As Far as It Depends on Me

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At some point in our relationships, we’re going to have conflict. It could be a disagreement over something small. It may be a huge fight. But at some point, conflict is going to happen. We know that the Bible urges us to have unity in our relationships with others. God’s power is best displayed in the unity of our marriage or in our unity with our local church body and with the worldwide church body, but what do we do in times of conflict? How can we handle conflict in a godly way and preserve unity?

First, we need to have a proper understanding of the word “unity.” Unity means “oneness” or “togetherness.” According to an article on Bible.org, “unity is not a general spirit of friendliness or camaraderie, nor is unity some common aim or series of aims. It is a product of the work of the cross.” We can’t have unity without the atoning work of Christ on the cross. It starts there. The work of the cross changes us. It reconciles us to God, bringing us back into unity with Him, and just as that unity is not of our doing, Christian unity in a larger context is not of our doing either. We need the Spirit working in us, in each of us, to bring about this larger level of unity.

Unity is NOT sameness or conformity. Paul uses the analogy of the body to talk about unity in the church. No one would say that parts of the body are the same. No one expects these parts to be identical. It is the fact that they belong to the same body, that they have the same “spirit,” which creates the unity among them. They are different. They have different uses and needs. They look different. They behave differently, but they are still united as a body.

Conflicts in relationships arise from our differences. We can’t expect people to behave exactly the way we behave, to think exactly the way we think, or to feel exactly the way we feel. We can’t expect our spouse to think or feel the way that we do either. The truth is that even identical twins don’t think or feel the exact same way. We know this is true, but it is still a source of frustration. This self-centered tendency to say “If this person were just more like me, we wouldn’t have this problem” is universal. I think we’ve all felt this or thought this at one time or another. I know that I have.

In my marriage, my husband and I often don’t see eye to eye. We are opposites in a lot of ways. He sees the world as more black and white, while I see numerous shades of grey. He makes decisions fairly quickly, while I want to weigh out the pros and cons and look at things from all sides. I’m an emotional person, while my husband is not. On the surface, it seems like we could never be in unity, and oftentimes when we come into conflict with one another or disagree on how something should be done, it feels like we could never be in unity. But God isn’t expecting us to be the same, He’s expecting us to work together.

This is the art of compromise that is so important to marriage. When we each give and take, when we take the time to talk it out, we can come to a place where there is unity in our approach, unity in our goal, and unity in the path we’re taking to get there. We can agree to disagree on the details but remain united in our plan/purpose. We can have conflict in the moment, but we can remain unified in our relationship.

But what do you do when compromise is out of the question? What do you do in those moments where unity seems to be completely impossible? I wish I had a good answer for these questions. They are the questions I’ve been struggling with most in my marriage. I think the answer lies in Paul’s instructions to live at peace with all men so far as it depends on you.

I can’t control anyone else in this world. I can’t control what they think, what they believe, or what they do. I can only control myself. I control my response to conflict. I control the thoughts I allow into my mind. I control the emotions I feel and how much I allow them to influence my behavior. So, as far as it depends on me, I will stay in unity. That means when we just can’t agree on something, there are a few action steps I can take to maintain unity from my end of the equation.

1) I’m going to defer to my husband on an action plan because he is the head of the household.

I know this probably isn’t a popular position to have. There are a lot of feminist voices out there decrying the entire “head of the household” structural system. But God’s Word says that my husband is the head of the household. That doesn’t mean he rules with an iron fist, but it does mean that the responsibility for decisions lies with him. I’m speaking here of decisions that involve the two of us. In areas of my personal walk with God or decisions I make that are just about me, I have the freedom to do whatever God leads me to do.

Early in our marriage, my husband and I chose to follow God’s plan for our marriage. We determined early on that when we disagreed on an outcome, my husband would have final say on what we do. I get to voice my opinion, but ultimately his decision is final. Sometimes that decision is to do it my way. Sometimes it isn’t.

Having this decision made BEFORE conflict had an opportunity to arise, makes it easier to handle the conflicts when they come up. We know who has final say, so at some point the discussion/argument over how we’re going to handle a situation has to end. When my husband makes his final decision, that’s it. It’s a done deal. It also means that I release responsibility for the outcome. I don’t have to worry over what might happen. I can trust that my obedience to this established structure for our marriage is God’s will, and being in God’s will means I am in unity.

2) I’m going to tell God exactly how I feel, turn over the situation to His control, and trust that He will handle it.

It’s pointless to lie to God. He already knows how I feel and what I’m thinking. Saying it out loud or acknowledging it in some way during my prayer time frees me from the endless worry loop and negative thinking that I can get stuck in from time to time. If I seriously disagree with something, I let God know why I disagree and what I think should happen instead, but then I turn it over to God.

Ultimately, God is the only one who knows every single time a choice comes up what the correct choice is. He knows the right thing to do. He’s also the only person who can change my husband’s mind if my husband is about to make a wrong choice. Obviously, at that point, all my powers of persuasion have been exhausted, but God’s have not.

Now that doesn’t mean that I can just point the finger at my husband and demand that God change him to be like me. God doesn’t honor prayers like that. But what I CAN do is go to God with the disagreement, lay out the different paths we want to take, and ask God to speak to us. Sometimes, this results in God changing my husband’s mind. Sometimes, this results in God changing my mind so that I can see the value in my husband’s plan of action. Either way, turning it over to God allows Him to work on each of our hearts to bring us back into unity.

3) I’m going to declare unity with my husband and unity in our marriage.

Sometimes I do this out loud. Sometimes I simply end my prayer this way. After I have laid out my opinion with my husband, after I have taken it to God, I affirm that I am in unity with my husband and that I am committed to unity in my marriage. The words we speak are powerful. They affect the way I think and feel about a situation. The Bible tells us over and over again that the words we speak are important. So I feel that it is important to speak words of unity over my marriage, even if I don’t feel unified.

Affirming that I am in unity with my husband, turns my thinking from the never ending cycle of “he should just do it my way” to one where I have let it go and am refocused on the rest of my day/life. Whenever negative thoughts about the conflict arise, I repeat my statement of unity. I remind myself that I have given this to God and that it is no longer in my hands. Satan loves to attack us with negative thoughts. That’s his area of expertise. If he can catch us in a cycle of negative thinking, he can keep our focus on the problem and keep the strife building up.

Satan’s entire goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. When we allow his negativity to influence our thoughts and our emotions, we hand him the ammunition to destroy our unity and damage our relationships. We have to take those thoughts captive to the truth of God’s Word. We have to focus on believing the best of the other person and God’s ability to work all things together for our good. When our focus is in the right place, we have unity again, and Satan loses his foothold in our lives.

I’m sure there are many more ways to keep unity in our relationships even in the face of disagreement, but these are the ones that I use and the ones that work for me. It all comes down to being obedient to the Word of God, taking responsibility for our part of the conflict, and submitting to God’s plan for our lives. That’s all I can do, and I think God honors that.

Living Hope

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1 Peter 1:3

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”

Isn’t God’s mercy a wonderful attribute? Even though we were dead to sin, God was merciful enough to have plan for our salvation and restoration. That plan was for Jesus to die on the cross as payment for our sin, to satisfy the demands of justice under the law, and then to be resurrected from the dead as proof that His sacrifice was accepted and as testimony that He was the Son of God as He had said. Mercy allows us to identify with Christ, to accept His sacrifice on our behalf, and to become united to Him so that His righteousness becomes our righteousness.

This is the “living hope” spoken of in this verse. It is the hope that we are full participants with Christ in the plan God has for our lives. As full participants, when God looks at us, He sees Jesus. He no longer sees our sin. He sees the righteousness of Christ. So Christ’s inheritance as God’s Son becomes our inheritance as well. Christs’ authority was given to us. The power of the Holy Spirit which not only raised Christ from the dead, but also allowed Him to perform all the wonderful miracles during His earthly ministry, is available to us as His disciples!

This is not a one time offer either. It is a daily reality available to us. Just as we need to repent of our sin on a daily basis, we can tap into the power of the Holy Spirit and our identity in Christ on a daily basis. As we change, our knowledge and understanding of that identity and authority grows and changes with us! That’s what makes it a living hope! God knew that we would need a constant daily reminder of His love for us. He knew that we would need reassurance of His mercy as often as we sin. So He gave us the Holy Spirit to live inside us as a “living hope,” to grow with us and change with us and bring about in us the new life available to us because of Christ’s atoning sacrifice.

Father, I thank you for the sacrifice you made on the cross for me through Jesus Christ your son. I thank you for the love and the mercy that you put on display there on the cross and when you raised Christ from the dead. I thank you that your Holy Spirit lives in me, reminding me of your love and mercy and of my identity in you, and daily changing me to be more like you. Thank you that this hope I have is not a one-time hope, but a daily, changing hope that is alive and that gives me life in Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Coffee With Jesus

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Every year our church begins the month of January with 21 days of prayer and fasting. We call this tradition “Pray First“. The title is supposed to remind us that whatever we face in life, whatever happens during our day, we should pray first.

It seems like such a simple thing. Pray first. But oftentimes in life, prayer is the last thing on our to-do list. We try everything we can to handle the situation ourselves or work it out ourselves, and not until we reach our limit and the end of our abilities do we think to turn to God. It’s not a new problem. The Bible is full of stories of people who forgot to pray first or who tried to take matters into their own hands and help God along in fulfilling His promises.

When you think about it this way, it seems pretty ridiculous. I mean, what can we really do to “help” God? Do we really believe God needs our help to accomplish things? No! It’s ridiculous to even think about it. And yet, that’s what our actions communicate a lot of the time. We don’t do it intentionally. It just happens. A little bit of busyness here, a smidge of “that’s not a big problem” there, and we’ve left God completely out of the equation.

Sometimes we make prayer harder than it is. We think we need to have complete and total silence to pray. We think we have to be in church to pray. We think we have to bow our heads and close our eyes or be on our knees to pray. We think we have to use fancy words to pray. But that’s not what prayer is. At its heart, prayer is talking to God. It’s having a conversation–just you and the Most High. Amazing, isn’t it? That God desires to communicate with us?

But He does. He pursues us. He seeks us out. Why? Because He loves us. Can you imaging going an entire day….a week….a month….years…without talking to your husband or wife? Your best friend? And that’s the kind of relationship God desires with us! He wants to be our best friend. Our loving Father, when a father is what we need. Or an intimate lover/partner when that’s what we’re lacking in our life…or even when we’re not lacking that relationship but our partner lets us down and falls short…. God doesn’t want empty words and rituals. He wants relationship.

So the next time you are facing anything in life…big or small…take it to God in prayer. Sit down, and have a cup of coffee with Jesus. Talk to Him. About big things. About small things. About problems. About praises. About guidance. About anything. Pray first! Before you talk to your best friend about it. Before you vent to a trusted confidante. Pray first! I promise it will make a world of difference in your life.

Renewing Our Strength

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Isaiah 40:31

“but those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

What does it mean to “wait upon the Lord?” The children of Israel were in captivity. They were defeated by the great military power of Babylon. The exiles knew that they could not hope to overthrow a world power like Babylon and escape their captivity. What could they do? They could turn back to the Lord. They could put their hope for salvation in Him alone. Waiting on the Lord isn’t a passive occupation. Biblical hope isn’t like sitting back and wishing for something to happen. Waiting on the Lord is active.

When we wait on the Lord, we pursue Him and His will for us, and we trust that as we draw closer to Him, He will take care of all of our needs. We can not live our lives according to our own desires and motivations and hope to be blessed by God, but when we follow closely after Him, He promises us to provide all that we need. When we wait on the Lord, patiently–with the right attitude–when we pursue relationship with him with the confident assurance that He will provide for us and take care of all our needs, we have the promise that God will show up in our circumstances.

This verse promises us that we can go to God in hopeful expectation and patient waiting and have our strength and vitality renewed. Perhaps God will pull us out of our circumstances and lift us to new heights, but even if He doesn’t, this verse promises that He will give us renewed strength. With the Lord, we are able to endure. He endows us with His supernatural strength to get through trying times. He brings us through trials and tribulations to times of blessings.

So when we are in the midst of a valley of trouble, we can wait in hopeful expectation on the Lord for His strength to endure, and we can keep walking through those difficult circumstances until we come out on the other side. And when we are on the top of the mountain of God’s blessings and things are going well in our lives, we can look to the Lord in gratitude and expectation and rise even higher in His blessings and on His promises. We can rise above whatever circumstances are going on around us by the power of His grace and provision for us.

What are you waiting on the Lord for today? Are you putting your energy into seeking the Lord? Are you waiting in hopeful expectation? Put your trust in God today, and find your energy and strength renewed.

Father, Thank you for your care and provision. There is not one thing I need that you do not provide for me. There is not one circumstance in my life that you are unaware of. You know my comings and goings. You know when I rise up and when I lie down. Today, Father, I’m choosing to put my trust in you. I am going to wait in hopeful expectation Lord for you to meet all my needs today. I know that if I seek earnestly after you, I will have strength to endure any type of trial or difficult circumstance I might find myself in. I will be able to continue on and power through with your help. Thank you, Father, for renewed strength and endurance. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

What Are You Full of?

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This year is brimming with possibilities. Already, I feel a release and a sense of lightness and newness all around me. The past year was hard, and I am happy to put it behind me and step into this new year full of God’s promises. I really feel as if my word of the year, Flourish, is already at full force and coming to pass. I certainly hope that I can maintain the momentum I’ve got going so far.

I’ve completed one of my crafting projects that was a carry over from my goals list for last year: a pair of crochet boot cuffs. I have a good head start on my books for the winter reading program through my local library. I’m exercising, drinking water, keeping up with my daily Bible reading, and taking my vitamins. I’ve even started a new tradition: morning and evening blessings for my children.

Now those of you who’ve read my previous posts might ask yourself why I would start a tradition for my children, when they aren’t with me right now. Well, one reason is that I think this is an act of faith on my part. Making plans as if my children are home not only helps me be prepared when they return, but it demonstrates my faith that God will fulfill his promise to bring them back. All of them.

So each morning, I turn on some worship music (I’m referring to this time as worship wake up), and I make the rounds to each of my children’s beds to pray a blessing over them. I start with my youngest. I place my hand on his bed (when he comes home I’ll place my hand on his back), and I tell him how much I love him, how much God loves him, and then I bless him with patience with his siblings, a worshipful heart, a teachable spirit, love and protection. I pray over him briefly, and then I move on to the next child’s bed. At the end of the day as I’m turning off lights and preparing for bed, I reverse the process and do the same thing, blessing my children with good dreams, love and protection and saying a brief prayer for each of them.

I know God is faithful to carry those blessings to my children wherever they are. That’s the beauty of an omnipresent God. One who pursues us everywhere and anywhere. One who goes wherever He is needed to meet us where we are.

These touches are filling my home and my heart with God’s promises and God’s spirit. We are vessels. No matter what religion we follow or what we believe in or don’t believe in, our lives and our hearts are filled with something. Whatever we fill it with, that’s what pours out into our lives. It pours out into our steps each day. We pour it out into our work, our relationships, and our home. We can be intentional about what we fill our hearts and minds with, or we can leave it to chance, but rest assured we are being filled by something.

I want my heart full of good things. I want to intentionally pour in the things of God. I want to be so full of His life-giving spirit that it pours out of me wherever I go. Could you imagine a world full of life-giving people? A world where every believer poured the presence of God, the blessings of God, and the miracle-working Spirit of God out on the world around them because they were so full of those things that it couldn’t help but overflow out of them? That’s the picture of a world I want to live in! That’s the picture of a world I want to help create.

New Every Morning

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Lamentations 3:22-24

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.”

Our first week of the New Year is almost at an end. Children will be returning to school soon if they haven’t already. We have had to go back to our normal daily routine. Some of us have already given up on the resolutions we made just a few days ago. Others of us are still plodding through.

Life can get overwhelming at times. We can feel like we’re in over our head. We can feel as if we will never make it through this or never get to where we want to be. In those moments, it’s easy to assume that God is far away. That He doesn’t see us or doesn’t care about our situation, but that could not be farther from the truth. God sees us. He cares for us. This verse tells us that His love for us is what keeps us pushing through. It’s what keeps us afloat just a bit longer when we feel like we’re drowning in our responsibilities or our sorrow.

And there’s another hopeful promise here: that God’s compassions (another translations says, his loving mercies) are new every morning. They are new EVERY morning. If we had a bad day, if we failed to do what we wanted to do, if we failed to do what God wanted us to do, Mercy is available to us. We can start our day anew. We can begin again. A failure doesn’t have to be permanent. We can try again.

The Lord is faithful, even when we are not. He provides mercy, strength, endurance, and so much more for all of our needs. If we rely on Him every day, we can enjoy his fresh mercy, his loving compassion in a new way. So when you feel like giving up, give it to the Lord. Wait on Him. Trust Him to take control, to make a way, to give you new mercy. Take a deep breath. And begin again.

Father, I thank you that your mercies are new every morning. There is not a single day that comes my way where I am out of your mercy…where the supply is gone. It is fresh and new every day. Father, today I hand you all the worries and struggles that have been troubling me in exchange for your tender mercy and your provision. I trust you to handle these things for me and to make a way where there doesn’t seem to be one. You provide all that I need, Father. Thank you! Thank you that I can begin again. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

The Comparison Trap

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I’m sure your Facebook newsfeed is as full as mine is with New Year’s Resolutions lists and friend’s goals for the year. I love seeing posts that celebrate what a person accomplished or where they’ve been, but sometimes those posts get to me. Sometimes instead of celebrating with the other person, I find myself comparing what I’ve done to what they did.

I have highly ambitious friends….friends who somehow managed to not get sidetracked by life in general and, instead, to reach the goals they set for themselves back in highschool. They are highly successful in their careers. They are financially stable. They are traveling the world. They are happy and satisfied with their lives in this moment–or at least they appear to be in their Facebook posts! I can’t help looking at these friends, whose goals were so similar to mine back then, and think about how far apart we are now.

In highschool, I was on track to go to college and then to medical school. My goal was to be a doctor. I wanted to be in family practice. There was something about the idea of caring for a person from birth to the grave that really appealed to me. I wanted to help people, and I loved science and medicine. They fascinated me. I also wanted to work as a missionary, helping to spread the Word of God around around the world. I figured that medicine would open doors just about anywhere and allow me to do that.

But then life happened. I made a few wrong turns. I had a child. I got married. I had another child. I got divorced. I had another child. I got married again. I had two more children. I got divorced. I married for the third (and final!) time. I had two more children……well, you get the picture. None of my children were wrong turns, per se, but most of them were born under less than ideal circumstances. I had to leave college to support my growing family. There wasn’t time anymore for pursuing an ambitious career like medicine. My priorities shifted, and suddenly raising my kids and homeschooling them was more important to me than a high-paying job.

It would be easy to look at the accomplishments of my friends and feel “less than.” I could look at all the glamorous pictures of European vacations or Caribbean cruises and feel like somehow my life matters a bit less. What have I done on that scale? Where have I gone? I’m not a doctor. I haven’t accomplished my goals. I’m middle-aged now (dear Lord, when did that happen?), and I have nothing to show for my life.

But that’s not really true. My friends who are doctors….not all of them have families. Some are single. Most don’t have children. Would I really trade my family and my children for a job, however fulfilling? No. I wouldn’t. For a while, I fell prey to the comparison trap, but now I try to focus on the things I HAVE accomplished. I have a good marriage overall. I love my husband and can’t imagine living life without him, even in those moments when our marriage has been struggling. I have 7 beautiful children. They are polite and well-mannered. They are kind and giving. They are good people. I have taught them to love themselves and each other. I have a home that I own. I’m nowhere near debt free, but I’m not in debt to the extent that some of my friends are. I’m even managing to save for retirement….well, my husband’s retirement. I am at home where I want to be. I get to educate my children. I get to spend every day with them. I am blessed beyond measure! And as the cherry on the top, the Lord provided a college degree for me this past year!

So when you’re scrolling through Facebook, looking at all the wonderful accomplishments of family and friends, don’t fall into the comparison trap. Remember that you are only seeing snapshots of their lives–and only the best snapshots, of course. You aren’t seeing the whole picture. You don’t know how they’re really doing. How they really feel. If they’re really as happy and satisfied as they seem. You are you, and what you’ve done with your life is just as worthwhile.

My stepsister posted a meme that said, “I know we are in the yearly recap phase on social media and everyone is announcing their biggest wins, but please don’t compare yourself and your progress to others. If your biggest achievement was just staying alive, then that’s a win too!” This really resonated with me because with all the struggles of the past year, I definitely felt like most of what I did was stay alive. It was a win! It was a huge win. Sometimes I think it was a bigger win because it meant I didn’t give up, and I fought through the trial…am still fighting through the trial.

So this year, I’m leaving the comparison trap behind. I’m going to celebrate with those in my life who are celebrating. For those who are mourning, I’m going to mourn with them. And the only person I’m going to compete against is myself….to be a better person tomorrow than I was today!

Changing Clothes

Ephesians 4:22-24

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

We’ve talked a lot in our devotionals so far this year about being made new. It’s a wonderful thing that God forgives our sin in such a way that they are no longer remembered. We are restored in our spirits to the way God created us, without sin, but our souls (mind, will, and emotions) still need some work. How can we make that work happen? How do we do the work of making our mind, will, and emotions new as well? This verse has the answer. We need to be made new in the attitudes of our mind.

Joyce Meyer has a popular book titled The Battlefield of the Mind. In it, she explores the various ways that Satan uses our mind as his battleground. The battle is fought–and won or lost–in the realm of our thoughts. What we think, what we allow our minds to dwell on, becomes what we believe. What we believe heavily influences what we do. So our thoughts and attitudes play an integral role in our behavior.

We all have behaviors that we want to change. That’s why we take this time of year to make New Year’s Resolutions. We are committing and resolving to change our behaviors from something we dislike to something we like. Perhaps we want to go from unhealthy to physically healthy, so we resolve to lose weight or to exercise each day. Perhaps we want more money in our bank account, so we resolve to spend less money and instead put that money into savings. Our resolutions are usually focused on our behaviors. But how often do we resolve to change our thinking?

You can’t give up a bad habit unless you find a new one to put in its place. Today’s verse tells us that when we put off our old self, we’re to replace it with our new self. If we want to successfully change our life to reflect Christ, we have to start with renewing our mind. The Bible tells us that we renew our mind through meditating on the word of God. What does meditating look like to a Christian? It looks like deep pondering and repeated thinking. If you’ve ever worried about something, you know what that feels like. The worry keeps coming back to mind and you dwell on it and turn it over and over again, examining it from every angle, in an attempt to fix the problem and remove the anxiety. Well, that’s meditating turned upside down.

Instead of dwelling on our anxiety, we should be dwelling on God’s Word. We need to ponder these verses. Memorize them. Study them from every angle. As we begin to ingest the Word of God, it begins to change our thinking. It begins to show us truth in a way we haven’t seen it before. That change in thinking changes what we believe about ourselves, our relationships, and the world around us. As our beliefs and thoughts change, our behavior soon follows. We begin to be doers of the Word, not hearers only. We start to act on what we think and believe. We become more and more like Christ.

Father, I thank you that at the moment of my salvation, you gave me a new spirit, a spirit that was created to be like you–righteous and holy. I thank you that because of this change within my spirit, I am able to put off the old way I used to do things, a way corrupted by sin, and I am able to put on a new way of doing things–your way. Help me to meditate on your Word instead of worrying about things. Renew my mind as I study and focus on your Word. Change me from the inside out, so that I can be a better reflection of who you are to the world around me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Looking Back on 2019

New Year’s is a time to look ahead, but it’s also a time to look back on the year we’ve just left behind. 2019 was not a terrific year for me. The section of my planner/journal that documents highlights of the year is conspicuously blank. That isn’t to say that nothing good happened at all, but rather that the some total of the year is something I’d like to forget. Every now and then we all have a bad year. 2019 was not the first bad year for me, but it was probably one of the worst.

In January of 2019, I was looking forward to a year of uncertainty. My 12-year-old daughter struggles with a mental illness that makes family life challenging at times. In December, she was placed in a mental health hospital as an in-patient, and they were not sure how to help her. A week or two into her stay, she began making false allegations of abuse against my husband, her stepfather. This resulted in a CPS investigation. We were told by the mental health experts that they were certain the allegations were false, a common symptom of her particular disorder. We were assured that they had adequately communicated this fact to CPS. We were confident that this would all blow over. After all, we had been surrounded by mental health specialists and mandatory reporters for the last year and a half. Surely, that would count for something.

Except it didn’t. The worker we had refused to speak to anyone who could verify that we were good, caring, non-abusive parents. She had her mind made up from the beginning. Doesn’t matter what the “experts” say, children don’t lie about abuse. That’s the mantra of most CPS workers. Except they do. And children with mental illness do it at a much higher rate.

It didn’t help that I have an abusive ex-husband who promised when we divorced that he would find a way to completely ruin my life. He’s been making fraudulent calls to CPS about me and/or my husband since our divorce began 7 years ago. Doesn’t matter that they are all unsubstantiated. Doesn’t matter that the allegations in each call contradict themselves. Doesn’t matter that I reported his abuse to the authorities, filed for divorce, and begged someone to do something to stop his constant harassment. CPS views victims of domestic abuse as potential perpetrators or worse, do-nothings who care more about their marriages/partnerships than their children. So when this allegation came in against my husband, CPS didn’t listen when I told them there was no way the allegations were true, that I had seen absolutely no corroborating evidence of any of these allegations at all, and that I had been assured by the many mental health professionals that they were false. I was just covering for my husband.

Of course, CPS has a policy to notify all parents of children in a household, so my ex-husband was notified that CPS had an open investigation on us. He may have even been given the allegations they were investigating. I don’t know. All I do know is that even after begging them to interview my children aware from their abusive father, they ignored me. He drove them to the CPS office for the interview. And suddenly my children with him had allegations of abuse as well. Allegations that matched all the previous unsubstantiated claims that had already been debunked by investigations. Only now, they somehow weren’t. Now, they were considered gospel truth!

And so the nightmare began. How do you prove your innocence? You don’t. You can’t. That’s why our judicial system is based on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Except it’s not that way in family court when you’re dealing with CPS. There you are 100% guilty. Unless you can cast doubt, and then the best you can hope for is inconclusive. And there is so much bias against religious parents. Homeschool your kids? Can’t be because you are concerned about the lack of quality in the local educational system. Can’t be because your state supreme court recently ruled that schools do not have a constitutional obligation to make sure your student learns to read. Can’t be because local schools are crumbling around you. Has to be because you want to hide abuse. After all, they reason, schools are filled with teachers who have to report abuse to the state. Ignore the number of teachers who have been arrested and found guilty of sexually abusing our students. That’s irrelevant. Ignore the number of teachers who report actual cases of abuse to CPS only to be ignored. That’s also irrelevant. Ignore the fact that today’s homeschoolers are active in the community and seen by many, many people in the course of a week. That’s also irrelevant. No. The mere fact that you homeschool is a CPS red flag.

Are you religious? Do you raise your kids with certain religious beliefs? Believe children are a blessing from the Lord? Have a larger than average family? Think chores build character? Think again. Judges think more than 2-3 kids is excessive and evidence of neglect. After all, how can you possibly take care of all those kids? If your kids insist they are the only person on the entire planet to do chores in your household, even if that is demonstrably false based on the fact that you have 3 kids ALL claiming to be the only one with chores and none of those chores are the same, you are guilty of abuse. Expect older kids to help out with younger siblings from time to time? That’s abuse. Do you believe in spanking in rare circumstances and as a last result? The simple fact that you have that belief, even if you have not spanked your children recently, is still a mark against you.

So we found ourselves in court with our children preemptively removed because CPS doesn’t need proof of abuse, just the hint of it. In CPS cases, you can’t share attorneys with your spouse. They actually don’t want you to stay married. We were told point blank that if we wanted our kids back, our best chance was to divorce each other and admit guilt. Fight the system, and they will make you an example. Lie and say you did things you would never do, and they’ll consider it “taking responsibility” and fast track your kids coming back. And attorneys fees for this? They start at $5,000 each. And that doesn’t include court costs, boarding costs (that’s right, you pay for your kids to be in foster care at a rate that starts at $100 per week per child), etc.

And the judge doesn’t have to find proof that you’re guilty of abusing your kids. They only have to find preponderance. Preponderance means that if we put all the evidence on a scale, whatever way the scale tips at the end, even if it’s only slightly…is the winner. And by all the evidence, what they really mean is all the evidence they allow. We had evidence from pediatric child abuse specialists paid by CPS to find evidence against us that actually ended up exonerating us, but the judge wouldn’t admit it. We had evidence that called into question the validity of the statements my children made after my ex-husband had access to them, but the judge wouldn’t admit it. We had proof of false statements made under oath and at least red flag testimony that called into question our guilt, but the judge wouldn’t allow it. I even had a psychological evaluation done by the premier neuropsych testing facility in the city that stated I was a good parent with no mental illnesses and no red flags of abuse, but the judge wouldn’t allow it.

So 2019 was a year full of misery and disappointment. I went from a house full of the laughter of my 4 children to a house that was empty. My husband wasn’t even allowed to be here. I felt abandoned by God. Nothing made sense. Nothing.

And yet, there were moments of joy in the midst of that suffering. There were people at church who rallied around us, prayed for us, encouraged us, and still surround us today to make sure we’re still fighting and that we’re doing okay. There were days when I said, “God, if I could just here a word from you saying _____________, I know I could make it through,” and then suddenly someone would come up to me and say, “I just feel like I need to tell you _____________.” Verses jumped out at me in Bible readings that spoke directly to my life in that moment. Prophetic words were given to me. There were times I felt God’s arms wrapped tightly around me. Moments of joy in the midst of pain. Streams in the desert.

My marriage struggled, recovered, and struggled again. God is changing us. He is molding us and shaping us into something new. When you are put under pressure, a lot of stuff comes out of you. If you’re full of good things, only good things come out. But we are sinful people, so what comes out first is usually our sin. I saw attitudes and thoughts and things in myself that I didn’t like, so I took them to God and He began faithfully working those things out of my life. I can honestly say that looking back now I see much more fruit than junk, and that’s a good thing!

If 2019 was a year of plowing up the hard parts of my heart, rooting out the bad seeds, digging out the rocks, planting new seed, and pruning me, then 2020 must be a year of abundant harvest. It has already begun. We have been blessed in the fact that all the hoops we have to jump through for foster care have resulted in those workers being on our side. They support us. They are willing to testify that we could not possibly have been bad parents to start with and definitely aren’t now. We have been given a payment plan for our legal fees and court costs, and may be able to waive some of them, so that we can afford to get through this without filing bankruptcy.

God has provided miracle provision at times so that the bills were paid. I asked God for 2 things before the end of the year, and He provided both of them plus a little extra for my husband and I to enjoy a dinner out together at a nice restaurant. My husband will be starting seminary classes to work on his undergraduate and graduate degrees in the hope of fulfilling God’s calling on his life to be a pastor. I have seen God’s favor moving in my life, and I am confident that we are on the way up from here. Job was given a double portion for suffering well, and I pray that I will receive the same because I serve the same God.

God is faithful! He is fighting this battle on my behalf, and He has already won the victory for me. My God is a God of restoration and redemption, so I know He will restore my children to me. He is a God of resurrection power, so I know He can resurrect our family and my marriage from the ashes of 2019 and make it a thriving source of the fruit of the Spirit and joy and peace in the year ahead.

Amen!

Streams in the Desert

Isaiah 43:18-19

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Often when we approach a new beginning or a crossroads in our life, we experience fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of what others might think. We hear in our head judgmental thoughts that remind us of our shortcomings and our weaknesses. It’s hard for us, as humans, to let go of the past. Past regrets and past hurts seem to cling to us everywhere we go, but God calls to us to forget the former things. “Do not dwell on the past,” He says.

Dwelling on the past keeps us locked in a never-ending cycle. It prevents us from moving forward in our lives. The past is over and done with. The things in the past are dead and gone. God is not a god of the dead, but of the living, Paul tells us. So it only makes sense that He would want us to focus on what is living….our life right now. We can let the past cripple us, or we can be born again. That’s part of God’s grace to us. As born-again believers, we are not trapped by the mistakes of our past. God has erased them from His memory. Shouldn’t we do the same?

God is always creating. He is always making old things new. His promise to us in this verse is that if we will turn our eyes from the past and move forward, He will make a way for us. Even in places where no way can be found, even in situations where progress seems impossible, God is making a way. He is making provision for us. He has already been there, preparing that way and that provision for our next step. He is calling us to look forward–to perceive what He is doing now.

Letting go of the past and stepping forward is always a bit intimidating, but knowing God goes ahead of us and makes a way gives us the confidence to step out. When our minds are unclouded by the past, we can perceive the new thing God is doing. We’ll still make mistakes from time to time. That’s part of being human, but we can repent and let go of those mistakes in record time. We can refuse to allow them to keep us from continuing to move forward, from perceiving what God is doing right now in our lives.

Father, I thank you that you are God. I thank you that when I repent of my past mistakes, you forget them. Help me to forget them as well. I don’t want to live in the past anymore. I want to move forward through life with you in the lead. Father, I thank you that even when I’m at a crossroads and I can’t see the way forward, that you are there preparing a way for me. I thank you for your provision even in circumstances where it doesn’t seem possible. Help me to perceive what you are doing in my life right now in this moment. Help me to keep moving forward in your hope. I am ready to see the new thing that you are doing today! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.