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Showing posts with the label Love

Love Is:

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My bible study left me without words tonight.  1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 is a well-quoted verse of scripture. So often though we can quote this verse and have very little understanding of what it means or what Love really looks like.  How many times have we said "I love you", be it to a friend, family member or spouse and then said something harsh or did something ugly? How many times have we seen Love distorted by sin? I am challenged by these words. I am left undone at the thought of how I love and how I am loved.  Will you be left undone as well? Love is Patient : Even when you feel like forcefully expressing yourself.  Love bears pain, or trials without complaint showing forbearance under provocation or strain and is steadfast despite opposition, difficulty or adversity. Love is Kind : Even when you want to retaliate physically or tear down another with your words.  Love is sympathetic, considerate, gentle and agreeable. Love is not Arrogant : Even whe

Glory

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                        I woke up this morning intending to do a FB Live video. January has been a month of bringing awareness to  Post-abortive Healing.  I wanted to address a question that I have heard through the years about abortion.  That did not happen.     The sky over the mountain range was beautiful and inviting.  The sun was out and warm, but the wind was strong.  I like to record from different places in the city, but recording would have to be done from an enclosed location due to the wind, so off I went to look for the perfect place.   Once I found a place I liked, I started to gather my thoughts.  I can’t talk about this subject without talking about her. It should not be a surprise by now, but sometimes I am still caught off guard by how much I am moved by her.   Even though I have never seen her.  The child I was once afraid to acknowledge, even to myself, is now a part of my daily life. Though I cannot touch her and I don't know what sh

A Girl and Her Dad

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If you have read the recent posts, 19, Knocked up & no good  , Honor Thy Father , you have been given a small picture of me, my dad, and generational sin. The conclusion to this is about the Lord and his hand upon my life even before I knew him. It's about how he provided the way for me to find healing and forgiveness and love after abuse. I was 16 years old when my father almost drank himself to death. He had stripped the lining of his esophagus and was bleeding internally so severely that they weren't sure if they could save him. They told us that if he lived through the night, he would not live another five years. I went into that hospital chapel that Christmas night, and I prayed to God, whom I did not know, for my father to die. This was a result of all the verbal and emotional abuse that happened in my home. I thought life would be so much better without him. The Lord disagreed; my father made it through the night and lived another 25 years with a cirr

Alone at Christmas

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As a child, I loved Christmas. I believed in magical things like the North Pole, Santa Clause, flying reindeer, and elves. It was easy to imagine Santa flying all over the world. It was not just about the presents he was bringing but the fact that he would be visiting the home of every child in the world. We all were waiting for his arrival.   There was the great anticipation of Christmas Eve and the joy of Christmas morning.  Even in all of the excitement of the day, there was still a longing I couldn't quite grasp.  There was something about being united in something, but I didn't know what that was until I was older.  This longing still lives in my memory. The picture is of a community gathered around a giant Christmas tree in the city square, snow falling, lights twinkling, everyone singing Christmas carols.  The gift being, everyone knowing that they are where they belong, with friends, with family, with people they love.    In this idealistic fantasy there is no o

Grace Like Rain

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“And Hallelujah, Grace like rain falls down on me” The first time I heard these lyrics, there was a three-fold reaction, heartbreak, surrender, and belief.  To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you which one came first.  It was the moment I become acutely aware of my sinful nature, the Lord’s love, and God’s willingness to show me the grace I did not deserve.  Somewhere there had to be knowledge of these things when I gave my life to the Lord, but the understanding of these things became so much more clear when I heard this song.  I have struggled most of my Christian walk to fall in line with the rest of the Body of Christ.  There was always this thought that I could never be as “good” as them.  I didn’t realize that I had been trying to live down a reputation that haunted me for years.  I wanted so badly to be “good” and have a reputation that was fitting of a good Christian woman.  The thought was, to fit in with them, I had to be like them, and I wasn’t.              “And Hal