Abraham & Sarah

There are times in our life where we want something and times where we need something. And it is always hard to tell the difference between the two. Take Sarah, Abraham's wife, for example. She wanted a baby so bad, that she told Abraham to take her handmaiden(servant) Hagar, and make a baby with her, so she could have a child. The Lord has already promised Sarah that she and Abraham will have a baby, but she has no patience with the Lord's time. Hagar refuses at first, but when the Lord commands her to obey Sarah Hagar finally agrees. Then Hagar actually becomes pregnant, and Sarah herself still can't, Hagar begins bragging and making Sarah's life even more miserable than it was before! Hagar has Ishmael, and is told he will be a wild man, and that his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand will be against him as well! (Genesis 16:12) Sarah is commanded again to be perfect because she is promised a child. Hagar and Ishmael continue to make Sarah's life miserable, until she finally gives everything to the Lord, and becomes pregnant with Isaac.
Isaac, ofcourse, is a wonderful child and grows up to make both of his parents proud. The lesson we can learn from this is that when we try to force our wants on the Lord things never turn out right, and we cannot be truly happy. It is only when we allow the Lord to direct our lives and trust him completely that we can find peace and happiness.
Is that easy? NO. And it never will be. Sarah had to endure years of pain and anguish before she was granted her hearts desire, and even then she had tried to do it by herself. "I cannot wait for you Lord, I need to do this myself!" That way only brought her suffering though.
I do not know how to give it all to the Lord. I have wants and needs that I feel are not being met, and everytime I think I can let the Lord be my guide, I hold on to a string of that wish so that I can still control it.
We cannot do anything without the Lord. He has made everything, including the world and all its inhabitants. How can we think that he cannot do for us?
I pray we may all be able to learn to give our lives to the Lord completely that we may all find true happiness in this life, and the one to come.

Post-its

I have been told in my life it is better to pray out of love than fear. Who can love a fearful angry God? Should God rule through intimidation and a vengeful heart, or love and a "father's" hand?
Recently my husband came to me with new insight that I feel I must share. He travels a lot on buisness and is constantly flying. He told me ha always prays right before take-off and right after landing, but is embarrased and guilty because he knows he shouldn't be praying out of fear, but love. On his last trip he forgot to pray before take-off and realized, that even in praying out of fear he was thinking of our Heavenly Father. Even in our fear we are reminded of him and we look to him. It is like a sticky note in our minds saying, don't forget he loves you and watched out for you. A blessing in disguise. So yes, it is good to pray in praise of him, but don't ever feel ashamed when you are reminded of him and your thoughts turn to the Lord. It is your thoughts of Him that He is looking for, however they come.

Where has this passion gone?

Last year I was reading religous books, and praying often. It seems my faith has taken an ugly turn for the worse since I wrote this to my brother who was serving a mission for God in Argentina. I feel I need to post this now though, because I DID have passion once, I DID have faith, so why do I feel it has left me? Why do I feel abandoned by God and his love? I know I shouldn't be, but is it me, or is it God that has turned away?





So I am reading the books called the "Left Behind" series. It is about the rapture, when God takes his people up to be with him and changes them in the twinkling of an eye, but those that are..."left behind", then have to face 7 years of tribulation and the antichrist. The books cover all sorts of things and kind of put accepting Christ in your life into perspective, as well as what the Bible says will happen. They follow the Scripture really well and I have been reading the Bible as I read the books so that when they quote a Scripture (or referense it) I can look it up to. It is really very interesting. I am learning that I must take a more Christ-like approach to my life. I have been so judgemental of others, when I don't know what they have been through in their lives to make them react the way they do.

Did you know that God forgave murderers? I mean, Moses murdered a man and he went on to become an amazing prophet and the salvation of the Jews. Also one of the Apostles that came later, he was a devout anti-christian, and slayed many Jews before he came to Christ and wrote many books in the Bible.

My Favorite part of the "Left Behind" books was a passage I read one night that has always stuck in my head.



"I have full faith in the power of the Lord to forgive and forget, to seperate our sins as far as the east is from the west. But I am human too I don't forget and thus often I don't appropriate the forgiveness God extends. Because we feel guilty does not mean God does not have the power to absolve us. If you are the one who can commit a sin too great for God to forgive, you are above God. That's how we can wallow in our sins and still be guilty of pride. Who do we think we are, the only ones God cannot reach with his gift of love?"



I love that! I put the emphasis in by putting part of it in bold, but while the whole paragraph needs to be read together, the bold face part is my favorite. So often we feel we know ourselves better than anyone and we are not worthy of forgiveness because we cannot forgive ourselves or forget. But we are merely mortal, we cannot even comprehend the scope of God's love. When I first became a mother I thought there was no way I could love this much and not explode! When she hugs me, or smiles at me, my heart grows and swells with an amazing amount of love for this tiny creature, and still, I do not know the power of God's love for us. My own mother, whom I believe is one of the most forgiving and loving people I know, does not know the scope of the power of God's love. Imagine yourself a father, or mother and you must sacrifice one child, your first born, to save the rest of your children. Yes you have an eternal scope and you know you will see your first born again, but not until after your child goes through an enormous amount of pain and suffering. Would you still be able and willing to make that sacrifice? How could you not, and yet how could you? I cannot imagine losing a child, everyday I pray as I hold my baby, that nothing will go wrong and she will be safe. To let my child out alone int the world where I knew they would be mocked and scorned and hurt, would be more than I could do. How grateful I am that God's love extends beyond what my little heart can comprehend. I am so wonderfully blessed that someone paid the ultimate sacrifice for me and for him I will be forever grateful. What a wonderful blessing we have been given. And we don't have to do anything to EARN that blessing. It is already ours! "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9)

God's grace has already saved us, we already have our way into Heaven. How blessed are we! Once you are aware of that fact it makes reading James 2:17-18 so much easier "Even so Faith, if it have not works is dead by being alone." Once we know we are saved and have been given the keys to reach Heaven how can we not act more Christlike? Wea re to do good and live right, but not so we can earn our salvation, we're to do that in RESPONSE to our salvation. And how blessed we are that we have the ability to act that way.

Never forget the power of God's love, If you let that shine through you, if you are truly a "window to his love and a doorway to the truth" that Christ is risen and he is our Savior you cannot fail in bringing others to the knowledge that their salvation is secure if they would but turn to Christ, the only way to our eternal salvation and our key to Heaven and being returned to God.

Faith of a Child, Or Just a Kid?

One of my favorite bible stories is the one of the woman who touched Jesus' robe as he passed, knowing that if she just touched him, he would heal her. She did, and He healed her. Yet there are those like my Grandmother, who has always recieved answers to her prayers, who suffer from severe sickness that contiue to grow and get stronger. Why does Jesus not heal her when asked? Is her faith insufficient? Why is she any different than that women in the bible? Just because she does not see Jesus face to face? But she knows Him, maybe more than that woman in the bible.



Which makes me question, Is God so giving and just? Or does he just pick and choose who he wants to save? What is the point of having the faith of a mustard seed, when the mountain you want to move, doesn't move? There is always a catch in religous logic. They say all you have to do is believe and anything is possible, but then when you do and nothing does happen, they can say, God wants you to go through this. Belief does not get you anything. You still have to rely on God choosing you to actually give you what it is you want.

"We will never know God's mind"
or my favorite,
"Just because you think you need it, doesn't mean you do. There is a difference between want and need"

All of these seem more like excuses when things don't turn out the way you said. You can pray as hard as you want, and believe, or even know, and it all comes down to God and his whim. Call it what you want, but it is his decision, not a higher purpose for pain.

The Voice in the Rain

I remember when I was growing up, the thing I wanted most was to feel God's presence. Every month I heard people bear witness that God was in their lives and that they could feel Him with them. I wanted that more than anything. I knew that if I believed hard enough it would come true. My favorite story in the Bible was the one about the women in the crowd that caused Jesus to stop and say "Someone has touched me". Her faith was so strong that not only could Jesus feel it, he could feel some power come out of him into her. He stopped and looked for the source of that draw. She said that she knew that if she could just touch him she would be cured. You know, the best part of that story is that she was right! All she had to do was touch him, then she was cured!

I knew that, that would be my fate too. Because I knew that all I had to do was wait and Jesus would make me whole again. He would answer my prayers, he would save me. I KNEW. So I waited. And I grew up. And no answers, no peace, no help. I was still unbelievably broken, and getting worse. Yet still I believed, still I prayed. 

"God tests us" 

"We are rough and He makes us like diamonds with heat and pressure"

"That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger"

"It is through our trials that God knows us"

"God does not give us trials that we cannot bear"

I repeated every nonsensical mantra in my head as I waited for his deliverance. Didn't the Jews have to wait patiently year after year for Moses to come. And then even longer to find a home. I could wait to find my home.....couldn't I?

My pain was only growing. Like a cancer it began to attack every decent thought, every decent memory, until all I was, was a decaying, broken shell. Still I was alone. Still I had no answer.

The end nearly came many times. I was a wreck. I could hardly function, and I definitely could not hold onto any type of relationship. I was even more alone, by my own doing! And still God would not deliver me. 

I escaped to the mountains. I drove and drove, looking for somewhere to hide away forever, or at least till I could breathe again. Soon I couldn't see, my tears were too much, so I had to pull over. I cried out for God again and again! "Where are you!" He was not there, He would not save me. 

Then I heard something so real, that to this day I still do not know if I made it up, or if it was true. A voice. A simple voice, from my head or from His mouth, His voice.

"I will weep with you"

Then, out of the bright, blue Idaho sky, came rain. It rained for the next hour as I sat in my car crying and screaming and tearing at my skin. The sky poured out my pain on the mountainside even as my tears down my face. 

Finally when I had control of myself, I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and started my car. 

And the rain stopped too.

My Peace I give unto you

I grew up in a church that preached about "the burning in the bossom" and the closeness of God and how much he answers prayers. Well I prayed all the time and never got the answer to the one question I wanted an answer to. My biggest problem was that I wanted to answer so bad, and I believed so much, no I knew that I would get an answer, that I looked for that answer in everything. I found it in everything. Any little thing in my life was tied to that one question, because I wanted that answer and I knew that God would eventually give me that peace.

I've been told that you must love God before others, and others before your self. Well if that's true, then why do people say you have to love yourself before you are able to love anyone else? I don't know if I love God more than anyone else, I thought I knew when I was younger, than I had a daughter and I know I would do anything for that little girl. I also know that I do not do anything for God. I don't live for him, nor do I even think about him as much as I do my daughter. So does that make me a bad Christian? Or am I "just human" and subject to failure? 

I think I know now that it is not that you must love yourself, it is that you must find peace with yourself. I don't know if that's harder or not, but I know I am not anywhere close. How do you find peace with an imperfect object? How do you find peace with someone who hurts others? Who offends people everyday, who glares and grumbles and has anger in their heart? Or is that the very nature of peace, that you know something is imperfect, and you can find the beauty in that anyway, and be ok with the imperfections. 

That does not mean complacent, it just means that you can look at yourself in the mirror every night before you go to bed and say, "good try today". Maybe you weren't perfect, maybe you didn't everything right, but you can find peace with what you actually were that day, not what you wish you were. Getting to that peace is very trying also. That helps, the trying. It is easier to find peace with a work in progress, than a finished label. 

I cannot find peace with myself though. I can tell others all about it. I can give them hope, but it is only false hope, because even though I believe it, I cannot live it. I am a horrible religious hypocrite. I love religion and I can't live it. I love God, and I can barely speak to him. I cannot find peace with Him, or with myself. Does that mean I am doomed to a failed relationship? Or will Jesus come save me and give me peace?

I am still searching for the answer to my question. I am trying to not find it in every little thing I pass. I am trying not to live with my question daily. Maybe that will be my peace someday, that I won't be living with the search for my answer. That letting go of my question will give me peace and I won't have this aching hole left by the silent answer. Or maybe God will finally hear me crying in the dark and give me his peace, and wipe my tears away with the answer I so desperately search for. 

Jesus gave his peace to all, by saving them. Am I selfish for wanting more?

Fight for Faith

     The thing I have learned about faith, is when you are praying and really trying to be in tune, you find miracles and proof of your faith in everything and everyone. Then, when faith is not on your mind, your life goes on as normal without God's intervening hand ever being known or recognized. So my question is, do we see God because we want to, because we are looking for him, or are we so fanatic in our need for him that we force miracles where none occur.

     I have a good friend, let's call her Sarah, she is a women of great character and faith. I have had many wonderful discussions on faith with her despite the fact that we both belong to very different religions. Sarah was getting married. So she went to an OB to start on birth control. She was a virgin still, so her doctor didn't feel the need to do a thorough exam, and just prescribed her birth control and sent her on her way. A simple thing, most people would never even think twice about. After a few weeks of procrastinating because she just didn't feel good about it, she finally decided to just get it over with and start taking the pills. Her father came down just then with tears in his eyes. He hugged Sarah before he could speak. Then he told her about a dream he had just woken up from. The kind that seems so vivid, that when you wake up you can't tell if it was real or not. He had dreamed of Sarah in the hospital, her future husband crying at her bedside because she was dying. At first he didn't understand why, then he knew it was because of something in her birth control. And he stood there, unable to do anything as his beloved daughter slowly died. Sarah looked at the pills on the counter and thought of her reluctance to take them. She immediately flushed them down the drain and has never taken any form of birth control since then. Nor does she ever plan to. She never knew if her father's dream would have come true and if her reluctance saved her life, but she has great faith and trusts that God protected her from something horrible.

     Is this true? Did God send a miracle in the form of something so human as procrastination? Or "just a feeling" that she didn't want to take birth control? It seems a little far-fetched for something that we will never be sure really was a miracle at all. Was she just reading more into a fear then was actually there? 

     This same friend though, has been blessed by many miracles. Every sunday Sarah and her older brother would drive to 7-11 for the slushes. They got in one of those silly sibling fights one week, it didn't seem to mean much later, but at the time seemed to pull apart their normally close relationship. By Sunday morning Sarah's brother was already over it, and wanted to call Sarah to forgive and forget. He decided to wait a few hours though, what was a couple hours in the grand scheme of things? So he went to get the slushes by himself. On the way back he got into a bad wreck, spinning out of control and smashing the front passenger side of his truck. Completely crushing the place where Sarah's legs would have been.

     It is not often that we see such a blatant show of the effects our decisions make. The religious child in me thinks she must have an amazing purpose in this life that God is so publicly protective of her. He has saved her life twice at least that I know of, maybe more! The realistic adult that has been hardened against such things, thinks what a lucky break she had. What happened to my childlike innocence and brave, blind faith? Where I could once see the wonder of God's simple hand in our lives, now I question everything and see our own human weakness of stumbling on dumb luck instead of miracles.

     I want to fight my way back to faith again. Yet even as I say that, my body feels at war. Can I survive a need to believe God is in everything, while at the same time feeling God is ignoring my pain and suffering? How can I force my head around a presence I am told I must love, yet cannot feel?

     I think I love God. I know I love the idea of God, but I don't know if I have the strength for the battle ahead. It is a most important war, this war of souls. So I will chose to believe the miracles that have saved my friends life. Because miracles are not all bright lights, voices from Heaven or Angels. They are the small things we so easily brush off and ignore. That is what faith is; trusting and believing that those little things and feelings that we may miss more often than not are miracles. I had a feeling I shouldn't. We may never know the cost of our decisions when we follow our feelings. Whether they save us or not, they are our miracles.  Our faith may depend on the effect of a decision that we never know the result of, but it is in that moment, when we chose to believe that God has a hand in our lives as small as feelings, that we truly understand what faith is.