Great is Thy Faithfulness

I was up again lastnight! Tossing & turning, analyzing my to-do list and balancing my checkbook in my head. Worrying about bills that needed to be paid and Christmas gifts that precious children had on their wishlist. While I am sure I am not alone in this nightly ritual, few of us will admit that our worries visit us at night and rob us of our sleep. Although, I am very familiar with that old adage, "It's always darkest before the dawn", I find no comfort in it. It is dark outside and my mind is consumed with worry.
I finally get out of bed so not to wake the Dr. and I wander into the livingroom, turn on the TV, hoping to find something that will distract me from these lingering, worrisome thoughts. Of course, out of 500 some channels, I find nothing worth watching, and nothing to lighten the load residing in my mind. Atlast, I settle on a program that I am hopeful will 'settle' my mind. My stomach starts growling and so I decide to eat a little something. I go into the kitchen and get some tortilla chips, come back to my 'therapist', and start munching out. The crunch is so loud in my ears that I have to turn up the volume on the TV and so I sit, eat, and watch until I am satisfied and sleepy.
I return to bed, a little less worried, or atleast tired enough to drift off into oblivion. Next thing I know, I hear birds singing and I see sun shimmering through my blinds and it is morning. The first thought that comes to my mind is the scripture from the bible that reads, "His mercies are new every morning." I'm paraphrasing here because the actual scripture comes from Lamentations 3:22 & 23 and it reads, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness." But what came to my mind was "His mercies are new every morning", and the song "Great is Thy Faithfulness" was playing in my head. The worry had subsided with the night and the sun was coming up and everything was okay.
I know this doesn't seem like anything worth writing about but you have to realize, I have not been to church in about two years and I rarely, if ever, listen to worship music. So to wake up with a scripture in my head and worship playing background music caused me to take notice. I had studied the bible, at length, for years and so of course I got up and immediately went to my Vine's Expository Dictionary and looked up the word 'mercy'. I knew what it meant, but I wanted to get the root meaning. It basically means compassion. So God's compassion is new every morning, right?
That was not going to be enough for me! I don't know why but I always feel the need to dig deeper, like an old miner, mining for gold, I sift through the muck & mire for hours, for that one speck of shimmering rock. Why do the worries of the world comsume our minds at night but in the morning seem so trivial? Well, the scripture right before verse 22 says, "This I recall to my mind therefore have I hope." In the night, when all seems overwhelmingly impossible, I have to recall, bring back, into my mind all of God's goodness and yes, mercy. Mercy is God's unmerited favor. It is not conditioned by what you do or who you are. You cannot earn it. It is a gift. Therefore, you cannot take claim of it. You cannot buy it no matter how rich you are. You cannot store it up like a hoarder, and there is no reason to, because you are given a fresh batch of 'mercy' every morning.
So, where do we go from here? Will I wake up with worries another night? Probably, but the good news is, I will re-member God's words and I will have hope. No TV show or tortilla chip can give me solace, but his words are like manna from heaven, they feed my soul. Great is Thy faithfulness. I leave you with the words from this song "Great is Thy Faithfulness".

Great is thy faithfulness,

Great is thy faithfulness,

Morning by morning new mercies I see,

All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided,

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

Bless Your Enemies

Roman 12:14 "Bless those who persecute you........."

Have you ever read this scripture and immediately responded outloud or with your inside voice, "Heck No!!!"? Well, I know I have! It is so hard to wrap our minds around this lesson. How in the world do you Bless those who persecute you? Well, being that I didn't understand this concept of forgiveness, God, or whatever you choose to label that all powerful force that we eminate from, was gracious enough to teach me this lesson.

Now mind you, I was not sitting at a desk, at the local college, with proper lighting, books, pencils, and such. No, no, I was taught this lesson on the stage of life. You see, we call into our lives the lessons we NEED to learn to BE who we were predestined to be, way back when we were still in the arms of our Papa. So, here's how it all played out.

My husband and I built our dream house out in the country five years ago, and oh were we happy the day we moved in. Little did we know that a lesson was about to be taught. You see, we moved into an all military neighborhood right outside of Jacksonville, NC. From the get-go, I noticed the neighbors were not so friendly, and then as the days passed they became downright hateful.

Now we didn't know them, had not, to our knowledge done anything to offend them but we were not welcomed and they made it painfully clear. Now I can take about anything, but one thing I cannot and will not tolerate is people being cruel to children. The neighborhood ladies, and I use that term begrudgedly, had a little club and we were not part of it and our children were not part of it. They encouraged their children to only play with certain "military" children and totally ostracized our children. This was so hard for me to understand being that I was not coming from a place of hate and anger, and obviously they were.

Well, I thought, I'll get'em. I'm gonna kill them with kindness and repay their evil with good. Hahahaha, the laugh was on me. That did exactly what the bible says it will do, "....place hot heaping coals upon their heads." Not what you want to do with individuals who already have an arsenal of hot heaping coals. These were obviously very damaged people and no amount of loving kindness, until they were ready, was going to penetrate the vault door that their heart lay behind.

Being only human, there were many times that I got angry, especially when the attacks were aimed at my children, and acted in a not so lady like way. I just didn't understand how people could be so cruel and exchange evil for good so easily. It was as if they enjoyed it! Like it was their favorite passtime. During this trial, I heard a quote that I'll never forget and it was, "Gossip is the cheapest form of entertainment." Wow! So, unfortunately, we were their entertainment.

I spent a many a night on bended knee because of their persecution of me and my family. We did not fit in, we were different. We had a different belief system, and although we didn't push it on to them or judge them for their beliefs or lifestyle, we were bullied because we were different. I cannot tell you how many hours, in the wee hours of the morning, that I scoured over the book of Psalm in the bible. The funny thing is it seemed like all the things God said would happen to people like them wasn't happening. It almost seemed like things were getting worse for us. I was like, "Hey, we're the good guys, what's up with that?" I have learned a lot since I made that comment to Papa.

Eventually, we moved on. We rented out our dream house, moved back home, and left that desolate place. That experience pushed me beyond my limits to a place that I never thought I could reach. That horrible experience, where I felt like I was being crucified on a daily basis, pushed me to become a better, more balanced, and grateful being. Out of such tragedy came a masterpiece. I finally got it! Yes, my lightbulb moment had arrived. I understood what he meant by "bless those who persecute you". Bless means "to be happy", and so, I was to be "happy" not for them, but that I had called them into my life to help me grow, evolve into a better person.

If they had not come, I would not have learned such a valuable lesson. I now understand more, not completely, Christ's Crucifixion". If his best friend had not sold him out for 30 pieces of silver, he would have been denied his God-given calling. If the Jews did not demand his crucifixion, you would not have your forgiveness. If the Roman soldiers had refused to beat and whip him, you would not have your healing, for by His stripes you are healed. If the Roman soldiers had not humiliated him while at the same time nailing his flesh to a cross, you would not have your deliverance. If he had called on 10,000 angels to save him, you would not have your salvation.

Bless your enemies, not for them, but because of them, you can be what you were predestined to be. We grow during the adverse times, in the midst of the storm. I grew from that experience and became stronger, more tolerant, and much more wiser. Their persecution lifted me up onto the cross I had to bear, and although I thought many times what Jesus said, "Abba, father, why have you forsaken me?", I know now that he was there all the while and smiling down upon his child, and oh so proud that I call him Papa.