The End Of Me

I am a person who likes to fix everything and everyone. Lots of us are like that. As soon as one problem comes up I am coming up with different scenarios to fix it.

I have had, in the past, a plan A, B, C… 

Of course, God has always been my plan A, 

BUT if He didn’t come through I always had my other plans in place so I could go to if I needed. I did not rest until it was all settled.

There really hasn’t been many times in my life that I couldn’t fix what was broken

and make it right again.

I was super woman…super mom…

placed on this pedestal for all to be amazed at.

On the outside at least.

But I was so broken on the inside and I didn’t even know it. I thought I was fixing myself.

That is until God brought me to a place where He humbled me. He brought me to a place so broken where I depended on Him for every beat of my heart. 

No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t will my heart to beat. This was something I just could not fix. I had to depend on Him for my life.

I remember telling God,

when my heartbeat was 28 and I could literally feel my life leaving my body; that I couldn’t fix myself this time. That He would have to come through for me. There was no plan B or C, but I knew He could heal me if it was His will. You know what He said to me? All I heard was one word,

“Finally!”

In the Bible it says:

We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, 

about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. 

But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. And He did rescue us from mortal danger, and He will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in Him, and He will continue to rescue us.

2 Corinthians 1:8-10

I had come to the end of myself.

It is that place where you know God has to intervene.

There is nothing that you can do.

You cannot rely on yourself, you have to rely on God.

He brings us to that place of total dependence and brokenness and that’s when He takes those broken pieces of our lives and redeems them,

to make them something good. It’s when He can come in and change us and then we can go out

and share what God has done in us.

God cannot multiply until something is broken!

He shows up right at that moment of the impossible.

Where we can’t fix it, where we can’t change ourselves,

where we can’t clean up the mess we’ve made and makes it all right. 

This is so He gets the glory. So we realize that it is God who did it, and not anyone else. That place where we aren’t working so hard, striving, begging to make things right in our life. Where we aren’t wrestling every day to change ourselves. It’s when we surrender and say, “God, I can’t do this. I can’t change myself.

I can’t make this happen, but you can. I don’t know where I’m going, but you do!”

In my circumstance I needed God to save my mortal body and my inner self. For you, maybe it’s something you’ve wanted to change but just haven’t been able to overcome. Maybe it’s a promise God has spoken to you that hasn’t come to pass yet.You are trying to figure out how to make it happen.

Maybe you’re trying to figure out what’s the next step to take in your life?

The Bible says:

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. 

Psalm 37:4

The Hebrew meaning for delight actually means 

to be dependent on God and to derive one’s pleasure from Him.

It is at that point, when we depend on God, that He gives us the desires of our heart.

The desire to change, to let it go and let God do it.

Our desire is Him, and it’s what He gives us.

It is He who does the changing. It is He who brings those things in our lives that He has promised.

It is He who guides us and gives us direction.

So, I encourage you today, to come to the end of yourself.

-Teresa

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