What Doesn't Kill You

I was watching Dateline the other day and they featured a story about a woman who was murdered outside her front door. The stress of the investigation was too much for her brother to handle and a year after her death he committed suicide. Six months after that her daughter was killed in a car accident the night before her high school graduation. As I watched this story my heart broke for all that the family had to endure-three deaths in one family within 2 years. I can't begin to imagine how they must have felt. The sorrow, the sadness, the questions they must have had as to why it was happening to them.

But then I remembered God's word and I thanked Him that His word is always true. He said he would never put more on us than we could bear (1 Corinthians 10:13) and that He would never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). No matter what we are facing we have to believe God at His word and draw on that to get us through our hard times. God's yoke is easy and His burden is light but we make things more difficult on ourselves by internalizing how we're feeling and holding on to hatred, bitterness, anger, despair instead of leaning on God.

This entire family could have given up in the face of tragedies so close together but they didn't allow it to consume them. The matriarch of the family stated that the person that killed their daughter may have taken her from them but he will never take the essence of who they are. Now I don't know if they are Christians but I do know that they have hope and that they are stronger for what they've endured.

Sometimes during our trials we feel as if no one understands us and that the pain is too much for us to bear but if we hold onto God's word He has promised to go through it with us. As I look back over my life and think about choices I've made that I felt were out of my character, the consequences as a result of those and the feeling of wanting to give up I remember turning to the both the book of Job and the 23rd Psalms to help me refocus and regain perspective but most of all I regained my hope.

The entire book of Job shows us how to endure when we suffer loss of family, health, material things and the 23rd Psalms tells how God will lead us through no matter what. I was able to turn to the Bible for my strength.

Where do you turn for your strength? 

Are You a Missing Person?

Help me, help me! I've lost her!

Ma'am who did you lose?

Please just help me find her!

I can't help you until I know who you've lost.

I've lost me!

A very dear friend of mine recently started a five week workshop focusing on becoming a better you and on the second week she talked about finding the "her" that you are meant to be. That got me to thinking about a lot of things but in particular it got to me thinking about being a missing person.

100% of the population focuses on someone in the past that was taken or lost but I wanted to focus on a different aspect...what about the missing person in the future? The person that God called you to be that will never be found because of fear, anxiety, worry, guilt...chains of bondage. So often we are stuck in a situation not because we want to be but because our minds are so chained up we don't know any better. We stay in jobs that are no longer providing us what we need. We stay in relationships or friendships because we don't want to be alone. We stay at churches because it's the one we grew up in even though our time of growth has come to an end.

God's plan does not include for us to stay dormant and stagnant in a church, job, relationship and even a place of residence. God's plan is to constantly move us higher and closer to Him to create a level of dependence so deep with Him that to move without Him seems unnatural. Sometimes, as I learned tonight, we will lose people we were once close with and things we once thought were important in our search to find our missing person.

The missing person that God placed deep down in your spirit just waiting to be found. The missing person that will occasionally pop her head out for sunshine but we are so oblivious to who she is we don't recognize her. The missing person that is that voice crying out in the wilderness (Apostle John). The missing person that is standing alone in a desert waiting for rain (Noah). The missing person speaking up for a nation even though it may cost them their life (Moses and Esther).

No it won't be easy. Yes you may feel alone. Yes you will cry out to God "why me" but at the end of your journey you will shout "THANK YOU JESUS I HAVE FOUND MY MISSING PERSON-I HAVE FOUND ME."

What I've Learned

I'm sitting here at my computer thinking about all of the things that have happened in my life-things that were out of my control and things that were in my control and I realized that through all of it the one constant that was always there, excluding myself, has been God.

Today I came one step closer to realizing a dream that I've had and prayed about for years. I have a scar on my stomach that has been there since birth and I've wanted it removed for as long as I can remember. I know some people may say that it's no big deal and that I've lived it with this long why can't I continue living with it but it's not about the scar itself-it's about what the scar represents. I've always looked at this scar as a reminder of how different I was from others and it made me feel as if I wasn't as good as others. I looked at it as a curse trying to do things to compensate for what I felt was a hindrance to me.

But that was the problem, I was trying to compensate instead of looking to God for my direction and confidence. I truly believe that it's because of how I viewed the scar & myself that God didn't allow the door to open for me to have this removed before. Over the last few years I've gotten closer to God and allowed Him to change my view of myself. I have a better understanding that my worth is not made up of how nice my clothes are or how put together my hair and make-up is. My worth is made of up of the love of God and how I live everyday to show that love.

I've also thought about the Apostle Paul and how he talked about how he asked God to take away a pain he had but God reminded him that his grace was enough to endure whatever pain he had. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). He also said that he's learned to be content in whatever state he's in. (Philippians 4:11-12). And if anyone has a right to make both of those statements it's Paul. He went through a lot. First he hunted down Christians and sought to kill them but when he met Jesus he turned his life completely around and he became the hunted. But even during his time of unbelief God still cared for him. I thank God that even though I didn't see it at the time His grace was there to help me day by day and I thank God that I realized it before it was too late.

I truly believe that this surgery will happen but above all that I believe that no matter what happens God is in control and no matter what He has my best interest at heart. That alone is enough. How about you?