Goodbye?

I cut Billy’s hair for years. After I went to work for the bank I still did his hair every 6 weeks or so. When I completely stopped doing hair, he and I kept in touch, just ‘cause I am so very fond of him. He is an inspiration to me. He is wise and grounded and loves to serve Christ.

Billy is a 70+ year old war veteran, did 2 tours in Vietnam, was a POW in Vietnam and came home to find that his wife, thinking he was killed in the line of duty, had buried him and had remarried and was expecting her first child. Billy eventually remarried, had 2 sons, twin boys. One of the sons died…Billy never told me how he died. These are just some of the things I could tell you about Billy’s life. Billy is one of the most amazing, caring, giving.....a-ma-zing men I have ever met.

The end of last year, Billy told me that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He went through 6 weeks of radiation. We have kept up with each other via e-mail.

Today Billy called me. Said he wanted to check on me and see how I'm doing. I said fine and he said "you don't sound fine." I laughed and promised that I do not feel as terrible as i sound. He said that he is “going away for a little while” and wanted to call me before he left. I asked where he's going, He said "it's complicated". I asked when he's leaving. He said "maybe as soon as tomorrrow". He said “You are dear to me and an e-mail wouldn’t do. I want you to remember something….the difference in the steel used to make a paper clip and the steel used to make a sword is the temperature of the fire that it goes through.”

I think he was telling me good bye.

Heart Issues

Last night in FLO Bible Study, we talked about “heart issues”. We talked about carrying baggage from our pasts with us into every new day. We talked about unforgiveness. We talked about guilt.

I truly believe that admitting that there is a heart issue is the beginning of healing. So many times we think that if we THINK the right things and KNOW the right things then we are okay. I have just recently come to understand that knowing and believing are truly two totally different, although related, things. We first have to realize what we BELIEVE and FEEL about God…not what we are supposed to believe and feel, but what we REALLY believe and feel. When we are honest with ourselves and with God, then we have an accurate starting point….

Believe: to accept that something is true or real; consider, think, suppose, deem, judge
Perhaps you truly believe that God has failed you; that He has let you down, that He should have done more, that He should have protected you or someone you love. Believing something that is false does not make it true. For years, people believed that “bad blood” was what made folks sick. They believed it totally and without question –“with all their hearts”…to the point of draining blood in an attempt to heal everything from a headache to a fever…but the fact that they believed it, did not make it true, and many people died as a result. Perhaps you believe false things about God….and it is draining the life out of you. Be honest with God. Confessing your belief about Him does not change the truth about Him, but it does allow your heart to be opened to understand the truth.

Feel: to experience an emotion or physical sensation; sense, be aware of, be of the opinion, experience
Maybe you don’t believe that God has failed you. Perhaps you believe that God is perfect and that His ways are perfect and that He is in total control of your life, but right now you feel hurt, scared, angry, frustrated, impatient, disappointed, or just confused and that you have lost your focus. By checking what you feel against what you believe, you may find that you are truly closer to God than you thought. Your feelings can betray you. Just because you feel something does not make it true. I know that I ate 45 minutes ago…Still, I “feel” hungry….I believe that what I ate was enough to nourish my body and that I should not be hungry, but the fact remains that I FEEL hungry. Even though I feel hungry, I know that I do not need more food. I believe that my body is not truly hungry and that the “feeling” of hunger is deceiving and will cause me more troubles in the long run if I believe it…I will over eat and I will gain weight….and that will negatively affect many other areas of my life. Perhaps what you FEEL is in contradiction to what you know and what you believe to be true about God. Giving in to what you feel can lead to behaviors that will negatively impact other areas of you life.

Know: to have a thorough understanding of something through experience or study; understand, be aware of, comprehend, be knowledgeable about, appreciate, grasp, realize, see, get
You may KNOW a lot of things about God, but I am praying that you will figure out what you FEEL about Him, what you BELIEVE about Him. When you know where you really are with God (not where you wish you were, or where you think you should be, or where everyone else thinks you are), you allow GOD to come in where you are. I believe this is where so many of us unintentionally deny Him the privilege of completely healing us. We let Him in where we wish we were, or where we think we should be…and where we really are is still broken and beaten and battered. Be honest with yourself, and be honest with Him. Let Him come in where you are. In doing that, you are allowing HIM to take you where you need to be, and you will arrive there whole, healed, and ready to move on.

Trying to get my heart right reminds me of Jacob fighting with God. It is exhausting. It is a wrestling match. It is the ultimate battle between my human-ness and my spiritual-ness. Trying to get my heart right requires desperate desire for nothing aside from God’s presence. Trying to get my heart right requires me to let go of everything…everything…let me say it once more…every-thing. Getting my HEART right requires me to stand, kneel, fall flat on my face before my Savior….for no other reason than to get MYSELF right with Him. It is an ongoing battle. Over the past few months I have learned to trust what I know to be true about God and have come to BELIEVE what scripture says about Him and His nature, despite how I feel and despite my understanding of my circumstances.
Getting our hearts right with God requires complete submission, total trust, and absolute faith in God our Father for no other reason than because of who He is. It is a heart issue. It is between your heart and God. No one can fight this battle for you. Like Jacob, you may come away physically wounded (He may not dislocate your hip, but, like we said last night, He may not do what we think He should and that may hurt terribly), but your HEART will be where it needs to be…whole, complete, healed, and totally completely uncontrollably passionately madly in love with your Creator.

Hugs,
K

The One Thing

My heart, my mind, my everything has been radically changed in the past 24 or so hours.
Only one small step was taken on my part and God entered my soul in away I could never have imagined. He has filled me to overflowing. He has made His presence so real that, at times, it makes me gasp.
With only the slightest effort on my part, God came into FULL view (as much as I can stand) and RADICALLY changed my...everything. With Him in His proper place, all of the things that only a few days ago were breaking my heart are no longer significant. With Him in His proper place, everything else falls away...there is only God.
He has, in 24 hours, radically changed my life.
All I did was wake up early to meet Him.
One little thing. I simply got out of bed a bit early, settled in my chair in my sun room, opened my Bible, and asked God to speak to me through His word....and he did.
Hugs
K

What are You Doing Here?

What Are You Doing Here? Of everything Calvin said in the sermon this morning, that was the phrase that I got hung up on. He preached from 1 Kings 19. The main idea behind the sermon was that God was at work in Elijah's life and Elijah was too hung up on what was visible and real to him at that very moment (Jezebel wanting to kill him) to see what GOD was doing. God was using Elijah in a mighty way and, because he could not see what God was doing, Elijah actually wanted to die. I can soooo relate to this great prophet. Last week i too was hiding in a cave asking "why me?" A week can make a world of difference and I am, thankfully, in a much better place today.

Still, the question that keeps haunting me is "what are you doing here?"

This morning I felt as if God Himself sat down beside me and whispered "What are you doing here?" and I had to tell Him, "I don't know." But I do. In my heart, I do know what i am doing here. I am just sharing my heart. He has not asked anything more of me than that.

My earnest prayer has been that he will continue to grow me through this and that once I am on the other side I can look back on this time in my life and be joyfully thankful for this trial. To be honest, I am not so joyful these days. I am submitted, and I am willing, but most of all I am waiting. Waiting on God to move. Waiting on God to show me the meaning in all of this, as if that will make the journey easier or more meaningful. This morning I realized that submitting to His plan is not enough. Being willing to follow Him is not enough; not for me at this point in my journey anyway. I must find joy in knowing my Savior. I must find joy in knowing that the creator of the universe desires to have a relationship with me. My joy rests not in the hope that God will deliver me from this horrid silence, but in the fact that He has already delivered me from spending eternity without Him.

I believe that God will bring me through this on His terms and that on the other side I will be stronger in my faith and more consistent in my walk and will have an amazing testimony. He has held me in His arms over the past week and let me fall to pieces time and time again. He has waited patiently while I pouted and sobbed because I don't understand why He won't just go ahead and give me my voice back. Do I or do I not believe that He has a plan and a purpose in my life? Do I or do I not believe that HIS plan is perfect and is not dependent on my understanding of it? Do I or do I not believe that He knows what He is doing and that His way is best? Of course I do. I do believe and I now realize that succumbing to the "Blues" or frustration because this is not working out the way I had imagined is only stealing my witness.

Whether or not He sees fit to give me my voice back, I will continue to praise Him. I will seek the goodness in each day as He sends it to me and will not let the fact that I cannot speak weaken my witness. Whether or not I can speak does not change who He is or what He has done. Even if He never restores my voice, God is STILL God. He is still my Creator, my Father, my Savior, and the lover of my soul. The fact that I cannot speak does not change the fact that HE is still perfectly amazing and that HE is still at work. I count it a double blessing that I am able to seek new ways to serve Him and am longing for Him in a way I have never known.

Hugs,

K