Every Promise

 

Psalm 37:25King James Version (KJV)

²⁵ I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

If you read my blog because you think I am spiritual, you should really find a new blog.
If you think in reading my blog you'll leave feeling inspired because I am one of those "got it all together" types of  people, you really should find a new blog.

I don't have it all together. I am not spiritual, I am so far from spiritual. I am not that perfect Pentecostal woman. I'm not a person you should look to for a good example. I will let you down.

I am more like, the person who is a mess inside. The daughter who wonders if maybe I am a step child, instead of a real child of the King. That maybe God loves me less than the perfect Christ like ladies I go to church with. After all I would love me less. I know me.


 I was taught that song as a child, "Every promise in the Book is mine. Every chapter. Every verse. Every line." I have sung that song to myself as an adult when my Faith was weak.
Yet when I was at my lowest, it wasn't. The scripture I clung too was like a mocking voice in my head that followed me everywhere. Every day instead of bringing me comfort, I would recall that scripture and it would torment me. I really felt like God had forsaken us. I felt like things were to that lowest point. Truly they were. And here again is that fine line of not being attention seeking or needy or wanting you to feel sorry for me and yet telling you how bad things were so you can see how BIG my God is...:)

  I was so tired of fighting the same battle. I couldn't even answer my kids when they asked me, " Mom it feels like God isn't hearing our prayers. Why doesn't He do something? Why are we going thru this?" The best I could give them was I know how you feel, I feel the same way and I have no answer for you. Pretty lame, the mother of 5 kids and I still do not have it all together.

Most nights when I finished my praying I was emotionally exhausted, not because I had some great revival and renewed Faith but because even after all the tears I'd cried and the words I said I still felt empty and hopeless.  It got to the place where I avoided praying because I just couldn't handle the emotional breakdown, I would pray and when I would start to feel that sadness and burden I would  tell God, "I can't go there. I can't pray about that. I can't open myself up to that hurt. I am doing my best to hold it together for my kids and if I start to talk about this...I can't do that. So you know what it is please fix it."  What Christian even prays like that?!

See I told you I am not a spiritual person...
My mind was saying  He hears. Every word. Every thought. Every tear.
My emotions were saying God doesn't love you.
 My doubt was telling me that song should say Every Chapter. Every Verse. Every Line. For Every body. Except you.
My circumstances was saying God has forsaken you.

I remember one day the kids wanted Gary and I to go swimming with them. So we did. It kinda was comical to me and I told Gary, " OH MY GOSH! Look at us! Living with my parents, 5 kids, both of us unemployed, yada yada , and here were are swimming in this pool like we don't have a care in the world! We're bums!" 

LONG DRAMATIC story short... one day I got a call for an interview. IT wasn't where I wanted but it was still a job. As I was pulling in the lot for that interview my phone started ringing, it was for an interview at the place I wanted. Pretty soon I got a start date. A couple months later Gary got the call from GM. And was hired rather quickly looking back. At the time it seemed to drag on forever. Honestly I'd like to put as much time as possible between us and those rough times.
During on of my tormented prayers that I thought God wasn't listening too, in frustration I just told God exactly what we needed. I remember asking for a job for Gary that could pay enough to support our family and then I said "well God, if you really want me to be honest we need a job that pays "this amount at the least", I mean yes any job would be nice but this is really our need." I remember crawling back in bed beside my sweet little baby, feeling just as broken and hopeless as when I first begin my prayer. Would you believe when God gave Gary a job it was for MORE than the amount I had told him in that prayer?!  It only started at the amount I had thrown out there...

I'd like to say that after that my faith was restored and I become a spiritual Giant but that's another post for another time... and this is me we are talking about.....until Part 2 I hope Part 1 leaves you with Hope and maybe a little faith in knowing sometimes life is hard. okay most times life is hard but no matter how dark and long the storm, God is always Good and that is the one thing I do know, beyond a doubt, no matter if I feel He leaves me, or if he Hears my Prayers, His goodness is something I can never question, never doubt. He's Good. He's Just. He's Merciful. He's Holy. He's Righteous.  I am the problem in my life but He is the solution. Always.

He will never forsake you

A few  weeks ago I found myself alone with Blaine. That doesn't happen very often and when it does I almost feel scared like "Can I really do this on my own?!" Lol! He is after all the youngest of 5, how did I have kids before I had kids?
So I did like they told me to do at the hospital, I brought Blaine into the bathroom with me while I showered. His contentedness of course only lasted thru the wetting of my hair. The whole time I showered I talked to Blaine, "Blaine, it's okay, Mommy's almost done, Mommy's just taking a shower, Blaine here I am, I'm right behind the curtain, Can you hear Mommy Blainey Boo, just a few more seconds"  . It seemed the more I talked the more frantic he became, until finally I finished my shower.
I pulled back the curtain to find him screaming like he is being murdered and frantically kicking those little legs waving his chubby little arms with clenched fist in the air and sad little tears running down his red face. He was perfectly safe, right where I had placed him knowing he would be. I felt so sorry for the little guy he looked so pitiful, I started trying to get him to look at me by talking "Oh Blaine, mommy has been here the entire time, I know you couldn't see me but I was right here, watching over you making sure you were safe, I was right behind the curtain"...

Right about then I felt hot tears burn my eyes and start blurring my vision and no longer was this about me comforting my baby. I felt like God was saying, "That's you Jamie, you have been so frantic and scared wondering where I have been, feeling alone, freaking out over this storm, thinking just because you can't "see" me that I am not there, but I am, I have been."
I have been in a panic and it has gotten worse, the longer the storm has lasted the more I felt He wasn't near. Just like Blaine I have been screaming and panicked and when He didn't make everything okay. Blaine was calmed by the sight of mom and being held in my arms, I guess I need that reassurance, knowing God's got this too.... like he always has.



                                                            Deuteronomy 31:6
"Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you."

"God Won't Let Me"

Ethan & Jadyn went to bed the other night and Ethan took Jadyn's bandz she had made. He wouldn't give it back even though she had already made him one. In the argument/battle that followed she came away these awful red marks on her arms, (even two days later,) from Little Dennis. He, not a mark on him. So here she is so mad at him and hurting from his biting, pinching scratching. He waits a few minutes then,  crying he handed her the bandz saying, "Here Jadyn, God won't let me Keep it!"  As you can imagine this was like one of those gas on flames apology! I guess God was okay with him beating her up....

Just another child

Two things happened today that stuck in my mind.
Jadyn came home from school telling me about a new child in her class. A special needs child there because she wasn't being treated nicely in the other classroom by her classmates. It bothered me so much that we humans are so cruel to those that need kindness and love.

When I went to get supper (yes take-out) I was listening to 93.3. A caller was saying how much the Christmas music meant to her every year. She said 3-4 yrs ago her special needs son wanted to hear Christmas music and the station was the first to play it that year right after Halloween.3 weeks later their son died. Every year they listen and how thankful they are for the good memories to sum it up...As the lady is telling the story, her voice breaks and you can hear the emotion and the grief coming thru.

I immediately thought of the two situations. A mom loves her child, while others may only see a disability, or a burden or a tragedy a mother sees... her child, the child she loves.  Just as God loves His children...Look at us, we come to Him broken, emotionally disabled, our mind scared from Life. Not one of God's children are whole, not one of us perfect, yet HE LOVE US. To Him and by Him we are not outcast, not strangers, not abandoned, not forsaken. We are no longer on the outside looking in, we belong.

I am so thankful that I am His. That to Him, I am just another Child....

Jamie

Surviving the storm

Growing up, out of all my youth group, I was probably the one most would have picked to self destruct the quickest. And let's face it, I was the one I would have picked for sure.
I sometimes look back in confusion, wonder and a with remembered fear, maybe like a person who goes thru a tornado. When I look back it's like I can still see the storm going on behind me  picking up what remains of the house I left behind, I can see where I would be if I hadn't made it out in time, and I shudder in fear.
I can see friends I love dearly still being ripped apart by the fierce winds and I think, "How are you still there? I seen you ahead of me, with the survivors" yet somehow they are right back in the middle of it.  I can see the damage that this Storm has caused them. I see how they try to protect themselves and now their own children, yet the great storm of Life still rages on. I watch helpless, as the wind rips apart their family,and they are pulled their separate ways. Their children suffering from wounds to deep to see. They themselves, barely recognizable in appearance, actions, thoughts. Some have told me, "Don't ever come here. I am miserable. It is an awful place to be, and I can't get out. Don't ever backslide. I never thought I would be here. I want to get out." so many heartbreaking cries for help, and yet when I hear the survivors call out warnings, I see some make it to safety, only to watch in horror as they run straight into the Tornado, something calling to them only they can hear,  trying to grasp something they thought was of value, running after what they think they can't live without. When they do get what they are chasing, it was not what they wanted. But now, they can't get away from it.
 I see a child, no, I see children, many children, daily, who thru no choice of their own are in that storm and are suffering from it's cold heartless wind, with nobody to love them, nobody to care. Nobody to bring them in from the storm wash them, feed them take care of their most basic needs, and never their emotional needs. Nobody because mom and dad are caught up in the storm and never notice nor care about their most precious possession.
I look into the storm and I see those who have no idea they are in a life threatening  Storm, because they are so busy chasing the thrill the storm offers to notice it's danger. To them it has become the normal, it has lost it's threat, because it's all they have ever known.
 Yes, I do shudder in fear when I feel the cold wind, because I remember what it was like to be helpless and hopeless within the deadly storm. My heart breaks for those still in the storm.

If you asked how I made it out, I would have to say, God. There is no other way.

Be Ye Transformed, by the Renewing of your mind

Romans 12: 2 
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind


I am sure everybody knows how a caterpillar changes from his wormy disgusting body to a beautiful delicate butterfly. I thought I knew until we start researching it more for Children's Church.
I found we don't fully know what happens. Researchers and scientist disagree but, in reading so many different takes on Metamorphosis I can tell you, in my own humble opinion, exactly what happens....a Miracle. 
First you have that gross little caterpillar, that looks like a fat worm.

It eats and eats and shed it's skin several times until at last it looses interest in food , wonders around till it finds a branch (or something similar) and creates a "Silk Pad" think double sided tape. Caterpillar then hooks his feet into the silk pad and hangs upside down in what is called the "J-Cycle".

The skin cells form the exoskeleton of the pupa, and when that last skin is shed, the "pupa" is revealed

Start of skin shed

Skin gone and Pupa revealed

 T

Inside the Pupa , many things are happening.   Here is one scientists take.

"They start growing really rapidly and differentiating into the different tissues, so that literally the entire internal contents of the caterpillar — the muscles, the entire digestive system, even the heart, even the nervous system — is totally rebuilt. It's like you took your car, you took a Ford into the shop and left it there for a week and it came out as a Cadillac."

Read it for yourself!

And finally, A beautiful new creature is born....a miracle of Re-Birth.








It been several weeks since we did this lesson for the kids but in rereading all the information, I once again feel humbled and hopeful in my heart. at the likeness of our own soul to that of the Caterpillar/Butterfly.
~ We are born into this world a Sinner, we wonder around looking for "food" to fill our soul. That emptiness we all try to fill with fleeting pleasures. Only to find we grow more "hungry"  we lose hope in ever finding  peace for our troubled heart. Like that caterpillar who loses interest in food.

I can't speak for any but myself,  I was miserable in my sin, I knew right from wrong. I couldn't sleep at night, my mind was always in a turmoil always unhappy with myself, my life...just completely miserable. No matter what I tried or thought would make me happy, it never did. I found myself no longer caring what happened to me or what I did because, I had lost interest in living.


Yet when Jesus came into my Life  I  "shed" my old skin and become a new creature in Christ. A true miracle occurred, I felt clean inside. I felt peace and even joy. Even outwardly I was different there was a smile that went from my face all the way into my heart. For my pain, He gave me healing, 

 my sleepless nights, He gave me rest for my weary mind He traded His Love, for my bitterness

took my troubled heart and gave me Peace,  as for My orphaned soul, He made me His Child

The old man inside had died and the miracle of Rebirth had taken place in my heart. 

 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

 He created each of us  with the desire that we would be His, with the potential inside of us to be more. 
The emptiness you feel, is God's place in your Heart. It can only be filled by Him.

There is none like You, No One else can touch my heart like you do

                         I could search for all Eternity long and find There is none like you.

Picture Day at school!

Beauty and The PEST!

Jadyn & Ethan!