Living or Surviving?

Are you living or are you surviving??

Big difference.

Lately I have been overwhelmed with how many people are merely surviving. They aren't living their lives. They aren't enjoying. Just hanging on. Trying to get through the day so that they can "survive" the next.

It makes me want to scream. Not at the people. At satan. Back off!!

The thing is that if satan knows he can get to them, he'll keep attacking. As Christians we have to do our part and fight the battle. We can't sit back and passively let satan take what God has promised us. We have to fight!! It is ours.

What exactly is "IT"? It is peace. It is joy. It is love. It is faithfulnes. It is goodness. It is mercy. God has promised us all these things (and so much more)once we have received His gift. The gift of His Son. Maybe you've been a believer a long time and don't stand in awe of that gift so much any more. I know that's been the case with me. I gloss over the fact that God loved me so much that He chose for His Son to die a horrific death FOR ME!!

What are you doing with that gift?

In John 10:10 it says "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full."

Do you see that? Jesus came so that we may have life. Not just eternal life (which is amazing), but also life here. NOW. Don't let satan rob you of the gift of life.

Are you living or you just surviving?

Love My New Thing

There is a post inside me just begging to get out. Problem? I have no idea what it is. No idea what I'm supposed to write. If you've been around here long enough you know that's pretty typical for me. So, let's see where this goes.

New things! Often new things are exciting. An adventure. Sometimes new things are scary. Especially when we don't know where the new thing will need. What will the new thing ask of me?

My "new" thing. Well it's not even new any more. And that is just dawning on me. (yea, I'm quick like that) My new thing has been around since June of 2007. I just rolled my eyes at myself as I typed that. Seriously...am I just now realizing that this is my life?! It's not new any more. The illness. The separation. The divorce. It is my life. It's my new thing and today I am embracing it FINALLY!!

God is at work in my life in big ways. Do you ever get that feeling of being unsettled? Like your insides are on pins and needles. I don't know if I can really explain it but I've been living the past week or so with this "knowing" that God is up to something. He is increasing my faith. Increasing my trust. Teaching me that I need to be led by the Holy Spirit. Teaching me that the Holy Spirit is alive and living within me! (that is a whole post in itself).

I am loving my life right now. Illness, brokenness, sorrow, heartache...yep, I am loving my life. How can that be? It's only GOD. Praise Him for that. Beauty from my ashes. He is allowing me a huge measure of healing physically. He is allowing some "calm" right now in our family situation. This is my life, our life. A life that is not taking God by surprise.

Hope. I have it!! Faith. It's increasing. Joy. Unexplainable.

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

Lord, thank you for these gifts in my new thing. Thank you for the way you are making and for your provision each step of the journey.

God's Promises

Quick post. Quick question.

What is your favorite promise from God? AND if you care to share why, that would be great.

Claiming The Promise

Has God ever given you a promise? Or spoken something into your spirit - you just knew it was HIM?

In 2002 I know that God told me He would bring beauty from ashes in my marriage. Wasn't really sure what it meant at the time. We struggled, like a lot of married couples do, but we had weathered the storm. I guess it just made me feel good to know that God was going to use the "yuck" we had endured and we would experience beauty.

Fast forward 6 years and Don files for divorce. Huh? Lord, this makes no sense. I am sure of what you said to me. So for many months I continued to pray for restoration and for healing. Yet, it wasn't to be. The divorce was final and the door was shut.

Or was it? Honestly I wasn't sure what to do. What do you pray for now? How do you reconcile what you know God told you with the circumstances that are staring you in the face? With the reality you are living? What does beauty mean anyway?

For me...I wanted it to mean that our family would be healed and whole. I know that would be God's perfect will for us. But as humans, we have free will and God is not going to force us to do anything. I have given up praying. I have given up.

Well...I had! You see, I stopped believing in miracles. I stopped believing that my teenagers would ever be able to get past their pain and love their dad. I stopped believing that Don could really come to know God. I stopped believing that God would bind up my broken heart. When you stop believing, you stop praying for it.

Just what satan wanted. And then, the story of Andrew. If you read my previous post, you have read of the faith of his family as they prayed through dire circumstances. There was no hope for him, yet they prayed BELIEVING. I would shake my head as I would read Melanie's words and wonder what she was going to say when God didn't come through. (oh what little faith I had) Andrew's story has helped renew my faith in the power of prayer. In the reason for prayer.

Fervently I am praying for each member of my family. David belongs to Jesus and satan can't have him. David says that "God just doesn't work for him any more", but I know differently. Ellie says she just wants a normal life and will never have it. Well, Ellie I am praying for God's blessing on your life. Don made a commitment to the Lord in 1998 and I know that the Lord will continue to hound him. Not hound him to punish him, but hound him because HE loves him.

What did God promise me? Beauty from ashes. I AM CLAIMING IT!!

ANDREW

NEW UPDATE: Run over to Melanie's blog and see what God has done!

UPDATE: Andrew is having surgery right now!! (5 pm est) Please visit their site.

My friend, Melanie and her family need your prayers desperately. Their lives have been turned upside within the past three weeks as their 12 year old son was diagnosed with brain cancer. Today there is an urgent need for prayer for her son, Andrew. Please click on the button in my sidebar and let them know you are standing in the gap with them today.

Thank you!!

This Is...

My "new normal"!!

Well, we may not look all that normal to you. But this is my family now. Crazy. Happy. Full of joy. Yes, we are claiming that joy even in the midst of these trials. It is our God given right.

Illness gone? Nope, but we'll find the joy.

David struggling? Yes terribly, but we will CLAIM the joy.

Ellie questioning? You bet. Can there be in joy in that? Oh yea.

You see, this is a family that has each individually made commitments to receive Christ. We are a family of believers. Are some of them wondering where is God in this? Yep. But this I know...those HE has sealed are His forever!!

The verse that is the my life verse is found in the sidebar from Isaiah 61:3. The beginning of that chapter speaks of Jesus coming to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. We are broken hearted, sometimes captive and in the darkness. BUT HE HAS COME!! We will be healed in the freedom of HIS LIGHT.

I love my new normal and this is it!

Prowling and Sifting

Deep breath...

Thank you all SO much for your encouraging words, your prayers, tears, emails, texts, phone calls and comments. You can't possibly know how they have helped me and ministered to me. Many of you chose verses that I know were hand picked by God for me. It would be almost impossible for me to walk this path without you.

I've spent a bit of time reading over my past several posts. Usually I don't read what I write. I hit publish often having no idea what I said. But I felt like I needed to see where God has taken me recently. There is an obvious pattern. Victory. Defeat. Bigger victory. Bigger defeat.

Choosing joy. Smacked with bad news. Choosing to set my face like flint. Having my faith rocked. Choosing to fight through any symptoms and go that conference. Having just one more unbelievable life circumstances thrown at us.

Coincidence? I think not.

I realized that I had titled my last post "Tearing". As in fabric being torn. God has shown me that the devil is also out to tear me apart. To tear my family apart. The devil is prowling around like a lion it says in 1 Peter. What do lions do to their prey? They tear them apart. Why is satan after ME and MY family? We must be a threat!!!

Being sifted. I think that's a season I am in right now. I don't know if satan has asked God's permission to sift me like he did with Job. (NO, I am not saying that I am Job) But I do know that it wouldn't be happening if God didn't allow it. I need to cling to what I know and what I believe. CLING!! With everything in me.

When we get good news like Ellie is healing and out of the danger zone. PRAISE HIM. When someone attacks and causes damage to my family. PRAISE HIM. When I am able to do an ordinary task. PRAISE HIM. When we don't know if we'll have enough money for the month. PRAISE HIM.

It's not about praising Him for the circumstances. It's just about praising Him because He is worthy of it and He deserves it.

Lord, please protect my family. Keep us firmly planted in what we KNOW about You. May our faith not be shaken but be strengthened. This season of tearing and sifting is hard and it's painful. Find us faithful!!

Tearing

Our counselor told us that when there is a divorce, it's like a "tearing". It's not like a cut where it's easier to see how the pieces go back together. This is a tear. Rough edges. No way to put it back together to look anything like it did before.

Our family has been torn in the process of two people divorcing.

As hard as I try we keep taking one step forward and then five steps back. OH my flesh wants to give up. I don't want to be the "good guy" any more. I don't want to be the one who keeps all my feelings inside. (and a few cuss words!!) It's tiring, it wears me out. I believe I wrote a post about being the one who always takes the high road. I'm weary of walking that high road alone.

BUT GOD!

He is walking it with me. I've just spent the past half hour locked in my bathroom, bawling and crying out to God who I know is walking this with me. Why is HE allowing one person to inflict so much pain? Why won't HE (God) let us catch our breath before the next wave hits us? I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that God loves my kids more than I do. My head knows that, it's hard to fathom.

God is traveling this road with us. Before us. Behind us. In us. When we hurt, HE gets it.

Please pray for my little family of three. The tearing is excruciating right now.