Thank you Jesus for drawing
us out of the darkness, for You have loved us since before time began.
He called us out of darkness into His marvelous
light. 1 Peter 2: 9
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| Photo by Bauer Hall |
Before we moved our family to
Alaska, my husband and I were headed down a dangerous path of self-righteousness
and self-perseverance. We were living
for ourselves and drifting more and more a part. Life got in the way. We began to seek what was important to our
own desires, whether that was through creating a name for ourselves through
work, through the community, or through our friends, but never once did we ask
Jesus what He had in store for us.
Through this drifting, we
lost touch with each other, with Jesus, and our children were suffering. I was a schoolteacher and I was not happy
with my income or my husband’s income, that I began looking at home businesses
to help supplement our income. My husband
felt diminished by this. He felt he
wasn’t good enough because I was never happy with what the house looked like. I wanted an immaculate home with beautiful
furnishings. I wanted to impress people with my possessions of beautiful
materials. I was drowning. We were drowning. I became very unhappy. Why couldn’t I have more of this and more of
that? Self-pity sucked me in and I couldn’t
make it to the surface.
My husband felt this backlash. He began to stay at work later, began to hang
out with the guys, play golf, stop for a drink or two, or even attend a gambling
night somewhere. He didn’t want to hear
my nagging or my insults of how he should be home more often. Does this sound familiar? Anger built up within us and the more we
claimed victory on our own self-pity and desires, the more we felt righteous in
our own eyes. Satan definitely was
having a field day with us.
God’s timing is always
perfect. He was always present in our
lives, and He would drop hints that He was around. However, our focus wasn’t on Him. He never gave up on us; we were giving up on each other.
However, Jesus had a
different story for us, His story. His love
is kind, His love is patient and it endures forever. Overtime our hearts and eyes became
open.
- Did we have suffering in our lives?
- Did we self-destruct things in our lives?
- Did we lose hope at times?
- Did we turn away from Him at times?
The answer is yes. In times such as these, it is through the
storm that we found Jesus! We began to
learn of His love. We began to learn of
His desires and His compassion for us.
He had never left us. He was
right there all the time, waiting for us to call on Him, to call for HELP. Overtime we began to feel His Presence, feel
His love for us, and rebuild our love and family through His ways not our
ways. We had to actively open our hearts
and eyes to Him. He began to strip and
cut off the dead branches that we had created without Him. We can now use the beautiful new branches He
grew within us to shout it from the mountaintops or from the surface of the
raging sea.
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| Photo By Bauer Hall |
Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you. Again I will build you, and you shall be
rebuilt. Jeremiah 31: 3-4
Whatever you are going
through, know this, Jesus is alive in you if you want Him to be. My prayer for
you is to awaken Him in you so you can be redeemed from self-destruction and
from self-pity. I pray that you will
have hope in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
We can’t just sit back and expect Jesus to do everything. We have to be active participants with
Him. His love endures forever and we
won’t be shaken by our trials or storms.
In this you greatly rejoice, you have been grieved by
various trials, that genuineness of your faith being much more precious than
gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation
of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him yet believing,
you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your
faith – the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1: 6 - 9
In Him,
Erin
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