know that in this condition she was considered unclean by those around her. So, you can imagine how this may have affected her relationship with people and caused her to feel an immense sense of loneliness and isolation. The woman did, however, have the faith to believe if she could just get to Jesus…if she could simply make contact with Him; she would be healed. After encountering Him, He spoke to her saying “Take heart daughter your faith has healed you.” This is what should really bless you…He turned to her, He acknowledged her presence, validated who she was by referring to her as daughter and commended her for her faith. There she was in a place of shame feeling unworthy and unclean and He spoke to who she was and not to her condition. He called her daughter. It was the validation that despite what she had been dealing with, no matter how long it had persisted, or how people had perceived her, He saw her the way she was meant to be seen. At the time of her healing, she was free from the bondage associated with the shame of her past. In the same way, many women carry around a deep, hidden, and unspoken sense of shame or insignificance regardless of how confident they may appear on the outside. Regret and shame over failure, loss, or self-perception causes them to be weighed down and feel unworthy to be healed, loved, or used by a holy God. Shame prevents us from intimacy with God because it makes us feel distant from Him, but I am here to tell you that is the trick of the enemy! The enemy wants to see you bogged down and feeling depressed and unworthy of the blessings of God. Shame is a thief! If you’re not careful it will steal your joy, it will steal your happiness, and it will steal your peace. Instead of you trusting God’s intentions and waiting for His provisions you will begin to believe that because of your past or because of your current situation you are somehow undeserving of greater. I went through a period of that myself. Although I have always been strong in faith, there were times when I found myself alone with my thoughts and feeling a sense of shame. Divorce is one of the hardest things that a person can ever deal with. I don’t know one person who gets married with the intention of divorcing. No matter how hard the marriage or how difficult things become along the way, after investing so much time, resources and even the blending of families and lives, you want to try to make it work. So when it didn’t work, I was devastated! Then there was the shame…what would people think of me? Perhaps people would assume that I just gave up. How will my children be perceived coming from a “broken home.” Oh the shame of it all! Then, after finally feeling healed from the shame of the divorce and being able to move on, it seemed that God sent a man right down from Heaven to sweep me off my feet. Only for him to decide that he no longer wanted to be married and that ending the relationship was best for him. Again, the feeling of shame and even defeat and despair this time. How could this happen? What was wrong with me? Am I truly not worthy of a man that will choose to NOT give up on me? How will people perceive me? Surely people will think there is something wrong with me. Why can’t I seem to maintain healthy relationships? As I begin to try to sort through all of those emotions, I did as the woman with the issue of blood….I began to press my way to Jesus. I began to seek to touch Him to allow Him to heal the hurt that I felt in my heart. It has not been easy and it is still a journey that I am on even today but I have managed to separate that hurt that I felt from the feelings of guilt and shame. I no longer feel ashamed of who I am and what I have endured in my life. I begin to realize and declare that God has equipped and prepared me for His divine purpose based specifically on the experience of my past. Not merely because of the fact that I have experienced those things but the fact that I have experienced them and OVERCOME them through Christ Jesus. I have been uniquely equipped to make my life count! I have been able to overcome shame in my life in the area of failed relationships and God is yet healing my heart of the residue of the pain that was left behind. But many people are still hidden in that secret shame. It is that terrible, private feeling that something is wrong with you—that you are somehow defective as a person. It makes you want to run and hide and protect yourself from exposure to other people’s judgment. The good news is that anytime shame surfaces there is an opportunity to experience healing of those experiences and beliefs that have fed the shame. When Jesus faced death by crucifixion, we are told that he “endured the cross and scorned the shame” (Hebrews 12:2), Jesus endured the pain. That is, Jesus did not avoid the suffering, but instead, he went through the suffering. But he rejected the shame. All the shame that others were attempting to heap on him had no power over him. Jesus did not accept the shame others were trying to put on him. He was being treated as a person with little or no value. But the message of shame, “you have little or no value,” was a lie and Jesus refused to accept it…..and so can we! We have to know that God seeks and calls us out of hiding and away from the shame. It doesn’t matter what you have experienced in your past, His grace is sufficient to cover all of our insufficiencies. We must be willing to stand before Him and lay at His feet all of our weaknesses, all of our hurt places, and the places that cause us to feel undeserving of love; allowing Him to heal them. When we stand before Him naked (transparent) and unclean, He does not cast us away but it is there that He loves us. There in our most downtrodden state is where He reaches out with acceptance and mercy and touches us. It is there when we are uncovered with our shame before Him, with the guilt of our past surrendered, and every shortcoming that we have lifted up to Him that He removes the feelings of shame and provides us a righteous covering. The safest place for shameful heart is before a gracious God. In my personal devotion, I began to read 2 Kings 4:1-7 about the widow woman who sought out the Prophet Elisha after finding herself in a state of lack. It has truly been a blessing to me so I wanted to share some of my thoughts.
We find her in the opening of this text crying out to Elisha. She informed him that her husband had died and that she was now in a financial bind. Elisha answered to her saying “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” She told him that she had nothing but a small jar of olive oil. It is important for you to understand that she was well aware of everything that she was up against. She had creditors knocking at her door, her money was scarce, her husband had died and she still had a family that she had to take care of and the only thing she had in her house was one small jar of oil. Although she was obviously concerned, we can deduce that she did have some faith because she had the presence of mind to seek out the man of God. After she explained to Elisha what she had, he told her to go around and ask all her neighbors for empty jars. He said don’t just ask for just a few, ask for all that you can find. Then he instructed her to go inside the house and shut the door behind her and her sons and begin to pour the oil into the jars, and as each is filled, put them aside. This was significant because even though he knew that all she had in her house was one small jar of oil, he still told her to go and get all the empty jars she could find…not just a few but ALL that she could find. He then told her to go inside and shut the door behind her and her sons. WoW, the fact that he instructed her to go inside and shut the door may not seem like much to you but it created a moment for me!! Sometimes when God is getting ready to do some things in your life, you can’t always share it with the world right away. The affects there of are sure to be a blessing to the masses but in the PROCESS, He may just want you to get away and close yourself off from outside influences and voices in order to hear His voice more clearly and to carry out His instructions. And when He has completed His work in you, He will release you to share it with the world in order to be a blessing to others. After doing what she was told, she began to pour the oil into the empty jars and it began to flow without hesitation. The oil continued to flow until every container that she had acquired was full. The once small jar of oil had begun to not only meet the need of the lack that she was experiencing but had begun to provide an OVERFLOW. Elisha told her to sell enough of the oil to pay off her debts and live off of what was left. That’s enough to praise God on right there!!! Although she didn’t see it right away, everything that she needed to survive was IN THE HOUSE! The oil was the sustaining grace. It was the resource that she needed to alleviate the lack. That lets me know that many times everything that we need to be great for God is inside of us and all we need to do is tap into it….the potential, the purpose, the anointing. God has already supplied us with what we need but we just need to wake up and realize that it’s in the house. Now the prophet did tell her to go OUTSIDE of her house and ask for every jar that she could find. But remember the blessing wasn’t in the container because the empty containers by themselves were useless. The blessing was in the oil that was already in her possession. The significance of her going outside of the house and asking for the jars was that it was an activation of her faith. Even though it probably seemed strange to her to go out asking for all of these containers considering the fact that she just told him she only had one little jar of oil…she was obedient! No matter how strange or uncomfortable something may seem, when God has called you to do something DO IT! There is a blessing in being obedient. This story blessed me in a major way! I was reminded that there is great potential in me even today and God is simply waiting for me to activate my faith to unlock it. He not only wants to bless us to meet our needs, He desires that we begin to live in such a way that every need that we have is met and we are living off of the overflow! The widow woman could have easily not heeded the word of the prophet. She could have remained in her house with her jar of oil and attempted to sale it for what it was worth and used that small amount BUT God had another plan. He had something greater and all she needed to do to unlock it was to walk in obedience. Begin to trust God, begin to take Him at His Word, begin to put your faith in Him and watch Him use what’s in the house to provide YOUR overflow blessing! If you have spent any time on this blog or ever spent time around me you would know that my testimony is and always will be GOD IS FAITHFUL. Despite ourselves and despite what might be going on around us, He remains faithful (consistent, trustworthy) in our lives. Today I want to discuss “A Call To Communicable Faithfulness.” The word communicable means to transmit or transfer to others. In other words, because we as Christians are in covenant with God, we are called to be faithful because He is faithful. I Corinthians 1:9 in the New Living Translation says “God will do this, for He is faithful to do what He says, and He has invited you into partnership with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We must understand that faithfulness is essential to the very essence of who God is. For Him to be anything else would be against His nature and impossible. So, we too must continue in the faith knowing that because God has been faithful to us we must be loyal and obedient to Him. The fruit (evidence) of faithfulness is when God’s faithfulness to you takes root and begins to grow and affects the way you think and behave. I have shared my testimony with some people that I experienced a difficult pregnancy with my daughter. I carried two twin girls and at five months the doctor could no longer hear one of the heartbeats. I remember very vividly crying uncontrollably and I called my mother in law at the time and she began to pray over the phone. I remember saying “but God you promised me.” The next morning going into radiology I was resolved that whatever happened God was faithful to see me through. When they confirmed what we had been told, I still remember feeling very calm. Because of the nature of the pregnancy, I still had to carry both babies and one would be delivered live and one stillborn. I knew what the doctor said was a fact and I did not dispute it, but the faith that I had said that EVEN IF the baby was dead, if it be His will, the God I served was able to quicken the body and the baby would live. That may sound strange to some people but that is the kind of faith I have in God. Because He has been so faithful to me, I had no reason to believe that even in this situation He wouldn’t show Himself faithful. After delivering my babies, one healthy and one stillborn the Chaplin came into my room. I remember telling her that even though it did not go as I had plan, I was still thankful that I would be taking a baby home. I realized that there were parents that she would talk to who had lost a child and would have to go home empty handed. I never once believed that God had not been with me. I accepted His will and knew that He still had a plan for my life. Five months later I found out I was expecting my son and the promise of “two small children the same age” had been fulfilled. It didn’t happen the way I thought it would but God did not fail to keep His word. No matter what we are up against we must continue to trust God. He is faithful to us and we must remain faithful to Him. It is often in the most difficult times of our lives that our fleshly nature would have us to give up but those are the times when we must trust Him the most. Even when things don’t go our way, we have to trust that God has a plan to restore us and that every promise that He has made over our lives will be made manifest in the fullness of time. Our only responsibility is to trust Him.
There Is Purpose On The Other Side Of Your Pain
I was reading a post by Sarah Jakes that really blessed me! She said she was learning to not allow shame to give her a sentence that grace had already covered. How powerful is that! Many times we experience things in our lives that leave us feeling ashamed and unworthy to be loved. That is a trick of the enemy. He wants you to believe you can't recover and that you will never move on from your past. But just know God is waiting to restore you back to Him. There is NO condemnation in Christ Jesus. God is able to clean your life up, restore you, and use your life to get glory. " I am grateful for every opportunity that I am used inspite of my fragile humanity" ~Sarah Jakes There is purpose on the other side of your pain! You may not understand it now but God certainly has a plan for your life. You have been predestined for GREATNESS. Everything that you need to be who God has purposed you to be is inside of you. He is just waiting for you to tap into it and begin walking boldly in your calling. God is using your HERE experience to get you THERE!! "Thank you for allowing me to have everything I wanted and protecting me while I learned it wasn't what I needed." ~Sarah Jakes |
AuthorMarshunda Thomas Archives
January 2020
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