by April | Mar 4, 2015 | Encouragement, Faith, Spiritual Growth, Trials
While growing up I thought once I was in my forties (or old, as I considered it) that I’d have life all figured out. Okay, quit chuckling at me, that’s not nice. Anyway… as I was saying…life all figured out. Easy sailing on smooth seas. (Seriously?…Stop laughing!)
God’s word doesn’t promise smooth sailing, through. It does promise He will never leave us nor forsake us. I’ve begun to wonder if that verse has a double meaning. In His not leaving us, He’s also not leaving us to our own devices, or leaving us unchanged. Rather, once we accept Jesus as our savior, we are being made over.
We’re like trees standing in a grove, growing, waiting, watching the seasons pass, one to the next. The summer, the fall, the winter… But rather suddenly
and often without warning, trials come. We are cut down. Our limbs trimmed with each challenge, each hardship, each prayer for mercy until our bark is stripped and we are laid bare and tossed away seemingly forgotten in a stack. It’s tempting to despair in that wood pile. There seems no point. If we are walking alone in our faith, it can be devastating. But never fear, the Father is busy not leaving us to our own. He’s making us over, chipping away at us, for our own good and His ultimate Glory, making us into something useful. We have to be careful though, because the temptation to focus on the shavings pooling around our feet instead of the Master Carpenter is great.
Some of us (me included) will race to the store for wood glue and desperately try to stick those useless shavings back on, or put them in a box to save for later. In our memories, those shavings can become so important we forget that the Lord isn’t interested in them, but He’s got a better plan in mind. It’s not until we brush the shavings off and step away, looking at ourselves through His eyes we are able to see a new, useful creation. The old has been chipped away.
Are you stuck in winter? Are you being chipped away at? Do not fear, nor despair–spring is coming. It’s nearly here.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
by April | Jan 27, 2015 | Chronic Illness, commitment, Marriage, sacrifice, Surviving Chronic Illness, Trials, Trust
If you’re like me, the American dream was drilled into your head through television. That dream is slightly askew these days, but I think it’s still holding fast in our psyches. It goes something like this: I’m going to marry the person of my dreams. We’re going to live happily ever after (whatever happily means by your definition). We will be married forever and die at a ripe old age, painlessly, holding hands in our sleep. Marriage is all about love and romance and passion and having my needs met. Right?
It doesn’t include driving your spouse to the hospital at 2 AM because he can’t breathe, and then sleeping in the hospital parking lot in the car with your baby because you can’t trust yourself to drive home. It doesn’t include holding your spouse’s head while he or she vomits, or wiping up the floor because they’ve missed the toilet. It doesn’t include watching your spouse fade from the person they were because of chronic illness a good forty years ahead of schedule due to a genetic disease. It doesn’t include going into debt to pay for medications and specialists. Or watching them spend thirty plus hours of each week curled in a chair because their life-saving medication makes them feel awful. Or surgery. Or accidents. Or any of those uncomfortable things that reminds us this life can be one trial after another.
But it should. I feel like petitioning every premarital counselor out there and asking them to change their quizzes. What will you do if you can’t take that trip you’ve always wanted to take? What will you do when your spouse becomes disabled (we all seem to at one point or another), or if your spouse gets cancer and loses a body part or goes bald? If they lose their minds to disease? What will you do if your loved one is suffering? When you need to bathe them or change them? Will you leave because you can’t bear to watch them suffer? Or because your needs aren’t being met and they’ve become a burden (whatever burden means by your definition)? I sure hope not.
This blog post honors those who stay.
The world says self, but God’s Word says sacrifice. God created marriage as a sacrificial covenant. It’s not just a safe place to have kids. It’s not just an expensive party where your friends and family come wish you well and and give you awesome presents (we got 12 clocks…is there a hidden meaning in that?). Or about tax write-offs (and thanks to the government, that’s about to end anyway!). Contrary to popular belief, it’s about loving that other person sacrificially. It’s about putting them and their needs before yours. It’s not about you, it’s about them.
So. If you have stayed when it was messy, painful, heartbreaking, perspective shifting, expensive, inconvenient, dream-killing, hard, sleepless, tiresome: thank you. You mean the world to your spouse who feels like a burden, who wishes they were different or circumstances were different. You are showing them and the world what it means to die to self. You are reflecting the sacrificial love of God to your spouse, your kids, your friends–even strangers. And in that, the sacrifice Jesus made for us all.
Thanks for staying.
by April | Jan 9, 2015 | Audio Talk, Author Interviews, Encouragement, Healing Fiction, Jeannie St. John Taylor, Maxine Marsolini, Ministry, The River, Trials
On Monday January 5th, Maxine Marsolini and Jeannie St. John Taylor interviewed me for their radio program, The River. If you missed the live broadcast you can listen to it below. We chatted about MACY, healing fiction, marriage, forgiveness, challenges and hope. I had a wonderful time. Thanks to Maxine and Jeannie for being such wonderful hosts!
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by April | Dec 31, 2014 | Encouragement, Faith, Prayer, Trials
We’re wrapping up the old year and bringing in another brand new year. Goodbye 2014. You were a challenge to me. I had some of my greatest writing achievements (a second book published, up for some awards, won an honorary award) this year. I also faced a long bout of multiple illnesses–it was a very hard spring and summer.
People I’m close to faced some pretty unimaginable trials last year–many are carrying on into the new year. I’d like to say tomorrow is a brand new day with no problems in it–that it really is altogether new and spotless, that being a new year carried some guarantees of wellness and will be trouble free. But I can’t. This new year will have high points and low for everyone I know. But I take comfort we can face anything if we’re trusting in the Lord.
In my prayer time recently, I began to feel uneasy. Some of the things I’ve been praying for a very long time. Was I praying right? Did I have the right words, the right faith, the right posture? Was my heart right, my intentions good enough? At that point I was reminded that I could never pray right enough to convince God of anything. You see, I’m imperfect. I sometimes have selfish motives. I can’t see the big picture like God does (who planned our Lord’s birth over thousands of years down to the last detail). I don’t know if removing a trial from a loved one’s life will, in the end, be a detriment instead of what God intended using it for (drawing them closer to Him usually figures in that equation). In fact, when it came down to it, I didn’t know anything at all. Well, except one thing–these circumstances I prayed for, they all needed God’s hand of strength, of peace, of patience, of healing. The details were not up to me, they were up to Him.
Jesus said to pray. I pray. Jesus said to ask for whatever I need in His name. I do. He also prayed the night before his arrest and conviction: “Not my will but Yours be done. *
That removes a lot of pressure, doesn’t it? At the end of us and our ideas of how things should be, it’s enough to pray, “Not my will but Yours be done.” I know I can pray that with all confidence because I trust Him. I know His attributes: He is the God of love, of mercy, of strength, of peace, of comfort, of provision.
Trust comes in every relationship as intimacy deepens. You share, they share; you listen, they listen; you’re there for them, and they are there for you.
Do you trust in the One who hears our prayers? If you’ve never given your life to Jesus, if you’ve never admitted your sin and need of Him and asked Him into your heart, then that first step of intimacy is missing from your life. You’ll never learn to trust Him if you’ve never met Him. Relationship with Him begins with that simple prayer.
But then it goes on. It has to or you’ll never get to know Him the way He’d like you to. Think of it this way: It’d be as if I met you on the street, we had an amazing bonding experience, and then you never spoke to me again.
I pray this new year will be full of blessings, but especially full of intimacy with our Lord. I pray for Him to work out His full, perfect will in your life.
* Verses used Luke 22:42 John 15:7 Luke 11
by April | Dec 15, 2013 | Encouragement, Trials, Trust
Last week a tiny sparrow smacked into the sliding glass door of our house. The evidence of a loud thud and tiny, downy feathers stuck to the glass led my family to race to the door and see. The bird sat stunned near our dryer vent for a long time, very still. No one was sure if it was alive or not. I’m a pretty hands-on type of girl when it comes to animals, so I crept out and gathered it in my hands. The bird’s delicate body was covered in a feathery coat, speckled brown and white, camouflaged perfectly for winter. Nothing appeared to be broken.
I was struck by the near weightlessness of this helpless creature cradled in my palms. How wonderfully made it was to ride the wind, to hide in bushes and trees—but a bit clueless to avoid reflective house windows. Soon after I made contact, the stunned state wore off and it attempted to jump. So I put it in a box with a towel (for warmth and protection from the occasional passing neighbor cat) and went back inside to keep it from being too frightened. It didn’t stay long, and soon jumped out and hid in the bush near our back porch. Eventually, it flew off and I’m sure had an amazing tale for its friends—and a major headache.
I feel like that bird sometimes. I’m going along with my daily tasks, minding my own business, thinking that the path I’m on will get me where I want to go. I’m flitting here and there, checking things off my list when suddenly WHAM, I’m sitting stunned on the back porch in the freezing cold, wondering what I’m doing there. Wasn’t I doing everything right? Why have I been derailed by illness, stress, an unexpected event?
I don’t really have an answer for those questions. Life holds pitfalls and trials just as much as it holds happiness-although the trials seem to last longer and are burned into our minds so much easier than the joys.
I do know that I’m promised, if I belong to the Lord, He is with me. He will lift me in His mighty hands, cradle me and comfort me until I feel able to begin again. But, unlike my leaving the bird to fend for itself, He will never leave me nor forsake me.
If you find yourself slamming against a window of your own, don’t despair. He is with you.
Deuteronomy 31:6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (full text here)
Blessings,
April
by April | Jan 25, 2013 | Fear, Trials, Trust
I haven’t blogged for several weeks now. We’ve been going through some insurance changes that put me off my medication schedule and I started to feel pretty lousy—I don’t know about you, but I have serious problems writing when I feel lousy! Thankfully, my supplies showed up two weeks ago. Even so, it put me and my immunobuddies off schedule and invited bronchitis to stay a while. Don’t worry though–this blog post is germ free!
I was pretty amazed at the fast turn around this time in getting my medication approved so quickly. Maybe for two reasons. Usually, these things can take quite a while. The other had to do with prayer–but maybe not the one you’d expect me to make. I prayed that if this medication wasn’t necessary (read I can get by without my immunobuddies) that the Lord wouldn’t let me get approved at all. This has to do in part with the huge burden they put on us financially. And…truly…it’s still not an enjoyable treatment.
Well, I got approved in 2 days this time. Unheard of. I think I knew all along I needed them (see paragraph one)–but I wasn’t sure how God would provide for us to pay for them this year. And He surprised us with an answer to that, too. I can’t share details, but I was amazed.
Do you ever feel like you really need one prayer answered? Not just for the answered prayer–but because you need a faith boost? I know that the Lord hears my prayers–His word says He does and I believe it. But, sometimes they take a long time to be answered, or are answered in such a way I don’t see them. Well, that’s where I was. I needed a boost to my faith. He sent one just in time.
If you’d like, I’d love to hear about ways God has intervened on your behalf during trials—and left you completely amazed. Leave me a comment?
Jeremiah 32:17 Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. (full text here)
While growing up I thought once I was in my forties (or old, as I considered it) that I’d have life all figured out. Okay, quit chuckling at me, that’s not nice. Anyway… as I was saying…life all figured out. Easy sailing on smooth seas. (Seriously?…Stop laughing!)
and often without warning, trials come. We are cut down. Our limbs trimmed with each challenge, each hardship, each prayer for mercy until our bark is stripped and we are laid bare and tossed away seemingly forgotten in a stack. It’s tempting to despair in that wood pile. There seems no point. If we are walking alone in our faith, it can be devastating. But never fear, the Father is busy not leaving us to our own. He’s making us over, chipping away at us, for our own good and His ultimate Glory, making us into something useful. We have to be careful though, because the temptation to focus on the shavings pooling around our feet instead of the Master Carpenter is great.
