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Mother's Day

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How are you planning to honor your mom this coming weekend for Mother’s Day? There are some of you that have a great relationship with your mom and can’t wait to honor her this weekend.  There are some who have lost your mom and even through tears and a broken heart, you will pay tribute to her memory this weekend because she was great and your love for her uncomplicated.  There are those of us though that have a different story, our relationships with our mothers are complicated, both in life and in death. Scripture speaks of honoring our mother and father several times, but it starts in Exodus 20:12 as part of the Ten Commandments.  Let me ask you this though, is it hard to honor your mom daily, let alone on Mother’s Day. I used to go to the card section and look at card after card and walk away disgruntled.  Not only did I not find a card, but I would feel worse for having looked. It was just yet another reminder that I didn’t have the relationship with my mom I s

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

Honor Thy Father

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If you read last week’s blog,  19, Knocked up & No Good , you got a snapshot of what life was like at home for me with my verbally and emotionally abusive dad.  I wrote last week's blog as a stand-alone blog about ministering to post-abortive women but…  As I read it and reread it, what stood out to me most was my dad.  My father was so much more than the snapshot I have given you.  Even though our history was tainted by the ugliness of abuse, he and I are so much the same.  We both wanted to be good but didn't know how.  We both desired acceptance, but it had always been just out of reach.   After he died and I healed from the hurt, which you can read about here . The Lord opened my eyes to a whole other side of who my father was.  He had his own story of abuse. I would love to tell you that my dad and I found healing before he died, but we didn’t.  Our last interaction was full of hurt, anger, and self-righteousness. Let me show you a different side of the man who wa

Sunday Morning Sadness

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My time with the Lord started quietly in confession last Sunday morning.  I had been up for hours and had sat through a good sermon, but my time with the Lord began at the end of the service when the pastor invited us to the communion table. It was at that moment I remembered that the Lord was with me, he knew what no one else could see. I was saddened by loss of friendship and connection. It's tempting to look back and grieve what was because it’s gone.  It’s a much harder task for some of us to look back and rejoice for having moments that have brought joy when they are no longer there. As a Military Spouse, you learn quickly that things change fast and that means that friends come and go in what seems like a blink of an eye. Before you know it time flies and it’s been 5, 10, or 15 years since you have seen people you once did everyday life with. Sometimes there is a friendship that comes along where the connection is immediate. It's like you have known each ot

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