God's Loving Provision

I was having a conversation with my neighbor on the topic of how my husband and I make ends meet. She couldn't understand how we could raise such a large family on one income with the economy like it is. She was having a hard time just feeding herself so she just didn't think it was possible.

I'm actually used to questions like these because we do have such a large family, so my first thought in how to answer her question was a step by step, detailed list of how we do things now, and how we always prepare for tight times. As I opened my mouth to tell her some of those things, God reminded me of the many times He has provided for us.

Like the time I had been praying to be able to quit my job. We couldn't afford to live on just Scott's income so I prayed and prayed. Right before I was due to go back to my job after maternity leave, Scott was offered a 50% raise. Needless to say, I went in and gave my notice.

Another time, a few years later Scott's company had massive layoffs. God had prepared us that entire year for what we knew would be his last there. We didn't even know about the upcoming cuts, but God did!

I could keep going because time and time again God has provided for us. Yes, even through a layoff with seven children at home, God provided.

As I am rattling off my standard answers to my neighbor, that still small voice reminds me of how we have to trust Him first. Scriptures start coming to my mind:

"Don't love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, "I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.

Hebrews 13:5

"Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you."

Deuteronomy 31:8 

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?

Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing,

yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.

And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?' These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today

Matthew 6:25-34

While God wants us to be good stewards and prepare for the seasons ahead, He also wants us to know that it is He who really provides for us. It is Him who should get all the glory. Yes, we prepare, but it is Him who is Jehovah Jireh.

That day I was able to give a testimony to my neighbor of the faithfulness of God in how He had taken care of us. I know that in the years many trials have come our way. God has been faithful every single time. Whether it is from Scott getting extra work, people bringing over clothes, or God teaching me how to be frugal, we have always had enough.

So, while we plan and while we learn to be better stewards of the money God has entrusted to us, let us not forget of God's provision. He tells us to trust Him and not worry, but to seek Him first. He demonstrates His love for us time and time again by taking care of us no matter what comes our way.

What are some ways you’ve seen the hand of God’s provision in your life? Let’s share of God’s goodness today because I know there are some that could use the encouragement while they are struggling to trust Him to meet their needs.

-Teresa

Suffering and God's Grace through it all

 

I am reading Ann Voskamp's book, "One Thousand Gifts" with the ladies of my church. You can read our blog here. I was in charge of writing on chapter 5 of the book. It was so good I thought I should share it here.

 To be honest, this was a hard chapter. Reading on grace, suffering in the world, and God’s goodness in all of it reminded me of how I’d struggled with this very thing for so long. I surely don’t have all the answers, but I'd like to discuss a little of what I've learned along the way.

 

As I write this, my mind goes directly to a story in the book of the author's son, Levi, breaking his finger in a fan accident. He needed surgery but would recover. It could have been so much worse, but as her mom said, that by“God’s grace”, it wasn’t. At the same time as Levi’s accident there is a Mennonite family that loses their 13 year old son in a farming accident.

I have my own story, as a nurse, when I worked in the NICU.

Amanda had triplets that were 24 weeks. They tried for ten years to have babies. I am working fervently to save her little boy. She had already lost her only girl earlier in the week, so I prayed and worked for hours only to have him die too. Before she goes to hold him for the last time she throws herself on me and cries out to God in anguish, “God, please, can’t I just have one baby?! Please don’t take them all!”

I look at her one surviving son and pray the same thing myself. At that moment I feel my own baby kicking in my womb. She would be our fourth baby.

What is God’s grace?

Was it God’s grace that Levi was fine and that even though I ended up with 16 weeks of bed-rest, I had a healthy baby girl?

What then of that Mennonite family and Amanda, who had just lost two out of three of her children?

Was God’s grace not on them as well?

Is God’s grace only the good that happens in our lives?

What are the other moments then?

Curses?

Many times people struggle to make sense out of things like this. Many become angry and bitter. As Christians it is tricky because we know God loves us and we love Him, but still the questions are there.

“Why, God, can’t everybody be healed? Why is there so much pain? Why, God, why?”

What if our perspective is wrong?

Ann says perspective is how we see things with our eyes.

On our own, how we see things are very dim. We are in darkness, actually.

The Word of God is a lens that puts our perspective right.

Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps.

We have to always turn to God and His word to see things how God does.

“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!” Matthew 6:22-23

Listen to the words of Job, “…should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” Job 2:10

While everyone can easily ask for and accept the good, can we accept the bad as Job did? While no one is eager to suffer, we as Christians have the promise that, “God works all things together for the good of those who love Him…” Romans 8:28

 

God uses those dark moments of pain to birth something new. Just as we labor in pain and suffering during childbirth to bring forth a new life. Can we trust God, that He loves us so much that he labors with us to birth grief into greater grace?

 

Ann calls this processugly-beautiful. That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace. The God of the Mount of Transfiguration cannot cease His work of transfiguring moments- making all that is dark, evil, and empty into that which is all light, grace, and full.

 

Amanda did take that last baby home. His name was Jonathon which means “God has given” or “Gift of God”. How fitting as God took her pain and began to birth a new beginning with that sweet, baby boy.

 

Suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart.

 

We need to give thanks for all things at all times because

All is grace

 

- Teresa

Battle Scars

 

Another extra thump in my chest, again, and again.

Pins and needles shoot through my body and I start to feel dizzy. Fear paralyzes me as I crumple to the ground.

“Not more of them, God! Why can’t you just take them away? I hate this, this feeling that my heart could just stop beating at any moment! I just want to move on and forget what happened to me.” I yell at God, alone in my bathroom that morning.

I say this as my thoughts travel once again to that day. My body so swollen that I am almost unrecognizable. My one week old baby lying next to me asleep. My husband sitting next to my hospital bed, his face ashen, his eyes filled with the fear he would never express in words, as we watch the monitor.

My heart rate is slowly dropping 35………………32………………….28.

I know I am close to death. I can feel it. I can feel the life slowly draining from my body. I try, but I cannot will my heart to beat. I have no choice, with each long pause between beats, to depend on God. To trust Him that He will keep my heart beating. To trust that He will take care of my family should it stop.

It is at that moment of remembering, yet again, that God speaks to me. “Those palpitations are battle scars. You have done battle and were wounded, but you are healed. What’s left are just the scars and they will fade over time. The scars you bear help you remember where you have been, what I have done and brought you through.”

You see, I was looking at my palpitations the wrong way. I thought they were a curse, but they were a blessing. My doctor had even told me they were benign, that my heart was just sensitive from the insult to it. They were evidence that I was alive and healed.

I am a nurse so God will often show me spiritual truths using our physical bodies as an example. This is a little of what He showed me about wounds. The physical healing of a wound is a process. It heals from the inside out and forms a scab. Once that scab falls off it leaves a scar. It is a process that takes time.

Spiritually and emotionally our healing is a process too, a process that truthfully, many of us don’t want to walk through, but God wants us to walk through it with Him. We have all done battle. For some of us it is a physical battle, for others it is inside where no one can see, but God can. He wants us to turn to Him, broken, but completely dependent on Him.

Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

He wants us to learn to trust Him as He walks with us, as He heals our wounds. It is all a part of the process.

 Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for you. Psalm 9:10

Last night, at our  church's women event, Night Of Pink, as we were honoring those who had battled breast cancer, my mind once again went back to my own scars and what God had shown me. Once the wound has healed and all that’s left is the scar, the skin where the scar is, is sensitive to the touch but eventually becomes stronger than before. Stronger, but never the same.

Spiritually I was walking defeated, paralyzed with fear and anxiety, but all along God had set me free. I just had the scar. The scar that I thought brought me down and kept me in that wounded place, but really brought me power.

Power to live fully, knowing that death did not claim me. Thankful for God’s mercy and faithfulness!

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing, you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. Psalm 30:11

 I’ll end by sharing a piece of a song by Point of Grace.

“Heal the wound, but leave the scar

A reminder of how merciful you are

I am broken, torn apart,

Take the pieces of my heart and

Heal the wound but leave the scar”

 

-Teresa

So I Don't Forget

I have so much to write about the many things God has been showing me. I want to get it all written down before I start to forget. Don't we do that? God shows us something amazing and we end up forgetting. How many times do I wish I could remember everything He has shown me. I know sometimes something will remind me of a truth I was shown in the past, but as a whole I forget most of the things. Really, I was only encouraged in that moment instead of being able to read back and have my faith built up again and again.

At my family BBQ this weekend my brother-in-law and I were talking about this very thing. He had a little book that he started keeping to jott things down that he needed to do. What really struck me is that the cover said "Field Journal."

A field journal, in case you didn't know, is a diary of sorts that scientists write down and even sketch their observations in the field. It is for accurate record keeping. When I was researching field journals, one place said that used over the years and you will be able to see patterns in nature. That got me thinking. I wonder if we did that in our own lives if we would be able to see patterns too. If we accurately recorded everything God has shown us if we would be able to see a pattern of who God is, His very nature. If we would see a pattern of feeling and seeing God all around us, speaking to us in the good times and especially the hard times. If we would see the pattern of God gently leading us down the paths of our life.

I have kept a journal of sorts for many years, but it has really been for noting my feelings as I walk through something. I now carry a small "field journal" with me to capture even the smallest details God shows me. Including my feelings as I think about Him and His creation. I stand in awe of God and who He is.

Already I can see how much of an impact it is making and who knows where it may lead. I might have a small inkling though. Try it and see if it doesn't encourage you!