As many of you know my father has been dealing with the new diagnosis of multiple myeloma. When I first heard the news and came down to help and "assess" the situation I was very overwhelmed with all that I saw and took in those few days that I was here. I really had to learn how to draw my strength from the Lord. It is not easy to walk through something that you have no control over and to sit back and wait (something I am not good at). However, God is the Master of encouraging us to wait...
Isaiah 40:31 says
"But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint."
Well, guess what...I was weak, I couldn't run, I was weary, I wanted to faint....But God taught me to lean on Him, to take His hand, to be renewed and restored, and rejuvinated in Him and through Him. I found strength in the waiting. I found peace in the waiting. I learned how to totally give a situation over to my Father God and let Him handle it and me.
Today (Saturday) I am again at my fathers, and I can see such a difference in his spirit and in his body. This time, I see a change...I see THE change. God's healing hands have again reached down from above and touched someone very dear to me, and I am very thankful and blessed to have been able to witness this.
I know that God holds everything in His hands. I know that God is in control. I know that God's ways and thoughts are not ours. I know these things....but when we are tested, when we are challenged, when we have to walk through situations that none of us really want to walk through...we freeze, we panic, we melt....and that is when God comes in, picks us up, gets control of us first of all, and then teaches us HOW to walk through these times. He teaches us how to be patient and how to wait and how to truly draw strength from Him. What better way to learn than to walk through it and see it unfold in front of your eyes. I am definitely one that learns from seeing, not just telling.
So anyway, this time as my mother and I went to the grocery store in the town that I grew up in and where I went to school, I spent a few minutes driving by my old highschool and football field. Now not everyone knows me, but I have not always been the "good Christian" lady that I try to be now. But today, I got to go back into my past a bit and instead of driving around it trying to avoid it, I was able to look at it, looking back at my past and remembering all of the fun, good times that I did have. For so long I have avoided my past for many different reasons, but today I saw it and enjoyed looking at it. Not everything in our past is always bad, but we let the few things that were make us avoid the whole time all together.
It's funny how as an adult we sometimes feel that we cannot be childlike and that we have to be adult all of the time. God called the little children to Him. Sometimes we need to be childlike again, feel those feelings of fun times with the Lord, be able to sit and listen and wait on God to teach us or speak to us instead of rushing through our day and not looking at the surroundings that God places us in...God may put us in our past, looking at old football fields because He wants to teach us how to run. Who knows what God may want to show us in our everyday walk with Him.
I know that many of us may have an "ugly" past...things that we would rather forget about, and sometimes God allows that to happen, but sometimes He leaves the "ugly" past there so that He can use it one day for His glory. Maybe someone needs to look at their past, face it head on, and see what it is God wants to do with it or with you. My past was not as bad as I thought or made it out to be. I had a lot of really good times and I praise God that He has freed me to talk about those times without feeling ashamed or wanting to sweep them under the rug and forget about them. God molded me into the woman of God that I am RIGHT now and without my past I wouldn't be this woman.
Don't get me wrong...I know that our past is forgotten and washed away as far as the east is from the west...I'm not trying to bring things up that will condemn you. The devil is here to condemn us...God is here to convict us. God will bring it up to change us and make us more like Him. The devil's plan is to condemn you of it and make you feel guilty and so far from God that you don't even know who you are in your walk with Christ.
Child of God, Woman and Man of God, you are loved RIGHT now by the Most High King. No matter what you have done in your past, God will love you and does love you.
You cannot change that love. Your past will not change that love. He loved you then, He loved you through it, and He will love you unconditionally forevermore.
So, I have jumped from one thing to another and I am sorry. But I wanted to share this with you. I have seen God's hand and felt His love this weekend as I allowed Him to walk with me. Without Him I am nothing, helpless, and scared. I have to have Him. He IS my strength.
Continue to seek His face and as you seek him you WILL find Him.
Jennifer
