Sustaining Grace...

  This is not the next post I had planned.  I had planned on a post about sweethearts, Valentine's Day, etc.  I always get very tender toward my sweetheart in February because we got married in March and the memories begin to run through my heart of the wonderful years the Lord has given me with my husband of almost 37 years!
  The post I am going to write is difficult because it is one where I am going to be open about my weaknesses and that isn't easy for me.  However, I promised myself that when it comes to being someone in leadership (a pastor's wife) I want to be honest about the fact that I have every battle that every other woman has and that I want to wear no masks.  I am simply an older woman who has been down the road a little further which only has taught me how much I desperately need the Lord--not made me better than anyone else.  I do want to take my experience and help others so that perhaps they have less pain and learn to lean on Him a little sooner in life than I did.
  The post I had planned is not going to be written because  life has taken me down another path than I had in my planned for about a week now.  I battle major health issues since I had C. diff and pancreatitis three years ago.  In the last week or so I've been in what I'd call a major flare-up.  I have decided that until the Lord takes me another direction this is His will for my life and I try my best to make my illness one of the details of my life--not my life.  Every once in a while in takes control however, and we're there.
  I also am a victim of chronic depression.  It is not easy to say that, but God's grace has been so sweet to me in this area of my life.  He has taught me year by year how to manage this illness and I praise His name that He has used my life to help others at times. 
  I always have my lowest point in late January and early February.  I know it's going to come and have to remind myself to keep track of the triggers (and avoid as many as possible), to get my sunlight and make myself take walks when it starts.  If you suffer depression you know that's the very last thing you want to do and I remind my husband to not ask me but tell me what to do during this time of the year.  Because of the things I've learned I go through many winters with only mild symptoms instead of being in the bed in despair as I have in previous years.
   This year something caused the depression to go into a major downswing.  I could list about five possible causes so who's to know which one or if it was a combination of all.  Number one on my list is the downswing in my health.  I fight intense pain and when it gets to the point I want to pace I begin to feel hopeless that it will ever end.  The thought of living the rest of my life like this is not a pleasant one and I have to send that thought away and live one day at a time.
   But that's not what this post is about.  This post is about God's goodness and His sustaining grace.  This week I had a day when my body decided it had to have rest and I literally "crashed" into a deep sleep. (No medication involved in case you're wondering.) When I did rouse my unwelcome "friend" was always there with the despair and hopelessness.  And that's when the Lord had my daughter Alicia call to check on me.  I was half awake/half asleep and we were talking. 
   In the midst of a conversation I can't remember fully she asked "Who created emotions?" 
   My reply was, "God."
  Then she said something like this, "Mom, God created sadness, and fear and other emotions that are negative simply to be used as a springboard to make us see our need for Him." 
  My heart gripped that.  That was exactly what the Lord has been faithfully teaching me and He used my precious daughter to remind me of it when I was literally too ill to even think straight enough to turn my heart and mind toward the truths I knew.  I have no faith, no light, no courage of my own and at a time when my heart is trembling, my flesh is failing me, and my mind and emotions are in turmoil and confusion I only have to look to Him to sustain me and minister Himself to me. 
  Then today-- I ended up with four firetrucks at my house because of a problem with our fireplace insert.  We came very close to having a house fire.  The Lord spared us by allowing it to happen during the day and allowing help to come quickly.  We didn't even have serious smoke damage.  However, my already fragile nerves felt like they were literally shot and I could feel the panic trying to rise in me over all the "little foxes" in our lives right now.
  My oldest daughter Niki called this evening and began to talk to me about the Lord not saying He wouldn't put more on us than we could bear when it came to burdens--that text had to do with temptations. She talked about how He allows the unbearable burdens in our lives so we will turn to Him and let Him be our Burden-bearer and sustain us.  He simply uses the burdens to remind us we need Him and can't go through lives without Him.  The same message again--and just when I needed it.
   As we talked once again I could feel the Holy Spirit ministering the truth to me when my mind and emotions were too weary to even think properly.  Once again the Living Water bubbled up inside of me as I thought of Him right there to sustain me with His grace, to bear me up on His wings, to hold underneath me with His everlasting arms and when I can only look He's there for me.
  How thankful I am He has given me two daughters who can minister to their mother.  There is no greater blessing or greater dividend in life than having children that bring you joy in their spiritual walk being healthy.
So tonight, I want to remind you of His wonderful grace.  If you are too weak, too weary, perhaps you sicken yourself with your inability to trust or be courageous, just fall upon Him and look up at Him and let Him minister His life and righteousness and grace to you.  "My flesh  and my heart faileth : but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion  for ever."  Ps. 73:26  He will not fail you, He promises! 

p.s. If you are Niki's friend on Facebook you can read her wonderful essay on this--http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/notes/niki-neal-lott/more-than-we-can-bear/10150133658690159

   

January is here...and so are resolutions....

Dear Daughters,

I'm sitting here with my new prayer journal open and comparing it to last year's. Going through my new prayer journal always gives me a a look back. That in turn makes me want to further my obedience and spiritual victory for the new year.
The first week of January I keep pencil and pen close at hand so I can write down projects, goals, etc. for my new year. The Lord's mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:23) and for that I am so very thankful. I am also thankful for the new year. It's like having a clean slate handed to you from the Lord to use as a springboard to "start anew".
The BIGGEST (and really only) lesson I learned from my depression, wilderness years was that all the good that I do can only be performed with joy and energy when the Lord does it for me and in me. I have realized that most of what I was doing in obedience to the Lord (for many, many years) was being done in the power of my flesh. The flesh cannot do it and either rebels or becomes so exhausted it lays down on us. That's what happened to me and when I broke I did a bang-up job of it!
I never really realized how powerful my flesh was until the depression hit and I couldn't stop the fear, worry, unbelief, and emotional pain no matter how I tried. I also never realized how completely Calvary set me free from my every sin till I learned to turn to Him in the midst of my battle and confess to Him my guilt, my complete turning from those sins to Him and His resurrection power and then resting in Him to fulfill the work of Calvary in my life by His work.
Now I have had my BIG battles. I still have my BIG battles. My flesh likes things its own way and when it's got its own way for a long time it doesn't lie down easily. I just recently had a two week battle with the flesh over an issue. However, when I faithfully turned to Him and told Him I wanted no part of that wicked sin and I was relying on Him to give me the victory and freedom that were mine He was right there to meet my need. For about two weeks I had to come to Him over and over when the temptation would hit, but He won the victory for me with Calvary and the flesh lost.
Now that was what seemed to be a diversion from the main topic, but it's really the foundation for resolutions that work. YOU CAN"T keep resolutions in the power of the flesh! In January when every one is in the mood for a "new me" you're surrounded with the support of friends, media hype, and your own brand new gust of energy. However, after just a few days of the flesh rising up and telling you it's always had it's way in that area and does not intend to lie down and do right without a fight you'll be glad I wrote those last few paragraphs! :)
Since my depression I try to stop about twice a year (New Year's and my birthday) and make what I call my "guilt list". These are things that drive me crazy about myself. You could call them my besetting sins, my hard-to-break bad habits, or whatever you want to call them.
After I've made my original list, (and that list includes health habits, use of time, irritations, people problems and how I deal with them, etc.) I mark the ones that I have the power to change. You know there are some problems that we have no authority to change and there are things that are totally out of our control to change. If I cannot change it I must simply give it to the Lord. I use Colossians 4:12 in those situations and pray that all involved will allow the Lord to do a work in their hearts (me included) to stand "perfect and complete in all His will" in the situation.
Then I go through and ask myself on each of them if I have a Biblical reason to feel guilty. Satan loves to accuse the brethren and he will try to make you feel responsible and guilty for everything he can. Make sure you have a specific verse that counts you guilty. If that is true go to the Lord with it, confess it, ask Him to show you His solution and then begin to carry out the plan.
With what I have left that I am responsible personally for and I have a Biblical reason that I need to change then its time to obey.
Let's take our prayer life for example. If my prayer is half-hearted, sounds like a child repeating the alphabet, ("Lord bless mom, dad, sister, brother, all the missionaries, etc., etc., etc.) there's plenty of Bible to let you know things need to change!
Memorize those verses that tell us to pray and pray seriously. Get a good book on prayer and start reading it. Get your spiritual engine fueled up. May I recommend reading Prayer, the Greatest Force on Earth by Thomas Payne as one of the first ones to read. Take your Bible and as you're reading through it start marking the prayers in the Bible with a special color of pencil. Take note of the men God loved and made comments on their prayers. Take note of the mighty works of God that happened as a result of prayer. But most of all, begin praying. Just like any thing else that you want to become an expert in the way to do it is to practice it!
Now let me assure you your flesh will not want to pray. But the Lord has taken care of all that and you are free, free, free from the flesh being in control because of the finished work of Calvary. You don't need to try, strain or endure. You simply need to obey the written word and the Spirit's little loving urgings by His power poured out to you from the mercy seat.
Another thing I strongly recommend you do with all your new resolutions, goals, ideas, etc. is to get them on paper and then lay them out before the Lord and ask Him to take them all and show you which ones are your ideas and which ones are His ideas.
I'm an idea person. For every suggestion I have hundreds of wonderful little ideas pop into my head. I know where the book, article, or online page is to feed my ideas. However, I've wasted a lot of precious time by not thinking through a project I started. In carrying out many of my projects I got my priorities out of order and I neglected God-given responsibilities to do a Tami-project.
You can only spread yourself so thin becoming the "new you". Look very carefully at your goals and make sure they're going to make you spiritually stronger, that you'll be ministering within your God-given realm (our ministry heart is our home) and that as a result of carrying out your goals you'll be a better child of God, wife, mother, homekeeper, and church member.
If getting yourself in shape means you'll be leaving the children to go to a gym 5 days a week you might want to consider rethinking the thing. You can get yourself in shape with two milk jugs with water in them for weights and toddlers laughing as they try to do workouts with mom.
However, the checking account, the babies, and the Lord will all be in better shape if you do it His way--keeping at home! (Titus 2)
If you've set a goal to help your husband with the tight finances but you choose to neglect that he is worse than an infidel if he doesn't provide for his family, that you are to be a keeper at home (with a full list of duties that will keep a saint working from daylight till dusk) and that your children's Godly training is you and your husband's responsibility not the local church's or the government's, than you've not only made matters worse but you also will have to do the entire thing in the power of your flesh because the Holy Spirit will not minister Christ to you for that new job you took to help with finances!
It would be far better to take a hard look at what the Bible gives a woman to do and learn to be a thrifty wife and mother. You also need to ask the Lord to give you His value system and not the world's! The Lord is totally unimpressed with rather you have the newest cell phone, the right brand of purse, or the "world-approved" year and make of car! My husband often says that we don't need more money we need to learn to make sure we've learned to live within the budget the Lord has given us.
All of the above are just some motherly cautions. Some of them I've learned as I searched the scriptures and applied them to my life and some I've learned by trying it my way over and over until I finally figured out that somewhere I wasn't listening to Him and His word. It's much better to hear the truth and apply it before the sin has left a scar in our life or the lives of those we love.
As an older woman I see so many young women with good desires and goals but they try to carry them out the way the world does. It is in all of us to try to find an escape to our sins and the curses that accompany them--but there is truly only one cure---Calvary!
I pray that each of your resolutions that the Holy Spirit has put in your heart come to be a truth applied in your life this year.

Love,

Mom

Trusting Him in the dark...

Today is one of those days when I have to shut myself off to human feelings and rely completely on the fact that if the Lord says something to me it is true. I often think of my dad talking how a pilot must learn to trust his instrument panel and not his feelings if he gets disoriented while flying.
Sometimes the events of life are crushing to our emotions. Emotions are just as much a part of our depraved humanity as the body of flesh and bones or the mind. They can get wounded or damaged and when that happens we must lean with all our might on the words of our Beloved Saviour. If He says He is with me always, He is- rather I can sense His presence or not.
One of my favorite verses that the Lord gave me through my years of depression was this, -"Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath not light? let him trust in the name of the Lord , and stay upon his God." (Isa. 50:10)
I'm reading The Hiding Place aloud to the children and every time I read it I remind myself that I should read it more often than I do. We must learn to trust God that He is good all the time. He is good when we feel wonderful and blessed and He is good when we cannot begin to understand what He is doing in our lives.
As I read it I am reminded that if He asks me to go through a dark place He will enable me to walk through that dark place. I don't have to try to toughen myself up for it or prepare myself for it. All I need to do is lean hard on Him as we walk through it together. I must take the initiative to obey and trust Him to give me the strength to obey.
Every time I obey by the power of the Spirit I have partaken of the life of Christ. This is the well of water He promised that would be springing up in us.
Many times when I pray I find myself getting upset emotionally as I bring seemingly impossible requests to the Lord. The Lord taught me a lesson through my 9 year old son about this. John was memorizing Phil. 4:6,7 in school and he asked me to explain what it meant.
I asked him if he ever worried about rather we would feed him. He said no. I asked him why and he said because he knew daddy took care of making sure we had food. I asked him if he ever worried about having clothes or a place to sleep. His answer again was no, that daddy made sure we had that.
I asked him if he really wanted something for his upcoming birthday would he be afraid to ask his dad for it. Of course, he said he wouldn't.
Then I told him that's how our heavenly Father wanted us to be. To trust Him just like we trusted our earthly fathers to care for us when we were children. Just to come to our Father and give him our concerns and request and then trust Him that He's going to take care of it for us.
Since I've explained that to John the Lord has reminded me to practice what I taught! When I go to pray and feel myself churning emotionally, I am reminded to pray, thank the Lord that He cares more about it than I do and then walk off and leave it with Him. He's going to take care of it because He said He is. That must be enough for me.
So today as I bring a friend to the Lord that just had almost half of her face removed because of cancer, andI bring my precious daughter with MS to the Lord, (with 5 small children and a new baby on the way), loved ones that seem to be straying further and further from their spiritual moorings, personal concerns and lots of little foxes that like to nibble at my vine, I know that I can come to the Lord and pour it all out on Him and He'll bear my burdens for me.
May I urge anyone reading this to let the Lord teach you through your sufferings to believe His every word as literally as they are written to us. No matter what rages around you in your circumstances that seems to make your case the exception don't believe your senses--believe the Word.
The result is the passage I call my "post-depression" verse- Song of Solomon 8:5-"Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?"
It's a wonderful place to be!