#lifegiving – Women Who Walk By Faith

Good always wins

“I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

I’m sure everyone has watched at least one Disney princess movie, if not several. Each is a story of love and each has some version of good and evil. What I love about these movies is that good always prevails in the end and most of all LOVE.

LOVE can be easy at times and it can be very challenging. Have you had those relationships where it was very easy to love the other person? They made it so easy because they loved you back with a selfless kind of love. What about those challenging relationships? Some of these can be within our own families. It can be a mother, a father, a sibling, a spouse, a child, or a good friend. They may have hurt you in some way or their form of showing love was demanding and selfish.

I think when Jesus was giving this commandment to love one another as He loved us, He may have had these difficult relationships in mind. I can’t remember where I read this but in this piece I was reading the author was comparing what it would look like for us today to resemble what Jesus did on the cross. Would you every consider volunteering to take the place of a man who is about to be executed for murdering your child? Consider what Jesus did for each of us. That kind of love for another is pretty hard to swallow for probably all of us – to take the place of another on death row who murdered your child.

Truly let that sink in for a bit in alignment with this very commandment Jesus gives us to love one another and the very action Jesus did by giving His life for each of us, who was on death row for our sins against our Father.

sunrise under cloudy sky illustration — Photo by Public Domain Pictures on Pexels.com

I’m not a saint by any means but I want to share a personal story that helped me to realize what Jesus meant in relation to me when He said “love one another as I have loved you.” After Mass on Sunday and hearing the nice homily that the deacon delivered, I went about my normal business. Later in the week, I attended a banquet with my daughters. It was my evening to have my daughters. My daughters saw their dad and went to tell him hi and returned to my table. After sitting for several minutes, waiting for our table to be called up to get food, I caught a glimpse of their father on the other side of the cafeteria alone. I whispered to both my daughters to go sit with their dad until our table was called up for food. Now, this may seem like a normal story to most people and you may be saying I don’t get it. What I want to share is that deep down I knew that my ex would never do this for me. His actions have repeatedly been quite the opposite – and this past week was proof of the repeated offenses. My actions were a result of Christ within me and not a result of me as my selfish human form. It was Christ’s love that flowed through me to give me the grace to turn the other cheek and show love to a person who has hurt me deep within, who has left very deep scars and continues to inflict me. It wasn’t until later that I realized the connection between my actions that night and the reading and it brought some peace to me.

I won’t pretend it’s easy to respond in love to those that hurt us or someone who just makes it difficult to love them, because it isn’t. It is expected of us. Even those individuals are God’s children and He loves them just as much as He loves us. To love like Him, we MUST love those that we may feel don’t deserve our love. Look at the cross, we didn’t deserve God’s love either, yet He freely gave it to us.

Choosing to do what Jesus would do will always bring light in the darkness. GOOD ALWAYS WIN – just as in the Disney princess stories. So the next time you are faced with the challenge of showing love to someone who has made it difficult for you to love, take that initiative and act in loving kindness just as Jesus would do for you after you committed your worst sin.

The masquerade

He gives power to the faint, abundant strength to the weak. Though young men faint and grow weary, and youths stagger and fall. They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength, they will soar on eagles’ wings; They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. Isaiah 40:29-31

Have you ever been to a masquerade ball? Do you feel like sometimes life can be like a masquerade ball, you are masked on the outside with something that is totally opposite of what’s on the inside?

I’m sure many can say that they have at least once or many times said everything was fine when someone asked but in actuality it wasn’t.

Often it seems like social media is a masquerade ball. Each of us can hide behind the things that we post, keeping our inner vulnerabilities hidden or portraying that everything is amazingly awesome when we are completely broken apart.

The masquerade ball I wanted to unveil is the one that traps us within. It’s the one where our reality seems trapped behind a mirror and we take control instead of surrendering to God.

assorted color mask — Photo by hitesh choudhary on Pexels.com

My daughter has been watching Once Upon a Time. If you aren’t familiar with this series, it’s a somewhat twisted combination of a lot of the Disney fantasies. A spell is cast and all the characters find themselves in another world trapped in a town and have no recollection of their former life. I think sometimes life can seem just like this series. We are trapped in a world that is not the one we are meant to be in. Perhaps the spell or the illusion is masked by sin or the ideals of the world we live in.

My favorite Bible verse is Isaiah 40:31. I love this verse because it’s a constant reminder of where my strength comes from when I am weary and restless. Like a spell bound world, sometimes I feel like my weakness is trapped behind the mirror of what I perceive as strength to others and in some cases to God. In other words, I don’t allow myself to really be unveiled. In many cases this leads to me trying to be in control, not allowing any defenses down and be vulnerable to support – Jesus carrying that cross for me. I will do this until I absolutely become restless and weary. In these moments I think the tornado starts to whirl around me and I get lost in the center of the darkness.

Let’s draw some focus on the part in Isaiah where it says “they that hope in the Lord”. It is this hope that is the rope in the well that we draw this strength from.

Exposing ourselves, stripping away the mask, whatever it may be that is separating us from God, allows us to grab on to the rope of hope and draw in this strength to truly face the things we need to. I can go another step further and call the threads of this rope that bind it – trust in God. This well is the living water that we draw in, refreshing and strengthening our spirit. It’s the nourishment we need for the journey but we first have to leave the masquerade party and be vulnerable.

When you feel like life is beginning to look like smoke and mirrors, try unveiling the mask of whatever is preventing you from being stripped and bare before God – allowing Him to do His amazing work in you and through you by strengthening you. Shatter the mirror, exposing whatever is trapped behind the illusion and grasp the rope of hope, drawing your strength from the well of life giving water – Jesus.

Managing expectations, not disappointments

“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interest, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 – the reading during my wedding ceremony. It seems forever and a day but I remember the voice of the person who read it. As my dear friend read this reading during my wedding ceremony, many dreams and expectations filled my head. Love was this GREAT EXPECTATION. It was supposed to be exactly like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Why? Because God said it was.

I’m sure no one else has done this – had GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

Towards the end of my marriage another set of verses filled my head as they were repeated to me often, Ephesians 5:22-23 “wives should be subordinate to their husbands…. for the husband is head of his wife.” Everything in between and afterwards was strategically omitted during these reminders of the Word of God.

I don’t want to dwell on the details of my past. The important thing I want to point out is I started my marriage with expectations of this blissful marriage with no problems, with an image of love as in 1 Corinthians 13. And I ended my marriage with grave disappointment. My ex-husband is human and I am human, neither of us are God and the marriage could never be perfectly blissful, with the perfect love of 1 Corinthians 13. In a relationship, both individuals should definitely strive to uphold God’s definition of LOVE but we are not perfect. We are going to miss the mark sometimes and that’s ok as long as we respond to the missed mark with this definition of LOVE.

My marriage seemed to be the exact opposite of what I think God intended in the covenant of marriage. Towards the end of the marriage when I kept hearing the verses from Ephesians 5, I thought something was wrong with me. I was broken and therefore my marriage was broken. I was failing at fulfilling what I thought the expectations (key word) God had in Ephesians 5. Part of that could very well be my own fault as I was ignorant to what God really meant in Ephesians 5 – perhaps because most of the message was missing when it was told to me over and over again and I accepted that as it was.

belief bible book business — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ok – now, I’m hoping to tie both of these things together. I want to first focus on expectations and disappointments.

We wrestle in our lives with disappointments because of our expectations. If our expectations aren’t aligned with accepting God’s plan, His Will in our lives then we are greatly disappointed when something happens or doesn’t go the way we planned or we prayed for. I’ve blogged a lot about God’s Divine Providence in our lives and sometimes it involves bad circumstances in our lives to bring the beauty or fruit. If our expectations are anything other than what God has in store for us, disappointment rears its ugly head.

What often happens when we become disappointed?

We start pulling away from God. We start questioning God’s motive in our lives and whether He is a good God, a loving Father. Our faith starts to suffer.

So when Ephesians 5 kept being brought before me in some things that I felt weren’t healthy, I really began to question God and who I was. This was embedding inside of me an image that I was a failure in my marriage, not good enough, a disappointment to my husband and to God. Fast forward to where I am in my faith today, I have a more informed knowledge of the entire message of Ephesians 5:21-30. As I read Theology of the Body, a wonderful book by the way, I began to put these verses in perspective. Here is my new perspective and new understanding of Ephesians 5:21-30. God does intend for wives to submit to their husbands and He also intends for husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. So, God’s intentions are exactly 1 Corinthians 13-4-7 in Ephesians 5. In order to be obedient to Ephesians 5:21-30, both husband and wife have to give themselves freely to the other. Christ loved the Church so much that HE gave Himself to His bride, the Church, by offering His life. So in order for a husband to “love [his] wife, even as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5: 25),” he must give himself completely to his wife. A wife in return must submit to her spouse, giving herself entirely to him. It also says that the Church, the bride of Christ, is subordinate to Christ. I think this is fulfilled by desiring all that God desires for us – alignment to His Will.

Going back to my own story, at the end of my marriage, I had become disappointed in myself because of another expectation. Looking back, this is a very good lesson to me on my expectations and disappointments and it reinforces my desire to be aligned with God’s expectations, His Will in my life.

I invite you to evaluate your expectations – may be they involve your children, your parents, your spouse, your job, a friendship or an illness. Are they aligning with God’s Will? Are your expectations flexible to accepting circumstance that is part of His plan for you? If so, you will have less disappointments and more life giving joy. Blessings!

“Do not, my child, approach Jesus Christ with the hope of bending his will to yours: what I desire is that you yield yourself to him and that he receive you, so that he, your Savior, may do with you and in you whatever he pleases.” St. Cajetan

The journey continues

“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

In my last blog, I wrote about how much Jeremiah 17:7-8 described my journey and how amazing my journey has been.

I want to start by asking if you have a unique descriptive of your journey? Can you see your story still unfolding before your eyes? Does your past surface from time to time, unraveling more of your path ahead?

What if the story continues to unfold by taking the deeper wounds illuminating and enhancing the new creation that God has reshaped from the dust? What if the most painful memories were surfaced, skimmed off the top, fired up, crystallized into tiny jewels and used to ornate the outer surface of the newly formed you?

A few weeks ago, I sat in my study frozen as I held several pieces of paper that were written in my hand writing. The only movement was the droplets falling from my eyes. There were things written that I had forgotten about, had buried. They were words that brought grave painful memories rushing back into my mind. As I read the words on these papers, I felt like I was trapped back in a place I had traveled as the pain stung so sharply deep within me. I knew I didn’t want to be in this place, yet it was something I had to do.

Going back to that place, uncovered an area I have not dealt with along my amazing journey. I can’t tell you how many times I feel like I am totally healed from my past and then something else surfaces that causes me to look deeper, to realize I have more cracks to mend. This was exactly one of those moments. As my eyes peered through each page I had written and the hurt rushed in, I knew God had more He wanted me to see. I had more work to do, there was more fruit to bear but I had to first pull up the weeds and lay down the new soil.

Our story is written, yet our journey of being refined is never complete. The purification, the reforming is a known fact in our spiritual journey. It is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to look deeper within and uncover the areas that need refining and/or healing. To move closer to God’s perfect plan for us is allowing Him to shed light on the dark areas in our lives, to illuminate them and bring goodness from them. I always like to go back and compare my refinement to the process of purifying gold or the formation of a diamond. It takes extreme conditions to form this precious metal and valuable gem, just as it does in us.

antelope canyon arizona — Photo by Ray Bilcliff on Pexels.com

Next time your past surfaces and the flood of emotions roll in, take a look deep with in and see what gem God is perfecting to ornate the outer surface of His new creation in you because He is not done with you. He is inviting you to uncover more, to move forward, closer to Him.

Just as in the lyrics of Tauren Wells song “God’s not done with you.”

There’s a light you don’t notice
Until you’re standing in the dark
And there’s a strength that’s growing
Inside your shattered heart
God’s not done with you
Even with your broken heart and your wounds and your scars
God’s not done with you
Even when you’re lost and it’s hard and you’ve fallen apart

A journey defined

“Blessed are those who trust in the LORD. The LORD will be their trust. They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream. It does not fear heat when it comes. Its leaves stay green. In the year of drought, it shows no distress, but still produces fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8

Have you ever had a Bible verse or two, just speak volumes to you? What about a few lyrics in a song? May be you have read a passage in a book by your favorite author or heard words of wisdom from a sage soul that spoke to the inner core of your heart?

Almost three years ago, I attended a retreat and heard the verses in Jeremiah 17:7-8 for the first time, deep within my heart. I’m not sure that I understood then how much these verses would be the verses that would truly describe my journey. Although my life began in my mother’s womb, my true journey of faith began six years ago.

I think my story is amazing. It is amazing because God has laid small and large stepping stones in front of me with an intended purposes. And I truly believe the intended purposes that He has been leading me to is exactly Jeremiah 17:7-8 -to grow in trust in Him and through this to strengthen my roots in my faith so that no matter where life takes me, it will always produce fruit.

This amazing story of mine is a story of trust. But this story began with tremendous hurt and lack of trust. In the darkest hour of that pain, God answered my call. He literally lifted me out of my situation and He began to lay before a new path. This path would still not be easy but would refine me, purify my heart and cleanse me from my past. It would provide me with a new compass and a new focus – “the Lord [would] be [my] trust.”

Through the last six years, my journey has gone through many phases that have lead precisely to this moment. These stepping stones I have been walking on have each served a purpose of leading me to trusting in God. I could write a book on the details of God’s hands and feet along the way, the people He placed in my life, the obstacles placed before me and those removed, the books, the readings from the Bible and the list goes on.

Some of the amazing details are centered around the obstacles that seemed to be removed that were in my way at times. There was no doubt that God’s hands and feet were a part of it. Most of the phenomenal movements of God’s presence was internally within me. This is the purification process that has been leading me on the path of trust. It is the interior spiritual movement that is the description of my journey expressed in Jeremiah 17:7-8. This is where the external stepping stones have led me to the deep roots, nourished by life giving water, bearing fruit in my life.

In one of Lysa Terkeurst latest books, “It’s Not Supposed to be This Way,” she describes an image of life being shattered to dust. What she goes on to say in the book is that sometimes our life has to be shattered to the point of dust so that we can be reshaped. It is through the reshaping that God’s perfect plan for us is placed in motion. As I look back on my life, I see this very process – my life shattered to fine dust and God picking every ounce of that dust up and reshaping me – from the inside out into exactly what He wants of me. The root of this process is trusting Him to do so, being vulnerable to the shattering and reformation. It is here where the fruit is produced, where the dead branches begin to grow new life.

So, when I heard the song on the radio by For King and Country, “God Only Knows,” and tears stung my cheeks, I knew that “God only knows what [I’ve] been through… God only knows the real [me]… God only knows where to find [me]… God only knows how to break through… There’s a kind of love that God only knows.”

Each of us go through some form of struggle in our life where the branches seem to be bare and darkness filters in. In many cases, life as we know if feels like it has shattered into a million pieces and we don’t know how to pick up the pieces. I invite you to trust in God to pick up the pieces and reshape you as He leads you on a path of reformation, purifying and perfecting your path He has laid before you.

The Unseen Journey Beyond the Struggles

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now, rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NLT)

How do you view your journey? Is it a narrow view or wide angle view?

Sometimes I think we become very focused on the narrow view of our circumstance. In some cases, we allow this to control the things around us, affect our life in a way that may not be life giving. When we look from the narrow lens, we look at what is happening in our lives and become hopeless of what is to come in life. This may create a sense of feeling stuck. I think we can become very stuck in a whirlwind of life. Circumstances can clutter life, creating feelings of being lost, disoriented, negative, angry, sad, and/or broken.

HOPELESSNESS

Yesterday as I was listening to the radio, they played the fairly new Christian song, “Scars” by I Am They. This song tends to bring tears to my eyes as it reminds me of my own scars. The beauty of this song is not the focus on the SCARS but that of thanksgiving. I don’t know what you may be going through or have gone through in your journey but healing is a process that is never complete. Our scars are present and always will be but it is through the scars that the glory prevails just as in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18.

When we open ourselves to seeing life through the wider lens, we are able to see that these scars, although significant at some time in life, are small when compared to the glory that is produced from them. It is the unseen process of healing that will last forever. It is through a faithful relationship with Christ that these weeds will wilt and new life and fruit are produced in the garden of your heart.

As I walk my own journey, the things of yesterday are revealing the things that were not seen then but that were present. I have come to realize that the journey is not just a road we travel but it is a process of purifying us. Gold is purified by being heated to very high temperatures and the impurities are then removed from the surface of the molten liquid. I joked around with my coworkers one day and said “you know I think by the time God is done bringing me through all this fire in my life I will be as pure as the finest gold and as shiny as the most precious gem.”

The process in the journey is the glorification. The troubles we go through are what’s on the surface waiting to be purified revealing the beauty that is deeper within, behind the scars – the fruitful garden that gives life to those who desire what God has in store for them.

When you look at troubles of today, I invite you to look through the wider lens and fix your eyes on the things that you can’t see, the grace that God is giving you to persevere in hopefulness. And when you see the scars of your life, be thankful for what they have produced.

Broken and shattered – reshaped in goodness

You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shade of the Almighty, say to the Lord, “My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.” Psalm 91:1-2

Does your life feel broken and shattered or may be it has at some point in your life? Perhaps, you have a close friend or family member who feels broken and shattered?

It so easy to tell you there is hope. All you have to do is trust God and He will make everything new, that His goodness will prevail. Instead of spending one minute telling you this, I would like to share a little piece of my story that reveals this hope, this newness that comes from trusting God.

I recently took a road trip with my daughters. I find road trips can be very awesome times with God, especially when everyone in the car is sleeping. As I was driving along the uninteresting interstate, I found myself reflecting on my life as my playlist was rolling through. As some of the older songs in my playlist were playing, I began to reflect on a few significant moments in my life. I tend to like these moments of reflection on my past because they reveal how far God has carried me and how far I have grown in my faith through my past. In some cases, it helps me to move another step forward.

As the song by Matt Maher, “Lord I need you,” began to play, my mind became very vivid reflecting on the very day I first heard this song. This day would be one of the most difficult days in my adult life as I was driving to see my counselor with my daughters to tell them that their daddy and I would no longer be together. I had made a decision that would change their lives forever. My heart was broken and my life seemed to be shattered as I heard the song playing in my car that day.

When the song came on, tears just streamed from my eyes. In that moment, I really needed God to be with me. I needed Him to guide my heart so that I would not fall apart. I was so broken during this period of time that falling apart seemed so easy. This would be one of the many moments during my journey where God revealed His presence to me, giving me strength that I would need. He knew I needed Him at that moment in the car and there is no coincidence this song came on. He wanted me to know that I needed Him to get through this and that He was holding my hand.

This wasn’t the only song that sparked reflection for me on my road trip. A little further down my playlist was a song by Danny Gokey, “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again.” As a dear friend recently reminded me, this song also speak volumes to my story. One of the hardest things I think I have had to do during my healing is to forgive myself and to love myself. God taught me a lot about myself and He began to lead me down a path of healing as He began to mold the shattered pieces and glue my brokenness. Sometimes I still see the scars and the broken path and I’m reminded where I have been. This is who I use to be and it has been through the loving hands of God that I was carried through to the person I am today. I no longer “live there anymore.” It was His grace and companionship in this journey with me that helped me to persevere.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned in my adult life is that sometimes we shatter. It’s in the shattered pieces that God reshapes our lives into something new and good. It’s not easy being reshaped but it’s essential and possible. It is made possible through trust, trusting God with the shattered pieces.

If you are feeling broken and shattered or someone you know is, surrender your brokenness, the shattered pieces, to God. Allow Him to reshape you into the one He created you to be.