I was not raised in a home were God was discussed much less debated. I remember finding this heavy, beige book and asking my mother what it was. I was maybe 12 or so and she said it was the family bible. That was my explanation on God in a nutshell.
I had what people would say was a horrid childhood. But I don’t think so. Granted I am a child of sexual abuse that lasted over a span of fourteen years. But I had a good childhood. I can remember laughing and playing with my younger siblings. We always played “pretend”. Looking back now, I can see we were way below the poverty line. We didn’t have toys or running water, or a bathroom most of the time. Our backyard happened to be the trash dump for our small community of families (all related to each other of course). But aside from that and much more, I am fond of my childhood. I chose to remember the good times. Like the infamous Friday when it was payday and we would get to eat good food. Not just eggs…but for us luxury was a ham and cheese sandwich and chips. We also got to watch T.V. that day on the small black and white that my father had.
So I digress…back to my point. Now I have my own home, with running water,…running hot water. I have AC/Heat system to control the temperatures in my home. I have floors…. (In some of our homes, our floors were so bad I could look thru the cracks and see the ground and feel the cold wind coming in). But my largest blessing is my living, breathing relationship with Christ.
While my family and I shared in those past experiences, they do not share in this with me. I am the only believer in my family. I am one of a kind. I wish they would share in this with me. They each have their reasons why they don’t take this path in life.
“I don’t want it to change me.”
“I’m not ready.”
“I am not sure I believe in Him.”
The list goes on…and it gets passed on to their children.
It gets lonely but I continue to pray that God will touch their hearts and souls and that they will one day be a light for Him.
John 8:12 (NLV)
12 Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
I sit in peace and joy….Joy that was bestowed to me by the Creator. I know without a doubt I did nothing …nothing in a massive magnitude of portions to deserve a husband like him….yet I was blessed with a husband.
Not a lazy husband
Not a disrespectful one
A hard-working, determined man
with cherishing love and kindness.
I often sit on my bed in the thick of darkness with only moonlight painting my walls. I ponder how I got him, like what did I do in my own works. I can think of nothing. I cry and ponder some more because grace is like that…it is hard to fathom that God just gave me a gift and solely because He loved me…Faults and ALL! So I have this gift and once I took it for granted for 8 years….I couldn’t accept the gift. I kept pushing it and yelling at it to go away because a gift so dynamic and beautiful must have been given to the wrong soul. How ironic, for me to think that somehow God messed up when He passed on the gift of one of His children on to me and how sad that I didn’t accept His grace in my life.
But God is truly magnificent. He gave me another chance at that precious gift. I had to fight with my inner self to appreciate the love God wanted me to experience in a Godly marriage. Not because I didn’t want it but because the same fears of judging myself as a sinner and putting that in comparison to God’s grace always brought me to fall short and I always wanted to punish myself and thus tried to deny the gift. But ….Thank the Lord that there is a BUT…God didn’t give up on me and neither did my husband. Now, I cry out because the gift is still for me too awesome to have but I try with humility to care for His child, my husband, and be a Godly wife to him. I don’t think I will ever comprehend neither the grace nor the gift that God has given me but I am sincerely grateful for the blessing of my husband but most importantly for the grace.
Proverbs 18:16 (NIV)
16 A gift opens the way for the giver
and ushers him into the presence of the great.
At some point in our day, most of us will look in the mirror to check to see everything is still like you want it. We try to find ways to bring out what we consider our best facial features whether that is our eyes, or lips; we try to enhance our physical self as best as we can.
The mirror shows us our physical body but what of our spiritual soul. When a sinner looks in the mirror do they see the sin? Or hide from it? Or simply ignore it? Maybe that is why some of us glance at the mirror and don’t gaze for too long. For if we were to sit and merely just look at ourselves without trying to fix what we see in the body’s image, would we see that hidden stronghold of sin, or that casual sin that you have been rationalizing to yourself?
Does the looking glass lie to us? Does it act as a false witness? Does it reveal us our true self? Or is it merely a beautification tool?
John 3: 20-21 (NLV)
20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
My darling husband had to work and so he wanted me to drive to see him to get my New Year’s Eve kiss at midnite. I was driving along on the freeway which was desolate and peaceful. I happen to be running late to get to him by midnite. But I was still going to get my kiss midnite or no midnite.
I was listening to a Christian radio station. The DJ came on and stated it was one minute to midnite and began to pray for the year 2007. Suddenly the sky was filled on my right full of fireworks coming from residential neighborhoods I was passing by. It was spectacular. I knew that midnite was upon us because the fireworks were in huge quantity in the sky. The song that the DJ happened to play was quite fitting. So Long Self by MercyMe. While I drove, and watched the fireworks and listened to the song, it was like saying bye to 2006 and having that fresh new start in 2007. The feeling you get when you think you can start again at your goals and desires to be better.
We have this opportunity as Christians of a fresh start everyday because of the sacrifice Jesus Christ made on the cross. We don’t need to see January 1, on the calendar to start anew each day. We don’t need a whole year to pass by to make resolutions to better ourselves, we can have it everyday.
The other overwhelming feeling I felt was the celebratory one. I looked at all the fireworks spectacular array of colors and the powerful sounds as they rose in the sky and it had me thinking of the celebrating we as Christians will do in heaven. And how we will worship our Lord for eternity and I was sure that even the largest and most profound firework show could not compare to the celebratory gathering we will have in heaven and the joyous sound that will come from heaven.
Revelation 14:2 (NLV)
And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.