When you face loss. (1928-2013)

Losing a loved one can be incredibly difficult. And it is unfortunately something that we all have to face at some point in our life. For me, that first person that I lost was my grandmother. (This blog will be a bit different from the rest that I have done. However, I still would like to share this story.)

My grandmother was such a wonderful woman! I didn’t quite understand who she was exactly until after she had passed away. She was kind, generous, humble, funny, wise and everything that you would imagine a truly devoted follower of Christ to look like. She would fall asleep every single night holding and reading her Bible. She would pray all the time for everyone, not just those that she loved,but even those that she might not care for so much. She was a walking, talking, breathing example of Jesus.

Five years ago yesterday my grandmother passed away in her sleep. It was super hard then to understand the news. But to be honest, the older I get the harder it becomes at times. When she passed away it was hard because I had never truly understood what it meant to lose someone. I was sad because my grandmother had passed away but I didn’t fully understand what was to come with her passing. I felt anger, fear, depression, confusion, but that was just the flesh part of me. But for her I felt joy and happiness, because she was finally home with Jesus. The place that she would talk about often with such excitement.

While she was still here on earth I loved her so much, and I still do. But I didn’t quite appreciate her as much as I should have. I didn’t take in the wisdom that she would often speak to me and the rest of my family. I loved her, but there were times I just didn’t understand her. How could someone love Jesus so much? I was so confused! I believed in Jesus at the time but didn’t have a full relationship with him. I went to church but didn’t walk with him.

Sometimes we don’t appreciate who we have in our lives until they are gone. After she passed away and I had gone through all of the stages of grief I began to really understand who she was as a person. I began to understand just how kind her sweet soul was. I prayed to God every single day for me to be able to get through her passing. And He did so by helping to really understand her. Now that I know who she was it makes me so happy to have had her in my life for as long as I did. Because of my grandmother I now understand what it looks like to walk with Christ. 

She has helped to shape me into the Christ follower that I am and want to continue to strengthen. Because of her kind words and examples I feel as though I can now understand that joy that she felt and would talk about daily. That same joy that she loved telling others about! I am who I am because of her. I love you grandma!

For Father’s Day

My father and I  have always had a great bond. I think that it all started 25 years ago when my mom  went into labor with me on my dad’s birthday, although I wasn’t actually born until the day after. And so this is where it all began you see, I am one of the lucky ones that has a good relationship with my father. Both my earthly father and my Heavenly Father.

There are so many people out there that since they have a bad relationship with their earthly father think that, that is how God would also treat them. So if their father left them, they think that God will also leave them. If their father told them that they weren’t worthy of anything, they also think that God feels the same way. If their father doesn’t love them, they will also think that God doesn’t love them either.

This type of thinking can be very dangerous. God is so much more than our bad thoughts about our own father. God will never leave you, (Deuteronomy 31:8). God thinks that you are worthy, (John 3:16). God does love you, (John 3:16-17, Romans 5:8). 

God will never leave you! We need to be sure that we never confuse God’s silence with His absence. There is a huge difference between the two. Did you know that there is a 400 year gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament? During that 400 years God was completely silent. But also during that 400 years there were several things that were invented. Things such as, a new language, a new transportation system, as well as many others. All of which would continue on into the New Testament. If God had been absent, those things wouldn’t have happened. He is quiet at times to help prepare us for what is to come.

We are worthy! Not just of His love but of His grace. I know that most people think of John 3:16 as a love verse, and it is, but I also think that this verse also shows us how worthy we are. We are worthy because Jesus has made us worthy. The word “anyone” is in that verse, “anyone that believes”. That includes those that may not really have that father figure in their life. That includes those that feel like they aren’t worthy of love because of something they do or something that they have done in the past. You are worthy because of the cross.

God loves you! As you have noticed, I again put down John 3:16-17. I put 17 because it shows that God wanted to save us through Jesus Christ. But I also put in Romans 5:8. It says, “But God shows His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We are all always sinning against God. But He still sent Jesus to die for us on that cross, regardless of what we have done. We are all deserving of Hell. But through the grace and love of God we can be spared from that death. God loves us enough that even though it is what we deserve we have that option to accept His love and grace. Even those that may not choose that path with Him, He still loves you!

So for those of you that look at God like you look at your own father in the ways that I have described, please take these words that God has spoken through me and just really understand them. Please understand that God has so much more planned for you then you could have for yourself. Just trust in Him. I know that not having a good relationship with your earthly father can cause a bad one with the Heavenly one, but please don’t let it. Let God be that missing piece.

Hardening instead of Healing

Church is a place where you can go to where your heart should be healed. But what happens when the place and the people harden your heart instead of heal it? Well, this just so happens to be part of my story. (Warning! This will be more of a longer blog. But I do feel as though all that is stated in this is very important in today’s church world.)

As I share this part of my story I would like to go ahead and say that I will not be mentioning names of people nor the name of the church. I will also be leaving out some of the details as they are too personal to share or they were someone else’s story. 

I tell this part of my journey not to bad mouth people, but to better educate people that this sort of thing is still happening in the church. And to also tell others that may have gone through something similar how to cope with it and be able to move on.

The story takes place over about a years time. But to save on making everyone read an incredibly long blog, here is what I will say about it all. We started out absolutely loving this church. We felt so loved by everyone that was around us. We felt The Holy Spirit’s presence everywhere. Then everything took a turn for the worse. You could slowly feel the presence of the Holy Spirit slipping out. We weren’t even allowed to say the words Holy Spirit with the fear of offending someone! God was no longer welcome in that church.

So of course you are going to ask yourself, “How can you have church without God?” You can’t. This is where everything started to go very badly. Friendships were lost and broken. Rumors were spread and trust was broken. People only began to care about themselves and not others. People were putting themselves on the throne instead of God. People were wanting to be worshipped instead of God. People began leaving the church and not even looking back. People were also getting kicked out due to nonsensical reasons. Then when tragedy struck for me and my husband, we had a miscarriage, two people in the church cared enough to show us God’s grace and God’s love. The pastor was not one of those people.

Then feeling down in the dumps my husband had a talk with one of the staff members about some things. One of those things being help. We needed help! But instead of that help, my husband was called in the pastor’s office the very next day and was fired. (He was on staff in the worship band). Not only was he fired but we were also kicked out of the church. I’m not going to go into detail as to everything that was said but I will put it this way, it was something that caused us to harden our hearts enough to where we had no interest in going to church for about ten months. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t just what was said in that last meeting, but a mixture of things throughout that year.

So what happens when the church hardens your heart? It feels as though it is almost impossible to ever return to a church with the fear of the same thing happening again. To this day my husband and I still have some problems letting people from church in due to this happening to us. We are so scared of it all happening over again. Of letting people in just to be hurt again. But this is where the Lord comes in. This is where we realize that with Him, ANYTHING is possible.

Now I’m not going to lie, it was very hard to return to any church. We wanted to, but we just didn’t feel like we had to for quite awhile. But then one day God opened up our eyes. We were beginning to turn to other forms of comfort instead of seeking the One that is the comforter. God began to show us that the path that we were heading down was a very dangerous and sinful one. We began to feel all of the guilt and anger at ourselves for what we had been doing. We had decided to let the enemy win by not seeking God in our most desperate time of need.

But thanks to God’s grace and forgiveness we have been able to put all of that behind us! Without the power of prayer I don’t know how we would have been able to cope with any of this. But God heard our cry and our pain and felt the hurt in our hearts. So because of God’s amazing love for us we are now attending a church where God’s presence is felt all around. Where the very love that is talked about in God’s Word is lived out by each and every person in that place. Where the church is a people and not a building. God has forgiven us and helped us with the process of healing. We still have a little ways to go, but we are on the right track.

If you or anyone that you know has gone through something similar to ours just remember that God loves you! That nothing you say or do could ever stop Him from caring for you! And though it may be difficult to start going back to church, God has allowed for this to happen so that you may grow more love for Him. And that this can now be apart of your story to maybe help others with one day!

I again did not write this to speak ill of anyone. But rather to tell the raw truth of what is still happening in churches all over world. We think we have done better with following God’s Word, when in all reality, there is always be at least one Pharisee in every church. We must stop letting Satan in and let God take back over!