This weekend I am praying for all the women who desire to be a mom and for whatever reason are not.
I know how you feel.
Romans 8:28 seems trite, yet it is true. No matter the hurt, God will work it all out for good to those who love Him. Love involves trust, and you can trust the *good* heart of God. He knows why.
I am thankful for the three [step]children God has given me through marriage, and the granddaughter we have with us in our home, but for many years it was not so for me. I was alone, and I longed for children. There is still, at times, a little ache inside when conversations come up about pregnancy, carrying a child inside your body... and the statements--albeit true--that "you cannot understand until you experience it."
When I hurt like that, I must ask myself two questions:
1. Will I trust the good hand of God? That He knew best for me and that He allowed it to happen in my life the way it did for a reason? (Or will I choose to be bitter about it?)
2. Is there another area in which I do this to someone else? Another topic/area of life entirely where I may have been granted something that they have not. If God puts His finger on an area, am I willing to be more sensitive to that person (even if he/she is not sensitive to me), realizing the hurt he/she may be feeling? Am I willing to see him/her through Jesus' eyes?
He is there... in the precious moments of learning.
He is there... when I don't want to answer "What's that?" for the thousandth time! :)
He's in every moment of my life.
Do I see Him?
Do you?
“At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push into conscious awareness of His presence. That type of Christianity which happens now to be in vogue knows this Presence only in theory. It fails to stress the Christian's privilege of present realization. According to its teachings we are in the presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience the Presence actually.”
Yes, I'm late in the game. Better late than never, eh?
The Lord has been speaking to my heart about one main thing in the past few months and has brought my focus onto one word: gratefulness.
In past years I have kept a Gratitude Journal, but I needed something more visual to remind me. I have a wipe-off board on my fridge. I have used it for chore lists, notes, reminders, and everything in between. This past week, however, I began using it for a new thing. I wrote at the top: "Grateful..." And I am endeavouring to write something for which I am grateful every day. It's just another way I can act upon what God is prompting in my heart--and a method in which I can get my family involved as well!
"Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!" ~ Psalm 107:9
Continual questions flow through my mind. I feel I try so hard to "be good" and "do right." And things continue to go "wrong."
It's not fair!
There's another expression of emotion that comes easily when I don't truly believe God for Who He is.
God is good. I have been taught that. I know that in my head. But do I truly believe it in my heart?
Recently, I had an epiphany of sorts over a familiar verse. I learned to quote this verse as a two-year-old child:
And we know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. ~ Romans 8:28
Yeah. I've read and quoted that verse so many times. But now I notice that it says, "thecalled according to His purpose."
I am the called one. The position in which God has placed me in life is for His purpose and ultimately for my good.
God has not maliciously placed me in this position. He has good reasons that I may not know now, but I will know one day. Jesus said:
What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. ~ John 13:7
So it is up to me to believe God is Who He says He is!
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him. ~ Nahum 1:7
Knowing God intimately is the privilege of those who trust in Him. If I know and trust that He is good, He becomes my stronghold in the day of trouble.
Countless Scriptures tell me that God is good. That God orchestrates everything in my life. That nothing happens by accident.
The question is: Will I trust in a good God today?
Today I would like to share a portion of The God of All Comfort by Hannah Whitall Smith:
If I have a friend whom I know to be a good housekeeper, I do not trouble over the fact that at housecleaning time things in her house may seem to be more or less upset, carpets up, and furniture shrouded in coverings, and even perhaps painting and decorating making some rooms uninhabitable. I say to myself, “My friend is a good housekeeper, and although things look so uncomfortable now, all this upset is only because she means in the end to make it far more comfortable than ever it was before.”
This world is God’s housekeeping; and although things at present look grievously upset, yet, since we know that He is good, and therefore must be a good Housekeeper, we may be perfectly sure that all this present upset is only to bring about in the end a far better state of things than could have been without it. I dare say we have all felt at times as though we could have done God’s housekeeping better than He does it Himself, but, when we realize that God is good, we can feel this no longer. And it comforts me enormously, when the world seems to me to be going all wrong, just to say to myself, “It is not my housekeeping, but it is the Lord’s; and the Lord is good, therefore His housekeeping must be good too; and it is foolish for me to trouble.”
A deeply taught Christian was asked by a despairing child of God, “Does not the world look to you like a wreck?
“Yes,” was the reply, in a tone of cheerful confidence; “yes, like the wreck of a bursting seed.” Any of us who have watched the first sproutings of an oak tree from the heart of a decaying acorn will understand what this means. Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed.
Our Lord uses this fact to teach us the meaning of His processes with us. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
The whole explanation of the apparent wreckage of the world at large, or of our own personal lives in particular, is here set forth. And, looked at in this light, we can understand how it is that the Lord can be good, and yet can permit the existence of sorrow and wrong in the world He has created, and in the lives of the human beings He loves.
It is His very goodness that compels Him to permit it. For He knows that, only through such apparent wreckage, can the fruition of His glorious purposes for us be brought to pass. And we whose hearts also long for that fruition will, if we understand His ways, be able to praise Him for all His goodness, even when things seem hardest and most mysterious.
The apostle tells us that the will of God is “good and acceptable, and perfect.” The will of a good God cannot help being “good”—in fact, it must be perfect’; and, when we come to know this, we always find it “acceptable”; that is we come to love it. I am convinced that all trouble about submitting to the will of God would disappear, if once we could see clearly that His will is good. We struggle and struggle in vain to submit to a will that we do not believe to be good, but when we see that it is really good, we submit to it with delight. We want it to be accomplished. Our hearts spring out to meet it.
Space fails me to tell all that I might of the infinite goodness of the Lord. Each one must “taste and see” for himself. And if he will but do it honestly and faithfully, the words of the psalmist will become true of him: “They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness.”
God is our PERFECT FATHER, and He can be trusted!
Psalm 116:7 says, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul [that's my mind, will, and emotions!]; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee."
Watch this video of the song "I Can Trust Jesus" by the Collingsworth Family:
NOTE: To listen to this video, you will need to scroll to the bottom of this page and pause the automatic music player.
Have you been slammed with yet another jolt in life? Makes you wonder what tomorrow holds, doesn't it? Have you ever asked, "What else could possibly go wrong?!"
Sometimes life throws us curve balls that have us fearing tomorrow rather than loving it. (My apologies to Orphan Annie.)
A little song that I play for my two-year-old granddaughter convicts me:
Are you humbly grateful, or grumbly hateful?
What's your attitude?
Do you grumble and groan, or let it be known
You're grateful for all God's done for you?
No matter what is going on in life, we still have so many blessings for which to thank God. I woke up this morning with a roof over my head, a furnace heating my home, warm blankets, a warm shower, a loving husband, and a host of other blessings!
Whenever I enjoy a hot shower, God seems to bring to my mind all the persecuted Christians around the world who are in prison, have spent time in prison or concentration camps for their faith, or who just don't have the amenities we have in our western world. He reminds me of two things: 1.) to pray for the persecuted believers around the world, and 2.) to be grateful for the riches I have.
I may not be rich by this world's standards. I don't live in a mansion, or even a newly built home. I don't have endless money to spend. There are problems in my life that I wish weren't there. There are relationships in my life that I wish were better. But I am rich!
The church of Laodicea was rebuked of God because they were lukewarm. Why were they considered lukewarm? God said,
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: ~ Revelation 3:17
Does God want me to grovel? No. But He does want me to see that without Him, I am nothing. Because He wants me to rely completely on Him, and realize that everything I have is from Him.
What in the world does this have to do with fearing tomorrow? When I see life through the gratefulness lens, I don't fear tomorrow, because I have the assurance that God, the Almighty, my Creator, the Lover of my soul, has everything planned, purposed, and under control. When I see Him as a loving heavenly Father, a perfect one, I can lean back in His arms and trust that everything He is allowing--and will ever allow--in my life is for a perfect plan and purpose. That it's all for my good. That one day I will understand it all. It will all make sense.
The late Corrie ten Boom used the illustration of a cross-stitch piece. On earth, we only see the underside of the cross-stitch of our lives: all tangles and knots, not pretty. When we get to heaven, we will see the beauty of the top side: the completed cross-stitch He has made of everything in our lives. Then we will know why and we will be eternally grateful for all that He did allow--even the uglies--to make something so beautiful of our lives.
I'm an American preacher's kid who became a Canadian pastor's wife. I have the greatest parents in the world! By the time I was two, my mom taught me to quote more than 200 Bible verses. (Way to go, Mom!) My dad was always my favourite preacher. After I grew up, I was a book editor and a magazine/web copy editor. But since age 12, I knew my true calling and passion lay in ministry. The year I spent as a missionary in the Netherlands was life changing in many ways. I met my love, Peter, and God graciously granted my lost dream of being a pastor's wife. Peter and I have three beautiful children and the cutest granddaughter and grandson you've ever seen. smile emoticon I love tiffany blue and cherry red (not necessarily together), coffee (trying to be healthier with "fake" barley/chicory coffee these days), jasmine green tea and myriad other teas, ethnic foods, dark chocolate (especially with nuts!), European style, vintage décor, music (vocal, piano, harp). and books!
