God is Always with Us.

I am the little girl on the right. Left of me is my older sister. Behind me stands my mother and to her right is her best friend.

"O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. 

And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come."   Psalm 71:17,18

Because I am 67, and been a Christian since I was 19, I sometimes think of all God has done for me through the years and I thought it might encourage someone who reads this post.

As a little child: My parents took us to church each week. There, I learned there is a God.I learned that God sees everything we do, that he made the earth and everything on it. This has helped me all my life, because I see many people think God doesn’t hear them. I know he always hears everyone. I know he is there for me whenever I need him.

A teenager: God did not let me die as a teen. It could have happened many times while driving drunk or being in the car with drunk drivers. I remember one time I was driving a bunch of my friends down a mountain. It started to snow and became very cold. I had never driven in that kind of weather. We were in California, and had gone to Big Bear Lake. We had gone to a cabin, smoked pot and drank that day.

As I came along a curve, I could feel the car moving towards the oncoming lane. I braked, but kept sliding. We started heading toward the edge of the road and the cliff. There were no guardrails. We were going to go over the edge; I had no control of the car whatsoever.

But the car moved back into my lane. I believe it was a miracle, and I thank God for it. I can still see myself that day in the car, terrified at what was going to happen.

My 20s:  After I gave myself to the Lord, I was happy and excited. I had no idea how little I knew about him. Because the church I had been raised in stressed keeping the Commandments and never sinning, I eventually became afraid. When I would sin or just make a mistake, I figured God would send lightening and kill me. I couldn’t believe God could love a person like me.

When your belief in God is like this, you become judgemental because you also think all other Christians should be perfect and never sin or make mistakes. Well, that is not reality, so I became critical of people.

I was married at this time to a non-believer. He was angry I became a Christian. I have to admit, I don’t blame him since he married a girl who loved parties and drinking. Now he had this self-righteous person on his hands. I refused to go to parties and I quit drinking.

Eventually, we separated and were divorced. I was devastated, because I loved him so much. He and his mother tried to talk me into giving up being a Christian because it was ruining our marriage. I remember his mother asking, “Why do you want to be a Christian?” I looked at her like she was crazy, “Because I want eternal life.”  

I could not understand how anyone would not want that. I could not understand these people who were not afraid to die unsaved.

I didn’t know God in the right way, so I didn’t answer, “Because I love God.” I didn’t love God, I was afraid of him. But I wanted my daughters and myself to live in heaven together forever. I wouldn’t give up the dream of that for anything.

Well, I was going to write about my whole life in one post. Lol  Yeah, that’s not going to happen. So, I will close with this thought, God was with me during this terrible time of my family breaking apart and seeing my husband fall in love with another woman. It was painful, but God was with me.

A Slow Burn.

I had never heard of Francois Fenelon (1651- 1715) until last week. He was an archbishop in the Catholic Church. I came across a letter he had written to a close friend. I immediately related to its content. For years I used to wonder why God didn't make me good/perfect as soon as I gave my life to him. I thought my obedience was important to God and I wanted to be good/perfect, so why wouldn't he do it?

Eventually, I learned from the Bible that our growth in Christ is a slow growth. Jesus said, "First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens."  Mark 4:26

 I concluded that perfect obedience was not as important to God as it was to me. Or, perfect obedience must come through learning and learning takes time.  

I think the reason I wanted to be perfect is so I could be sure of going to heaven. I thought if I sinned I might not be able to go. I had a lot to learn about God and Salvation.

Here is the letter:

"Do you wonder why God has to make it so hard on you? Why doesn’t He make you good without making you miserable in the meantime? Of course He could, but He does not choose to do so. He wants you to grow a little at a time and not burst into instant maturity. This is what He has decided and you can only adore His wisdom— even when you don’t understand it.

I am awed by what suffering can produce. You and I are nothing without the cross. I agonize and cry when the cross is working within me, but when it is over I look back in admiration for what God has accomplished. Of course I am then ashamed that I bore it so poorly. I have learned so much from my foolish reactions.

You yourself must endure the painful process of change. There is much more at work here than your instant maturity. God wants to build a relationship with you that is based on faith and trust and not on glamorous miracles.

God uses the disappointments, disillusionments, and failures of your life to take your trust away from yourself and help you put your trust in Him. It is like being burned in a slow fire, but you would rather be burned up in a blaze of glory, wouldn’t you? How would this fast burn detach you from yourself? Thus God prepares events to detach you from yourself and from others.

God is your Father, do you think He would ever hurt you? He just cuts you off from those things you love in the wrong way. You cry like a baby when God removes something or someone from your life, but you would cry a lot more if you saw the eternal harm your wrong attachments cause you.

You do not see with the eyes of eternity. God knows everything. Nothing happens without His consent. You are upset by small losses, but do not see eternal gains! Don’t dwell on your suffering. Your over-sensitivity makes your trials worse. Abandon yourself to God.

Everything in you that is not already a part of the established kingdom of God needs the cross. When you accept the cross in love, His kingdom begins to come to life within you. You must bear the cross and be satisfied with what pleases God. You have need of the cross. The faithful Giver of every good gift gives the cross to you with His own hand. I pray you will come to see how blessed it is to be corrected for your own good.

My God, help us to see Jesus as our model in all suffering. You nailed Him to the cross for us. You made Him a man of sorrows to teach us how useful sorrow is. Give us a heart to turn our backs on ourselves and trust only in You."

God, Gays, and Alcoholics.

Photo by: Farragutful

I wish I understood more about living with God and learning his ways. More about how things work. I left my local church for a lot of reasons, the main one being how mean people were. Most people there would find fault with other members, and they would confront people right in the foyer in the church! They would accuse people of breaking the Sabbath, singing songs that weren't the right "kind" of songs, etc. I got sick of it and thought, "I'll never bring anyone to this church again."  Then I thought, "Well, why am I here then?" And after 24 years, I left.

Later on, I had a breakdown when I remembered all the abuse my father had piled on me. I was a wreck; I could barely function. I started therapy but also started drinking so I wouldn't feel so sad. I drank off and on for 10 years drinking more and more. I started praying about it and finally quit because one day God just took the desire away from me. I was thankful.

During that time, I also started smoking. I'm still smoking. I've prayed and tried to quit but I haven't yet. So, I wonder about all this. I believe God was with me all the time, helping me to heal, but now I think, "It was good I left the church when I did because they wouldn't have waited 10 years for me to stop drinking. They would have given me a hard time about it." Then I wondered if I had felt I could be open with Christians, maybe they could have encouraged me and prayed with me all those years; or would they have just said I wasn't truely converted?

Then there is a sister of mine. She is gay and in a comitted relationship with one woman. She is an amazing woman; she gives out Bibles and studies with people she meets. She was homeless and met a lot of hurting and mentally ill people she helped. God is working with and through her all the time. Yet, religious people tell me she is not saved; it doesn't matter what she does, she is living in sin.

Well, maybe she is in a way. It depends how you interpret the Bible. Sure it says not to sleep with the same sex, but it also has always said not to commit adultery. The men in the Old Testament had lots of wives; they comitted adultery all their lives and God said nothing. Scholars say, "Well, that was in their culture at the time." Okay, fine, in our time there are lots of gay people. So, if you can excuse heterosexual men for having multiple wives, why can't you excuse gay people for loving and having one partner? I can't see it.

So, I am confused about a lot of things. Jesus was so inclusive. He never turned anyone away. He was patient with people, not expecting perfection. Then you read Paul's letters and it's like we should be perfect - these paragons of virtue. When a person is converted everyone acts like they should never sin again. Really? Is that possible?

Oh well, that's where I am at now. Dazed and confused about living the Christian life, but still loving God and knowing he loves me. Hopefully, that's all that matters.