The Lord recently gave me a love for digging into and searching His word. It will not return void, as the scripture says (Isaiah 55:11). I find that as I go deeper, He goes deeper. When I focus my day on praise and studying the Word, in the midst of whatever I am doing, I find a lighter more hopeful me peeking out from behind the piles of laundry and dirty dishes. In my real life, I have real life!
When I fill my day with re-runs, comfort food, and the depressing news on TV, I am easily and quickly rundown. There are distractions everywhere. I am learning I don’t have to give them my attention.

I feel like the Lord is showing me He made me the way I am, and placed me exactly where I am. In any music there are the loud notes, the soft sounds, and the pauses in between. We each have a place in the song.

The second day of my new job I was driving home and decided to stop by the grocery store so that I could prepare a special dinner for my husband when he got home. I had it all planned out. I was so excited when I pulled up in the driveway I barely thought twice about our shed door being wide open. My dogs were barking eagerly as I walked up the back steps, groceries in hand. When I looked up to unlatch our gate it was already open. My eyes rose further still, and that is when I saw the glass all over the back porch. The blood drained from my face. Everything started moving in slow motion. I walked up to the door and saw the hole punched in the window pane. The door was open. My hand pushed the door just wide enough for me to get through. All I could think was, “This isn’t happening. Oh God, please don’t let this be happening!” When I stepped inside, my kitchen was in complete disarray. Drawers were open, pots all over the floor. I walked in the living room not even thinking people could still be in the house.

When I saw the living room my fears were confirmed. We had been robbed. The living room looked like a tornado had gone through it. Couch cushions thrown about. Drawers ripped out. Tables, lamps, pictures all smashed and overturned. I ran out of the house to the neighbors trying to remember what I was supposed to do. “Call my husband. Call the police. Oh God this can’t be happening! How do I fix this?” My mind was racing…

The rest of the evening was a blur of flashing blue lights, police officers, and family. I could hear things going on around me, but it was all muddled as if I was hearing it underwater. I could not go in the house. I could not see my home like that. After everybody left and my husband and I were alone, I looked at him and asked, “How are we going to be able to go on?” I felt like I had been raped, and I just wanted to wash it all off. I just wanted to disappear.

I seriously did not think I would be able to ever move on from this. I already suffered from a predisposition towards depression and anxiety, and this just sent me over the edge. Days went by. I returned to my job. I talked to people at work, family, friends, my husband, a counselor; and yet I felt completely alone. I kept asking God, “Why did you let this happen?” I could not understand what good could possibly come out of this disaster. Have you ever felt like God was not listening to you? Well, I felt God had shunned me and He was punishing me for my past. I was enraged and utterly humiliated. Panic would seep up in me like a serpent that consumed my whole being. I could feel myself getting pulled back into a depression, and that is where I wanted to go. It was easy. It was “justifiable.” But that was not God’s plan.

You see, until then I would have called myself a Christian. I mean, I was saved, and I went to church. But there was one key piece of the puzzle I was missing. Until then I had not been truly walking by faith with God. I was doing what I wanted to do, what I thought I should do. I was not putting into practice His Word. Looking back on all of that now, I see God’s hand at work. No, God did not cause that robbery to happen. You want to know what He did though. Oh, Praise Jesus!! He turned that horrible curse, that nasty mess, into the most beautiful blessing! How? How do we walk with God? How do we fulfill our destiny? Sister’s, we walk by faith. We give it all to Him. I gave Him my anger, my depression, my mess of a life in that aftermath and said, “Lord, I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know what to do. But you do, and I give all of me to you!” The blessings rained down! I realized that stuff was just that, stuff. And out of that stuff we were able to become debt-free. Do you want to know what else? The robbers were caught, tried, and convicted. When He rains, He pours!

But God offers the ultimate fear-antidote, even though at first glance it seems like more of the same. Ecclesiastes concludes with this scripture:

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:
FEAR God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

Doesn’t set your mind at ease? How could fear itself be a remedy for fear? I love the explanation that author and pastor of the Mosaic church in California, Erwin McManus, gave in a conference I attended last year. To paraphrase, fear determines the boundaries of our lives. If we’re afraid of flying, we only visit places within driving distance. If we have a fear of public places, we stay at home. If we fear death, then we take fewer risks.

Fear also works in reverse. You can tell what a person fears by looking at how they spend their resources, not just money but time and energy too. Do you spend all your time checking the markets? Maybe you fear financial failure. Do you workout tirelessly at the expense of other aspects of your life? Maybe you fear getting fat or aging. If we allow, fear can determine not just what we do but how we do it.

But what does it look like to fear God? When we fear God, then He alone determines the boundaries of our lives. Fearing God means understanding that His ways are not ours, that He is in control despite what news anchors say, understanding that He can work beyond the physical framework set into place for us as human beings. Instead of being reactively driven by circumstances we’re driven by a need to please a God who loves us enough to die for us, a God that scriptures tell us has a good and perfect plan for our lives.

This became a lifelong habit, and as you might expect, led to a weight problem for me. Over the last 20 years, I have gained and lost the same 30 pounds. Back in the Fall of 2008, I remember feeling so hopeless about my weight and had lost all hope of ever losing it and keeping it off for life. There, at the bottom of the valley, is where the Lord met me, restored my hope, and revealed truth to me that would forever change my life. He showed me that I would never keep the extra weight off until I addressed the CAUSE of my over eating. For almost 30 years, I had developed a reflex habit of turning to food whenever I started to feel uncomfortable emotions rising up in me – frustration, loneliness, anger, worthlessness, sadness, hopelessness…and the list goes on. The bottom line is, I didn’t like feeling those negative emotions, and I just wanted to “stuff” them down with food so I wouldn’t have to deal with them.

God shows emotion throughout the Bible, and we are made in His image (Genesis 1:26), and therefore we are also emotional beings. Now the truth is, emotions in themselves are neither good nor bad, and they are given to us by God for a purpose. I once heard someone say that emotions are our warning light to “check under the hood”, as in a car. For years now I’ve been trying to ignore my warning light, hoping it would just go away. Well, we all know that just because we ignore something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There are hurts and lies underneath those emotions, and the ONLY way to be free of them is to let them come to the surface (instead of trying to stuff them down with food), and let the Lord reveal what is behind them. Once the wound is exposed, then the Lord can heal it. And once it is healed, it will no longer try to “bob” to the surface like a buoy that keeps coming up no matter how many times you try to push it down under the water.

I read a book over twenty years ago titled “Inside Out”. What I remember most about the book was that I was not ready to turn inside out. I was one year on the other side of a difficult divorce and I already felt wrung out! But, something was urging me to read it. So, I would cuddle up with the book every night, at the end of the day. Taking positive God centered thoughts to bed was my guarantee of a good night sleep!

Somewhere midway in the book I came across this quote, “When does change occur? Change occurs when the fear of the change is equal to the fear”. These words were so profound that they propelled me to get out of bed and write them down. As I copied the words I thought this is so true! In every single aspect of my life, regardless of the issue or circumstance, I did not change my behavior until my discomfort with the situation was acute and painful enough that it forced me to make a change.

Over the years I have reflected on this quote and I have shared it with others and it never fails that when I share it, the person listening will respond, “Say that again, please”. I share it with you now because the phase popped into my head as I was crying on my way home at the end of the day. I had met with a patient and his daughter who were two of the most bitter, unpleasant people I’ve run across in a very long time! They were nasty and had nothing good to say about any aspect of the father’s care. Lord Help! I could hardly wait to leave his room. I have always been able to “pour oil on churning waters” (as the old folks say) but not this time! Work had been difficult for six months. I felt stressed most days no matter how hard I prayed and turned the situation over to God.

It was during the release of tears that God dropped the phrase into my spirit again. Change occurs when the fear of the change is equal to the pain! Tired of the traffic, tired of mean people, sick and tired of being tired! (Pain, pain, pain) THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

I spent the next few hours thinking I would start looking for a new job. That’s when the Holy Spirit said, “You don’t need to look for a new job. You need to open your own business”! The more I thought about it the better it sounded and I shared the idea with my family and closest Christian friends.

Now, Consulting for Change, the name of my new business, is more than a dream; it’s about to become a reality! Isn’t that just like God to move us into the next phase or stage of our lives through adversity?

The bottom line is this: God knew what He was doing when He made me a mother. He knew the mistakes I would make, and how my mistakes would affect my children. God’s plans for them are good (Jeremiah 29:11). He is able to redeem my mistakes, and He is more than able to conform me into the image of His Son. The Word clearly states there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). The Lord does not condemn me, so I should not condemn myself. Ultimately, God loves me for who I am as His child, not for what I do. He loves me the same whether I’m at my worst or at my best — and this knowledge that I am loved unconditionally is my key to being a better mom.

The God of Corners

by Christa Hogan

Last year, feeling the need to find focus in my life as an at-home mom, I sat down and wrote up a list of beliefs, truths based on scripture that I could refer back to when life threw me for a loop. Then I decided to choose a life verse, something I hadn’t done in a while. Proverbs 3:4-6 came to mind. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” I had no way of knowing how much that trust would be tested in coming days.

We are now greatly blessed to be six months pregnant with our second baby, our fifth pregnancy. All signs are positive. The baby is growing stronger each day. We live in faith that we’ll be welcoming our son into the world in a few short months. I now keep that scripture card, laminated, with me in my purse. I pull it out and re-read it to remind myself to trust not in the doctors or my own narrow understanding of a situation but to trust in a God who sees around every corner and meets us there.

God’s Tanya Harding

by Christa Hogan

There was a boy in the Baptist grade school I attended. We’ll call him Rick. His mother kept him back a year, so he was older than the rest of us. Taller too. And handsome. He came from a nice family and always wore nice clothes. He was just…nice. And I loved him. Sometimes I would think that he loved me too, in those little minutes we passed with other kids between classes. But then I could see the distance between us like a curtain coming down over his eyes when I laughed too loud at his joke or punched him too hard in the shoulder. By high school, Rick was dating our class president. When he broke up with her, he dated the captain of my varsity soccer team.

It was in this place of deep hurt and weariness that I finally realized that God saw me. He saw me and knew me and hadn’t passed me over for someone else. I couldn’t earn his love, but I wasn’t entitled to it either. It was just there for the asking. I had to let down the tough façade and accept his love. I had to soften my jaw and open my arms and just…be. I wasn’t Tanya and I wasn’t Nancy. I wasn’t any of those girls. And that was okay with Him. I’m learning to let it be okay with me too.

Authenticity: Being True to YOU

by Monica M. Deer

I challenge each of us — and believe me when I say I am speaking foremost to ME — to learn to share our authentic selves with others. Be true to who you are and trust that others around you are facing the same struggles. It’s so comforting when you find out that you are not alone in your daily walk and that, believe it or not, others are walking the same path. And let’s not judge others based on just their “appearance” or their own struggles. Scripture says in Proverbs 23:7 “as a [wo]man thinks in his/her heart, so is s/he…” God only looks inside so why should we do any different. Let’s walk this walk TOGETHER and know that in sharing ourselves we may also be helping ourselves by finding others to walk with us.

Beyond the Imagined and Unimagined Possibilities of Our Heart

by Genel Webb

When I became a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, one of the first scriptures that the Lord really opened up to me was I Corinthians 2:9. It says that “…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” I learned this particular scripture early on in my walk, not intentionally, but because I read it so much. I just thought that it provided such hope. At some point, I read the scripture in Ephesians 3:20. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” I think that these scriptures provide such encouragement. They continue to sustain my hopefulness.

Don’t Spit in God’s Face

by Maria Simone

I was purchasing some new clothes at the mall today, and was talking with the sales clerk about healthy eating and exercise. She proceeded to tell me how she walks on a regular basis and listens to her body’s cues for eating. She said she realizes that God has blessed her with her body, and she “doesn’t want to spit in God’s face” by failing to take care of it. Her statement hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never thought about my poor choices as “spitting in God’s face”, but when I squander a blessing He has given me, or fail to accept one of His gifts, that is essentially what I am doing.

Do I have a long way to go in this area? Absolutely. But as we surrender to the Lord in each area of our lives, He is faithful to conform us to the image of His Son Jesus. So together, my friends, let’s ask the Lord to open our hearts to receive every blessing He has for us, to be thankful in all circumstances, and to be good stewards of all that He has entrusted to us, for the glory of His name!

Faith: A Daily Decision

by Monica M. Deer

There was a song that came out many years ago by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir called “He’s Been Faithful.” The chorus simply says:

He’s been faithful, faithful to me
Looking back His love and mercy I see
Though in my heart I have questioned
Even failed to believe
Yet He’s been faithful, faithful to me

Anytime, I think of the words “faith” or “faithful,” that song always comes to my mind. Many times when we are walking through a valley in our life, it’s hard for us to see the faithfulness of God. The age old question “How could a good God allow bad things to happen to good people” may creep into our mind. Hebrews 11:1 says: Now FAITH is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (KJV). The New Living Translation says it like this…Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. When situations arise in our life and we question why or we can’t see any good reason for them, we have to rest in those “things we cannot see.”

Looking back on the past few years of my life I can see times that resting in the faithfulness of God is all I could do. One such situation – a “hope” – was during the time my husband and I were trying to conceive. When we made the decision to have children I prepared myself that, like many of my friends, it could take several months to conceive. Imagine our surprise and joy when we discovered, after only one month, that we were expecting. I couldn’t believe it! We couldn’t wait to tell our family and friends the awesome news. However, after only 7 weeks we were devastated to learn that I was miscarrying our first child. I couldn’t understand how or why God would allow this to happen. I couldn’t find a reason. I had even more questions when 2 months later I began to miscarry our second child. Three months later, when I found out I was again pregnant, I found it very difficult to trust God’s faithfulness…I lived in fear that what I hoped for would never come to fruition.

I tried to trust in the goodness and faithfulness of God, but it was a daily challenge…a daily DECISION. I had to choose each day when I got up that I would trust that God was in control and that He alone knew what was best for me, my husband and my family – even for my children (that I did not have yet). I can’t tell you that it was an easy journey or that I fully understand why God allowed me to face such a difficult situation on my life journey…maybe to help other women facing a similar circumstance…but I do know that God IS faithful. And today, as I sit here basking in the peace and quiet of my home, I know He has been faithful to bless me with not ONE but TWO awesome children – who are both healthy, happy and peacefully napping in their beds. God is always faithful to those who trust him. We have to choose daily to trust that faithfulness and to know that no matter what life throws at us, He alone is in control!

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