Forgiveness

Pardon me while I ramble on about forgiveness for a little bit.  I have seen quite a few people who are struggling GREATLY in this area lately.  As a matter of fact, this is one of the reasons that I take leave from facebook occasionally.  It isn't just one of "those" friends either...you know the kind of friends that I am talking about; the ones who you just block after a day or two of realizing that every word that comes out of their mouth is negative?  (If I just made you paranoid then I'm not talking about you, because those people truly do not care if they offend.)  I see it from people that I love deeply and it bothers me.  It bothers me for many reasons, but mainly because I know that forgiveness is essential to walking with the Lord.  We cannot fellowship with the Lord and carry around bitterness.  How do I know this?  Because I have tried...and not just years and years go, but like last week..and the week before that...etc...  I could come up with lots of reasons for it (and I will give you a few just to keep myself from despairing, lol) HORMONES, ISOLATION, REJECTION, CHEMICAL IMBALANCE, SPIRITUAL WARFARE....I am good at this, so I could go on and on, but at the end of the day...I am asked to do the impossible sometimes, and to forgive everyone, of every single obnoxious or hurtful thing that they throw at me.  Sometimes I feel unable to, and then I find myself about 6 feet deep in a hole that I cannot crawl out of, and so ONCE AGAIN, Jesus throws a rope back down to me and I get back up off my knees and climb up into His arms.  Think about that.  That rope He throws down has a name.  Can you guess what it is? "FORGIVENESS" ..and what a beautiful name it is!  So there I am with a BIG OL' grin on my face standing with my Lord, when up walks that obnoxious "Bitterness" painted up again in whichever form she has chosen for the moment.  "Well, I'll take care of this," I think to myself, and I push her right into the hole I just crawled out of....because...I mean, can you believe the audacity of  (insert name) to cause these horrible feelings inside of me?!? I look to Jesus then to get a high five, and do you know what I see?  I see that I am  standing right next to Bitterness in that hole once AGAIN. 
You get the picture. It isn't pretty....So when I see people that I love not only struggling with forgiving each other, but embracing "Bitterness" and naming her "Just"...naturally, I want to shove them into the hole...right? lol.  No seriously, it doesn't just upset me...it concerns me. 


Why does it concern me? 

"But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins"- Matthew 6:15- JESUS

You might feel justified at the moment, but is it worth it?

You say, "But you don't understand! What they did was too much...I can't forgive them!"

Is it worth it?

"But they are still doing it!"- BUT IS IT WORTH IT?

"See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil" Deuteronomy 12:15- CHOOSE LIFE! Don't take sides with the enemy of your soul! Don't be an ambassador for your own destruction!

Are you really willing to allow what they have done to you, steal your peace on top of it?

What if Jesus used the measure against you that you are using against this other person? Is it worth it then, because guess what? HE DOES.-  "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Matthew 7:2

Can you live up to your own standard?

I know that I sure can't, so why don't we do ourselves and everyone else around us a favor, and FORGIVE THEM! FOR EVERYTHING! Why? BECAUSE HE FORGAVE US, AND HE IS WORTH IT! 

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good- Romans 12:17-21


One final thought though...if you are like me, and even though you know all of this to be true, you still struggle at times to simply LET THINGS GO, take comfort in these next couple of scriptures and apply them (as opposed to using them as an excuse to stay in the hole) to your life until you are back up on your feet:


"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."- 1 John 1:9


"Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us."-Romans 8:34

and finally...

"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One."-1 John 2:1

On Your Mark, Get Set..GO!!!

When I was about 2 years old, I was diagnosed with asthma; the kind of asthma that meant business.  If I caught a cold,  breathed in cold air, over-exerted myself in any way at all, or GOD FORBID came into contact with certain animals, it could mean weeks of being confined to my bed and/or living room couch.  In addition to not being able to move, there were; around-the-clock breathing treatments, constant coughing and gasping for air, vomiting, headaches, anxiety from the medication in the treatments, nightmares, sweating, trips to the ER, and worst of all- being forced to sit out on so many of the things that I wanted to be a part of.  I wanted to dance, ride horses, ice skate.... twirl a baton (I very well may have missed my calling on this one), and when I was very young, I wanted to run.  I loved doing it, and was surprisingly fast.  I could only run very short distances, however, and  I was always excused from competing, because...well...my body simply could not handle the race.  At first, I remember being discouraged by this.  I was a kid and I wanted to play!  I wanted to win!  I had full confidence that nobody could outrun me if only I were given the chance, but as time proved my lungs to be unable to keep up, I accepted it and began to embrace it.  Before the gym teacher could even get the words, "basketball", "volleyball", "soccer"...or "mile run" out of her mouth, I had a note in her hand excusing me.  I had grown to fear competition anyway, so it was a relief to not even have to try and risk the horror of failing in front of my peers. It grew from there. I found that my limitation (along with a few others that I acquired along the way), could get me out of many different things that I didn't want to deal with, and so I went from being a sickly little child who longed to get off of that couch and run, to a teenager who felt immobile.  I had learned to identify with being limited, and then took it a step further by taking up smoking.

It took almost ten years of this before I realized the severity of what I had done. I have heard people say many times over the years, that you should "be careful what you pray for."  I was desperate to even want to quit smoking at this point, and so I prayed, "Lord, please do whatever it takes to get me to quit smoking, because I just can't do this on my own. Amen."  I had a cough at the time, but it quickly took an ugly turn. I crawled out onto the porch to smoke a cigarette one morning, and as I inhaled in, feeling that familiar and excruciating pinch as the smoke hit my sickly lungs, tears began pouring down my cheeks from the force of the cough that took over my body. I crawled back inside to let my mom know that I needed a ride to the hospital.  As I took on the arduous task of getting dressed, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and was taken aback by my grey complexion and thin frame.  At the hospital, I learned that I had lost 20 lbs in a week's time, had a collapsed lung, and  a serious case of pneumonia.  My body would not respond to the medication that normally treated pneumonia, and so they sent me to the I.C.U until they could better understand what was going on with me.  I remember that all I could think about was how I was going to smoke if I was trapped in the I.C.U.  Right about the time that I went into full blown panic mode, a male nurse came into the room.  He looked at me in a way that told me that whether or not I wanted him to (NOT), he was about to lecture me.  He did.  He told me that my lungs were in the same shape of a woman in her 80's...a woman in her 80's with poor lung health at that.  He told me that if I did not stop smoking, that I would most likely never make it out of my 30's.  He was not gentle.  He gave no apologies....and then to make things worse, I discovered that he was a Christian.  I realized as he was talking to me and as I not so sweetly asked him to leave me alone, that God had answered my prayer, and I was NOT happy about it!

 "I WILL NOT QUIT, GOD!!  I'M NOT READY!"

The Good Lord then explained to me that I had no choice, as my Dr. informed me that I had a rare strand of pneumonia that would require me to stay put for the next couple of weeks.  By about day 7, I came into agreement with Him and began to mourn the loss of my addiction.  It is sickening how we learn to love the things that kill us, but we do.  When nobody else had been there for me, I had learned to lean on death.  The Lord would no longer allow me to live this way, and so He grounded me.  He took His stubborn child and sent her to that hospital room until she had learned her lesson.

I have been thinking about this lately, because 7 weeks ago I decided to  take on the C25K (couch to 5 K) challenge.  It is a program that slowly gets your body used to running until ultimately you can run 3 miles straight.  As a child, I couldn't even run 1 mile without stopping, so 3 miles seemed a little overzealous at first.  My husband has been training daily for a marathon, however, and so watching him train day in and day out (plus REALLY wanting to lose my post baby weight) inspired me to push myself.  I had tried the program a couple of times before, but had to stop and start over twice due to injuries.  Why?  Because I just refused to follow the rules.  It said to run 3 days a week, so naturally I ran 6.  It said to walk more and run less at first in order to ease your body into it, so I took off like a cheetah on steroids.  Needless to say, after two failed attempts in this fashion, I decided to play by the rules.  Today marks day 1 of week 7, and I ran 25 minutes straight this morning, which rounds out to about 2 miles.  I ran 2 miles!
29 years ago, I began fighting for that breath of life, and today...I breathe!

When I said "yes" to the Lord as a child, He set my feet firmly on the ground and I eagerly began to run the race that was marked out for me.  I ran slowly at first, but as time went by I grew restless and began to speed up...until I saw a place on the side of the road where others were lounging around, refreshing themselves, and by all appearances seemed to be having a much better time than I was.
 I stopped running and joined them.
As time went by, I found that the pleasures found on the side of the road were temporary and unsatisfying.  I began stealing more and more glances at those who I could still see running in the distance.  A longing to join back in with them began to grow, but it had been so long..,and surely by now I had been disqualified.

But then...

I felt an old, familiar Hand take hold of my own.
We began to walk towards that lined pavement again, and as I looked up at Him with uncertainty in my eyes, He just nodded and gently nudged me back in with the others.
At first I ran at a slow, even pace, as my feet became familiar once again with the ground.  Soon enough though, caught up in excitement this time, I took off into a sprint!  I was flying!!  Nobody could keep up with me! I was going to get to that finish line before anybody else!

... and then I tripped...

I came crashing  down to the ground, and when I looked up for someone to help me, there was no one to be found.
So caught up in my own excitement, I hadn't even noticed that I was alone.

"What do I do? "
"What can I do? "

"WAIT." was the answer that I was given.
 "Be still, stay put, and wait."

..and so here I stand today; resting and waiting, but not idle.
 I can see such a great cloud of witnesses rounding the corner and heading my way as I stretch my legs, drink in the Living water, take a deep breath of life, NEW LIFE,  and fix my eyes on Jesus....

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."- Hebrews 12:1-3

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."- 2 Timothy 4:7-8

Joy cometh in the morning!

It comes like a thief and grabs fistfuls of joy; so greedy as it takes more than it's filthy hands can hold...leaving bits and pieces behind, falling through the spaces in between clenched knuckles... falling into the dirt and debris that remains in it's wake...so small and irrelevant. Of what use are a few specks of yesterday's joy? They are nothing more than a fleeting thought. They are quickly dismissed and just as quickly forgotten... The thief looks over his shoulder one last time, very pleased, and then slams the door, HARD, behind him. But...as time passes..slowly... .. as the ground begins to forget... and those tiny specks of remembrance appear as nothing more than the dirt in which they dwell, a sound is almost heard... a commanding whisper..almost...put your ear to the ground and listen... the sky begins to quiver... and the earth takes a deep breath... embracing itself... and then... rain begins to fall... So slowly, beneath the earth.. unseen and quietly restrained, the seeds begin to grow. The earth appears so dark and barren, but beneath that surface, there are mighty roots shooting this way.. and that way.... but ever waiting...waiting for just the right moment..just waiting for the command... and in the secret place just beneath the surface, an electric push is felt, from the tippy toed roots to the tops of the emerging seed.. and... ALAS!! Joy breaks forth, bursting up out of the earth! Out of the darkness! Buried for such a time as this! Buried to proclaim that it will just keep rising back up again! It cannot be contained! If you've ever seen the glory that can be grown from even a speck of joy, then you have seen a glorious harvest. Unmatched in it's beauty! Joy is the most beautiful when it rises from debris

Again

Learning to walk again-
 Oh, but these restless legs, how they love to run!
Learning to see again-
eyes wide open, Oh beautiful daughter that I've become!
 Learning to lean again-
embracing this cross, Oh sacred tree to catch the fall.
 Learning to believe again-
at the foot of the alter, Oh Lord I give You all!
 Learning to trust again-
 in the very Name that gives me hope.
Learning to love again-
                                        with faith, oh Jesus, I cling to Your healing yoke!

Crowned

The promise of peace amid this chaos, Lord- This is the desire of my heart. With too many thoughts to reign in-
 too many feelings to sort-
 it is hard to hear You..You seem so far.
 I am passing through these waters-
 You are the anchor for my soul. Please pull me to the surface, Lord, the water's thick..the river's cold. My feet are tied to rocks. My hands feel tied behind my back. I call upon Your Holy throne Oh Lord, please come and stand here where I lack. PEACE! I need to be delivered. I am a prisoner of this weight. To be redeemed, it is the promise...and here I am...and here I'll wait! I am a child shivering in a dark place. I am a broken child lashing out. I know not what I do...or where I'm going... my mind so full of anguish and screaming doubts. Somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow, torn between my joy and my sorrow, I see the picture of hope as it stands... a woman in a crown... she was so lost but oh so found! she said she couldn't, but oh how You say she can!