Peace That Quiets

It was an unusual day ... intense ... overwhelming, both emotionally and physically ... and broader than my analytical-need-to-have-everything-in-its-place-self was capable of either analyzing or finding appropriate places for. My I-never-quit-self was fully engaged with its pursuit of the necessary and with accents of short desperate prayers to the God I knew was bigger than it all, but I wasn’t far enough removed from my day yet, to appreciate His bigness. The day had indeed snowballed, and the one opportunity I had to see how my blood pressure was handling the stress, I passed up, afraid of what I might find out. Hurricanes have an “eye” – a place of quietness in the middle of a raging storm. It is the place where the atmospheric pressure is at its lowest. The clearness and calm of the eye is in stark contrast to the most severe weather at its edges. And that is where I suddenly found myself in my day. What came before still stood in unchangeable history, and what was to come still lined the horizon. Peace though had suddenly claimed my spirit. What a precious gift, and I knew who the Giver was. Many years ago, I heard the words, “God breaks through when we least expect it.” He had broken through in my today, and I wept with gratitude. Isn’t that what God promises us though? David’s familiar psalm reminds us that even when I walk in the darkest valley, there is a restful place, a renewal place, a peaceful place. And it’s found in the nearness of the One who loves us and protects and comforts us with the closeness of His presence. Jesus told His disciples, “Yes, you will have problems and difficulties. Yes, there are times you will feel stretched beyond the breaking point. But there is another ‘yes’ – the ‘yes’ of My peace because I am bigger than anything that happens in your life.” He reminded them too that His peace is different from what the world offers. Peace in the world is dependent on circumstances. God’s peace is dependent on the One who gives it. It quiets the heart, and it stills the fears that can clamor for our attention. Peace comes as I count on God for it, allowing my need to be a catalyst for heartfelt prayer. Sometimes though, on those unusual, intense, overwhelming days, it is not my own prayers that stir the heart of my Father, but the prayers of others who have seen and felt my need. I knew in my own overwhelming day, God had mingled both my own prayers and the prayers of others and had helped me find that precious gift of quietness. Thank You, Father. – Bev (Related Bible reading: Psalm 23; John 14:27; John 16:33; Ephesians 2:14; Philippians 4:7) WHEN YOUR WORLD FALLS APART Chapter 4...... The Higher Road Grief understandably can cause us to withdraw from life, to think mostly of self, and to hold tenaciously to whatever remnants survived our loss. And it is normal and healthy to own our grief and walk its journey for a season. But seasons change, and with change comes a higher road etched in a peace God alone can give that ultimately brings sacrificial giving and selflessness.

Not Wasted Pain

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” When my Bible study group asked if we knew of anyone who had gone through something hard and heartbreaking, only to watch the Lord use it for good, I didn’t have to think very hard. When you are part of a group like Umbrella Ministries, you get to see it happen in the lives of the women you meet through this ministry. You see women who have walked through unimaginable heartbreak and pain, yet continue to allow the Lord to work in and through their lives. Their stories are a beautiful reminder that God can bring hope out of sorrow, purpose out of pain, and light into even the darkest places. It doesn’t mean the heartbreak wasn’t real or that the pain simply disappears. It means that even in the midst of it, God is still at work. What a blessing it is to witness how the Lord takes the hardest parts of our stories and uses them to bring hope, encouragement, and comfort to others who are walking a similar road. Sometimes, the very places where we have experienced the deepest pain become the places where God uses us to make the greatest difference in someone else’s life. Thank You, Lord, that the beauty of Romans 8:28 is you don’t waste our pain. – Michele

The Journey of Forgiveness

The silence of the walls around her was crushing. She wandered aimlessly through the rooms she had called “home” for so many years. Pictures, mementoes, the worn, but comfortable places – all brought blurred and stinging memories of a once vibrant love. What had happened? It seemed the harder she had tried, the more he had pulled away. Her feelings were trampled; her hopes, scorned, and now, as she let her tears eclipse the scene before her, the reality tore at her soul – he was gone. Fictional story? Not really. The stabbing, haunting, oppressive pain of a marriage gone awry is a familiar story to many. Others have replayed the damaging tapes of abandonment, abuse, misunderstanding, character assault, neglect, or rejection, over and over again. We’ve been overlooked, left behind, ridiculed, and assaulted. Some have faced the horrors we all fear – a drunken driver, a random shooting, a sexual pervert. And from a far distant hill outside the ancient city of Jerusalem, three lonely crosses are etched on the horizon, and a Voice echoes through the ages, “Forgive ... just as I have forgiven you.” The offense has happened. The first step in your journey is to acknowledge the offense and its consequences within a context of truth. Ignoring or denying an offense that has significantly impacted my life does not allow me to deal appropriately with its consequences. I can only forgive when I know what I am forgiving; therefore, I need to honestly and objectively face the offense and face its consequences. The second step in your journey is to understand forgiveness itself. A basic definition of forgiveness states, “Forgiveness is the setting aside of anger or punitive or vindictive feelings toward someone who has wronged me.” If forgiveness though is a journey, it is a process that takes time, and how much time may be dependent on the wrong that was committed. It is not “natural” – it is seldom our first response. Forgiveness never condones a wrong. What is wrong will always be wrong. Neither does forgiveness equate with forgetting. I may never forget, although forgiveness does over time, soften memories. It does not give an offender license to commit the same offense again and again. Forgiveness is for the past. Offenses in the present need to be appropriately addressed. From my own perspective as the one who has been wronged, forgiveness is not a manipulation tool for my offender to acknowledge his wrong or to change his behavior. Neither may happen. You are already taking the third step in your journey when you make a decision to forgive while at the same time you are seeking to resolve, or accept, consequences. God offers His grace. I need to realize human effort is not only futile to “fix” an offense, but it can also be futile in attempting to “fix” its consequences. I will need His grace to meet me in the needs imposed by consequences. We’re not done yet. Remember that forgiveness is a journey, and although we make a decision to forgive, we must enter into working through the process of forgiveness while continuing to extend forgiveness. That’s the fourth step in the journey and it may be a long one. The process of forgiveness continues as old emotions resurface, as memories can suddenly descend, or as the reality of consequences are lived out, and we extend forgiveness again and again and even, again. – Bev (Related Bible reading: Ephesians 4:31,32) When Your World Falls Apart Chapter 3...... Frustration or Forgiveness? The intensity of loss and grief is complicated when “fault” can be attributed to someone whose negligence or overt wrong behavior caused the loss we are grieving. Their wrong has the potential of enlarging and extending our grief. Forgiveness may be unnatural, but it frees us from the torment of unforgiveness.

Waiting on the Lord

Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” Several years ago, I did a whole word study on “waiting.” It started at the beginning of the year when the Lord asked me to wait regarding a certain situation in my marriage. I was tired and worn out, weary and overwhelmed with life and the scripture above is what the Lord gave to me. According to this scripture, this particular word for waiting connotes either a tense or eager and patient anticipation of the Lord. He wanted me to wait on Him and His promises: He wanted me to wait to see what He would do, not only in my relationship, but in me. He was asking me to trust Him and not to rely on my own self, but to wait on Him, to rely on Him, to delight in Him, to allow Him to be my treasure and my glory, to allow His presence to glisten and shimmer in the core of my being, to understand that I did not need to be afraid of anything, but that He would work all things to His glory. Isaiah 12:2 says “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD Himself, is my strength and my defense; He has become my salvation." The more I sought His face the more He asked me to wait. When Elisha went into the hospital for a month I was so afraid, and the Lord put it on my heart to do a whole study on every form of the word wait, so I studied waiting, waited and waits, and then when I was done with that, He brought me to the word patient, where I studied patience and patiently. I can honestly tell you, I learned a lot about myself during this period of time. I learned that even though I waited on the Lord, I was not waiting with the attitude He wanted me to wait with; in fact, my heart was very discouraged and I was troubled to the very core of my soul. The Lord was asking me to trust Him and not be afraid; He wanted to be my strength and my strong tower; He did not want me to rely on my own self-sufficiency at all. He asked me to examine my heart and my relationship with Him and what I realized is that He was not first in my life. Psalm 40:1 says “I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.” The last thing my character reflected was patience, I did not want to wait on the Lord; I wanted Him to do something and I wanted Him to do it now. I wanted Him to instantly fix everything in my life that I believed needed repairing; I did not want to wait. My heart reflected an irritable discontented waiting, not a patient anticipation of what the Lord would do, but a “Fine, I’ll just cross my arms and wait for you while I am steaming” kind of waiting. What I realized is that I was spiritually exhausted because I was waiting in my own strength. One of the most amazing scriptures that He gave me during this time and which has become my life verse is Isaiah 40:28, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom.” I was worn out and spent; I was thread bare and there was nothing left of me. I believe spiritual exhaustion is not the result of sin, but the result of trying to do something without the Holy Spirit. I was depending on myself to supply my every need instead of on my Savior. Until I learned to draw my supply from the life of Jesus Christ, until I realized that I could not do this myself, but that my strength and my nourishment came only from God, then of course I was going to be tired and worn out. The process of being made broken takes time and what I realized is that I needed to be drained completely of my self-sufficiency, or my own reliance, and I needed to stop laying a foundation that began with me, but only until I was completely drained of myself and poured out, then and only then could the Lord come in and completely fill me up with Himself and with His character. – Melody

Waiting in the Valley

David’s infant son lay in his mother’s arms, caressed by the warmth of her body. As she drew the infant still closer, she gently stroked his wrinkled little brow and marveled at the perfections of her tiny little person, so alive with potential, so satisfying to her mother heart. Not so far away was David, becoming enraged by the words of the prophet Nathan -- words that told a story of greed, power out of control, and a dry void of human compassion. David’s anger allowed for the full impact of Nathan’s accusations to be unleashed. “You are the man!” broke the self-righteous spirit of David as he confessed the atrocities of his own sins of adultery, manipulation, and murder. God responded to David’s brokenness and freely gave forgiveness and cleansing. For David though, fully forgiven, God still brought consequences to bear upon his sin. Why those consequences were imposed, I do not fully understand, but the most imminent of those consequences was to be the death of the infant that was cradled by his mother. The baby became intensely ill, and David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare floor. The elders of his household pleaded with him to get up and eat with them, but he refused. David had to wait. And in his waiting, he mourned profusely, still crying out to God, and yet knowing that as he waited, his child was dying. Many of you have been in that deep valley of dark and ponderous waiting. Perhaps you waited for death to come to one you loved, but perhaps you waited for the doctor’s report, for a job assessment, for a prodigal to come back home, or for words that could give you the assurance of safety. The waiting punctuates our every breath, ties our emotions in knots, confuses our thinking, and, depending on our basic nature, immobilizes our actions or creates a frenzy. But prayerfully, like David, our waiting lays us prostrate in our Father’s presence, immensely grateful for that one constant, wanting to be wrapped in His arms and comforted and assured of a grace that knows no measure and a presence that is wholly dependable. I believe God gave those gifts to David even though David knew what the days would unfold. And whether we wait with a certain knowledge of what lies ahead or we wait for a tomorrow that is still clouded, we can wait as David waited – yes, in deep grief, but with an awareness of our God. David waited for seven days before he heard the whispers that his child was dead. Some of you have waited far longer. Whatever the wait, our God is still there. He loves. He cares. And, yes, He gives – not always what we want, but what His Father-heart knows is best. When David’s waiting was over, he got up and he did what was at hand to do, and he worshipped his God. In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free. – Bev (Related Bible reading: 2 Samuel 12:1-25) WHEN YOUR WORLD FALLS APART Chapter 2...... Bitter or Better? God never intended for us to be the ones in control of our lives, but when tragedy strikes, we have the evidence that fully substantiates our helplessness. And helplessness is capable of spawning the cancer of bitterness, infiltrating and destroying, hardening, and sapping our joy. As we invite a loving God into our lives, the “better” replaces the bitterness.

Surviving The Holidays

If you know anyone who recently lost a loved one this is a great way to get through the holiday season and its only 2 hours in a Zoom meeting. To register go to Surviving the Holidays.org and Look for Lighthouse Community Church

Letter to My Daughter

My dearest daughter, I have never written to you before and I realize that only if Jesus deems it wise, will He reveal to you the contents of this letter. I probably need to write it more than you need to read it. The truths I have learned, you learned long ago. The perspective on earth is so distorted. It is focused on a time and on places, belongings, events, possessions, and achievements that are sooo temporary. The brevity of life here as I work, play, relate, and become, is recognized more vividly the older I get. I know the expression, “when I lost you,” probably sounds strange to you because the home you have known all these years creates such a sense of belonging for you, and there would be no thought or longing on your part to find a home anywhere other than where you are. In my temporal world though, your presence was no longer here, and it was as if that presence I had so much longed for, had slipped from my hands and left my arms empty of the infant I literally ached to caress and nurture. My heart never “lost” you though, and still, these many years later, there is a tender place that belongs to only you. Today, had you stayed here, you would already be a mom yourself, and you would be immersed in the busyness of your home, your community, and prayerfully, your church. All good things, but they cannot compare to the good you have embraced within the reality of something I can still only hope for, although I recognize the certainty of that hope. And with whatever “good” this place that has been so contaminated by sin can still offer, you would have also known tears of sorrow and the heartache of disappointment. You may have also known the complexities of spiritual and emotional struggles, the failures of relationships, the inadequacies of personal striving, the void left by pursuit and attainment. And yet, you have known none of these. Instead you know an aliveness and a completion, a satisfaction and a saturation, that simply isn’t even possible within the earthly realm. I long for a sense of the reality of God’s presence and the joy and exuberance of worship and communion with Him and with His Son, that far exceeds human possibility within a still mortal body. All this belongs to you, and so much more! I would never call you back, but because my heart never “lost” you, you give to me over and over again. As I imagine the reunions that must occur in Heaven and the excitement of welcoming others who come, my heart becomes eager to know the same reality that you know. But as I stay in the place God has for me now, that tender place in my heart is tender too towards the hurts and disappointments of others. My heart has been enlarged and my capacity to give has been stretched by grace. I am far from perfect, but some day I will share in the perfection you already have shared in. And as I wait, I pray that the heavenly Father you have known so intimately all these years, will be more and more at home in my heart, that I would be no stranger to His presence when I am blessed to share it with you, my daughter. Much love, Mom (Related Bible reading: 2 Corinthians 5:1-8)