Coffee in Heaven

    

 

I love to start my morning with a fresh, hot, tantalizing cup of coffee. I can’t resist inhaling the rich aroma and letting out a sigh of pleasure before I taste it. As the first few sips roll throughout my body I encounter a soothing and peaceful effect. 

My coffee experience illustrates the majestic elation I encounter whenever I listen to praise music. The wondrous love, grace, and mercy of God sweep over my heart and soul through life-affirming words, voices, and melodies. I have come to cherish and protect these exceptional personal times God shares with me. 

For many years I fought with depression. It was all I could do to find a good thought when my eyes opened. Through the help of a doctor, a prescription, and the counsel of a Godly woman, I began to change what I did when I awoke. I surrounded myself with Christian music, I searched out scriptures that dealt with my emotions and read God’s promises to me, I read other inspiring books, and I decided my first thought would be God. 

Every morning I pray, “Good morning, God. Thank you for your love and sacrifice so I can receive your mercy, grace, and love I need for this day to make me into the woman you want me to be. Help me to see where you want me to share the blessing you have given me. Thank you for your protection, wisdom, guidance, and strength. I surrender my will to you and ask you to guard your servant and help me release my faith in thought, word, and through deeds.”

The music, scripture, prayer, and my actions to focus on God first allowed him to heal my broken hurting heart and mind. I began to understand the meaning of relationship versus religion. God revealed His truth, His commands, His examples of character I was to follow, and my responsibilities as a follower of God. In this process I was healed of my depression.  I could stop the medication.  Praise God this pit no longer threatens me!

I know if I do not continue to start my days this way and guard my heart, I leave the door open to forces, words, ideas, and people Satan sprinkles into my head, my heart, and my life. We must guard our hearts against our human desires to argue with wrong, take problems on without God, or fall prey to our pride.  These are the same temptations Eve failed to beat.

I have come a long way, but scripture reminds me Satan is still in my life’s arena like a rodeo bull. He’s waiting for the moment I turn my back or forget he’s there. Never let your guard down. 

“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12)

But with the love, wisdom, protection, and the power of God through His son Christ Jesus, we are armed, able, and standing firm in Him.  

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8:27) 

How do you start your day?

Home at Last

I just returned from a cruise to Alaska with family and friends. We enjoyed the pampering and entertainment from the ship’s crew in our city on the ocean.   For two full days we glided between the emerald green forests and the white shimmer of the waterfalls gushing from the rocks amid the trees scattered throughout fjords before we reached the towns of Juneau and Skagway. At times God’s creation of grandeur and beauty took my breath away. 

Alaska is a beautiful place to visit, but I couldn’t live in the rugged conditions with the weather, light, and isolation. Many people thrive there, I believe, because they are called to a place like this. As I’ve matured, I have discovered I am a city girl who needs temperate conditions and many people around me. At times I pull away to a quiet place to restore and regroup, but on the whole I need to be with people. 

God made each of us as unique as the plants, climates, terrain, and places on His earth. We are all driven to live, explore, and root in many places for many different reasons or seasons. It is refreshing to explore new places and people. I have lived in and visited many cities, states, and countries. In many ways I’ve felt like a nomad with no one place to call home. It has only been in the last ten years that I feel I have chosen a home in Colorado. My home base gives me the opportunity to build relationships with my family, church, and girlfriends.  That stability helps me grow and evolve into a stronger woman of God. I’m thankful for the opportunity to have a home where I can rest, grow, and thrive.

What have you learned about yourself in your travels?

Satan is Real - But God is Victorious

Torment starts in your head and calls you to spread it throughout your body.  It is the bait of the Trojan horse of feelings, excuses, and rationales.  Come, it says, escape in alcohol, drugs, sex, or any means of self absorption … even death. You can avoid facing the pain and truth you feel.  Come, escape. 

When you feed your mind with how hard and bad your life is, you have taken the bait. Every bait has a hook (substance, attitude, hard heart) and Satan pulls us to and fro and reels us closer and closer to destruction, to confusion, hopelessness, condemnation, and believing we are unlovable and unloved. Satan steals our peace by highlighting and twisting what we perceive as our mistreatment, and the void of love in our life. We become angry, bitter, defensive and hard hearted. Our stone heart allows us to be angry at people and use blame and self defense as a justification for acting immoral, mean, and hateful to others. He begins to destroy us from the inside out - and it all starts in our heart and mind. His whole purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy.

We all live in this imperfect world and must endure circumstances, situations, and experiences that are often horrible, and we may have no control over them. Only through Christ can we choose to see ourselves as new creatures every day.  Through Christ, we take every thought captive; we can live in His love, grace, and mercy.  He has given us this power through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. God says He will make a way, He will give us strength. He will deliver us from things, He will carry or walk with us through the fires in our lives, or He will deliver us into His arms. He knows what we need to make us rely and trust in Him. When we know who we are in Christ, we will learn and grow from every hardship that comes our way. We will look for our lesson; we will see challenges as a process of growing and not as a punishment.

God is the only one who can help, shield, protect, and arm you against Satan. When you don’t have a personal relationship with Him and don’t read His word, you are choosing to face Satan and his army naked and alone, on a hill, in the middle of a hurricane! Satan promises riches, power, and popularity, but they all blow away in the wind. He cannot promise that we will reign for all eternity as coheirs with him.  Only Christ can promise that, and He does. Satan never says he will love us and protect us. His goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. Only with God can we overcome the tragedies and turmoil of life.

Who will you love, trust, and believe, God or Satan? 

The Why Question?

I wasted years of my life asking why some things happened. Why did I feel so invisible? Why did I feel I was ever never good enough or special in my parents’ eyes? Why did I stay in an abusive marriage for thirteen years?

The focus of why questions in painful situations are centered on finding fault or blame. My desire to make sense of my emotional pain as a little girl and teenager left me feeling sorry for myself, ensnaring me in believe I was bad, faulty, and, worst of all, not worthy of being loved. My mind created a message that because there was no good or value in me, whatever went wrong was my fault and I never deserved or could count on anything good happening to me. I tried and tried to be good to earn love and a better life. I didn’t realize I was taking on the responsibility of other people’s bad words and behaviors. I didn’t know there was another way to think and function.

With God’s revelation, His love, and the power of His words in the Bible, I finally saw how I was wonderfully made. It took me years to understand and to believe that I was worth dying for, that the Creator and King of all Kings did this for me - not just for others, but for me. Belief in Christ and the knowledge of my worth in Him, then learning how humans are to treat one another, helped me seek other people to help me understand and learn new tools to live a healthy life. With my new worth and power through Christ, understanding, knowledge, and tools, I began to trust myself to make my own decisions and change the disaster that was my life.

Our growth and transformation takes a lifetime. While we are on this earth we are all in different places and have unique abilities, personalities, and purposes. To ask someone why in a painful situation we can’t comprehend is to smack them upside the head while they are already on the ground bleeding. We are all searching for answers. Maybe the best thing we can do is help them know they have value in the eyes of the Creator of the Universe.  If we help them learn who they are in Christ, give them tools to develop healthy ways to tackle life, and encourage and empower them to trust themselves, they will take control of their lives. It’s not our job to tell them what to do because that steals their opportunity to think and act. If you want to help, love them like Christ does first and ask better questions later.

When has the question why hurt you?

My Difference is My Gift

One of our strongest human desires and needs is to belong to a family or group. We often want to hide our differences or to morph ourselves into what we perceive the group accepts or wants to ensure we will belong. When we don’t fit into the group we are splintered with rejection and a false belief there is something wrong with us.  In other words, we believe our difference is bad. 

I have struggled against my uniqueness in the past. I’ve felt deserted, invisible, and in despair. Now I see God made each and every one of us wonderfully different on purpose! He’s given each of us gifts to serve Him and others. God specifically states we were all created to be different because we all have a different place and function within the body or family of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:15-25). ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

Maybe one of my gifts is to let others know they are not alone.  No matter how unique they are or what they have done in the past, with Christ they are welcomed, hurts are healed, and they are made new. He loved, accepted and welcomed the murders, thieves, prostitutes, and liars while He walked this earth. And He loves you. Your sinful past or current condition doesn’t condemn your future when Christ is in you.

Our creator made us all different but with equal importance. Many have seen and still see the difference of love, grace, and mercy in Christ as a weakness. Yet for these reasons He was able to endure the pain and suffering of the cross to ensure we would have eternal life. Often our differences in looks, abilities, and talents have the potential to give us the confidence to illuminate this dark world.

When we accept God into our hearts, we are instantly adopted by the King of Kings and belong to the family of God. We don’t need to strive for the approval of other humans but only for the honor of our Father God and King, the keeper of eternity (Galatians 1:10).

Am I now trying to win human approval or God’s approval? Am I only trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. While I serve Him on this earth, I won’t allow Satan or others to tell me my differences make me an outcast.  I know I have a place, importance, and purpose. The creator of the universe loves me and accepts me; therefore, I will love and embrace myself. 

It’s up to each person to embrace and learn about our gifts and how we can use them. Will we choose to embrace our uniqueness and love ourselves and serve God and others; or will we spend our life trying to be something we aren’t and end up with bitterness, resentment, and revenge. Will we end our life with joy and contentment that we used our uniqueness to better the world or will we die with regrets and anger? What will you choose?