Hey ladies and gents! Thank you for your continued patience in waiting for the forums page to get up and running. WIX has been working on it the last 15 days, and the developers still haven’t been able to fix the glitch that won’t let people post anything. I sure didn’t pray for patience but God clearly thought I needed to learn how to have some. So hopefully they will be able to fix it next week and we will all be having fun chatting soon.
It's been a rough couple of weeks already and we are only 15 days into 2022. Lots of prayers for those who have been sick with this new wave of COVID, and even more prayers for those who have lost loved ones. My heart goes out to all of you. It really puts things into perspective when you work in the hospice industry on how precious life really is. I've been attacked really hard the last 15 days, and satan is working overtime trying to steal my joy. Although I've been slightly cranky and grumbling, I'm not completely overwhelmed or depressed as I have been in past seasons like this. It's all about progress and not perfection. Just so everyone is aware, I’m fasting from all forms of social media until the 30th. That was not my plan, but obedience is key.
I just finished reading: “Walking with God: Talk to Him. Hear From Him. Really.“ by John Eldredge. I have a couple of his books, as well as a few of his wife Stasi’s, and they are both absolutely brilliant storytellers. Both of them have a way with words and can paint a picture that makes your heart feel what they are feeling. One of my favorite excerpts from this book was:
“All of the things we long for in life -love and friendship, freedom and wholeness, clarity of purpose, all the joy we long for -it all depends on our restoration. You can’t find or keep good friends while you are still an irritating person to be around. And there is no way love can flourish while you are still controlling. You can’t find your real purpose in life while you’re still slavishly serving other people‘s expectations of you. You can’t find peace while you‘re ruled by fear. You can’t enjoy what you have while you’re envying what the other guy has. On and on it goes. God wants us happy. Really. ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full’ (John 10:10)” Pg. 20.
Wow. That was very convicting but in a good way. Micah 6:8 is my favorite Bible verse of all time. Not only because my birthday is 6/8, but because it addresses the meaning of life and what God wants from us. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” ESV. If we want to have a whole and complete life with all the qualities listed above in Eldredge’s book, then we need to seek restoration. We can’t fix ourselves. We have to surrender ourselves to be fixed. It’s the same concept as a machine breaking. The machine can’t fix itself. It is incapable of doing so. What better place to send it than the manufacturer who designed it? Often we look at all the other broken people around us and ask them to fix our hearts. Sometimes we can find relief in communicating with others, but it’s like slapping a bandaid on a gunshot wound. We need the hands of a skilled surgeon to remove the bullet fragments of the things that have hurt us out of our hearts so they don’t remain and eventually start to fester.
That is what happened in my own life. The pain from the traumatic incidents in my childhood was repressed. Eventually, that pain led to substance abuse problems and sexual promiscuity. It was only when I went to rehab, and made the decision to surrender my life to the manufacturer that he began to heal my broken soul. The journey towards restoration is a very humbling experience. My pride and a lot of my negative character defects had to die before I could become well again. But I wouldn’t trade the journey for anything. I truly feel like I am walking with God now. I may not have everything I want, nor am I completely restored, but I have Jesus. And that alone is life, and life abundant.
Stay safe and healthy everyone! And remember: “The reward for humility and fear of the LORD is riches and honor in life.” Proverbs 22:4 ESV
Shalom!
