Encouraging one another, all the more
When did submission become a dirty word? Sometimes I feel like I’m cursing when I use it! I tell you, for years the word made me cringe. I bristled at the thought that I was commanded –yes, commanded!– to submit to my husband. What? I’m a strong, independent woman! No man gonna tell me what to do!
Galatians 6:10 says,“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” The Lord has convicted me lately that I haven’t been loving the ladies in my church well.
There was a time last winter in Aruba on holiday where I was doing really great. I felt connected to God, learning about forgiveness and spent a lot of time eating with (and annoying) my family. When it was time to go back to the Netherlands in January to continue my University studies suddenly everything tumbled. My relationship with God had become almost nonexistent. I felt depressed and overwhelmed. I really didn’t want turn to God. I tried running from God. I kept trying to run farther and farther away. This feeling continued for a couple of months.
“The world values you going to the gym more than to the deepest places of your soul…” – Shauna Niequest, Cold Tangerines. This is a post about crying. Not a post about the crying of physical tears, but the crying of our souls.
It is officially pumpkin spice latte season. If you live in the Midwest region of the United States like I do, fall is the time of year when the leaves start to change, the weather is cooler, the air is crisp, and the apple orchards are packed with people longing for warm delicious cinnamon sugar donuts.
If you have not read my bio yet, then you probably don’t know much about me. That’s okay, but what you do need to know for this post is that I am a 23-year-old woman working with teenage refugee boys at Bethany Christian Services. I’d like to share with you what I have learned about humility, serving, and more specifically humbly serving the undeserving.
When was the last time you celebrated what God was doing in and around you? I mean really, really celebrated. Paused and prayed. Sang a song. Told a friend. Wrote it down. Whatever stopping to celebrate looks like for you – when was it? Have you ever stopped to celebrate?
I don’t remember exactly what was happening in the world at the time, but I remember it being something unnerving; you know, one of those news stories that just makes you cringe and feel nauseated or maybe brings tears to your eyes and makes you want to retreat into the fetal position. Anyway, she asked me, “If God is so good, why do bad things happen?” At the time, I honestly didn’t know what to tell her.
“Lord, what is it that you have been doing in me? I have felt it for months now and continued to push it away. Like the child who wants nothing to do with the broccoli she is being served at dinnertime, I have slid my plate across the table- far from my sight and wanting little to do with it.
When I read the passage of Luke 11:33-36, I think of the scene in FireProof when Kirk Cameron rips his computer from the socket, beats it with a bat and throws it in the dumpster which causes his shocked neighbor standing outside to absently water his concrete instead of the flowerbed. This scene reflects Kirk Cameron’s character’s struggle with sin and his desire to sever the sin and repair the broken relationship he has with his wife.