Even Brick Walls Can Fall

Four years ago, I was a very different woman. I was spiritually lost, battling addiction, and refusing to admit that life had spiraled wildly out of control. My life was in shambles and I drank to numb the pain of unhealed trauma and hurt. Years of sadness and isolation had compromised my mental health and I found myself sick and not able to go on any longer. I could sense that something was about to happen - that I was on the cusp of either an untimely demise or a complete resurrection of the soul. But I didn’t feel deserving of the latter.

I remember vividly the night a dark and evil force visited me in my sleep. It was very hard for me to sleep in those days, because my sickness created an intense insomnia. I kind of hovered in this purgatory of sweat and sadness, waiting for dawn to come and for the liquor store to open. I had drifted off to sleep for just a moment and in this deep sleep felt a strong hand gripping the back of my neck and it forcing my face into my pillow. Panicking, I willed myself to wake up only to find that this was not a dream and I was truly being held down. My mind raced - had an intruder come into my home? Was this how it all ended? I fought violently, kicking and screaming into my pillowcase. Finally, after an intense struggle, the hand loosened and I sprang up, ready to defend myself. To my terror and surprise, there was no one there. My eyes sprung with tears immediately, because I knew I had just been visited by a very evil force and it was there and then that I shouted out to God for help.

As a little girl, I believed that God rebuked sinners - that they were exempt from His love and not worthy of Heaven. I don’t quite believe that was what was taught to me in my Bible school, but it is what I grew to believe and it damaged my relationship with God so severely that I strayed away from Him. My faith in God never left, but I did not believe that I was morally fit for Him. This belief stayed with me until I was in my mid-30’s.

Months before the night I was visited by this dark force, I found myself going back to church. Sometimes I would stumble into a sanctuary very drunk, desperate to hear a message that would send me a sign that would give me direction. I had lost everything, including my job, and I would be homeless within the next few weeks. The messages that I heard there taught me about a much different God than the one I knew, one who saves the sick and suffering.

Each sin I committed was a 

heavy 

brick 

that built a wall 

between me and my heavenly Father. 

The wall I built was so high that I thought surely He had just walked away and completely given up on me. What I found, though, was that God had drawn even closer to me and was waiting for that moment of absolute surrender. Right behind the wall I had constructed, he was patiently waiting for me. The night I called out to him, he threw his arms around me and lifted the weight that had been bearing down on my heart for a very long time. The sense of relief and protection I felt was immediate. I slept soundly for the rest of the night and the next day, I reached out for help and received the gift of drug and alcohol rehab.

The day that I owned my sin and repented was a pivotal point of my eternal salvation. To me, surrender is necessary for salvation. By turning absolutely everything over to God, I found that He will never leave me. I am human, and I will sin, but I must never let that change the relationship that I have with Him.

Isaiah 44:22 I have swept away your offensees like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you...

“In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭15:7

Today’s Guest Blog was contributed by Julie. 

Julie Kennedy is a member of LCBC Church in Lancaster, PA. She is celebrating four years sober from drugs and alcohol and considers God her accountability partner in recovery. She has recently gone back to college to earn her bachelor's degree in Social Work and hopes to work with individuals who, like herself, have found themselves overcome by addiction.

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Refinement

August 9th. 

My due date. 

A baby I loved so deeply. A baby I’ll always remember. A season of my life I never want to forget about. I want healing, but I don’t want loss of memory. 

I didn’t have the gumption for this on the day I thought I should have. THE day - August 9. The due date for Baby January. This was our first miscarriage. I say first because we have lost baby July now, too. I haven’t processed Baby July yet, because I’m still mourning Baby January. We got to see our first baby 3 times before he was gone by the third ultrasound. And frankly, I’m still in the pits of it all. March will probably be hard too. Not that I want it to be hard, but I know that when it comes, it’ll hit me hard. 

I really feel for Scott. He is struggling with this all too and trying to support me in the process. I’m not much of a flat line either. I’m either sobbing or yelling or just downright grouchy. A hot mess, honestly. I don’t mean to be this way. What do you do when the enemy comes and steals from you what isn’t his to take? Jesus redeems. That’s all I have and really all I’ll ever have. He redeems, period. Truthfully - I don’t need anything else except that. The steadfast power of the Word that He will redeem all that is broken and use it for His glory. Maybe He will show us that while we are here in this earthly home. Or, maybe we need to get to Him first to see the redemption. 

I am not just a biological mom and a foster mom, but a mom of 4. Two on this side of heaven, and two with our Maker. Recently a friend of mine worded it this way - “If I’m going to be Pro-Life, I’m going to be it in all things!” She is spot on . . . I have always stood Pro-Life; But, now more than ever. There is no other way. Jesus said this first. We are here to carry on his words - all of them. Not just the ones that fit our culture today. His word is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Life begins with Him and it begins at conception. I miss my babies.

My marriage has changed - for the better - but so drastically in the last 9 months that I don’t want to ever forget or get used to what things used to be like. Scott and I’s marriage wasn’t bad, please don’t lose me here. We just, weren’t connected. We weren’t attending the same church - which is huge. We hadn’t been spending a lot of time together either. When we were together we were not intentional about our time. He was on his phone and I was on mine. We may have been watching a movie together but we weren’t even sitting close to one another on the couch. What happily married couple does that? Seriously, we were just two bodies. It’s not that we weren’t in love or were fighting, we just simply weren’t emotionally connected. We didn’t really think about it at the time either. We were just living. But, when we lost our baby . . . something changed. We started connecting more. Intimately, spiritually, physically - conversations became more in depth. We clearly heard God speak to us during those weeks. . . months. It’s those moments - when God is sitting in your living room with you; In your tears He is comforting and giving direction that couldn’t be more clear. Written right in the air. All we had to do was obey. We chose to do just that . . . We recognized that not being connected was going to lead us into sin and would, at some point, cause a huge issue within our marriage. God created marriage - mine - yours - for oneness, exclusively. 

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭12:1-2‬ ‭MSG‬‬

During this hard and painful season, we knew that we needed to turn away from selfish desires and actually focus on one another. “How are you, Scott? I missed you today. I love you so much! Thanks for working extra hours this week.” But even more then words of affirmation, we actually sit together on the couch now and hold hands. I try to go with Scott on errands he would normally do alone. We do more parenting together and have coffee when he gets home from work. I look forward to it and I feel so blessed to serve him. I’ll always give the disclaimer that we are not perfect people, our parenting isn’t perfect and our days are usually messy. It’s the intentionality that we have changed and are continually working to refine. I love refinement. Though, not in white flour. But in our faith journey - refinement is so good for us. We are more in tune with each other and with the Holy Spirit. 

In each one of these balloons is a mustard seed. Mark 4. We need faith the size of a mustard seed for God to grow the journey we are on. It may start small, but he will make it bigger than we ever dreamt of. I’m not on the other side of this yet. But, He is growing this mustard tree. 

“I’ll love you forever, my babies you’ll be”
I bet the heaven that Jesus is making is incredible. 

Save me a seat . . .


Today’s guest blog was contributed by Rachel Elliot. You can find her personal blog at Rich Faith Essentials on the BLOG tab.

“A little more about me. I’m Rachel. Lover of Jesus. Wife to Scott. Mom to three living girls, 1 biological, 2 foster and 2 in heaven. Chicken farmer of 12,000. I work entirely too hard. And I’m working on that sin of over doing it. I dye my hair red because it is the only part of life I have complete control over, while also being able to control the outcome :) I love gardening and canning. I drink too much coffee, not enough water, and my floors need mopped. I pray that our future is living on the farm with our yard filled with children.” 

Victory Through His Power

Even from a young age, I did not handle change well. I can remember coming home from a weekend vacation, unable to sleep with dread for the next school day. I remember tears, anxiety, and prayers with my parents. Fast forward many years and similar battles later, I can recognize and understand the trigger to these episodes. Since those childhood years, I have faced two major bouts of anxiety brought on by change, stress, and health-related concerns. 

People often comment that they're surprised that I deal with anxiety because I portray my self as confident and in control of my life. I admit that may be a fact that I'm not necessarily proud of. I believe in authenticity and being real with people, but I also believe in the power of choosing positive thoughts and not wallowing in self-pity. I recently have been reading "More Jesus Less Religion" by Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton and was struck by this excerpt on pages 92-93:

I have never known anyone to suffer more from being vulnerable than from being secretive about who they are. I've often said it would be better for our problems to be printed in the church bulletin and read by everyone on Sunday than for us to go to church without anyone knowing our struggles.

But if vulnerability is so good and so helpful, then why is it so hard for most of us to achieve? Why do so few of us risk it? 

I think a lot of us resist opening up because we're afraid others will ostracize us when they discover we're not perfect or that our image doesn't match reality. Many times our fear of being rejected prevents us from connecting with people who may have shared the same kinds of struggle we are facing. And somehow we don't see that by sharing we can give hope to fellow strugglers. So we protect ourselves and thus miss another opportunity to connect and to minister to people.

James 5:16 tells us, "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

This was such a powerful reminder that if we aren't confessing our struggles to others, how will we ever know how to support and pray for each other in our various battles? If we refuse vulnerability, not only do we miss the opportunity to heal, but we also surrender the chance to grow. In order to be healthy, we must sacrifice our pride and allow people to know where we are at physically, emotionally, and spiritually!

One of my earliest posts I wrote on my blog gave a raw and real glimpse into my reality on this journey: Waking in the early mornings shaking in fear, but not being able to mentally pinpoint what was causing my fear... sleeplessness...rapid breathing... racing heart...pacing... tense muscles... entire body shaking... chills... sweat... nausea. There were many dark days that I faced, but I never was alone. God always provided through His all-surpassing peace, the loving arms of my husband wrapped around me, the bold truth of Jesus' Word spoken over me by my mother, and the prayers of dear friends who I texted on the difficult days. 

This journey through anxiety has taught me that true, Christlike freedom can only be obtained after I repent from:

Playing God...I need to humbly recognize that I am not the one in control.

Pride...I need to humbly acknowledge that I have struggles and I will never be perfect this side of Heaven.

Fear...I need to recognize that fear is from the pit of hell and banish it from my mind and speech.

Anxiety seems to be a growing epidemic in our world and Satan keeps using it to tear us down and immobilize us. A quote that I have jotted in my journal from a speaker is, "Fear is an earth-centered reaction to distress, while faith is a God-centered response to life's tragedies." Let's strive to be God-centered and rooted in Him!

A favorite verse from my journal is taken from Psalm 112:7-8: "I will have no fear of bad news, my heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. My heart is secure, I will have no fear, in the end I will look with triumph over my foes." 

Wherever this post finds you today, remember that with the help of our Living God, anxiety no longer has bondage over our lives! Let His truth and love permeate through all of your being and may we all experience victory through His power!

Today's blog post was submitted by Melissa Zimmerman, a stay-at-home mom of three. Melissa is passionate about encouraging women in their faith journeys and writes on her blog at: controlrelinquished.blogspot.com. When she's not writing or mothering, you can find her involved in Women's Ministry her home church, Weaverland, or assisting her husband in their growing real estate company.

Pumpkin Scare

Pumpkin scare

A few months ago my Spicy Italian Meatball, Jemma Lynn, broke down in tears. There she sat, distraught and trembling in front of her barbies, and me. As the tears poured down her sweet round cheeks, a confession poured from her lips. “Mommy, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to take them, but I was playing with these Polly Pockets and they were so fun and I took them.” Come to find out she had stolen a handful of Polly Pockets from our new friends house. She sobbed and sobbed and we searched and searched for every tiny toy she had taken. Eventually she said, “It hurts SO bad, it literally feels like my heart is actually broken.” That’s when I said to her, “Jemma that is actually a GOOD thing. That’s Gods plan to help us to NEVER want to do that same sin again. He allows our hearts to FEEL the weight of our choices so that it helps us to REPENT and walk out continued repentance.” 

Another INCREDIBLE thing God does is wash us clean! The very INSTANT we ask Him for forgiveness He faithfully wipes our slate clean and gives us a fresh start. He covers us with the blood of Jesus and He sees us made NEW.  

Hope ANEW! 

The hurt we feel in our hearts is godly sorrow. It is a reminder of the brokenness that sin brings and it helps guide us in wisdom to continue to walk out repentance in our lives. Godly sorrow is different than shame. Shame says “I AM bad.” Godly sorrow says, “What I DID took me away from the heart of God. I never want distance between God and I. I don’t want THAT sin more than I want GOD!” 

After we talked, I remembered a time in my own childhood when I had...

STOLEN!! Gasp!! Oomph!! That still knocks me in my little child-like gut remembering that. 

So I shared with Jemma and I want to share with YOU about a story from my childhood. A time when a little pumpkin scared me straight. 

As a child, I had a LOVE for pumpkins. I still love them now. But as a child, I just LOVED pumpkins. One fall day, the air was crisp and cool and this bright orange color peeking out from the green of the garden across the back of my neighbors yard caught my eye. I LOVED pumpkins. Remember? 🤣🤦🏽‍♀️Well, that LOVE for pumpkins turned into and LUST for pumpkins that led to GREED that led to STEALING. Yes, I snuck over into my neighbors garden pumpkin patch and I stole one of her beautiful little pumpkins. I took it up to my front porch and before long my Mom found me playing with “my” pumpkin. “Where did you get that?” I remember the breath knocked out of me and I don’t recall if I lied or froze. But, eventually, the truth poured out of my little mouth like it did out of Jemma’s lips too. “I took the pumpkin from the neighbor!” 

To my utter disbelief, my Mom MADE me go apologize to my neighbors face AND give the pumpkin back. With tears streaming down my face, and fear and sorrow filling my heart, I trotted over, rang her doorbell, and shared the truth. That experience was SO hard for me. I will NEVER forget how AWFUL I felt. But guess what?! I never, ever, EVER stole anything ever again!! Why?! Because I NEVER wanted to feel that awful remorse ever again. I knew I had sinned not just against the neighbor, but against God. God used the godly sorrow to produce a fruit of righteousness within my soul. Too bad He didn’t use it to produce a crop of pumpkins 🎃🤣because now you know how much I’d have loved that! Ha! Seriously though, how thankful I am for the godly sorrow God allows in our hearts to TEACH us which way to go! 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." I’m SO thankful for HIS discipline in my life as well as the discipline of a wise and loving mom! As Proverbs 3:12 says, “For the LORD disciplines those He loves, as a father, the son he delights in.” I'm so thankful for the undeserved love of God.

If you are currently stuck in a cycle of sin, I encourage you to take a moment and ask God to fill your heart with Godly sorrow! Because godly sorrow LEADS to REPENTANCE and repentance is a BEAUTIFUL place to be, friend. Have you allowed God to search your heart recently? Let’s take today to pray He would do just that! Let’s TURN from sin and choose to forge new paths of righteousness, joy and peace by walking out REPENTANCE! A heart YIELDED to our Maker rather than ourselves! 

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Hebrews 3:15 As has just been said, "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in your rebellion."

Brownstown

“Brownstown”

This little town has so much history for me. But before I go there, let’s go back even further in history, come along with me, back to when I was around 14 years old. Yikes! That’s 20 years ago now 🤦🏽‍♀️😳It was then that my Grandma Strangarity was diagnosed with cancer. This diagnosis was very difficult for our family. My grandparents had habits that quite possibly led to this diagnosis. And, quite possibly wanting something to blame for suffering is common. I definitely believed there was a habit to blame. This habit we all knew was unhealthy, but it was before the campaigns to quit became commonplace. Yes, you guessed it, the habit was cigarette smoking. 

As my Grandma battled cancer, I saw her go through Chemotherapy and become very weak and very sick. It was through that experience that I vowed I would NEVER touch a cigarette. I hated what cancer did to my Grandma. I hated seeing all of her suffering. And I hated seeing the heartache in my Dad, watching his mom dying. Even if it wasn’t the cigarettes that took her life, I saw how unhealthy they made the people I loved and I wanted to honor God with my body and be healthy. 

Don’t make vows you can’t keep. God says in His Word that we should not delay in keeping our vows. Ecclesiastes 5:4 says, “When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow.”

Unfortunately, fool I was. It wasn’t long after my Grandma died that I was hanging out with my best friends at the time, who happened to be quite poor company. Oh, wait, isn’t that another thing Gods Word warns us about? “Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals.” 1st Corinthians 15:33. Face, meet palm. Boy how I wish I had followed some of the wise counsel of these scriptures, as a youth. But, I did not, and my morals did suffer as a result. I ended up neglecting my vow to never smoke and broke my own heart in doing what I believed killed my Grandma. I knew I was also disobeying the law regarding my age and I felt so terrible about that. But, not only did I feel so awful that I had done this, fallen in this way neglecting my vow, but also because I knew ultimately I was harming my own body. 1st Corinthians 6:19 says, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself.” I wasn’t just harming my own body, but I was harming the place where my Jesus, my God, the Holy Spirit of the Most High dwells. I belong to Him. But I was treating myself like I was of such little value. 

And, I HID THIS DECISION like my life depended on it. The ONLY people who knew, for years, were my “closest friends”. In Genesis 3 God asks Adam WHY He hid... I think in our human experience we all know it was shame that hid Adam. And shame hid me. Hiding our sins and struggles NEVER EVER EVER brings about the righteousness of God, nor the freedom of man. 

Instead, hiding my sin and struggle with smoking began about a TEN YEAR journey of ups and downs with smoking. I kept it hidden from almost everyone all along that journey. I kept it hidden because I was ashamed I had gone down that path. I kept it hidden because I secretly liked it and wanted to continue using smoking socially and also whenever I was upset or stressed, as it became an outlet or a coping mechanism for me. A bad habit I wished I’d never begun. 

But there I was, Christian college bound, young adult, still smoking secretly. Although I did share on my college paperwork that I had smoked so that I was honest, I believed it was something that now that I was moving on with my life and developing new circles of friends, that somehow I would just so happen to leave that little secret behind. I was wrong. Although, for awhile I was free, hanging out with certain people brought the struggle back to the surface for me. I remember one evening I was hanging out with a friend and we were driving away from campus with the intention of “having a smoke”. We saw the Brownstown exit, which very ironically is now where I LIVE...In Brownstown, with my hubby, our five kids and my In-Laws. Anyway, we traveled down a long straight road called Main Street and near its end a sharp left curve took us past a creek and down to a pull off beside the waterfront, after a bridge. We sat. We talked. We smoked. And from then on, anytime we wanted to smoke we actually coined the term *Brownstown*. In order to HIDE our habit by coyly nicknaming smoking “Brownstown” we could then just say, “Hey wanna Brownstown?!” Sounds almost silly now. But also I just get disheartened even writing that out. How sad that I had hidden something that was so damaging to my physical health and my spiritual health too. 

Time went by and seasons changed again. God brought someone into my life who actually for the first time, challenged my smoking habit. He realized it was unhealthy and not safe to do physically. So, my then “loving boyfriend”, now long time hubby, helped me to see that I should try to stop even doing it socially or when I was stressed or upset. He helped me remember that I should be treating myself like I matter. It took me some time, and I still hid the habit, even from Sean. There were times I would on occasion still smoke. But I was having less of a pull to it. 

Then, one day I was hurting very very badly. We had recently lost our little baby Joeli Grace at five months pregnant and things in our marriage were tough too. I felt like my whole world was just so heavy for me to bear and smoking felt like an outlet that would help. 

Unfortunately, or fortunately, that last cigarette didn’t help. In fact, my lungs and my eyes burned and my heart still burned too. It was then that instead of vowing, I made a simple act of REPENTANCE. No more vows, no more ups and downs or back and forths with smoking, no more occasions, no more running to it when I was weak or hurting... just simply put, NO more SMOKING! I was done and I have not gone back to it for over ten years now. I was so repentant that I had ever even made the choice to smoke that first cigarette. My heart was rended to God and to HIS ways for my life regarding that area now! I made a decision to see that it was not helping me in any way, anyway, so why was it worth risking my health over? I had a family worth making the hard choice to quit seem worth it! Ultimately, I confessed to God and repented of the way it was pulling me away from Him and I began seeking His heart for the healing and peace I so desperately needed. 

Don’t get me wrong, there have been PLENTY of seasons, as well as moments, even recently,  that the temptation to “just have one” was weighing on me like a ten ton elephant. But I’ve successfully said, NO! For so long now that to turn back around and be UNrepentant would simply be the wrong way. I was done taking the devils lies that it would soothe me and stop the burning. I refused to believe the lie that I was not worth protecting or caring for. I stopped living like I needed a cigarette more than I needed JESUS! 

I knew I needed the grace and goodness of God like I needed breath in my once smoke-filled lungs. God was redeeming me, as I repented and turned from my sin. He gave me everything I needed, how could I seek after false hopes to comfort and heal me? 

I am not beyond falling back in to smoking or any other sin I’ve repented of... I don’t think any of us are until we one day meet our Maker in the clouds. So, with that in mind, would you pray for me when you think of me that God would strengthen me and not allow me to give in to my temptations, but to stand against them! Pray that I would honor God with my body, His temple! He is so good to us! Even when doubts and fears flood my heart and mind, His grace and His Word help me stand... 

When in doubt, don’t Brownstown. TURN around! REPENT! 

As JESUS says, “REPENT, for the kingdom of Heaven is near!” Matthew 4:17 

Some scriptures to ponder on the way today... 

“Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And all the other disciples vowed the same.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭26:33-35‬ ‭NLT‬‬  

“Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but rend/tear your hearts instead.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish.”

‭‭Joel‬ ‭2:13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

 This is a picture of the pull-off in Brownstown which was once a place of hiding for me is now a place God uses to remind me to COME OUT OF HIDING! Come Out Of Hiding(Steffany Gretzinger Come Out of Hiding)