Faith & Family

I’ve been embarrassed at least twice in my life—both times when my parents and I were eating out with friends.

One time, I told a friend I would be glad to eat out with him for his birthday. I asked him if it would be okay if we ate at a fish place. He agreed. When the time came to order our food, he ordered a hamburger. I was embarrassed when he told me he didn’t like fish. I was glad the restaurant had something else he wanted.

The other time, I invited two of my friends out to eat for my birthday. We went to a taco restaurant. One of them told me it was my birthday, and I could eat wherever I wanted. I only chose the taco place because it was his favorite place to eat, but I’d eaten at one of the same restaurants before and found something I liked. This time, however, when we went, what I thought was the right thing was a taco shell with chicken and everything in it. My parents had to take me somewhere else after my friends finished eating.

But there is one place we won’t be embarrassed, and that’s when we see Jesus. We sure don’t want to be embarrassed then, whether at the judgment seat of Christ or the Great White Throne judgment.

Let’s avoid embarrassment. Let’s do as much as possible for the Lord because we love Him. And if you don’t know Christ, ask Him now to forgive you and start doing good works.

(Photo courtesy of pixabay and mintchipdesigns.)

Pornography destroys trust and intimacy in a marriage.

I experienced the agony of betrayal in my marriage. Life as I had known it crashed down on me. I discovered my husband’s infidelity with his pornography/sex addiction in our marriage of thirty-one years. The person I loved and trusted the most in the world betrayed me.

I am not sure I have ever felt anything so brutal and painful. I felt an array of feelings: shock, isolation, shame, anger, fear, pain. It was as if I were alone in the wilderness—hopeless, frightened, and unsure of my direction. I was confused.

My mind spiraled all over the place. I felt as if I were going crazy. Being injured this way carries with it devastating consequences that cause profound spiritual, emotional, and physiological wounds that impacted me to the core.

The psalmist says God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. But I never thought I’d be where I am. I never imagined I could recover from this pain, nor did I ever think I could speak with clarity of what God has done in mine and my husband’s life. Yet through this trial, I developed an intimate relationship with Christ. I have seen God work miracles in my husband and in me, and our marriage has turned around.

I still have those trigger moments when I fall back to my old ways of rage, anger, and pain. I allow intrusive thoughts to hijack my mind and the lies to surface: I am not good enough; I am worthless.

The triggers are not as fast and furious and happen less as I realize my identity in Christ—I am loved, accepted, and complete in Jesus Christ. Through a renewed faith in God, the Holy Spirit began a healing journey in our marriage. We started trusting in God.

My husband and I have grown through this pain. We are now open with each other and put God first in our marriage. God has faithfully been with me every step of the way. Through this journey, I have taken to God’s Word daily, journaling any thoughts He gives me. His Word becomes alive and new every morning.

Don’t believe Satan’s lies when you are wounded. Let God heal your broken heart.

(Photo courtesy of pixabay and Vika_Glitter.)

Maps can be fascinating. They date back centuries and were vital for survival from the earliest times. And they are still necessary for travel and exploration by land, sea, air, and space. Although modern technologies provide maps on our personal devices, which is convenient, I still enjoy pouring over paper maps.

On our family vacation trips, I collected new maps at service stations along our travel route and poured over them for hours, spotting where we had been and plotting where we were going. Years later, I used my mapping skills in one of my first jobs to verify where our drivers transported products so I could pay for them.

Pirates dreamed of great wealth as they followed buried-treasure maps. The path of life can be mysterious, like searching for a pirate’s treasure, but the Bible tells us God will show us the path of life. He has it all plotted out. If we continue to obey Him, He will lead us forward. 

Geographically speaking, I’ve always had a pretty good sense of direction. When I remain in God’s presence and seek the right path for my life, I discover fullness of joy. I see how God works in amazing ways in the ups and downs to bring me to a better place. The map He’s developed for me is personalized, not mass-produced. No one else can follow its course, directions, or intricate roads with twists and turns. 

The joys and pleasures I’ve experienced are a gift from God—not only for the present time but for all time. In His right hand are pleasures forever more. 

Make sure you follow the road that leads to the joys God has for you.

(Photo courtesy of pixabay and milivigerova.)

There it was again. A faint chirping-squeak had wormed its way into my consciousness. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, I was on the front porch of our Tennessee ridge-top home, in my favorite chair, reading from my Kindle. 

Did I say it was quiet? It was, exceptionally so. Even without adding any man-made noise, Mother Nature can be pretty distracting with her ambient sounds. Leaves rustling on the breeze, dogs barking, coyotes howling, mama cats calling their little ones to supper, one hundred songbirds all trying to entertain with their different melodies at the same time, red tail hawks calling to each other from high on the rising thermals, distant thunder, a handful of cows in the pasture across the valley below me mooing and lowing, and the pair of horses that shared their three acres of grazing land with the cows, nickering, and neighing in return. It could be quite the symphony.

However, it was as if Mother Nature had decided to take a break from her usual symphony. An unusual quiet and stillness, like the hush of a new snowfall, filled the air.

Except that is, for that increasingly annoying barely heard chirping squeak. I turned the Kindle over in my hands and then held it to my ear. I had never known it to make a noise before, but I suppose there was a first time for everything. However, the Kindle remained silent.

And then, just as my eyes had picked up reading where they had left off, I caught a flickering movement in my peripheral vision. Shimmering in the sun, a tiny hummingbird darted into the hanging feeder for its bounty of sugar water. Sometimes, with the larger hummingbirds, you hear the low thrum of its wings beating furiously against the air. But often, the smaller ones are simply silent. As was this one. It drank and then hovered silently for a second before returning for a second sip.

And then, in the extraordinary still and quiet of that afternoon, I heard it. The little hummingbird chirped. That was the noise I had listened to all along: a tiny hummingbird's equally tiny chirp. It was only in the soundless hush that I could hear it. And it was amazing.

The Word tells me that hearing God's voice is like that. I must quiet all the irreverent and random noise in my head and heart to discern my Lord speaking to me. I don't do it as well as I should, but I'm trying. Maybe that's what the hummingbird wanted to tell me: to keep trying.

Make sure your world is quiet enough to hear God's voice.

When my kids were young, I volunteered at their school, reading books aloud. I’m not a talented storyteller and could not do different voices for different characters. But I did show up faithfully and genuinely loved the kids.

One day I was in a local store when I saw one of the students. She caught my attention because she was fangirling, tugging on her mom to point me out. Her mother, of course, did not recognize me. It took a minute for her to decipher her daughter’s gushing praise and figure out who I was: a celebrity at her school.

This simple encounter underscored the importance of faithfulness. We underestimate its impact. We don’t have to be brilliantly talented to make a difference. The smallest acts, done with consistency and kindness, can make us a big deal to somebody. There’s only room for a limited number of traditional celebrities, but we can all be one by the above definition.

Don’t feel as if your small contributions make no difference. Think about whose life you can impact.  

(Photo courtesy of pixabay and zgl19931111.)