Restored Relationships

By Rosemary Flaaten –

Do you find yourself wishing your friendships could be authentic and loving? Do you wish you could forgive your parents and siblings? Do you long to know how to relate to your husband and children? Do you damn yourself for the choices you’ve made?

How do we bring about change in the way we relate to others? Do we just try harder? Do we give more and more of ourselves to a seemingly bottomless pit of relational need? Do we give less of ourselves, becoming more guarded and controlling? I could give you some quick tips to improve your relationships, but doing so would be like giving you a Band-Aid for terminal cancer. To get to the root of the problem in our relationships, we must have them connected to our most basic relationship: the relationship with our Creator.

Imagine arranging thousands of tiny pieces in straight lines. As soon as we get one line neatly placed, we bump the table, and are forced to start over. Over and over we try to get everything lined up, but even our best efforts do not produce the outcome we desire. Does this frustration sound like our attempts to improve our relationships?

Now imagine what would happen if those pieces were brought in contact with a magnet. The pieces would quickly line up and order would be created. So it is with life and relationships. Putting God at the center of our lives, through a surrendered heart, aligns our relationships, transforming chaos into order.

Only as we allow God to bring about heart change will we relate differently to others. Our relationships will be transformed as we’re filled up with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. None of these are qualities we can manufacture on our own. We need God to fill us with His character.

Prayer: Forgive me for trying to fix my relationships on my own. Help me to open my heart to You so that what flows out of me is Your character, O Father.

“Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them – living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious free life” (Romans 8:5-7 The Message).

Healed

By Makenzie Allen –

In my previous article, I wrote about how God is the greatest scientist. He created science in the beginning and still follows the laws of science today. God can also use science in miraculous ways. Two years ago, I was able to experience one way God can use science.

There I was, smile on my face, but despairing inwardly. The eyes that crinkled at the sides along with my cover-up smile were really shedding tears of confusion and hurt when I was alone. The laugh that poured from me was robotic and well-rehearsed, nothing about it bubbly or real. From the outside, it probably looked like I had it all together. Inside, I sure didn’t.

I sat alongside my family as we listened to a man speaking of miracles God had done through him to people who were broken. Stories of men regaining sight, people who knew nothing except darkness but finally found the light and thrived, of limbs being healed, and many other forms of restoration. In the pew, I was wishing my depression had a reason for being there. I had no limbs that needed restoring, I was just weary. It bothered me that I wasn’t stronger.

As the man ended his sermon, he asked all who needed healing to come forward. I felt an urging to go. Telling myself I should be strong and move on, I sat stubbornly. I felt a nudge again. And as fewer people began to file past me down the aisle, I stood and went forward. I remember thinking, this really isn’t a big enough deal to have people pray over you for. You’re depressed, don’t waste their time just because you are being weak.

I reached the man who spoke of healing. He rested his hand on my head and gently pressed me to the ground where I began to sob. I shook so violently as I cried that to this day I don’t know most of what he and the others huddled around prayed for me. I just hugged my knees with one hand and clutched my little necklace that says “faith” with the other as I cried long and hard. “Give me faith Lord, give me faith in You.” I prayed in between sobs.

People exited the building and whoa! That sunset and I were neck and neck for who was brightest. I felt alive again, like God had touched me and at His presence oppression must flee for fear. I couldn’t hold back the smile on my face that was aimed right for the heavens where I imagined my Lord smiling right back. I climbed into the car and couldn’t hold it all in anymore.

“It was the strangest thing, when they were praying for me I felt this heat come over me,” I said.

“When you feel a warmth like that it is usually a sign of healing from God,” Mom replied.

Recently in Chemistry class, we learned that heat is actually raw energy. As I was pondering science and talking with God, it hit me. Heat is a sign of healing from God. And heat is energy. So God literally gives you the energy to overcome the wounds sin has inflicted. Whether physically, mentally, or spiritually, we are all handicapped by the hold sin has on our world.

God gave me energy. Exactly what I needed to banish the oppression that had taken hold of my life. I look back and smile at that moment of pure joy, the moment when God filled me with His insurmountable power and energy. Though I didn’t see Him that night, I felt Him.

“Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you have believed in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8 NIV).

Daddy, It’s Dark and I’m Afraid

By DiAne Gates –

It’s dark and I’m afraid.

What mom or dad hasn’t heard these words? Many times. And what did you say to that frightened child? Be quiet and go to sleep? Did you fuss and tell your child you needed to sleep? Or did you get up, go to your son or daughter and lovingly give them proper comfort and instruction?

But where does a parent go when shadows fall like a shroud and pitch you into the depths of unknown terror?

If you haven’t been there yet, just wait. It will come.

Twenty years ago, my husband had an aneurysm rupture in his leg. Petrifying weeks followed as we waited to see if he would loose his life or his leg. Waited to see if he would be able to work or still have a job. Waited for that time of unequivocal darkness to pass.

Until job loss, heart attacks, financial distress, deaths—all long black tunnels of fear—sucked the light from our lives and plunged us into the inky abyss of anguish. We couldn’t hop over ‘em, dig under ‘em, or run around ‘em. I sobbed, “Abba, Father, it’s so dark and I’m afraid.”

And when I cried, my Father was faithful to hold me, comfort me, and give me His strength. Strength to put one foot in front of the other. One step at a time. And travel with Him through the sightless night back into the light. During that time, I feared I might stumble and die in the process.

But God taught me there were lessons I must learn in the dark. Lessons I can’t see in the bright light of day. Lessons I must learn in the discipline of darkness.

This discipline required me to walk in lock-step with the Lord Jesus, forced me to focus on His face, instead of the things that creak and groan in the night. And reminded me to call out, “Daddy, I’m afraid.”

I only do that when I’m forced to abide behind the sooty curtains of heartache.

God shines the truth of His love on me in the light of day. But in the darkroom of trouble, He develops the knowledge and understanding of my faith in Him. Then I see the profane and unclean things lurking in my mind, things I have refused to acknowledge in times of blessing. I see pitfalls and traps that would have entangled me, had I not slowed my pace and clung to Jesus. And I am convinced it is better to walk with God in the dark than to stand alone in the light.

But as sure as day follows night, turmoil will pass and His light, like the sunrise, will disburse trials and tragedies. I will blossom again, strengthened by His comfort to know when darkness returns all I have to do is cry, “Abba, Father—Daddy— I’m afraid.”

And if you’re His child, He will wrap you in His arms of comfort and carry you through ’til morning. Because He loves you.

“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15 NAS).

“What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee” (Psalm 56:3 NAS).

Jumble Puzzle

By Elaine James –

My mind was jumbled with circumstances. It was like I had four words to unscramble in a Jumble puzzle and I needed to get to the solution phrase at the end. For many years I had been involved in a certain family’s life, but they are just not including me lately. I was coming up with a bunch of ideas as to how to convince them that I am qualified to be in their lives. What do you do when you want to be a part of something or someone’s life and they don’t call you?

I wasn’t getting anywhere with my thoughts. I really did not like myself. I felt as if the fruits of the Spirit weren’t operating in me at all. No matter how many times I forgave, I felt the anger rise up within me. Pride and jealousy were creeping in my soul. I chuckled to God, “I am not quiet enough am I?” LOL!

I heard, “No.”

I quieted down. I was able to hear the voice of TRUTH. He whispered, “You know when someone does not get invited to an event, or tries out for a play or team and does not get picked? How about when you have an interview for a job and you really feel qualified but do not get it? Even more painful is getting fired from a job when you don’t feel it is justified. You just are not called to that family. It has nothing to do with you. You will not be able to understand. Stop reading into what is going on.”

The whisper continued “I cannot explain now but I promise: I am your shepherd, I lack nothing. I make you lie down in green pastures, I lead you beside quiet waters, I refresh your soul. I guide you along the right paths for My name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:1-3 NIV).

I want to write the final solution phrase at the bottom of the Jumble puzzle. It would say: You Will Be Included. But God, the master of solutions, was leading me, for His name’s sake, down a different path. His scriptures were the clue words and His solution phrase was: YOU ARE CALLED ELSEWHERE. God helped me solve my negative thoughts with His solution.

Prayer: God in heaven I know there are circumstances in my life that are all scrambled waiting for Your solution. Please help me to be quiet and wait for Your solutions to come to me. In Jesus’ Name I pray. Amen.

Stay Straight

By Mollie Bond –

When I was a 5 year old, I often watched my mom get in the car, put the keys in the ignition, and turn the key. One day, as my mom wrapped up her day as the church secretary, she handed me the keys to the jeep. “Here,” she said, “wait in the car.”

Feeling the weight of her trust in the keys she handed me, I pranced outside. Thinking I could do something that would make my mom happy, I got in the driver’s side, and just like my mom, put the keys in the ignition. Look at me! What would really make her happy? Trying to do everything just like she did: I turned the key.

I think I screamed. The steering wheel felt unnatural in my small hands. The manual transmission had been left in neutral. The jeep lurched past the sidewalk, down the little embankment, and straight into…this is where my memory stops.

The top level of our church had two wings held together by a narrow hallway with offices on the right, and the sanctuary on the left. The hallway area also enclosed the entry way to stairs leading to the lower level and overlooking the basketball court. The jeep hit right between the two wings, smack-dab at the top of those stairs. I took out the front wall.

The following Sunday, plastic covered the front of the church. One beam remained unbroken. If that board had broken, I would have traveled in the jeep down the stairs and out to the lower level.

Gripping the steering wheel and making sure I kept straight, kept that beam steady enough to hold.

PRAYER: God, I might try to take hold of the wheel and do what I think will make me happy. Instead, I’d like to learn how to keep going straight, listening to Your voice before I put the car in gear. I’m giving You room to speak to me today.

“Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them” (Deuteronomy 28:14 NIV).

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