Encouragement is a Powerful Thing

Did you know that encouragement can literally change the course of a person's day or even week? How could something as simple as a card really have any effect on anyone?

In our world filled with technology and information that connects us to others more quickly and easily, we have less human personal contact than ever before. We can send texts messages, emails, Tweets, IMs, and not know much more about a person than their screen name.

But taking a moment to handpick a card, to write a message and sign your name, allows the receiver know how much your care. Often you will find a card that says exactly what you wanted and needed to say, and what the other person needed to hear.

I have a box of all of the cards and letters I have received over the years. During times of discouragement and loss I have taken them out and reread the messages that others sent to me. Often that has been enough to spur me to keep fighting the good faith.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." (Gal 6:9 &10)

Is there someone in your life who could use some encouragement today? I know just the place to find beautiful, uplifting cards for any occasion! Below are two links to DaySpring Cards, where you will find beautiful cards and gifts that will allow you to send be God's hands extended to someone in need.

http://www.incourage.me/category/deals
http://store.dayspring.com/

I personally have been so excited to be able to send these beautiful cards to my friends and family. Receiving one of these lovely cards is like getting a warm hug through the mail!

Hope you enjoy! Be an encouragement to someone today! "So encourage each other, and build each other up, just as you are already doing...." 1 Thess. 5:11



Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the Bright Blessings card pack from DaySpring to review for {in}courage. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising".

Rejection is Whispering

Rejection is whispering at my door.

This has been my enduring thought over the last few weeks. Have you ever been in the middle of a fierce battle, and one thought keeps replaying in your mind like a broken record?

Several months ago I read a blog post by Lysa TyrKeurst entitled, “The Root of Mt Rot”. The post talked about how we all have a root issue that motivates us to react to situations, often without us even understanding why we reacted in the way we did.

I mentally stated what my root issue was, and left it at that. But a couple of weeks ago, God gently reminded me of the post, and showed me what my real issue is, and always has been: fear of rejection.

Rejection has been the motivation to stay quiet when I should have spoken up. Rejection has been the noose that has tied me to relationships that needed to be severed. Rejection has kept me in positions of leadership and ministry that God was calling me away from. Rejection has prodded me to do and say things that are no longer in character for me. Can you relate?

The past four months have been a time for dealing with the root of my rot, rejection. People I have loved and ministered to have rejected e, gossiped about me, and delighted in my seeming defeat. People I have respected and seen as mentors and ministry leaders have chosen to believe lies, instead of clarifying facts, or simply choosing to not be involved in gossip. I have watched my girls get hurt and rejected by adults who really wanted to hurt my husband and me, and chose to use them to accomplish the deed.

This has been a time of soul searching, or crying out to God, of being silent in His Presence. It has been a time of asking Him to show me the things I have used as bricks to erect a wall of protection around myself, and to give Him each brick, no matter how much it hurt to remove.

Anyone who tells you that it doesn’t hurt to follow Christ is trying to sell you something. Please don’t misunderstand; following Him wholeheartedly is the only stable, restorative, life-giving choice I could make, but it hurts to die to myself, my pride, my anger, my fear, my rejection. Some of these issues have been such a part of me for so long that I no longer see them as sins. They have become “issues” instead.

But these “issues” have placed static between me and the voice of the Holy Spirit, and that is not acceptable. I have no choice but to accept where I am right now in my finances, in my employment, and in my ministry, but I choose whether I am there in joy or discontentment.

Starting over is difficult—we have sown seeds here that we wanted to see bear fruit. But starting over can also be exciting and exhilarating! However, it is my choice: I can grumble and complain, or I can embrace the process, and ask God to give me true joy in the journey.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:2-5)

It struck me that this time of trial has stretched me: my faith, my trust in God, my willingness to love and forgive, my obedience. He is creating a new wineskin to hold the new wine He is getting ready to pour into me (see Matt. 9:16-17), and I’m preparing myself to receive it.

What about you, friend? Is there a reoccurring theme in your life that God is trying to point out? Are there “issues” that you won’t deal with, even though you know they are sin? Don’t put off what you know God is asking you to do—no matter how much you think it is going to hurt. These short-lived trials pale in comparison to what God will give you in exchange. (2 Cor. 4:17) You can trust Him to keep His promises to you, and I can trust Him to keep His promises to me.

This isn’t for the weak or faint-hearted, but it is worth it!

In pursuit of zoe,

Happily Ever After

It took me by surprise when my husband said that Disney Corporation would no longer make movies about princesses because their research showed that little girls no longer dreamed of a prince would come to fight for them, and be victorious over some evil in their lives. They no longer believed in “happily ever after.”

As a mother of three girls, this made me sad. But as a spiritual mother of women within the body of Christ, this made me heartbroken.

A couple of years ago, I shared a hotel room with another woman in fulltime vocational ministry. I had never personally met her, but she was a college friend with a friend of mine. Within moments of meeting her, she stuck her finger in my jello, so to speak, and I should have realized then what a hurting and disillusioned woman she was, but I was too shocked by her rudeness to catch it at first. That evening, after a beautiful time of praise and worship, where the Spirit of God just enveloped the room, God spoke one word to my heart: mercy. Little did I know how quickly I would need to put the word into practice.

Within moments of returning to our room, she blurted out, “I hate songs that make Jesus sound like He is our boyfriend or something. The whole thing is ridiculous!” I silently listened as she went on and on about how modern songs took Jesus and reduced Him to a man that we could love romantically, and how disrespectful that was.

As she spoke, I furiously prayed for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. I didn’t want to inflame the situation, but she was missing a vital part of the relationship God wishes to have with each of us.

So I started asking questions; “tell me your story” type of questions. In her answers she revealed the hidden hurt and disillusionment she felt over the cards she had been dealt in life. Her husband was a chaplin within the prison system where politics and violence reigned. She had three special needs children--two adopted and one biological—with one demanding 24-hour care to do everything, and with no hope of any significant progress in the future. They pastored a very small church of mainly senior citizens who complained and criticized because she missed so many services due to the children’s issues.

As I listened, I heard more than she wanted me to. I heard her heart say, “God couldn’t truly love me and allow me to feel so alone. God couldn’t truly love me when my life hurts this much. God’s Word says that He loves us, but it must be from afar, because I don’t know if I’ve ever felt Him close to me. I have not personally experienced God’s unconditional love for me, so it must not exist at all.”

She no longer believed in “happily ever after” either. And truthfully, who of us hasn’t asked God, “Where are You in this? Don’t You care that my heart is breaking?”

In the midst of our pain, it is often so difficult to grasp how much God loves us. Oh, we can quote John 3:16, but it often doesn’t move from God loves the world to God loves me.

But, friend, let your heart soak up these words: He sees you. He hears you. He knows you. He. Loves. You. And if you were the only person in the history of the world to not believe in Him, He would have still sent Christ to die for you, and you alone. He loves you.

In Deuteronomy 6:5, God tells His children to love Him with all of our heart, soul and strength. This word love is translated as “delight, desire, be beloved.” Now it may make us feel uncomfortable, but God wants to be our first Beloved. My commentary went on to say that this word “denotes a strong emotional attachment for and the desire to be in the presence of a person.”

When my husband and I were dating and first married, I desired to be in his presence—no matter what he was doing. In those days he traveled a lot, working several Christian artists, and I would go with him. He would virtually ignore me for hours at a time while he intently worked, but we were together, and that was what mattered.

Is that how we feel about Jesus? Do we understand, truly understand, that is how He feels for us?

In Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus repeats the command given in Deuteronomy, and goes onto say that the entire Law of the Prophets hang or hinge on the following of these commands: Love God and love others. 1 John goes on to say that we can love others because we have received and comprehended the love of God, and that if we don’t love others, we can’t say we love God.

We can’t begin to love others until we get how much He loves us. And not just collectively, but personally. He wants to have a relationship with you, an intimate relationship with you.

In nine different places within the New Testament, Jesus is called the Bridegroom and the church is the Bride. This isn’t a marriage of convenience or a political pact—this is a description of a marriage of love! This unconditional love, that defies our limited understanding, covers our sin and creates within us a purity and confidence in the One who loved us first. From that confidence in Him, we desire to respond with the only thing we can offer: our whole selves. He loves me so much that my only reasonable response is to love Him back with all that I have and all that I am.

Even as ministry leaders, I believe that we must keep coming back to this concept of love and relationship. We continue in ministry because we are called, yes, but ultimately it must stem from our deep, unshakable love and affection for God. If it does not, ministry to others will become an arduous, unfulfilling burden.

We can believe in “happily ever after”, because that is what Revelation 18:6-7 tells us will happen. The Bridegroom will come for His Bride, our Prince of Peace will ride in on His white horse, and we will live with Him forever. There will be no more sin, no more pain, no more questions. And that is the best definition of happily ever after that I know!

In pursuit of zoe,

The Least of These

Pastor Robbie, the youth pastor at our new church, preached a fantastic sermon tonight based on Matt. 25:31-46. Although the passage in my Bible has the title of “The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats”, the words that jump out at me are “the least of these…”

In some circles, I am now the least of these. I no longer have a ministry position, I am unemployed, and my future seems uncertain at this point. Some people I respect and care about seem to not see me anymore; it appears that I have become invisible.

In Matthew 25:44, the group of people identified by Christ as the “goats” ask Him, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?” And the answer is simple: they didn’t see Him, because they didn’t see anyone. They were blind to the people in need all around them.

Which begs the question: who am I not seeing? Who needs me, but I’m too busy, too distracted, too selfish, too whatever, to stop what I’m doing and put someone else’s needs before my own?

Our former church has had a food pantry and distribution center for several years that reaches out to our local community. I volunteered mostly every week, not necessarily because they needed my help, but because I truly love the people. I received many complaints that I “held up the line”, because I stopped and talked to the people, hugged them and learned their names. I’m not trying to brag; I simply wanted my neighbors to know that I saw them as people, not just numbers on our “Families Served” list.

But I can’t just say that my church feeds the hungry so my responsibility is completed. I need to do more. We volunteer at our girls’ school, but one day a week doesn’t relieve my responsibility either. Is the answer more days a week? More volunteering? More social type work?

No, the answer is to see. See the people around me. See the kids in my neighborhood. See the people in the grocery store. See the people in my church. To look at my life, my circumstances, my situations like Jesus would. To respect people just for whom they are, not what they can do for me. To talk to people I come in contact with, not just the ones in my circle of friends. To remember the power in physical touch and eye contact.

Will you join me in asking God to open your eyes to see the people we would normally walk by? Will you ask Him to allow you to truly see the ones who have been praying for someone, anyone, to notice them? You will be doing it for Jesus, not just the least of these.

In pursuit of zoe,

Many Roles, One Call

We just returned from District Council where I saw some dear friends, colleagues and ministry leaders. For the ones who already knew about our present situation, person after person asked the same question: “So what are you doing now?”

Such an interesting question. No harm in the asking, no malice intended, but my answer seems so sad and lame to my own ears. We don’t seem to be doing much of anything right now, or at least that is how it feels many times.

Then this morning I received a copy of the Pentecostal Evangel featuring Dr. Beth Grant. Across the front of the magazine are written the words, “Many Roles, One Call.” As I read Dr. Grant’s story, I felt the Holy Spirit’s gentle whisper asking, “What did I call you to do?” I stopped and pondered that for a moment. Being a pastor for the last nine years, my calling has been wrapped up in my occupation and vocation. So being unemployed right now, my calling must be put on hold too, right?

But God’s callings are irrevocable, correct? (Rom. 11:29) So where does that leave me, and others in my present situation?

Several years ago, God asked me to read and study Isaiah 61:1-3—really study it. At the time, I thought it was to describe the feeding ministry at our church. But as time went on, I realized this was the calling for Mark and me, not necessarily our church at large.

As the years have gone on, this passage has become more and more dear to me. “God has anointed me to preach….” What a concept! The Maker of the universe anointed ME, simple me, to preach, to speak, to lead!

So right now I lead from my pew, my computer, or my phone. I preach through my blog, my emails, my conversation, my smile, my hugs, my touch. Right now my platform has been removed in the way I was used to, but my platform will never be gone.

Just today I read this additional verse: “I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me.” Even in this time when I seem to be jobless, I am not purposeless! I’m still anointed! I still have purpose!

How about you? Are you feeling like your calling has become vague or even misplaced? Don’t despair—you too have purpose! You are not forgotten and neglected by God. What can you do to live your calling, your anointing, your purpose out loud?

My role is definitely changing, but my calling hasn’t changed. Many roles, one call.

In pursuit of zoe,

"And WE know...."

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Rom. 8:28 (NIV)

This is a verse I memorized in Missionettes as a young girl, and I’ve heard it quoted to other people when trouble seemed to be invading their lives. Sometimes it is said almost as a platitude, and when that happens, the hope and comfort of the verse is lost.

This week a dear friend of mine sent me an S.O.S email. Her ministry life had just imploded. She had just found out that people within her church had been meeting secretly about her and her husband, and were spreading lies about her family to whomever would listen. They made slanderous comments about her character, her motives, her intentions at the church, and demanded her immediate removal. “Will you pray with me?” she asked.

The similarities in our situations were too obvious to miss, and not taken as God’s gentle nudging. She could have written to dozens of other women, but she wrote to me. And I’ve known all along that if I chose to handle my situation the way the Bible says to, that God would somehow use me to help others. I just didn’t think it would be so soon.

God has been showing me that one of the greatest tools of the enemy against us is isolation. I too am often embarrassed to tell people how deep my pit has become. I think I should be able to draw more readily upon the scripture I have read and taught to others. But sometimes I am simply too exhausted.

I was reading Rom. 8:28 again, when a simple pronoun jumped out at me. "For WE know..." Paul doesn't say that he knows, but we know. Sometimes my problems seem so overwhelming that I can’t see out from under it by myself. But then God sends others to walk with me, beside me, and remind me of the power God has given me; not a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:8). I am convinced that the enemy is trying to assault us like never before because he knows his time is short, and he is intimidated by what could happen if we were totally united by the love of God.

I did pray for my friend, and I don’t plan on stopping. I also encouraged and cheered her on by telling her the things I needed to hear myself not so long ago. Gal. 6:2 tells us to carry each other’s burdens, and when we do, we fulfill the law of Christ. But maybe more importantly, it gives glory to God because it proves that He has taken our ashes, and given us beauty in it’s place. And His beauty is to be shared.

In pursuit of zoe,

Free

“Indeed, it’s because God loves us, He sometimes says no.” Lysa TerKeurst

That was the sum of a recent blog by Lysa. Ouch. That one hurts.

Often I am unwilling to see God’s answer no to my desires as being loving on His part. Often I am unable to move beyond my own human reasoning to see a bigger, more holy picture. Often I just plain don’t want to.

As a mom, sometimes I say no to a request because I know my girls aren’t ready or mature enough to participate. Sometimes I say no because I understand that the activity or the others participating aren’t what is best for them. Why then do I question God’s judgment when He does the same with me?

It’s been about ten weeks since my husband and I were asked to resign as leaders from our ministry. Thankfully, there wasn't a moral or ethical failure; just a difference in ministry views and passions. But for the first time in nine years, I wasn't a leader of a Bible study, part of a speaking team, or training leaders for various ministries. I felt lost and abandoned by God.

Yesterday while getting ready for church, I heard the song,"I Am Free" by Jared Anderson. For the first time I realized that I have been whining and wallowing in self-pity instead of seeing this as being freed from the confines that my previous ministry had placed on me. Now, perhaps for the first time in my adult life, I can be exactly who God called and designed me to be--nothing more, nothing less.

Now I have the time to work on my personal character, to study and learn from great leaders God has placed in my path, and relearn the value of humility. And I am learning the value of the discipline of rest. (More on that this week…)

So as painful as this "no" has been, I am thanking Him for it. And I have been asking Him to make sure my character is ready and fully baked for the next step and season of ministry. Because this is just the beginning.

What ‘no’ have you thanked God for lately? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

In pursuit of zoe,