A Beautiful Mess

God’s Promises Are Always Bigger

Have you ever asked God for something you really, really wanted? I’m talking about the type of desire in your heart that goes so deep it consumes all your thoughts. A desire that seems to take top priority in all your prayers. It’s that one thing that you’re sure if God would just answer this request, your life would fall perfectly into order. I know I sure have. What do we do with desires like these and prayers like these?

Well, we know that if the desire falls in line with God’s will, we can be confident that our prayers will be answered, and we can know whether or not they fall in line with God’s will by lining them up against the Word of God, the Bible. If our desire falls outside the teachings of the Bible or are contrary to those teachings, then our desires are outside the will of God. God won’t answer prayers that are outside His will.

But I have noticed something else about the way God uses the promises in His Word in answering our prayers for these deep, godly desires He has placed within our hearts. God’s view is always bigger!

Yes, I know. You’re probably thinking, “Duh!” I mean doesn’t the Bible tell us (Isaiah 55: 8-9) that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts?! Of course it does. But have you ever really mediated on what that means? I typically hear this verse trotted out whenever we are looking for comfort when things aren’t going our way or when we can’t see yet the end of the trial. Then someone at church will trot this verse out as if it somehow explains everything. Personally, I never found it to be very comforting in those circumstances. But I am beginning to see another nuance to this verse.

Let’s take a look at Sarah. Sarah was married to Abraham, a mighty man of faith who followed God even when he didn’t really know who God was or where God was leading him. Can you imagine? Your husband comes home one day talking about how God has spoken to him–some new God that you have never heard of before and not one of the ones your neighbors know and worship–and he tells you this God wants you to pack everything up and move to a new place. Where? you might ask. And the answer you get is: I don’t know yet. I’ll know when we get there. Oh, man….I am not sure I would have been a good wife right then. In fact, I can almost guarantee I would not have been.

And what Sarah longs for more than anything else in the entire world is a child. Now, she knows that this desire is in line with God’s will because God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. There is nothing outside the will of God in asking for a child. God even gives her a promise about this child in a conversation He has with Abraham. So Sarah has this promise. She will have a child. It’s a guarantee. But I don’t think it takes much of an imagination to picture Sarah focused on that single child she has pictured in her heart for all these years. The thing is that while Sarah has this promise and has to go through the actual waiting period to see its fulfillment (25 years!!!), we have the rest of the Bible. Yes, God promised Sarah a child just like she wanted, but God’s view of that was so much bigger. When God gave Sarah the promise of Isaac, He already had in mind the nation of Israel and the birth of Jesus Christ! I think that’s a small portion of what it means when He tells us that His thoughts are so much higher than ours. Can you imagine what Sarah might have thought had she known how big that simple promise of a child would turn out to be?

It’s the same with the life of King David. David desired to serve God. The Bible says He was a man after God’s own heart. And God gave David a promise as well–that he would always have a descendant on the throne as king. Now David may have had in mind any number of his sons–even Solomon who took the throne after him. But God? God had in mind the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth–first, in Jesus as Savior, and later in Jesus as the returned King of Kings! How huge is that promise? David, you will always have a son to sit on the throne, and what I mean by that is that one day I will restore the earth to the way I created it to be just because you were obedient to me!

I see it in my own life right now. The night my husband walked away, I was crying out to God. I knew that God was for my marriage. God hates divorce! He hates seeing families ripped apart by sin. There was no way that my children being in foster care and my husband choosing to walk away were a part of God’s plan for my life! No way at all! And in that moment of asking God why this was happening, I was stopped short mid-sob by a whisper: I will restore! At first, I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly. But I believe that was God’s Word on the matter. He will restore.

At first, I thought this meant He would bring my husband home and save our marriage. That hasn’t happened yet. I don’t have that part of the promise fulfilled as I sit here typing this, but let me tell you what I HAVE seen. I have had God rekindle dreams in my life that I had set aside when I was a teenager. I have seen Him breathe life into gifts I haven’t used in a very long time. I thought God’s promise meant my marriage and only my marriage because that was my focus, but God’s promises always include so much more than what our focus is on.

God IS restoring! He’s restoring my marriage, yes, but He’s also restoring me. He is awakening the gifts He put in me. He is calling me to pick up the assignments He planned for me from the beginning of time. David writes in the Psalms how all are days are recorded in God’s book! and Paul tells us that God has prepared works for us to do! He has restored my faith. He has restored my hope. He has restored my joy. He is in the process of restoring my finances. I didn’t even have that on my radar when I was begging God for a promise! He is working on restoring my relationships in other arenas. The promise is so much bigger!

And that’s how it always is with God. We see such a small sliver of what He sees. We think we will be happy if we can get this one little request (or maybe not so little), but God sees how it all fits into His design for our entire life and all the lives that our life will touch for His glory!

What are you asking God for today? What promise are you standing on right now as you wait for God to fulfill your request? Are your eyes open for how much bigger God’s plans might be as He answers your prayers? I hope they are because I can guarantee that if you look for those everyday miracles, it will make the waiting a bit easier.

God Remembers Our Prayers

It really shouldn’t surprise me how that God pays attentions to the details of our lives. Sometimes it’s incredibly overwhelming to think that the God who created the entire universe and everything in it is intimately concerned about even the really small things in my life. He knows the number of hairs on my head. He cares whether I choose to pursue this career or that. Sometimes, God even shares His opinion on what I should eat for breakfast. And that’s absolutely amazing to me!

When you think about the fact that the entire Bible is about having a relationship with God, it makes total sense that God cares about the details. After all, I share those details with my best friend, don’t I?

And maybe saying He cares is less accurate than the fact that He just wants me to share like that with Him. I mean I can’t really say my best friend cares about the details of every facial expression and tone of voice in that conversation I had with that one person that one time that really affected me, so much as she cares about me and the things that are important to me at the time. Maybe it’s the same with God. It’s not necessarily earth-shattering whether I decide to eat a fiber bar or a donut for breakfast, but it is kind of earth-shattering if I share those moments with God because it builds a relational intimacy with Him that really does affect every aspect of my everyday life.

David appreciated this in Psalm 56:8 when he wrote: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” If God keeps track of things like the number of hairs on my head and the tears that I cry in the midst of sorrow, then of course He would remember my prayers! I mean that’s the entire reason I pray them, right?! It’s to share with God the needs and cares that I have in the hopes that He will do something about them.

The hard thing here is that God is eternal, while we are finite. Time holds a lot more importance to us than it does to God. After all, time is short. Life is short. And for those of us in Western societies, time really holds a lot of control over our lives. We are addicted to check lists and work and constant busyness in an effort to make our mark on the world and leave a legacy. So it really comes as no surprise that sometimes before God answers my prayer, I’m on to the next thing…the next care…the next worry…the next desire.

This really came into focus for me recently when I was talking to God about this waiting time as I look for restoration in my marriage. In the scheme of standing for marriage restoration, my time of waiting has not been much. In the scheme of eternity, I’m sure it’s even less! But waiting for many of us feels never-ending. Sometimes I wonder if God remembers that we are governed by time down here on earth. He seems so slow in moving sometimes! And it was while I was reminding Him of the fact that we are governed by time and need things to go a little faster than an eternal perspective might merit that He laid this little bit of revelation on me.

He said: “Remember when you met your husband in high school? And you began praying that he would know me and that he would give his life to me and be saved?” I remembered. I had had a dream that my husband–then my recent ex-boyfriend–and many of our classmates and I were in a long line in front of a desk. We were being separated to the left and to the right. Those who I knew were Christians were going to the right, and those who I knew were not were going to the left. I was sent to the right when I reached the desk, but my husband and a few of my friends were headed to the left, and I knew what that meant. I’d read enough of the Bible to know that the sheep go to the right and into heaven while the goats go to the left and to an eternity of torment! I did not want that fate for people in my circle. I begged to take their place. I pleaded with God to give them another chance…to send someone who could convince them of the truth of the gospel.

And then God said this: “Honey, I know you are praying for your husband to come home and for life to be perfect again. I know you want that more than anything in the world right now. But…. I am still working on your first prayer for him.”

Wow!

God knows exactly what my husband needs. He knows exactly what I need. And while it may seem so incredibly hard to be separated from the love of my life right now, the truth is that if my husband does not give God lordship of his life…well, we will probably keep repeating this cycle over and over and over again. And when time is up, it’s up. There won’t be one more gospel message to give him the opportunity to repent. It will be game-over! In the scheme of eternity, my husband’s salvation is of far more concern to God than our marriage, even though our marriage is important too.

And then God brought to mind my more recent prayers: prayers that my husband would be kinder, prayers that he would be the head of the household that God had called him to be, prayers that God would equip him for the ministry he had been called to, prayers that he would be able to forgive those who had hurt him, prayers that God would change him….. Oh, so many prayers! God remembers each and every one. He intends to answer each and every one.

Maybe you find yourself in a waiting room, waiting on the answer to a prayer you have been praying for a long time. If you think back, you may find that many prayers along the same theme have gone before….and maybe not just your own prayers, but the prayers of others prayed over you or in agreement with you. The waiting room is hard. It’s a lonely place. It’s an uncomfortable place. But perhaps you are there because God is still answering the very first prayer you prayed because God remembers them all, and He knows what order to answer them in so that it all works together for good!

A Lesson From Tying Knots: Let God Be Your Vindicator

Sometimes God has a sense of humor. Of course, we think of God’s sense of humor when we think of things like the creation of the platypus or maybe in the ironies of life. Sometimes we say that God has a sense of humor in a sarcastic way when things in our life are not going the way we want them to go. But today, I thought about how funny God can be when He brings things to our remembrance. We’re going about our day, minding our own business so to speak, and God drops a little memory into our minds. Sometimes we take a minute to reflect on that memory and the feelings that come up, and we know exactly what God is trying to say to us. But sometimes we reflect on a memory, and we have absolutely no idea why that popped up at that moment. We have to wait for God to explain it to us, and can I just let you in on a little secret? God never takes us in a direction we expect!

The way God’s mind works is just unfathomable to us. I mean the Bible tells us quite plainly in Isaiah 55:8 that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. We know that, of course, but sometimes seeing how God pieces together the seemingly random bits of our life is quite astonishing. Sometimes I sit back and just marvel at it the way I marvel at a work of art. It’s like looking at one of those 3D image pictures that were so popular in the ’90s. You have to get the angle just right to see it, but when you do it is truly amazing!

Today was one of those days. God has asked me to pick this blog back up, so I was contemplating what He wanted me to write about. I have a lot of things that happened over the last year that would make decent topics of discussion. I have some loose threads that I left dangling when I walked away for a while to pursue full time work and try to make some sense of my life as a single mom after my husband walked away. I have some exciting hints at directions the Lord might be moving my life in. Any one of these would make a good jumping off point.

So imagine my surprise when in response to my question, a memory from high school popped up. My sophomore year of high school my best friend and I decided we would try out some new opportunities. Our school had a lot of groups that came in and advertised various activities and opportunities–clubs and things of that nature–and we had mandatory attendance at all the assemblies that introduced us to these opportunities. At the time, I really wanted to pursue a career in medicine and in the military. I really wanted to be a medic–test my limits and do something heroic! One of the opportunities that came up was the Explorer’s Division of the Boy Scouts of America.

Now if you’re not that familiar with the Boy Scouts of America beyond the cub scouts or the eagle scouts, it may surprise you to know that they have a division that is co-ed and that it has been co-ed far longer than the recent pushes for inclusivity. This division pairs up teens with various career options they may wish to explore (hence the name). So there is a section of the Explorers that does EMT training. There’s a section that does ride-alongs with law enforcement. The section we chose was Search and Rescue. In this division we went camping and learned survival skills, orienteering, and also various search and rescue techniques that would assist local law enforcement with missing persons.

At our first camp out, we learned all the basic knots used in scouting. This was to prepare us for high altitude rescues, repelling, etc. We spent an entire day learning the various knots and their names in preparation for a relay race “test” on our final day of camping. Now if you knew me it would not surprise you to learn that my Grandmother called me “Grace” because of her love for irony. I am not the most graceful person. As an awkward teen I was even less graceful! So it would be no surprise for you to learn that the week before this camp out, I seriously sprained my ankle stepping out of a van while I was at a youth conference for church. (Ironically, the theme for that year was “Run! Don’t Walk!)

What might surprise you was that fact that I decided to keep the camping trip and attend on crutches. Well, I am extremely competitive. I didn’t want to let my team down in this relay, and I knew that I was a serious handicap–no pun intended. I made a decision that I was going to learn those knots inside out and backwards so that I could tie any knot in record time. I figured that would more than make up for my lack of speed on crutches!

The day of the relay came. I was confident I could tie any knot they threw at me! The rules were simple: A member of each team would cross a designated area of the campground, tie the knot the instructor requested, get the knot approved, run back to their fellow team mates and tag the next in line. The penalty for tying the knot wrong was five push ups (modified for the girls and any injured parties, thank goodness!) and having to retie that knot until you got it right.

I made my way as quickly as possible to the instructor. I was given a figure eight on a bight as my knot to tie. This is a common repelling knot, and it’s fairly straight forward. The finished product is going to look like a figure eight. Well, I tied that knot much faster than my opponent and presented it to the instructor for approval, confident that I was right. And he told me I was incorrect and made me do 5 push ups. I tied the knot again….the same way….because I was confident that I was right. And again he told me I was incorrect and made me do 5 push ups. Side note: By now, you’re probably also realizing that stubbornness is one of my personality attributes as well! Anyway, I tied that knot a third time. The. Exact. Same. Way. Because I KNEW I was right! And this time, the instructor agreed and let me go.

At the end of the camp out the instructor approached me and thanked me for keeping a smile on my face. He acknowledged that he had unfairly punished me. It seems they wanted to test my character….as if showing up on crutches didn’t show my determination enough. They wanted to know what I would do if I was treated unfairly. And the answer is that I smiled my way through. Of course, I was gritting my teeth and thinking horrible thoughts the entire time! But I had trusted that it would all work out and that God would handle it.

That’s a level of faith that I lost as I got older….maybe that’s one of the reasons Jesus tells us to become like children. I wondered for a second about why God would want me to tell you about this memory, but then he tied it all together (And yes! I fully intended that pun!)

You see, in 2019 my husband and I were accused of child abuse. Our children were removed and placed into foster care without any evidence of abuse having occurred and with no criminal charges being filed. That may surprise some people. Most of us trust the legal system to work, but our foster care system is woefully broken. A byproduct of that is separation of families that never should have been separated while kids who should have been removed show up on the evening news.

When we lost our adjudication case, I was mad at God. This was injustice! We were innocent, and I had had a word from God that we would have victory. That’s another story in and of itself! We went through 4 different foster care workers before the children were returned to me last January. When we were assigned our first worker, I prayed and prayed and prayed for her. I prayed that God would open her eyes. I prayed that He would give her the courage to admit that they had gotten this wrong. I prayed that they would see the truth and return our kids quickly. Nothing happened.

When we got our second worker, I accepted that as the answer to prayer. After all, I was praying God would put the right person on our case. A person who would be able to see the truth and stand up for what was right. Surely, switching our worker was an answer to that! But nothing changed. Even with overwhelming proof of our honesty in front of them, they insisted we were liars and abusers. They even accused my husband of domestic violence! I kept praying. I began blessing my worker. I was willing to try anything . After all, hadn’t God promised us victory?! Hadn’t He promised us restoration?! My husband assured me we would be vindicated eventually. He thought that maybe this was God opening a door for a larger platform for us to draw attention to the broken system.

Then came worker number 3….. By this time, I was confident that God was going to change something. My first interaction was so negative. I was given an impossible list of objectives to complete in an impossible time frame! I very nearly gave up. It seemed like we were never going to get our kids back. God did give me some serious and obvious encouragement at that time to keep me going, but it was not an easy time in my life. I kept praying…. God, change their mind. God, open their eyes. God, I am doing everything you’ve told me to do! Surely, You’re going to make this right. I kept parenting the way I always had. Sure, I tweaked things here and there. None of us are perfect parents. We can always learn new techniques, and now my life was complicated by the fact that my youngest sons had been traumatized by the system itself. I was having to learn how to parent children with trauma.

This time, God did it! (God has something for the number 3. Do a Scripture study on it. It’s worth it!) This worker quickly changed her mind about us. She was willing to go to bat for us. She wanted my husband to be treated fairly. She thought the kids should be returned, and she didn’t agree that we needed to be divorced for that to happen! Now, things didn’t go smoothly. My husband at this point was traumatized himself and dealing with that in a less than healthy manner. He couldn’t hear the positive anymore. He had long ago stopped praying. And this was the point he chose to walk way.

You see, sometimes we are in the right. We KNOW we are. And we are put in a situation that challenges that. We have a choice. We can turn to God and pour all that out to Him, trusting that if we just keep persevering and doing what He leads us to do, He will handle our vindication or we can seek it for ourselves. I knew I was not an abusive parent, but I humbled myself and asked God if I needed to change my parenting because sometimes we can be blind to our own biggest faults. I needed to make sure first and foremost that this wasn’t a reaping and sowing kind of event.

Once God had assured me that that was not what was happening here, I had another choice to make. I could accept the journey He had me on, holding onto promises that made no sense in the immediate moment, or I could fight for myself and my rights. I chose to accept godly counsel, to press into God and find out what He wanted to teach me during this trial and find meaning in it. I chose to humble myself over and over again. I chose to put a smile on my face and keep tying that knot. When I did that, God stepped in and changed everything!

The agency privately acknowledged that they had gotten things wrong. Our 4th worker even went so far as to speak on my behalf, to defend me as a good mom! God vindicated me!

I hope you never find yourself in a situation like this. But rest assured, one day, you will meet injustice in one variety or another. You will be judged unfairly. You may even be slandered. You will know that you are right, but there will be no real way to defend yourself. In that moment, trust God to handle it. Romans 12: 19-21 says: “Vengeance is mine! I will repay! saith the Lord. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but overcome evil with good.” When you find yourself in unjust circumstances, follow the example of Jesus. Trust God to work it out on your behalf. Keep on smiling. Keep on blessing. He will come through! Even if it’s not in the way you expect.

A Year in the Rear-view

The Bible uses the word “remember,” or some variation of that word, 304 times! I think it’s safe to say that God really, really wants us to “remember.” But what does He want us to remember? I believe the answer lies in Psalm 103:2–“Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul, and forget not all His benefits….” The Passion Translation says: “Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness you’ve done for me?”

But the truth is that we DO forget. We forget pretty easily. God answers our prayers in little and big ways, and we rejoice in the answer in the moment, but then life happens. Our days go on. Our lives go on. We go from crisis to crisis. And it becomes really easy to forget what God did the last time we were in crisis mode because all of our focus is on the current crisis! Perhaps that’s why God told us so many times to “remember.”

New Year’s is a time for us to look forward–to make new plans for the future. I wonder if we would be better served by making it a time to look back on the previous year and all that God has done for us as well. This year, I decided to give it a try. I took some time and tried to remember the things God had done for me in 2021.

Of course, the first things that came to mind when I looked back were all the areas where I was still waiting on God to move. Isn’t that just like us as humans? To focus on the negative and what we don’t have rather than to celebrate what we DO have?

At the end of December, I found myself back at square one, so to speak, when it came to childcare. I no longer had a reliable sitter for my youngest son, and I was waiting on God to show me what to do about it in terms of either finding a new sitter or changing employment. I was frustrated with the continued struggles with my older son in school and at home. I guess I naively thought that after a year of being home from foster care, he would be farther along in terms of his anger management, nightmares, and separation anxiety. On paper, my bills totaled more than my income and a part of me worried about whether or not I would have to file for bankruptcy. I still had no contact with my husband. The State of Michigan had awarded him the divorce he wanted, and he was still living with his newest girlfriend, and I could see no movement toward restoration.

If I had let myself sit in these thoughts, I would have been extremely discouraged. I’m not sure in the midst of all these unanswered prayers, I would have been able to pray big prayers or believe God for big things if I had stayed in this mindset of lack. But at the Spirit’s prompting, I decided to take a closer look at 2021.

[I am blessed to have found the most amazing personal planner that makes all of this a bit easier! It gives me space each month to record what I’m asking God about and how He’s answered–at least that’s what I use the spaces for–and in the month of December, there’s a dedicated lay out to going back and recording in one place all the blessings of the year month by month!]

So let me tell you what REALLY happened in 2021:

In January:

God prompted a close friend of mine to buy me a Chromebook for Christmas. This answered my prayer for a new computer!
The boys were sent home to stay. Of course, this answered a prayer I had been praying for 2 years that the children would return from foster care.
And on the last day of December 2020, my husband sent me an email requesting some legal documents from our home. Now this may not seem like much, but it spoke to my heart that not only did my husband trust me to have kept his documents safe and to provide them to him but also that God was giving me an opportunity to show love to my husband. This, of course, answered the prayer I was praying and fasting for that the door of communication would crack enough that I could show my husband love.

In February:

My husband referred to me as his “wife” during our mediation hearings. Now, again, this doesn’t seem like much, but my husband had been calling me his “ex-wife” since the day he walked out, even though our divorce was far from over.
God also ended my husband’s relationship with his girlfriend, a woman he had begun seeing shortly after leaving me and whom he had moved in with officially in September of 2020.
God answered my prayer for a Valentine’s Day gift by having one of the girls at work bring me my favorite flower, a white rose, and by my daughter’s church hosting a surprise Valentine’s Day lunch so that I didn’t have to cook!

In March:

I contacted a company that I had been renting-to-own an instrument from. It was a program where when you had paid a certain percentage of the value of the instrument, you were given the option of purchase or of upgrading until you owned a professional quality instrument. With my finances in a precarious state, I contacted them to try to purchase the instrument outright. I had not received a bill from them in a few months. I had also not received the typical letter offering purchase, so I was a little hesitant about the state of my account. The company found a huge error in the account in my favor! Not only did I own a near-professional grade instrument, but I was due a substantial refund! This allowed me to purchase the new desktop computer I had been praying about as well as pay off one of the credit cards I had been left with in the separation!
I was also able to bless my husband again with his favorite cake, which I made for our son’s birthday. I sent it to a weekend visit because I knew my husband had not planned anything or purchased a cake to celebrate with. My husband ravenously ate this cake! And while that may seem small, you have to remember that up until this point, my husband had voiced paranoid thoughts that I would try to poison him, so to eat a cake I baked without having someone test it first was a HUGE breakthrough!
My husband responded immediately to a text message I sent him about our son. These brief glimpses at contact warm my heart!

In April:

God graciously provided a glimpse into the workings behind the scenes with my husband. He allowed word to come back that some of my husband’s attempts at going his own way had been thwarted. Another answer to prayer!
He also provided the funds for the boys to start soccer–something my husband and I had wanted them to do!
And God provided me with a dresser for the boys’ clothes and a nanny camera so that I could move them into their own bedroom instead of sharing mine, which they had done since they were born.

In May:

The girls wished me a Happy Mother’s Day! The first time they had done so since moving to live with their father in Utah.

In June:

The girls came to Grand Rapids for a weekend wedding, and I was allowed to see them twice! That visit was a breakthrough in the alienation they were experiencing. Their attitudes and relationship with me improves even now, although we do go back and forth a bit.
An order of child support was entered which would help with some of the financial burden I was feeling after the separation. It would be a long time before this actually amounted to receiving money, but it was an answer to prayer nonetheless.

Are you still with me? I know this is a long post, but I’m hoping as we reach the halfway point to the year you are getting as excited and encouraged as I was that God does see us and that He does answer prayers in big and small ways! The beauty of a testimony can be found in the meaning of the word “testimony,” which in the original Hebrew means “Do it again!” What God has done for me…what God has done for others…He will certainly do for you!

In July:

God gave me several beautiful prophetic words and visions.
He allowed me to spend 4th of July with my sons, and to celebrate with friends that are quickly becoming family to me! And this is doubly huge because these friends were introduced to me by my husband. They are his close friends/family, and I never expected the level of acceptance and support and encouragement I have received from them during this time.
In July, my husband was involved in a roll-over crash in the semi truck he drives for a living. The truck was totaled, but my husband miraculously made it out alive! The most encouraging part of this was that at the time of his accident, God had called me to pray for him. I KNOW the reason my husband suffered relatively minor injuries was because I was obedient to that call to pray.
My husband announced his engagement on Facebook to the newest girlfriend. I know you’re thinking that this is not a blessing, but let me reframe this for you. My husband began dating an old girlfriend of his in May or June (God revealed this to me in a vision, so I’m not sure of the exact time.) This girlfriend is one that he never really liked or cared about. He had a pretty low opinion of her overall. He also said that this girlfriend, more than all his others, reminded him of me. That, along with the fact that he is still irrationally angry and bitter toward me, shows me that his heart is at war within himself. People who have no feelings for you do not get angry and bitter. The opposite of love is not hate; it’s apathy. My husband still has feelings for me, even if those feelings are extremely confused right now. God is working!

In August:

God provided new clothes for the boys.
He also opened a door for childcare during the school year, and I was able to stop working on Saturdays and be home with the kids on the weekends!

In September:

I was given a very blessed birthday, complete with wonderful gifts from friends who were just thinking about me on that day!
My husband responded to a text message I had sent him with a question on our vehicle title.
My husband’s girlfriend started posting every five minutes about how in love they are and how they are soulmates—which is pretty much a guarantee that not all is well on the relationship meter!

In October:

There were more prophetic words and dreams.
Our divorce was finalized, which God had told me had to happen before restoration could take place.
I was able to get costumes for the boys as well as celebrate our version of Halloween with them.
We got to experience some of the memories I wanted to make with them in the fall like picking apples at the orchard, carving pumpkins, and roasting pumpkin seeds!

In November:

The church stepped in to help me with finances as my husband was still off work due to his injury.
Our foster care case officially closed!
We were welcomed into a family Thanksgiving celebration with friends, AND we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving for ourselves. God provided the food as well as made it possible for the two oldest girls to come over, the younger girls to Skype us, and for our friend Professor Mark from church to join us as he has done in years past.

In December:

I was able to give the boys Christmas gifts. Our family was also “adopted” for Christmas, which allowed for the boys to receive gifts I could not have afforded to provide.
We had a family Christmas celebration!
My husband showed up unannounced on Christmas Eve to have me sign a check made out to both of us. This gave me the opportunity to bless him again and show love! It also showed me his complete lack of regard for his “fiancee.” The kids were able to kiss and hug their dad, and my oldest son was able to give Daddy the Christmas present he had purchased at a school store! My husband refused the gift I bought for him, but that’s okay! I will keep it for him for when he comes home.
And to top it all off, I was able to pay off another credit card and one of my student loans, which put me on much better firnancial footing to start off 2022!

If you stayed with me through this entire post, I am blessed, humbled, and overjoyed! I hope you can see all the miraculous ways God showed up for me over the past year! And this doesn’t include all the small messages, the songs I heard at just the right time, the little gestures of friends and neighbors, the snippets of dreams, the Bible verses, etc. that God used to show Himself to me over the course of the year. The sheer bulk of answered prayers far outweighs the small stack of ones I am still waiting for God to answer, and going back over the year has clearly showed me that one day He WILL answer those as well!

When we look back over our year, when we consider in detail all the works of the Lord in our lives, it truly builds our faith. I’m pretty sure that’s why God instituted so many festivals for the nation of Israel and gave us so many verses about remembering. It’s so we would always be able to have eyes that see that hand of God in our everyday lives!

New Year’s Hope

The last few years I’ve jumped on the bandwagon of asking God for a word for the New Year. The word is meant to be my theme for the year–a promise of sorts between me and God for what He’s leading me toward. The word I get is usually jam-packed with meaning and promise. It’s a word full of potential, and there’s something about this time of year when we focus on the newness of it all that lends an extra magic to the potential of things.

Last year my word was flourish. I was so excited when I received that word. It seemed to encapsulate all the good feelings and positivity I had going into 2020. I was so sure that 2020 was going to be my year! I was going to get the kids out of foster care. We were going to pay off our debt. We were going to move forward in ministry. My husband was attending seminary. I was starting this blog–something I felt God had laid it on my heart to do. I was even being invited to co-lead a women’s Bible study. Life seemed full of possibility and promise!

And then…..

Well, COVID happened. Foster care was shut down for extended periods. Our only contact with our children was via Skype, and if you know anything about toddlers you know that Skype is less than ideal for meaningful interaction with them. I didn’t suffer too badly during this time. I’m an introvert, so life for me didn’t really change. Bible studies were cancelled, but I could still study at home or watch ministry programs online or on TV. Church was livestream only, but that was okay. I’m a communicator by nature, so even Skype didn’t really put too big a dent in my life. The thing I missed most was holding my kids and kissing them, but we were promised this would only be a couple weeks so I made due.

But it wasn’t a couple of weeks. It dragged on and on. A couple of months passed before we were allowed in person visits again, but by that time the damage was done. My husband is not an introvert. He kept his job, thankfully, but the other things really hindered his life. No church was a big deal to him, even though he didn’t communicate that to me. He’s not a communicator by nature. He struggles with that being the only way to interact with our kids. My husband is hands-on. He likes to play and rough house. He shows his love by acts of service, and now he was limited to words of affirmation–his greatest weakness. His biggest fear. And he struggled. Fear and inadequacy and insecurity turned to anger, as it often does when you can’t find a way to fix things and you’re a fixer by nature.

And anger came out on the kids. It came out on me. It came out at work. And anger causes division. And when the person you love most seems to be siding with the enemy….well, it’s hard to remember who the true enemy is. So he walked away. Away from me…away from the kids…away from the pain and the hurt. Oh, he still attempts to connect with the kids, but it’s not the same. The damage is apparent for all to see.

And by the middle of the year, the word Flourish seemed like a cruel joke. But looking back, I can see how God made that promise come true. I did flourish. Not in the ways I had planned or imagined, but in other ways. More spiritual ways. Deeper ways. Longer lasting ways. I did flourish. The things that were meant to kill me and break me failed to do so. I am still here. I am still swinging. I am still moving forward. I even have my head still held high.

So I entered 2021 with a bit of trepidation, a bit more faith than I had last year, and a desire to see what word God would give me. And I found that He hasn’t given me a single word. He’s given me a few. Maybe it’s because there isn’t a word big enough for the plans God has for 2021! That’s what I’m choosing to believe anyway. And while I would normally be spending this part of the year making New Year’s resolutions and writing my plans down in my planner, this year I’m not doing any of that. I don’t even have a planner….yet anyway. I ordered it the first part of December, but COVID delays mean I have no idea when it will actually show up, and that’s okay. Because right now all that would be in it are appointments with foster care agency workers and appointments with lawyers and a work schedule for two jobs and very little that I really want to commemorate moving forward.

But I also entered 2021 with two answered prayers. Oh, I have a long list of prayers God answered throughout 2020, but He answered two very different prayers on New Year’s Eve. I find those prayers meaningful. Of all the still unanswered prayers of 2020, God chose to open the door of communication a tiny crack between me and my husband. And He chose to bless me with pizza. What does that mean? Well, I think it means that God’s got a plan and a purpose for my marriage that I can’t even begin to see yet. It may not happen on my time frame. It may not look the way I want it to look. It may be seriously slow going on this road, but there is work being done that I don’t see yet. God is working. He sees. He hears. And in His timing, He will make it happen. And it means that God cares about me. He cares about the little things. He cares about things that when you compare them to the problems of the entire world seem way too trivial and small to bother God with, and yet He notices them. He cares about them. He sees them. He hears them.

You see God is a very personal God, and it reminds me of an old song that we used to sing in church. The chorus always brings me to tears, and this year the song seems to hold far more meaning. He knows my name. On the surface, that seems like a small thing, and yet how very powerful it is. The God of the Universe knows my name. He knows me. He doesn’t just know about me. I’m not just a small insignificant piece in this cosmic play, I have a starring role. He knows my name. He knows me personally. He knows my every thought. He sees each tear that falls. He hears me when I call.

I am God’s favorite! And so are you! He knows your name too. All those intricate details of your life that seem too small to bother God with? He wants to know them. He wants to step into those places. He wants to bless you in the big things, but almost more importantly He wants to bless you in the little things. And that seems kind of huge when you think about it.

I’ve entered 2021 with fasting and prayer. I different fast than I normally do this time of year, but one that I think will teach me deeper things. I have spent the time worshipping and praying and declaring around the busy work schedule and the ins and outs of day-to-day life. And God gave me a beautiful vision one night while I was sitting in my office worshipping. I was singing the song Yeshua. I’ve included it here in case you’re unfamiliar. The words are simple enough. But while I was soaking in the music with my eyes closed, I saw a vision of a wedding. It was a beautiful wedding, and I was the bride. My husband was so excited to see me! He was beaming. I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he was so excited to spend the rest of his life with me. I belonged to him in a way that no one else ever would. I was filled with love and surrounded by love. Only the man holding my hand and gazing lovingly into my eyes wasn’t Bull O’Meara. It was Jesus! Jesus wanted to marry me. Jesus thought I was the most beautiful woman. Jesus couldn’t wait to spend the rest of life with me on an intimate and personal level. Jesus! The Son of God. Wanted no one but me.

And suddenly the idea of a relationship with God. The intimacy He desires from us. It became a bit more clear. The same way that I can’t imagine a day going by without my husband in it. The same way I long to share the small details of my day with him. The same way that I long to be held in his arms. The same way that he longs to protect me. That’s the way it’s supposed to be with God. I’m the bride of Christ. And so are you. There was a bit of conviction in the beauty of it all. How often I have neglected God for other things. Good things. But other things all the same. And the pain I feel now being separated from my husband. The longing to hear his voice….. God feels that for me as well. The anger I feel at being replaced by another woman–that’s what God feels when I choose to put anything else in His place.

And suddenly something shifted inside of my spirit. I don’t want to be an unfaithful wife. I want to serve my husband God the same way I serve my earthly husband. I want to speak God’s love language. I want God to speak mine. I want to share that intimacy and not to cause Him anger or pain. And the beauty of this is that God will never let me down. He will never get it wrong. He will never speak the “wrong” love language. He will never walk away. He will never abandon me. He will never divorce me. He is the perfect spouse.

So as I walk into this new year, I walk in with the words “new” and “hope” and “abundance” and “anticipation” and “expectancy.” And unlike last year, I don’t have a preconceived idea of what they look like or what they mean, but I know they mean big things! I’m going to pray the big prayers. I’m going to trust God for big things. He is the God of the Impossible….and Impossible is about what life looks like right now. This is a year when God might bring beauty from ashes. It’s a year when the Red Sea of my life might finally part. It’s a year where the shadow on the sundial may jump backwards 10 degrees or the moon and sun may stand still. Anything is possible!

Creator God

“Look! I am creating entirely new heavens and a new earth! They will be so wonderful
that no one will even think about the old ones anymore!” Isaiah 65: 17 TPT

Isn’t it amazing that God makes things new? God is the Creator. It’s not just what He does. It’s who He is. God can’t help but create and create and create. He makes new things all the time. The thing about God’s new creation is that it always surpasses the old! His new things is so spectacular and awe-inspiring that the old fades away into nothingness without any second thought.

As you enter into this new year, allow God to take the things in your life and make them new. You won’t regret it. The new thing that God will make out of the old things in your life will be so wonderful that you won’t even remember the old things any more!

Father, Thank you that you make all things new. Thank you that I can trust you to take the broken things in my life and the old things and the things that are just plain worn out and to make something brand new out of them. And the new thing you will make will be beyond anything I can imagine! It will be so wonderful and so awe inspiring that I won’t miss the old for a second. I won’t even remember what it was like before! Thank you for that miracle of newness, God. Come and take the things in my life and make them new today! I hand them all over to You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

I Am Doing A New Thing

It’s another New Year. I can hardly believe how fast 2020 went, and yet it felt like a year that would never end. This year has had a lot of ups and downs. It started off with such expectancy. God gave me the word “Flourish” for 2020, and I was just sure that after the pain of 2019, 2020 was going to be my year! And then March came along with COVID shut downs and added stress. And then May came along and my husband of 8 years abandoned me and cut all contact. And then October came and I found that he had replaced me with another woman and filed for divorce. And then…..

It felt like a year of failure, and yet here I stood with promises for God that somehow this year was about abundant growth. I had this promise that God would restore. I had this promise that God would fight the battle for me, and that if I just walked boldly forward in Truth, I would not fall. I had this promise that this wasn’t the end of my story, that this fracture in my marriage wasn’t failure but promotion. What was I supposed to do?

I had to make the decision to trust in the word of God more than what I could see with my eyes. And now, sitting here on January 1, 2021, can I tell you something? 2020 was a year in which I flourished! Looking back, I accomplished things I never thought I could. I survived pain I was sure would kill me. Again. I pushed into God. I grew closer to Him. I developed a stronger faith. I grew. Abundantly. And God didn’t fail me. Can I tell you another secret? God never fails. Not. Ever.

This year, God became my husband, and He’s really good at stepping in to the places that are broken. He’s really good at stepping into the roles where others have let you down. God stepped in and bought me flowers–something my husband just didn’t do. He held me close. He whispered sweet nothings in my ear. God took me dancing. He sent me love notes. He made me feel beautiful. All the things that I missed about my husband, I found in God. My vision of Who He is grew, and He didn’t disappoint.

Sitting here January 1, 2021, I have a testimony of the faithfulness of God. I have a testimony of answered prayers. I have a testimony that His mercies are truly new each and every single morning. When you feel like you just can’t go on, He will step in and empower you to do the impossible. He cares about the details of our lives. All of them. Even the ones that seem so very small and inconsequential.

And God doesn’t stop! I entered 2021 with an answered prayer of an open door of communication with my husband. It didn’t look the way I wanted it to, but it was an open door nonetheless. I entered 2021 with an answered silly prayer too. One that reminds me that there is nothing to small for God to care about and that sometimes you don’t even have to officially “pray” about things. All day yesterday I was thinking about how I really wanted to order pizza for dinner. The boys were here to celebrate the holiday with me, and I was seeking some kind of normalcy in a year that had very little of it. But I didn’t have the money to order pizza, so I just kind of sighed and went about my business. I didn’t talk to God about the pizza….not officially anyway. I didn’t pray a prayer asking for God to provide. I just had a passing whim. And yet…

At 10:30 pm last night, pizza showed up at my door. It was a mistaken delivery, but the company didn’t want to take it back because of COVID. They replaced the order to the paying customer, and they let us keep the food they had delivered in error. So we had pizza! Just like I wanted! Isn’t God amazing?

This year, I’m not sure I have a word from God for the year. It’s more like I have 3 or 4 rolling around in my head that I just can’t get rid of, and I feel like God is saying to me, “This year is going to be bigger! There isn’t a single word that will do justice to the things I’m going to do this year!” And so I enter 2021 with the words “new”, “hope,” “expectancy,” “abundance,” and “anticipation.” I can’t wait to see what God will do. Already this year, I am expecting my sons to be fully home again. They come home between the 15th and 26th of January from foster care, and our lives will be able to go back to some kind of normal. Our case will officially close in the court systems some time later, but this is a wonderful start. I still believe that God will do amazing work in my husband’s heart and that he will return and our marriage will be restored. We may legally divorce first, but God is bigger than man’s plans!

Over and over again the last few months, God has reminded me that He is doing a new thing. He has said, “I make all things new.” That idea of new things, letting go of the old, and not being able to even imagine what He will do next has been ruminating in my spirit for a few months now. In fact, I keep being reminded of Habbakuk 1:5: “Look at the nations and watch– and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” I hear God saying to me that He could tell me the miracles He has in store for me this year, but I would never believe it! And since Faith is required to access the miracles of God, He isn’t going to tell me the things I could never believe. He’s just going to do them.

I can’t wait to see the things that God is going to accomplish in my life this year! If 2020 taught me anything it was just how quickly things can change. So I enter this year with hope. I enter this year with expectancy. I enter this year with anticipation. I envision abundance in a form I have never seen before. Something so new and unusual I can not even begin to imagine it for myself! This is the year to enter the enemy’s camp and take back what he stole from me! I can feel it!

“See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19). Yes, God. I think I can just see the hint of the shoots of the new life you are bringing forth from all the hard winter ground of 2020’s pain and disappointments. Can’t wait to see what God will do!

Making All Things New

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:5

I am making everything new. That’s what God said. Everything. Sometimes we don’t take the time to really focus on the Bible verses we read. We’ve read them so many times before that we just skim over the top, but the Bible reminds us over and over again of the benefit of meditating on the Word of God. In Hebrew the word for meditate has a meaning closer to the meaning of the word for chew. God expects us to take His words and chew on them. To digest them. To go over them and over them and over them until we’ve soaked up all the good nutrients our soul needs.

I am making everything new. Just a few things? No. EVERYTHING. I am making you new. I am making your family new. I am making your relationships new. I am making your body new. I am making your mind new. I am making your soul new. Everything. Just the good things? No. EVERYTHING. I am taking all the bad things, all the disappointments, all the hurt, all the trials and tribulations, and I am using them to craft a masterpiece that is brand new.

It’s easy to be discouraged in life. We encounter things all the time that drag us down. It’s almost as if our brains are wired for negativity, but God reminds us over and over and over again that He is a God who creates. He takes the mess of our lives, and He makes something new out of them. So no matter what kind of year you just had, shake it off and embrace the new of this one. God has big plans for you, and they involve making everything new!

Father, I thank you that you make all things new. You take the broken and the ugly and the broken pieces of my life and you craft something amazing and miraculous and marvelous out of them. I don’t have to stay trapped in the past, I can move on to the beauty of something new. Even if my past year was absolutely amazing, you can take me to higher and higher levels as I abide in you. As I start this new year, Lord, help me to focus on the new that you are creating in me. Help me to abide in you. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

How Solid is Your Foundation?

Last night I had an interesting dream. I’ve talked about how lately I’ve been paying more attention to my dreams, trying to write them down, and praying about whether or not the dream holds any special meaning. I’m a pretty vivid dreamer. It’s not uncommon for my dreams to contain a lot of detail, a lot of color, and a lot of action. It’s not uncommon for me to have a pretty good memory of my dreams when I wake up that lasts for a long time. As a vivid dreamer, I have a bit of a hard time determining whether or not a particular dream might hold significance for my life.

This particular dream was no different. I didn’t wake up with the idea that this dream held any particular significance. I didn’t have an overwhelming feeling that this dream was special. I didn’t even wake up unexpectedly, which is supposed to be a sign that maybe the dream you were having had a specific meaning/message for you. There was really nothing special about this dream.

So why do I bring it up? Even though the dream didn’t seem special, a detail of the dream struck me as significant. Why? Because I dream this particular detail an awful lot. I see it pop up frequently in my dreams. It’s not really a part of the storyline of the dream. It isn’t a detail that seems to hold significance to the dream. It’s just a small, seemingly insignificant detail, that keeps cropping up, and I think that repetition alone might be enough to merit a second look.

Over the last couple years, I’ve dreamed a lot about my house. Sometimes the house in the dream is actually the house I live in. Sometimes the house in the dream is a house I’ve never seen before, but I know that it is the house I live in in the dream. No matter what house I’m dreaming about, though, over the last two years I have alternated between dreams where the ceiling caves in on me due to heavy rain and dreams where the floor has giant soft spots that result in holes going all the way through the foundation to the ground. Dreams about rain are supposed to signify blessings. I’m all for the idea of an outpouring of blessings that caves in the ceiling and results in widening my view and taking me to new heights! But what about those holes in the floor?

Turns out that dreaming about holes in the floor may mean that you’re dealing with difficulties, troubles, or uncertainties in the support systems of your life. In other words, the people you rely on, the foundations you trust in, they are crumbling away and proving themselves to be unreliable. Well, that certainly rings true for me at this point in my life. This Job-like season of my life has resulted in the temporary loss of my children to foster care, the loss of my financial security, and the break down of my marriage. If that’s not a trouble or uncertainty in the foundations of my life, I’m not sure I know what is! This has been a 2 year season of ripping and tearing and shaking and sifting that I have felt completely unprepared for. It has definitely been a Job-like season, and in true Job-like fashion I have felt myself on the edge of alternating between feeling that God is being incredibly unfair and mean-spirited and having faith that God is still good and has a plan to all of this.

Job-like seasons in life come unexpectedly. They sneak up on us when everything seems to be going well. We have a year or years of incredible favor and blessing, and then suddenly tragedy strikes. And it doesn’t just strike once or twice, it seems to keep striking and keep striking until we reach the point that should have broken us…killed us….completely ended life as we know it….and somehow we are still standing and pushing forward. It doesn’t help in the beginning of a Job season to consider the story of Job. It doesn’t help to know that God was the one who instigated this season in Job’s life. It doesn’t help to know that the season is always temporary or that ultimately the season is going to result in a restoration of all that was lost and a double blessing on top of it. It just doesn’t help. I’m not sure that anything really helps. Job-like seasons are just not easy. They aren’t meant to be.

So why does God allow Job-like seasons in our life? I think it’s to point out the holes in our foundation. God has a plan of us. We know from Jeremiah 29:11 that His plan is for our good and not for harm: a plan to give us a future and a hope. God has a calling for each of us. He has a purpose that He wants to accomplish in our lives. Some of us are called to very high places indeed. If we knew the plans God had for little ole us, we would never believe it. We can’t see our own potential, but God can! God knows the things He has in store for us in the blessings department. God knows the things He has in store for us as far as our calling and our purpose and our legacy.

The Bible talks a lot about building. In Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus tells us that the person who hears His Word and does not put it into practice is like a man who builds his house on the sand. In Psalm 127:1, we are told that unless the Lord builds the house we labor in vain to build it ourselves. In 1 Corinthians 3:9-15, Paul talks about laying the foundation and how we each build on top of that in the hopes that what we have built will survive through the judgement of the last day. As any builder knows, the strength and stability of the building rests on the strength and stability of the foundation. Get the foundation wrong, and it doesn’t really matter how great a job you do on the building itself, it’s going to come out wrong. The leaning tower of Pisa shows us just how important a strong foundation is.

Job-like seasons test our foundation. They test the things we are relying on to keep us tall and strong and steady. God wants our life to be founded and anchored to Him. He wants us to rely on His character and His Word in order to whether the storms and trials of life. When our foundation is God, we can’t go wrong. We’ll have level places. We’ll have strong towers. We’ll be built on the solid rock. But what about when our lives are built on our own ability? What if we are depending on our job, or our spouse, or our family, or our friends to get us through? Well, if our foundation is anything other than God, then difficulties and trials are going to cause cracks and holes in the foundation, and if we don’t take care to notice those cracks and holes, our life is going to fall apart.

If you had asked me when this season started what my foundation was built on, I would have told you it was based on the Word of God. If you had asked me what I was relying on to get me through the storms of life, I would have told you that I relied on God. I would have said that God was first in my life. I would have told you that because I honestly believed that that’s how it was. And then the Job-like season struck, and I realized that while I had a pretty good lip service, I didn’t have a whole lot of action to back it up. The truth is that when this season struck, I ran to self help books and friends who could give me godly counsel. I ran to experts. I ran to encouraging words. I ran to God…..eventually. But I didn’t run to Him first. I didn’t pray first. I prayed after I had talked it over with everyone else I could think of first. I defined myself by what I did, by what role I filled. I found my worth in what I accomplished and what I had.

See what I mean? Holes in my foundation. Because the truth is no matter what the experts have to say about your situation, the only true expert on what is happening and how it’s going to turn out is God. No matter what kind of counsel and support your friends can give you, there will come a time when your friends let you down. Your spouse? They will let you down. They may even walk away at the worst possible time, leaving you feeling empty, unloved and completely broken. Your job? It can be lost. Your wealth? Can disappear in a day. These things are all temporary. They are all ephemeral. They make bad foundations.

But God!

God never changes. God never vacillates. God. Never. Fails.

Read that last line again. God never fails. Never. As in, Not. Ever. God is a sure foundation. He is the only thing that will still be standing and supporting you when everything else burns up in the fire. When it’s all gone….when everything you thought gave your life meaning is gone…when everyone you thought loved you is nowhere to be found….God is still there. And the truth is that I am not defined by what I do. When I was no longer a full time mom, I didn’t cease to exist. When I was no longer a dutiful wife, I didn’t shrivel up and die. When I was no longer actively involved in ministry, I was still me. I was still here. I was shaky. I was hurt. I was broken. But I was still here. I am here because God gives me life and breath. God determines the length of my life. He determines the number of days I have. God gives. And God takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord. And when everything I relied on to give my life meaning was suddenly stripped away, I saw just how far down on the list I had put God.

Job-like seasons of life have a way of doing that. They have a way of honing your vision so that the blinders are removed and you see just how honest you’ve been with yourself. They reveal the holes in your foundation like nothing else will. It feels unfair. It feels…well, I can’t even begin to describe adequately how it feels. If you’ve ever been through it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s loss unlike anything you can imagine. And yet…. there is a blessing here. Because the fact is, that in this Job-like season of my life, God is giving me another chance. He is pointing out the holes in my foundation so that I can repair them. He is showing me my hypocrisy so that I can repent and correct it.

I can use this season to try to cover up my shortcomings. I can prop up my idols and continue to serve them. Or I can get to work and fix it. I can hand those shortcomings over to God. I can unveil my flaws and let the Master Builder make the needed repairs. I can pull down my idols and upend their altars and return to the One True God. That’s a sure foundation. It’s one that will never have holes in it. It is one that I can rely on no matter what kind of season my life is in. It’s a foundation that will propel me to higher heights than I could even begin to imagine.

So I’m going to God and asking Him about those holes in my dreams. What holes are in my foundation that He still needs to address? Am I believing a lie about myself? About my husband? About my life? About God Himself? Sometimes we believe lies about God that make us have a messed up view of who He is and how He works that can keep our lives from resting on the firm foundation of His character. God wants to fix our view of who He is just as much as He wants to fix our ideas on other things. Worshipping a false image of God is just as much idolatry as worshipping a false god would be.

I’m trusting that He will reveal the next bit He wants to work on with me. I have a lot of things that need to be sorted out. I have a lot of flaws that still need to be refined. I have a lot of wounds that need to be healed. And the beautiful part is that I know that if I hand those things to Him, He will be faithful to do what needs doing so that my foundations are repaired and never pose an issue again. He will do the best job, and the house of my life will stand firm. This Job-like season will eventually come to an end and the level of spiritual maturity I will be living at will far exceed where I would have gotten had this shaking season not come. So I’m looking to God to see what He will make of my life. And I’m trusting that when this season is over, I will have a double blessing and the restoration of everything that I have lost.

So how is your foundation looking? Have you paid attention to it recently? Have you hidden the holes in the floor with soft carpeting? Are you doing patchwork repairs rather than complete overhauls? If you haven’t had a Job-like season in your life yet, be prepared. One is coming. Take some time to seek God on the areas of your life where your foundation is a bit week. Hand it over, and let the Master Builder do His work. Your life is His masterpiece after all. And if you let Him work, you will be amazed at what He can do with the little you have!

Without Grumbling or Complaining

In Thessalonians 5:18, Paul writes a pretty controversial sentence: “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” On good days, I read this verse and I think, “Give thanks! Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give thanks! This is a great day and I have a lot to be thankful for!” But on not so good days…..or on really terrible, awful, horrible, no good, really bad days? I think “Give thanks? In all circumstances? Surely, you can’t mean all, God. There’s so much wrong here. What is there to be thankful for?” But as our guest pastor–a Greek scholar–likes to say, “The all here in the Greek means ALL.” God wants us to be thankful. All the time. No matter what. Good days or bad days. Rain or shine. When we’re blessed AND when we’re stressed. Be thankful.

That’s a tall order sometimes. Why does God put such an emphasis on thankfulness anyway? It has to do with the second part of this verse: “for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” God’s will. We know what God’s will is for us by studying the Word of God. All throughout the Bible, God reveals His will concerning our lives. It’s the same for all of us. Oh, sure, there are differing details here and there, but at the heart of the matter God’s will for each and every one of us is exactly the same: He wants us to be made in His image. After all, that’s the design plan. It’s the one He put on the drawing board when He first decided to make mankind. God is perfect. He has no flaws. He never has a Plan B. It’s always Plan A, and Plan A was to make mankind in His image.

There’s been a lot of debate about what that whole “in His image” part of our creation really means, but we get another glimpse when Paul talks to us in 2 Corinthians 3:18. He says, “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” The Passion Translation says it this way: “We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.^“ When God created Adam and Eve, He made them in His image. When they sinned, a part of that image was tarnished, but in Christ it is restored. We are gradually made more and more like Jesus. That’s God’s will for our lives–for us to be more and more like Jesus.

Thankfulness plays a huge part in that. After all, God doesn’t possess negative qualities. Neither does Jesus. Thankfulness is a positive quality. It requires a positive outlook, a positive viewpoint, a positive attitude. It requires an ability to appreciate the good things, sometimes in spite of all the bad in the world. Thankfulness focuses on joy. It focuses on abundance. It doesn’t focus on lack. And with God, we have abundance. We have joy. We have good things. And we absolutely do NOT have lack! Thankfulness tunes our hearts to see what God is doing in the world. It recalibrates our perspective. Our focus is on the good things in our lives and not on the things we lack. James 1:17 tells us that “every good and perfect gift” comes from God. When our focus is on the good gifts that God gives us, our focus is on God!

With our focus on God, we are better positioned for blessings. We are better positioned to receive. We are better positioned to worship because God becomes bigger than anything else we are dealing with. When I recognize the qualities of God’s character, when I contemplate the many small and subtle ways He works in my life to bless me and bring me abundance and not lack, I cultivate an environment where faith and trust can flourish. I seek first after God, and I worship more fully.

But the truth is that I am often more focused on lack than I am on God. I’m often more tuned in to my circumstances than I am to what God is doing. I take my blessings for granted. You know how I know? Because I catch myself grumbling and complaining. Grumbling and complaining are NOT signs of thankfulness. Of course, we know that, but do we take it a step farther and think that if they aren’t signs of thankfulness they are also not signs of faith and trust? Ouch! I grumble and complain a lot, and when I do, I am not demonstrating faith in God.

The really sad part is that I often complain and grumble about the very thing that just a little while ago I was asking God to bless me with. Let me give you an example. When my husband left, I was tasked with getting a job in order to pay the bills. I was worried about that because there weren’t a lot of job options in the middle of the COVID shutdowns. I had applied for a job in answer to my husband’s request before he walked out, and I had said that if it was God’s will for me to return to the work force, I would work whatever job He gave me. I got the job I interviewed for. I was thankful for that job….until I tried to figure out how much I would be making and get a budget together.

When faced with the numbers, I could see that I wasn’t going to make enough to pay my bills and buy food. I let fear creep in. Then God told me He wanted me to tithe on my gross income instead of my net income like I had been doing before….and then He told me He wanted me to give a standing offering of the same amount each week. The panic started to creep in. But I got my act together, and I told God that I would obey Him and leave the details of how that was all going to work out in His capable hands. Fast forward, and the hours I was given steadily increased. Even with the additional tithe and offering money I was paying, I was making enough to pay the bills. Even after benefits started coming out of my check, God was providing a way for me.

And I was thankful….until this week, when my hours got cut unexpectedly. They weren’t cut by a huge amount, but enough to lose all that lovely overtime pay at time and a half. Did I remember that God knew what I needed and was more than capable of providing? Did I stay thankful for the ways He had already demonstrated this in my life? Not initially. Initially, I began to feel that sense of fear creep in again. I wondered if God wanted me to take matters into my own hands and pick up shifts at work. I picked up some extra hours, and I thanked God for them…..until I was exhausted. Then, I started to pray for a break. It was then I heard God say to me, “What do you want from me? You asked me for rest and time to do the things I had laid on your heart to do, so I cut your hours to give you that time. Then, you asked me for more hours at work to pay your bills, so I gave you more hours at work. Now, you want rest again. Make up your mind.”

Talk about conviction! I was faced with just how ugly my grumbling and complaining look to God, and I was faced with the reality that these acts of grumbling and complaining are NOT acts of faith. They are acts of unbelief. If I really believed that God wanted me to do the things He asked me to do, I would trust that He would make a way for me to do them. If I really believed that God would provide for my needs, I would trust that He would do so, even when I didn’t see it with my own eyes and couldn’t figure it out with my own reasoning abilities. And if I really believed those things about God, I would stay thankful! I would focus on the fact that God cares about the smallest detail of my life like how much sleep I get and whether or not I have time to fit in all the things He’s asked me to do. I would focus on the fact that God has provided in amazing ways since the very beginning. I would focus on the fact that God loves me and that He has a plan for my life and that that plan can’t be anything but good because God Himself can’t be anything but good.

But I didn’t. I focused on what I could hear and see and on what I felt. I focused on my own limited understanding as if God was on my level and I could somehow figure things out and He couldn’t. How insulting! But God was patient with me. He gently corrected my sinful ways. And I was suddenly reminded of Paul’s admonition to the Philippians: “Do everything without grumbling or complaining,so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.” When I take the time to allow God to cultivate an attitude of gratitude in my heart and I put my trust and faith and focus in Him, I become more like Jesus. I reflect His glory. And I reflect it so much, that I shine out like a star on a dark night. Then the world around me sees Christ within me simply because I chose to be thankful in ALL my circumstances.

Father, help me to remember to be thankful in all my circumstances. No matter what I’m going through, no matter what is going on around me, no matter how dark it looks or how bad it feels, You are always here. Your character and nature are enough. There is only good things in You, and if I focus on that, I will always have something to be grateful for. Father, put a watch over my lips, especially when I am tempted to grumble or complain. I want to be transformed more and more into Your image. I want to reflect your glory! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: