Strength and Adversity

Adversity has no time limit, it either lasts for a very short time or span across years, likewise the scope of an adversity can have little effect or big effect on one's life. There is only one key to enduring such periods of life, and that key is strength.

It's also not strange that long or drawn out periods of adversity can create apathy. The apathy can be against God, against other people who are perceived as not being supportive or even against oneself. Once again, the key to avoiding apathy is strength.

The strength am referring to is that which can only be obtained by close fellowship with God, spending time with God on a daily basis gives us strength to shift focus from the big problems, troubles or adversity to the greatness of God and the ability of God to do the impossible.

We become joyful in the light of God's presence which becomes our strength. The more time we spend with God, the more strength we receive.

Nobody wants to fail in the face of trials and temptations, yet failure becomes inevitable when our strength is small. Proverbs 24:10 "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small"
Obtaining strength gives us the ability to wait on God, develop godly character and be able to endure trials. It gives us hope that our time of salvation is near even though we might not see any physical change and that is what faith is all about.

The story being shared today is all about adversity and the struggles we go through. It offers a fresh perspective that is illuminating. To me, it takes strength to admit such fears and limitations. The word of God is always true and each person must discover the truth in it as it applies to our situations.

To Do: Cast your mind back to characters in the bible and on how they received strength for their own journey. Examples are Joseph, Gideon, Elisha, Jesus.

Pushing through my season of suffering

By Andrea Logan White

Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
JOHN 19:30

I began to write Perfectly Unfinished while thrown into a season of suffering unlike any I had ever faced. David and I had unexpectedly lost two very precious loved ones within just a few months of the release of God’s Not Dead. Only four months before its release, David’s mother died suddenly. Then our beloved Pure Flix partner and mentor Russell Wolfe, producer of God’s Not Dead, succumbed to ALS at age fifty, just two months after the movie’s release. We had been so sure that God was going to heal him on earth, yet he took him to heaven instead. Heartrending. These sudden losses at a time when we were celebrating God’s surprise gift of such success stirred the still lingering grief over two others who had been taken in their prime just a few years before. David’s dad had died tragically seven years earlier, meaning that neither of his sweet parents who had served the Lord as Mennonite pastors ever got to witness the success of their son’s movie. And David’s cousin, only nineteen years old and very close to us, died tragically in his sleep a mere four years ago.
On top of the deep grief both David and I experienced, I’ve been suffering the past few years with relentless physical ailments and have been diagnosed with several frightening, vague, and elusive illnesses: fibromyalgia, acute migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, a genetic disease called porphyria, Lyme disease, and a condition called POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), in which the resting heart rate is very high and blood pressure extremely low, causing one to faint. Housebound for three months with this condition when I started writing my book, I had fears of dying and leaving my precious children motherless. And though I’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on mainstream medicine, chiropractors, herbalists, and endless other medical options, I’ve had adverse reactions to more treatments and medications than I can count.
In light of these overwhelming symptoms, I’ve been striving to find a healthy balance of rest, nutrition, physical care, stress care, therapies, medications, tests and more tests, research, and of first and foremost, the Word of God and prayer, only to have to confess I haven’t been able to find anything close to the healthy balance of such things. This has left me deeply discouraged.
In the year of writing my book, at times I’ve been too ill to drive, been unable to walk, lost vision in one eye temporarily, and even been completely bedridden at times. So I turned to some well-loved sermons from preachers of the gospel, but came up disappointed in my lack of faith. The apostle Paul writes, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7 ESV). But truth be told, when I literally could not walk, I was filled with panic, not faith.

Honesty and transparency start to get a little scary at this point, and I’m all too aware that this next confession is going to earn me some less than affirming mail from some, but the reality is that more than once, as I sat in the emergency room, Scripture did not comfort me at all. Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” but that wasn’t true of me, even though I wanted it to be. I didn’t have a sense of confidence or assurance at all. I had doubts of God’s love. I had heart-racing fear—and lots of it.
I often sat there completely alone (David was at home with the kids), and I did not have joy in the midst of suffering. I wanted to know why I was suffering so badly. I saw no signs of heavenly mercy.
Well, except for one thing. I met people there. People who were also in pain or fear or despair. I’m the kind of person who tends to strike up conversations. For instance, there was an older gentleman who just needed to have someone listen to his laundry list of medical issues. Making him laugh and finding a few things in common about our experiences relaxed him as he waited. And there was a young mom with her little boy in the ER one day. Her wide eyes and shaking voice told me her fear was powerful. Her little boy lay limp on her shoulder, hair plastered with sweat to his forehead. We talked about kids and how hard it is to watch them suffer. How frightened we get. We both felt less alone. And then there was a teenage girl in an office all by herself. I guessed why she was there alone and stepped in to be the calming adult for a few minutes while she waited to see a doctor.

I may be exposing myself as a little dense here, but it took me a few times (not that I recommend making the ER a habitual destination) before I caught on to the fact that I was seeing heavenly mercy at work in those conversations, but it didn’t look like the kind of mercy for which I’d been pleading. Our God is most unpredictable.
At least one of our children has been ill every single week for over seven months. Between them and me, we’ve been in and out of emergency rooms, doctors’ offices, and blood-drawing labs more times than I want to count. I’ve prayed the verse “by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5), yet have found myself disappointed that illness, rather than healing, seems to dominate our home. I’ve prayed, spoken the Word of God, repented, rebuked, and had others pray for us—yet the onslaught of illnesses continues.
I know full well that countless people are dealing with far worse, and they would gladly accept my little list of woes in exchange for their own devastating circumstances. Terminal illness. A marriage falling apart. A son or daughter maimed in combat. A loved one arrested. An injury suffered. Victimization by some violent act. The list goes on and on. The last thing any of us need is a “who’s got it worse” comparison, for there is always someone who does have it worse!

So here’s the challenge I’ve been facing. While working on my book, these struggles have seemed all-consuming to me. In recent months, faced with one painful circumstance after another, I’ve been genuinely surprised (and downright discouraged) to discover how often I feel just as lost, just as anxious, just as insecure, just as unqualified, and just as frustrated as I did at 2:00 a.m. one morning as I watched my son Everson’s temperature climb—hands shaking, heart pounding. But I kept hiding it all under the veneer of the “successful” Christian life, whatever that means. I admit it: I’ve been profoundly disappointed in my spiritual responses and lack of knowing or comfort from God in my travails of life.
I don’t know how this season of trial is going to end, or if it will end. Will it end in deliverance? Healing? Or more suffering? When I get to the end of this period, will I hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” reverberating over the loudspeaker? (That seems highly unlikely, given how I’ve been struggling. How could I deserve the words “well done”?) Or will I come up terribly short? (I feel like I already have!)
Will I be cut from the part I am playing in God’s story? (Isn’t that what I deserve?) Fired? Blacklisted? Surely there are far more qualified people to write a message—spiritual grown-ups—rather than the uncertain child I feel myself to be these days.
It’s not that I hadn’t expected more trials and difficulties. I get it that those are always a part of life on this earth. But I did not expect my responses to result in the same old struggles.
As I see it, feeling as confused and defeated as I have been, I had a choice to make about my book. Either I would choose not to write it, or I would push through it anyway and see where God took me. I’ve pushed through storm after storm ever since I’ve been saved. How do I stay close to God through such things? Where has this series of storms been coming from? Where will it lead?
I only know that quitting would ensure my defeat. Pushing through at least holds some possibility of my discovering the truth God wants me to know. So the book I’ve actually written is quite different from the one I’d planned to write. Because I’ve decided that rather than write from what I’ve already learned, I will write instead from what I’m struggling to discover. Rather than writing from victory, I’m writing from the battlefield, exposing where I’m defenseless.

Why? Because pretending I’m living in victory when I’m not will just lead me deeper into defeat. Life is hard, and I despise the veneer of faith-talk portraying that life is all good when much of it is quite bad. I can’t stand frauds, so sometimes I’m so real that I walk away from conversations, thinking, Hmm, why did I just share that? I’ve been told by some that I am way too transparent. But I believe, humbly, that not pretending and being honest are gifts God has given me to help others. We truly heal from each other’s stories. We can connect with each other when we confess our unanswered questions and weaknesses.
We are defenseless against our enemy if we are living a lie.
There is much I do not know, but of this I am sure: I cannot win this battle alone. I’ve done it alone—did it for years, in fact—to disastrous results.
I’m not going back to alone!
I’m going forward with Jesus.
And I will tell you why. Because at the risk of sounding like an old hymn, I once was lost. Wholly, desperately, devastatingly lost. I’d lived my life my way with no personal connection whatsoever to the God of the universe—the God who made me. And when finally, at the end of myself, I cried out in desperation, “God, if you’re really there, show yourself to me”—he did. Dramatically. Personally. On the spot.
And then he began to change me.

I take comfort in this: I know I’m not the only one on this battlefield. There are legions of us who are Christians, who love God, who follow Jesus, yet who, when brutally honest with ourselves, limp along and falter with our wounds and with the shortcomings and limits of our faith. But we try to hide it. We smile and say we are fine when we are anything but.
Simply put, even though I understand the principle that God is the finisher of my faith, I’m not as “finished” as I believe I “should be” by now.
So I decided to see what God has to say about being finished.

And since not knowing how the scene finally ends tends to cause us the most angst, I’m looking at the ultimate final scene. Jesus, hanging on the cross in the midst of an agonizing and torturous death, spoke three final words before he breathed his last: It is finished. Jesus finished his work. Speaking words so critically important that he chose to declare them as his final words from the cross.
We may not yet have a clear understanding of what “it is finished” means for us and our struggle. I don’t yet. But we do know that Jesus declared it to be so. So let’s agree that we will struggle together to discover the power these words can have in our lives today.

https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2017/09/pushing-through-my-season-of-suffering/

The above excerpt was published by Zondervan Nonfiction as free content.

 I Fly by Sinach Joseph

God Meeting Needs Through Praise

Garment as a Weapon

It started from a dream last Monday when I saw myself standing by a balcony looking out to a street. A man approached me and said " why are you dressed like that?", looking at what I had on, it was a traditional outfit from my country or place of birth. I initially felt the cloth I was wearing was okay but a second glance revealed that it was an out of date style, old and no longer fashionable. Later that morning, the phrase" garment of praise" from Isaiah 61 kept resounding in my mind and reasoned that I needed to ask God for a garment of praise.

Prior to Monday, I had been plagued with an unrelenting headache and heaviness for three days,  medication offered temporary relief and I could not even pray about it. Because of that dream and bible passage, I asked God to give me the garment of praise. To work out my faith, I went online to Youtube, selected a good danceable Christian music and proceeded to dance and praise God. For the next three hours, I danced out the headache and heaviness. Since then, I have been free from the headache and heaviness. God is faithful and good to me.

That day, God reinforced the lesson that I must always put on my garment of praise as it serves as a weapon against the fiery darts of the enemy. There are other garments that we must ask for or put on such as the whole armor of God, garment of righteousness. Mainly bible verses alludes to them.
Job 29:14; Isaiah 52:1; Isaiah 59:17; Romans 13:12; Colossians 3:12,; Ecclesiastes 9:8; Isaiah 61:10; Revelation 3:4.

As we take deliberate steps in planning our wardrobe or what to wear each day, we must also take deliberate actions to put on our garments each morning. Begin the day with the garment of praise, followed by putting on the armor of God, and then the garment of righteousness. The prayer below was in a devotional early this year.

Today's Love Story

God Provides: Like Manna in the Wilderness

-Erin Odom

"God is the Great Provider."

I’d known that since childhood, but I didn’t truly recognize His personal provision for our every need until I was in my early thirties, with two young children and another one on the way, a husband who worked several extra jobs on the side, and an income that still didn’t cover all our expenses.
It was a desert season. We were frustrated by trying to make our money stretch, I was depressed, and our marriage was stuck in neutral. The tunnel looked dark, and I couldn’t see a way out.
On paper we were poor, yet I can look back now and see how I richly experienced God’s presence during that time. With a burgeoning belly, one toddler on my hip, and another wrapped around my knees, it wasn’t uncommon for me to open my near- empty refrigerator and whisper prayers of petition wrapped in thanksgiving: God, You will meet our every need. You have never failed us. You are in control. It was a “this is it” season. This, I would tell myself, is when our faith is proven real.
 

It wasn’t the first period in my life when I’d been forced to depend on God alone. A key example is the day my friend Courtney died tragically in a car wreck. I’d known Jesus as my personal Savior for ten years at that point, but at just nineteen, my faith was still mostly untested and immature. I felt empty, alone, and abandoned by God. The day I lost Courtney is still clear in my memory. Stifling tear-filled screams as I clenched and unclenched my fists, I crumpled to my dorm room floor and clasped my hands over my heart. “Where are You, Jesus?” I asked audibly, as I nearly hyperventilated. “Where are You now? Why can’t I feel You? Are You even real?”
Through heavy-hearted days during which sleep evaded me, God slowly, gently began to heal my grief. He soothed me through 1 Peter 1:6-9:

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Jim and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
 
 

Fast forward more than a decade, and the circumstances of this season were certainly different from that heartbreaking day in 1999. But in this trial, too, God was building our faith. Just as I personally had learned to trust Him as I walked through a season of grief, our family would learn to trust God during a season of need. It had been easy to trust Him when we weren’t in want. Now that we were, God was cultivating in us a deeper faith, a stronger trust in His provision.
I started looking at and crediting each and every incident as God’s provision for our family. Like manna in the wilderness, the Lord provided again and again and again. As time passed, I saw it more clearly than ever, and looking back, I realize He provided all along.

The manna or “bread” from heaven in Exodus 16 wasn’t what the Israelites wanted, but it was what they needed. It wasn’t extravagant, and in their shortsightedness, forgetting the turmoil the Egyptians inflicted upon them, they grumbled against God’s provision. Still, it met their needs.
Born in the United States to a semi-affluent family, I’d never experienced true want. I’d lived in abundance, as most of us in this country do. But now that my family was in need, God proved that we truly lacked nothing. Perhaps we desired more, but just as the Lord had provided for the Israelites in the desert, He covered our needs.
Whether it was through a playhouse at a garbage dump or fruit from a stranger, God has consistently provided for our family’s needs. The ways He can do this for you too are unlimited.

Good deals, great finds, and unexpected gifts

Have you ever opened your mailbox to find a higher tax return than you anticipated, a rebate from an item you purchased, or an unexpected check? None of these are random, my friend. When we cultivate a spirit of gratitude for God’s provision, we’ll see clearly how He cares for us in tangible ways. (And I argue that He gives to us so we can, in turn, give back to others as well.)
When our firstborn was three, her pediatrician diagnosed her with gluten intolerance. At the time, we were struggling to buy basic groceries. How would we rise to the overwhelming challenge of fitting expensive gluten-free foods into our budget? Not long after her diagnosis, I was poring over my weekly meal plan when I heard a knock on our front door. It was one of Will’s coworkers, Kathy. Kathy has celiac disease, which had forced her to go gluten-free several years earlier. She knew how expensive gluten-free foods cost, and she knew how little money we had. She took it upon herself to purchase some extra gluten-free groceries that day. Among them were gluten-free animal crackers for our little girl.
I held back tears as we accepted this surprise gift. It was enough food for the next few days, and it helped me realize we could trust the Lord to meet our future needs because He showed over and over that He met our present ones.
Another time, my college roommate’s parents offered our little family an entire week at their beach house. Our marriage was stuck in survival mode, I was expecting our second daughter, and we hadn’t had a real vacation in years. The tiny town of Edisto, South Carolina, provided a much-needed respite during that week. We thanked my friend’s parents for their generosity and told them how they were testaments to us of God’s provision, not only for our physical needs but also for our hearts during a turbulent time in our lives.

I believe that God provides for all of our needs; nothing is coincidental. The wild blackberries we foraged from my parents’ back yard? Those were from God. The packages of organic rolled oats that showed up at Big Lots? They were from God. The gluten-free cake mix that landed on the clearance shelf for a fraction of the retail price? Yes, from God as well.
When we choose to believe events like these are simply coincidences or somehow our own doing, we fail to credit the One who has orchestrated our entire lives (Psalm 139:16), the One who has promised to provide for all our needs (Philippians 4:19), the One who deserves glory in everything (1 Corinthians 10:31) since the beginning of time. God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6), and sometimes His provision comes in the form of a Craigslist find or a great deal at the store.

Published by faithgateway devotional :
God Provides: Like Manna in the Wilderness - FaithGateway:

Daring to be an Oliver Twist

The Week of  'More'

I am thankful to God Almighty for receiving unexpected favors this past week, two different people went out of their way to favor me and my household without asking. It was a great blessing. Am also thankful that God desires more of me such that through the week (13th-20th), I was surrounded with the word 'more' through various means and medium. That has made me to desire to be an Oliver Twist in a way.

Who is Oliver Twist?

Oliver Twist was born and raised into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in an unnamed town (although when originally published in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837, the town was called Mudfog and said to be within 70 miles north of London – in reality, this is the location of the town of Northampton). Orphaned by his mother's death in childbirth and his father's mysterious absence, Oliver is meagrely provided for under the terms of the Poor Law and spends the first nine years of his life living at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking and weaving oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse within six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; while the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes up forward, bowl in hand, and begs Mr. Bumble for gruel with his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more".

          (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist#Workhouse_years)

I am also asking for more, more of God and all the spiritual blessings found in Christ Jesus, more of his anointing, more of the power of the Holy Spirit, more boldness to be an ambassador for Christ, to be more loving, kind and generous. My focus will no longer be on things that don't satisfy, nor on things that temporarily fill up the void in my life but to seek more of Him, who made the heavens his throne and the earth his footstool. The One who the cattle on a thousand hills belongs to and who knows exactly the number of hairs on my head.

Sinach, a Nigerian musician sang this song a few years back and is descriptive of what I want henceforth.

                                                    More of You

Lyrics:
You make my life so beautiful
As You are, You have made me on earth
There's nothing greater than this
That is why I love You forever more

I want more of You
I want more of You, Jesus
The more I know You
The more I want to know you
Jesus more of You.

Meeting with God at the Airport

                                                                                                                  By Sara Haggerty

“Why this waste?”

 — Matthew 26:8

I’d been in a suit and heels since 5:00 a.m., and after a full morning, I was at the airport for an early afternoon flight home—home to a husband, but no children. It was a couple of years after my season at the boutique on North Barracks Road, but still a few years before the grief of infertility had settled into my soul.
I’d recently started to crave more. I wanted more from my sales support job. I wasn’t tired of doing it or even tired of the deskwork and the travel, but I was tired of working for little more than sales goals and a paycheck. I wanted more than productivity and success. I wanted brushes with God and meaning and almost anything that mattered but wasn’t easily measured.
My work for the day was done and I was tired, but my heart was hungry, and I was beginning to like heart hunger. So I prayed: God, I want to meet with You in this airport.

Meeting Him required quieting my insides enough to hear and respond. The kind of dialogue I was learning to have with God burgeoned when I saw it as an exchange—my mind for His thoughts, my fear for His assurance, my whispers for His response. As I made my way to a restaurant near my gate, I noticed an elderly gentleman who was being pushed in a wheelchair. I prayed for God to breathe life and strength into his frail body. I saw a man running as fast as my mind usually worked, and I prayed his racing heart would come to know Jesus. I saw a young woman with vacant eyes, and I prayed she would find the filling her heart most needed. I realized afresh that the people all around me weren’t merely interesting. They were God-created. I wanted to talk to Him about what He had made.

God, what do You see in the man who is late for his flight? And the one in the wheelchair—how do You see the heart buried underneath that broken body? Rather than looking at people as faces among the masses, I asked for His eyes for them and responded with minute-long prayers: God, I want to meet You in this airport.

No one knew this conversation I was having in my head with God. And I was starting to like these secret exchanges. At the restaurant, I grabbed the last available seat at the bar, which was full of day travelers with carry-ons. As I scooted up onto my stool and glanced at the laminated menu, I noticed the gentleman sitting next to me. He looked to be near retirement, but he was dressed for business. I was drawn to him in the way you’re drawn to someone who is not at all like you, but with whom you feel a strange connection.
Maybe I’m supposed to share the gospel with this man, I thought. I ordered my food and opened my book, trying to concentrate on reading while staying aware of what felt like a nudge from God.
Ten minutes later when the waitress brought out my order along with that of the man next to me, I noticed that we both had ordered the same meal. I awkwardly mumbled a comment about it, looking for a way to begin a conversation. But my voice, perhaps too quiet from nerves, got lost in a salvo of loudspeaker announcements. He hadn’t heard me. I went back to my book, resigned that I’d misread God’s cues.

The book I was reading explored the concept of abiding in the vine from John 15. The author used the notion of tree grafting to illustrate this abiding. After hours of client presentations on throbbing feet, my mind couldn’t absorb the words. I read and reread the same paragraph, but without comprehension. And then this prompt dropped into my mind: Ask the man sitting next to you to explain it.
Uh-oh, I thought.
As much as I wanted to hear from God, I knew that we humans sometimes mishear Him and mistake our mental wanderings for His voice. What should I do? Talk to the man and risk awkwardness and embarrassment? Or not talk to him and risk missing what might well be God’s answer to my prayer to meet with Him in this airport?
Well, at least I’ll never see this guy again, I thought. So I went for it.
“Sir, excuse me,” I said, much louder this time, almost shouting to compensate for my nerves.
He startled. “Yes?” he said, raising his eyebrows like the authoritative boss of a fresh college grad.
“Do you know anything about grafting?” I coughed out.
“What?” he asked.
Oh no. I had to say it again. This business exec didn’t even seem to know what the word meant.
“Grafting, sir. Do you know anything about grafting?”
My face was red hot.
“It’s funny you should ask,” he said. I noticed tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
My heart started racing.
“I majored in agriculture in college and I minored in grafting. I run a farm equipment business but have gotten away from what I once loved.” Now I was sure I could actually hear my heart, not just feel the pounding.
He stretched back on his stool, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. Then he enthusiastically explained the details of how the branch of one tree is grafted into another as if he were telling me a page-turning story. I showed him the paragraph in my book and asked him questions. He made it all so clear.
I’m not sure if I was more surprised that the prompt to talk to this man really was from God, or that God was personal enough to meet me at an airport barstool. Apparently, God was meeting this man too, right over his hamburger and French fries. He thanked me after our exchange as if he’d been reminded of his boyish love for trees and for grafting, a love that needed rediscovering.

Twelve years later, this conversation remains my most memorable business trip. Still. I can’t remember where I’d gone or even who I met with on that trip. I remember it only because I’d felt seen and heard by God.
God showed up when I was in my suit and heels, and He winked. We shared a secret. During those days of client presentations, excel spreadsheets, and conference calls, He was whispering, I want to meet with you, here. What I might once have considered a waste of time conversation with Him in the midst of a demanding day—became, instead, food for my hungry heart. It was a gift of hiddenness during a season when my work required me to be on during the workday.
God’s currency is communion—a relationship that grows, nearer still. A relationship that is cultivated when no one else is looking. A relationship accessed not just when we feel we need His help but at all the odd times that punctuate our agenda-driven days. A depth of relationship that feeds the recipient in the way that productivity and accomplishment just cannot.

What a waste. What a beautiful waste.

https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2017/08/meeting-with-god-in-the-airport/

Frustrated with God

“I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the  bitterness of my soul."   Job 10:1

Why would someone be frustrated with God? It's an extreme emotion that seems far fetched when it relates to God, yet it happens. Like Job, I found myself with exactly the same emotion two Sundays ago. Yes, I was really frustrated with God for a number of reasons, primary being that, am yet to receive the answer I expected on a prayer request. To me, I had done all am supposed to do, prayed all manners of prayer like petition, supplication, taking authority, praying based on his promises, fasting and so on and so forth. To be succinct, I had reached the end of my human capability and it just seemed like God was too slow to act and time was running out.

Early that Sunday morning, I cried out with tears to God in deep anguish and in bitterness challenged him to prove himself as the most powerful and the only true God. For sure the heavens did not come down on my head but God did appear to me before the day was over. He arranged for me to be prayed over in church in order that my soul and hurt can be soothed and also rebuked me through a bible verse mentioned during the message that day.

"He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm."   Matthew 8: 26

Truly, the underlying emotion behind my frustration was fear that time will run out and it will be too late for me, I forgot that the opposite of faith is fear and that the God of suddenly can turn things around in a twinkle. I can testify that since then, things have started to turn around for me and am praying that God will perfect the work he has started.

(Scripture quotation is from NIV)

 Establishing God's Praise and Glory

The story below was published by faithgateway exactly a week ago. It is a story that echoed what I had previously gone through the previous week.

"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." - Hebrews 11:3

Through the Wilderness by Bennet Omalu, from Truth Doesn't Have a Side

Editor's Note: Truth Doesn’t Have a Side - launching nationwide next  week- follows the journey of neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, who       uncovered the truth about brain damage in American football players, and his battle against those who would silence him. An incredible story that could change the course of sports culture. Enjoy this exclusive first look at the book.- Match Day came in March 1995. This is the day when residency programs announce who they are inviting to come join them. The whole match process is rather odd. At every other stage of higher education, you choose where you want to go. You choose your college — as long as they accept you. The same is true of graduate programs and professional programs like law school and med school. However, for residency you go out and interview with as many programs as give you the opportunity. You then list them in order of your preference. The programs then decide who is going where. You have very little say in the matter. If you do not like where you have matched, you have few options for going elsewhere. Since I had only interviewed in two places, I didn’t care which one chose me as long as one did. That would have been my attitude even if I had had a hundred interviews. I just wanted to match somewhere. Anywhere.  But I did not. No offer came from Massachusetts or New York. I only had one option. As soon as my one-year visiting scholar program ended, I was going to have to get on a plane and fly back to Nigeria. My visa was going to expire, and the United States had no reason to renew it. After learning of my failure to match, I went back to my small attic room, disappointed and angry. I wasn’t just disappointed and angry in a general sense. All of my frustrations were aimed at one individual — the One I blamed for the mess in which I now found myself. I was angry at God and I was not shy about telling Him so.  “How could You lead me so far, only to leave me in the middle of the sea to drown?” I asked Him. “If I knew this was what You were going to do to me, I never would have left home to begin with. I never would have worked so hard to come to America.” I guess you can call this prayer, since I was talking to God. If so, you can say I prayed for most of the night. I unloaded on Him. “All of this was a sham, a cruel joke You have played on me,” I prayed. “I wish You would have just left me alone and that You would leave me alone now.” At one point after expressing my disappointed frustrations with God, I collapsed into tears. I wanted to go to sleep, but I could not. Emotionally spent, I rolled over on my bed and looked at the clock, which read 3:00. I felt so alone and lonely and hopeless in that tiny attic room. Finally, my eyelids started to feel heavy, as if sleep was going to take me after all. In that moment of finally feeling like rest was near, my heart turned loose of its last piece of bitterness. I whispered in the dark, “Oh, God, I do believe and trust You and love You. All things are possible with You, and You can make a way if You choose. All things were made by You and for You and exist in You. In the Name of Jesus, I confess that all things are possible in You.” I still felt the hopelessness and doubt and despair, but one thing I knew above all others: I could not turn away from my God. I did not know what He had planned for me, but I trusted Him with my life. I drifted off to sleep, planning to stay in bed all the next day and maybe even the day after that. With that, I passed out.  The phone started ringing at 6:30 a.m. I slapped at it like it was the alarm and I was trying to reach the snooze button. I woke up enough to pick up the phone and say hello. On the other end, I heard a deep, baritone voice with a Mexican accent. “Dr. Omalu?” he asked. “Yes, this is Dr. Bennet Omalu,” I said, now more awake. “This is Dr. Carlos Navarro, professor of pathology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Colombia University and director of the residency program at Harlem Hospital Center. I apologize for calling so early. I hope I didn’t wake you.” “No, no, no, it’s not too early,” I lied. “I’ll get right to the point. Have you already matched with a program?” Dr. Navarro asked. “No, I haven’t.” “Good. We did not offer you one of the two positions we had open. However, one of the doctors to whom we offered it has turned us down.” “Okay,” I said. “We would like tentatively to offer the position to you.” I could hardly believe my ears. “Okay,” I said, almost in shock.  “What do I need to do?” “Would it be possible for you to come back to New York City tomorrow and meet with the director of the department of pathology? She was not available when you interviewed with us the first time.” “I would love to do that, but...” I hesitated. “To be honest with you, Dr. Navarro, I cannot spend so much money on a last-minute flight to New York and then have you not accept me.” Dr. Navarro gave me a reassuring laugh. “I understand,” he said. “Now, while I cannot guarantee that you will be offered the position, I can say there is a 95 percent chance the spot is yours.” “That’s good enough for me,” I said. “I will be there first thing tomorrow morning.” After I hung up the phone, I went to the bank to check my balance. I had about $1,500 in my account because I had just been paid by the nursing home. I took $1,200 and bought a red-eye ticket to New York. Fifteen hours later, I was at LaGuardia Airport, dressed in my best suit with $100 in my pocket. I took the subway train to Harlem Hospital for my meeting with the pathology department director. After the meeting, I rode the train back to LaGuardia. My flight didn’t leave until early the next morning, but I did not have the money to stay in a hotel that night. Instead I found a spot on the floor in the check-in lounge and slept there in my suit. About ten other people joined me there, although I was the only one wearing a tie. A day or so after I arrived back home in Seattle, Dr. Navarro called. “Dr. Omalu, Bennet, I am delighted to tell you that we would like to offer you a spot in our residency program starting this summer.” Of course I accepted.  After I hung up the phone, I thought back to that dark night when I had lost all hope and nearly lost my faith. The Bible says, “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) When I allowed my frustration to boil over into anger at God, I could only see what was in front of me. That was why doubt came. I wanted to give up in the face of difficulty. The Lord seemed to whisper to me in that moment, “Bennet, life is a struggle. Christ struggled, but He never wavered. So, you too must not give up or give in for the purpose I have for you. You have to continue fighting the good fight and running the good race. You cannot tire until you take your last breath. You will rest eternally when I call you home.” Those were my last thoughts that night when I fell asleep, and now God had shown me how faithful He truly is. I hoped to match with any residency program. God wanted me in Harlem in a program connected to an Ivy League school. Just because I did not initially match with them was not a problem for God. I had lost sight of the evidence of things not seen. I prayed I would not make that mistake again. Excerpted with permission from Truth Doesn’t Have a Side by Dr. Bennet Omalu, copyright Dr. Bennet I. Omalu. Published by Zondervan.

Whose Hand is it?

God's Right Hand

I love reading the bible and in particular the book of Psalm. I learn a lot about the attributes and character of God from it. One of such is the reference to God's right hand such as "The right hand of the LORD is exalted: the right hand of the LORD does valiantly(mighty things)". Another is "O sing to the LORD a new song, For He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him." There are other references to the hand of God in the bible and when that hand is raised up amazing things happen. It's no wonder Jesus sits at the right hand of God in heaven interceding for us. God saves with his right hand and I found myself asking 'what about God's left hand?' That is a mystery I don't know about yet but I have an inkling it's for judgment.

"For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them."  Psalm 44:3

A Catalogue of God's hand at work

Over several months, I have heard amazing stories that defies human explanation but points to God's hand at work.
One of such happened in the month of May in Maryland,USA. A woman who had been waiting for the fruit of the womb for 17 years eventually gave birth. The amazing part of this story is that she had expectation of giving birth to a baby based on scans throughout her pregnancy but gave birth to 5 babies at once. That is God's hand at work restoring all the wasted years in a miraculous way.

A young doctor on finishing medical school with great expectation of securing a position applied for positions as medical officer in hospitals in the State that he intends to settle down in. That did not work out, he then fixed his sight on his fiancee's home state while planning their wedding. On the wedding night, he and his wife made a prayer of agreement that before the end of 30days there will be good news concerning the job search. In the interim, they decided to pay a thank you visit to his sister in another state and it was there God began to open unexpected doors. There was a divine connection to the Medical Director of a Federal Medical Center who parents were acquaintances with his own late parents. This doctor paid a visit to the Hotel where the director was lodging but did not meet her. He then decided to drop his resume and that of a friend for her with a brief explanation of who he was. The next day being a Friday, he went to the Hotel very early in the morning and presented himself to her. When they eventually met face to face, she asked him about 3 personal questions about his parents. After providing appropriate answers, she asked him if he had his lab coat and stethoscope with him, he answered in the affirmative and the next sentence was " come down to the medical center on Monday morning and start a job as a Medical Officer. No letter of application or interview and God's right hand made a way. Later on, he received a message that his friend whose resume he submitted should resume on Monday too. This friend lived in another part of the Country, and the only way to reach that friend was the church worships at. Through a series of divine arrangement, he was able to send a message to his friend through a couple that visited his sister that Saturday. This couple on traveling back on Sunday was able to locate the church and drop the message that changed his friend's life too.

Another story that happened a few weeks ago, a young boy of two accidentally poured a kettle of just boiled water over his feet in the bathroom. The pain was so much that he was crying nonstop for about 2 hours. The mother applied various emergency remedies to no avail. She also prayed and committed the boy and his feet to God. This boy's feet was red for several hours and the mum feared that the burn must be deep. She then planned on taking him to the hospital for proper medical attention. Meanwhile, she decided to attend an evening church service and after which she requested for prayers. The pastor and the elders laid their hands on him and anointed his feet. To the glory of God, he began to run around on that feet as soon as they got home. No burn at all and it was so difficult to believe that the trauma of a few hours past was real. God answers prayers and listens to our cry.

There are so many instances of God's right hand even in things we might deem little. From a wife who gets a nudge to pray for her husband while sleeping in the night and the husband comes back from work with a story of deliverance from evil. This has happened several times to this couple.

God is wonderful and he cares about every detail of our lives. The difficulty may be great, challenging and the waiting may bring frustration, but we most hold on to one fact and that is ' there is no record anywhere in the bible where God failed those who trusted in him'.

Scriptures: Psalm 118:16;Psalm 98:1 KJV

No Clue?

I remember a TV Program my kids loved to watch awhile back, it was called Blue's Clue. Blue a dog receives mail and three clues are given in order to know what the letter contains. In the things of God, one can either have a clue of what's going on spiritually through the spirit of revelation and knowledge or through dreams. It's also possible not to know or have a clue. In such instance, one must diligently seek God's face for revelation and knowledge and also ask for direction in order to pray targeted prayers.

But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets. 1 Corinthians 2:10 NLT

We have expectations that God will give an answer to a prayer request, we anticipate the manifestation but we will have no clue to the exact timing of God. Then the journey of waiting begins and like the Israelites go round and round in the wilderness. Most times our waiting is a time of preparation to be vessels that can carry the weight of the new glory God has prepared for us. It is at such times we must hope against all hope and be fully persuaded that God is able to do all he has promised. Romans 4:18-20.


Be encouraged by this song "Never Late" by Sinach:

https://youtu.be/nRlE41fqX_s?list=PLxulfHfTvnfZ_9RUK_mESZNENMu6bUfnA

A Handbag Story and God’s Provision and Faithfulness

Emmalee                                                                         

I’ve come a lot of trials and tough times in the last few years. I am actually walking through darkness right now, and I think this is just the perfect time to share a testimony of God’s faithfulness.
I’m a girly girl and I love shoes and handbags, especially brown leathered ones. But they’re expensive and I don’t have much money. This is the story:
A few years ago I was given a nice, brown-leathered handbag as a Christmas gift (let’s call it bag #1). I loved it, but after a few years I realized I needed a bigger one. But I didn’t want to spend £20 to get a new one that wouldn’t even last a year. So I was thinking/praying “I need a new one, oh and I’d love a bigger brown-leathered one; they’re classy and last longer. But I don’t have the money for one, they’re kind of really expensive –and I can’t ask one as a gift either.” And that’s it. I never actually prayed for one.
2 weeks later as I was loading my car I noticed a bag on the pavement. I’m into arts and crafts so I always check on stuff I find on the street just in case I can do something with it, so I go and fetch it and realize it is brown-leathered. And big. So I’m happy and I think “cool!! I needed one”. My mum-who’s with me-just notices a handle is broken. “Just get rid of it!”. I decide to keep it and bring it to my place. Then I go back to my car and go away for a few days and forget about the bag.
When  I come back, I see that bag lying on the floor and decide to have a proper look at it. Apart form the broken handle, it is almost new.
I realize it is a luxury brand–very famous in my country. And then, I remember my prayer/ thoughts –I needed a bigger handbag and I wanted it brown-leathered. I can hardly breathe -has God answered my prayer?? I check on the price on the internet- £350!! So I start telling my friends about it and one says “You can’t keep it –someone probably got mugged”.
So the next morning, off I go to the police station. The one closest to home is closed, so I start walking to the next one. And I’m walking, I notice a police van watching a busy street. I go and talk to the policemen and explain the whole thing –found this expensive bag, someone probably got mugged, etc. They just start laughing: “if there’s no name in it… just keep it!”
So I kept it with the policemen’s blessing –and got the handle fixed for £20. Just the price of a regular fabric handbag J And I got bag #2.
After this, I started telling the story to show how God had answered my prayer. It’s not just about a handbag, it’s about God providing quality stuff to his children!! I would often share the story and also remember about it whenever I felt lost or sad –just as a reminder of God’s goodness. This (along with other answered prayers) is a real reminder that God is good and generous.
3 years after that, my small, brown-leathered handbag (bag #1) was too old so I decided to get a new one. The one I really liked was too expensive, so I got the smaller version on the internet from a shop that would only sell online in my country. I love their brand but no one knows about it. So I got my brown-leathered handbag #3.
I happened to be in a desperate situation and nothing seemed to work for a way out, not even prayer. I was desperate and the situation seemed too long to me –I’d been there for almost a year and often prayed God for help. At a certain point (and that was 4 months after I got handbag #3), it got really, really worse and I just felt like giving up the whole thing. One night I started crying and crying to God for help, trying to remember his goodness –and the handbag story. Then I fell asleep.
Next morning, I’m walking to work. It’s raining, and I see people in the neighbourhood have left stuff on the street and I see a handbag on the side of the pavement. I just smile to myself –”once was enough!” and go on walking. And then suddenly I see another bag at my feet. It’s brown-leathered so my eye gets caught and I pick it up. Then I can hardly breathe. It’s just the bigger version of bag #3 –the one I didn’t buy because it was too expensive…!! Same brand, same colour, same model, same features (pockets, zips) same everything apart from the fact it was bigger. SO brand-new  it smelt of leather. WHAT ON EARTH?! I was crying my eyes out and crying to God the night before and the next morning at 8.30am I find my dream handbag –for the second time!!! lying at my feet? A brand that is not sold in my country that you only get from the internet?
For to me this is not about having a nice handbag–this is about God’s goodness. God telling me:

• I know you so well. I know your likes and dislikes. (My dream bag)
• I can create anything out of nothing (how did this bag just appeared at my feet?)
• I’m faithful (to me the first handbag story really WAS about God’s goodness).

I called my mum. She knows nothing about the desperate situation I’m in, she’d get too worried. As I tell her the handbag story she goes “wow, that’s a miracle–that’s God telling you he is right there with you”.
As I write this testimony, I’m still in that hopeless situation and things really don’t look better. But what can I say but what a great God we have. He knows us by name, he can work miracles, and most of all, he is right with us and sticks with us in the midst of total darkness.
I love my new handbag, and I love to see the faces people make when I tell them I have found another brown-leathered handbag on the street, they can’t believe it; they go “again?!”. A friend came up to me really confused “is that a new bag? No wait –I’ve seen it before- no wait, that’s a new one, right?”
Christian friends say I’m blessed, non-christians say I’m lucky. I’m the daughter of an incredible God. I don’t know how or when my problems will be fixed but I really do NOT worry about that. God has proven faithful even before fixing all this.

(Testimony Credit: www.testimonyshare.com)

The Tale of Two Longings and Blessing.

God longs to be gracious to you and He waits on high to have compassion on you! But why is God waiting to show you compassion? That's because He wants you to long for him! It's quite easy to long for the miracles, healing, breakthrough or victory without wanting to know more of God. Our desire for God should outweigh what we can get from God. Our longing for God should arise out of our love for Him, for we are commanded to love God with all our heart, all our soul and with all our strength.

Many of the biblical promises are conditional promises, which means it's a two way street. You must fulfill a certain condition, then lay claim to that promise and then God fulfills his word because His promises are yea and amen. Most of these conditional promises requires a turning back to God, seeking his face and being obedient.

So, have you been waiting long for a breakthrough, healing or answers to prayers? Do a spiritual checkup!

"O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you."   

                                                                                                               Isaiah 30:19NASB

God's Love Story:

The excerpt below was published by faith.full , a devotional for women by faithgateway.com. The story is not limited to women only, it cuts across board. Hope it blesses you as it blessed me.8

Waiting and Trusting in God's Sovereignty

Sara Hagerty, Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet

When we’d first moved from Chinquapin into our new home, I had a moment, followed by a few other moments, when God broke in. It wasn’t mystical. In fact, it felt very natural. God spoke to me not audibly but as a resounding sense in my spirit. As far as I could tell, He said to me, You will conceive a child this September. Now, while I believe in the voice of God speaking today, I am also wary of what I know even more intimately — my flesh. I can hear things I want to hear, and my imagination, at times, might be just as clear as what I perceive to be the voice of God. So I asked Him for confirmation. Lord, if this is You, confirm it — not once but twice. The details of His confirmation were enough for me to believe, with as much of my being as I was capable, that Nate and I would be parents the next summer, nine months following September of 2005. I thought God gracious to prepare me, one who might benefit from having more than the typically allotted time to carry a baby. At that time, we had no idea the fertility challenges awaiting us. Like most young wives, I assumed that “trying” to have children means conceiving children. So leading up to that September, I lived confident that I would be pregnant soon. I didn’t waver in my expectation. I had no reason to. I had heard from God other times, but never this clearly. Never did a sense I had or a nudge from Him carry the grace that this message did to spur on my prayers. I wound up thanking God for what He was about to do more than even asking Him to do it. This was going to happen. In early October, I realized that the expectation I’d held with such confidence was false. There was no baby in my womb. The disappointment that flooded me had less to do with Him and more to do with me. I didn’t doubt God, but I questioned my ability to hear. Was it time to question my sanity? God wasn’t unfaithful; I just couldn’t hear Him. All my life I had set up camp on the side of caution, leery of anyone who “heard” from God. Interpretation was dangerous, and I was now living the fulfillment of that very danger. I’d spent three months wasting time planning on a vaporlike outcome, all based on a sense I felt I was given that something was coming. Little did I know that one month of disappointment was a precursor to nearly a decade of tasting the same bitter flavor. It wasn’t only one September that I didn’t conceive. It was many Septembers, Octobers, and Novembers in the years ahead. Every question I had about what I’d believed God had promised fit into a backpack I wore into every interaction I had with Him, like the memory of a marital betrayal. Remember this? Four years passed before I gained any insight into that particular exchange with God. In March of 2009, we received our referral for two children from Ethiopia after an arduous year and a half in the hamster wheel of adoption. A pint-sized girl and her little brother. I found myself giddy at times, unable to sleep, dreaming about holding these two for whom we’d waited for so long. Months later, we prepared to get them. To cross the expanse of one segment of our waiting in the form of the Atlantic Ocean. Africa held a fulfillment — them for us, and us for them. Weeks before we left, our case was heard in Ethiopia. Just after we passed court, we received our little girl’s birth date. September 2005. When a mother on one continent gave birth to a child, that same child was conceived for another mother, halfway around the world. One little girl’s birth was this adoptive mom’s conception. The day she was begotten on this earth, she was destined to be mine. Months before our referral, I asked the Lord to confirm that these two children were ours. He knew before I asked and gave me confirmation. Four years earlier. As if to say, Prepare. Wait. It will be a long gestation, but you will give birth. Your conception lies in another mother’s birth. September no longer held a sting for me. It brought new life. The darkness of waiting, and many of its questions, had a new name. It was no longer a tomb, but a holding place for resurrection. My wilderness gave way to Eden. And yet. My hand gripped the edge of the bathroom sink as I once again scrutinized the pregnancy test. Was there (maybe?) a faint line I was missing in this light? I didn’t count the number of tests I’d taken. There were no line items in our monthly budget for check, check, and double check. But maybe there should have been. Even a negative result is an indicator that hope is still alive. Every time I took a test, I believed, again, that this barrenness might end. I ran my fingers across my midriff, the womb that had not yet known child, my body absent of the stretch marks so many women wish they didn’t have. Even with two children in my home with whom I could not be more in love, I felt the ache of my body, broken. My barrenness remained a question mark over my life, even now that I was a mother. How is it that adoption didn’t completely fill my mommy void? I was beginning to conclude that that void wasn’t really a mommy void at all. I wasn’t longing to have my skin stretch to hold another. I rarely felt the ache to have a child who looked like Nate and me. I hadn’t spent my young adult days dreaming about pregnancy. My continued grief, my longing, was not a sign of dissatisfaction with the children God had given me. I loved them as my own flesh. I struggled, instead, with knowing that God could heal me, but He hadn’t. It seemed like ages ago that I had sat in the doctor’s sterile office, which sought to be promising with its photographs of newborn babies pressed against smiling mommies whose bodies, unlike mine, were complete. His bookshelves held catchy titles that said the opposite of his words. Instead of discussing The Fastest Way to Conceive, he said, “You’re an unusual case. Your body is hardwired with a condition that many women are able to change through diet and nutrition. Though this isn’t impossible, it won’t be easy for you.” Despite his words, I left the office full of expectation that God would trump this diagnosis. “What may take some people one year could very well take you six,” said this doctor. But when six years passed and I had watched a number of friends with this very condition conceive their first child and then their second and, some, their third, I remembered his words. I had become that unusual case. Standing at the bathroom sink, the suggested two-minute wait turned into four minutes, five, seven, and I dropped the plastic eight ball of a test into the trash can. I curled up on my bed and tried to think of something else, anything other than absorbing the impact of another month’s delay. I thought about those who had watched me persist in prayer, against all odds. What will they say about You, Father?  But what I really meant to say to God was, What does my heart say about You, Daddy? Another minute passed and I dragged the test out of the trash can. Maybe, just maybe. Nope. At least the day before, I’d basked in hope. I’d made plans. I’d told the story in my head a hundred times. Expectant mother, expectant of God. He came through. I told you so, I said to those voices telling me that I was wasting time begging His ear when I could have rested in His sovereignty. But it wasn’t to be this time. Not yet. Oh, Father, how long? The props that had comforted me when a test was negative — the run for a chai, the venting session with a girlfriend, the media escape — would not be enough that day. I knew they never had been. Fetuslike on my bed, I had only moments before little African feet would scamper across the floor and find me as their jungle gym. But He held time for me as holy pain created a crack within. This moment had a work to do, and God multiplied what little time I had to receive it. I knew that my womb wasn’t the only thing barren. My inability to respond with trust, to lean, to rest peacefully in what God could do, but hadn’t done, exposed me. My instant response to that moment over my bathroom sink, to many moments like it, was far from eyes-on-Him. Instead of saying, Show me Yourself as Healer, I asked, Why haven’t You healed me? Instead of saying, Show me the Daddy side of You, I asked, Why aren’t You Daddy to me? Instead of saying, Show me Yourself as Comforter of those in pain, I asked, Why all the pain? My questions revealed my resistance to the vulnerability God loves. If I’d let it, weakness would continue to produce a need in me that would draw me nearer to Him. I had surely grown since that first negative pregnancy test, but there was still much more of God to discover. Barrenness, like nothing else, reminded me how far I was from believing the truths about God that I proclaimed, how far I was from leaning against Him the way I wanted a baby to lean against me. Yet He seemed to have ordained the emptiness every month’s not-yet created in my understanding. He seemed to be in the hunger itself. There has to be more here, I finally breathed, forehead to knees. I barely know You, I whispered within, loosening my grip. Excerpted with permission from Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet: Tasting the Goodness of God in All Things by Sara Hagerty, copyright Zondervan.

God's Grace in time of Need

Finding Grace

Thus says the Lord:
“The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you
                                                                                     Jeremiah 31: 2-3 ESV

The word 'grace' has meant a lot to me over the past few weeks and found myself asking for grace for help in time of need according to His word in Hebrews 4:16. Grace is a great and amazing gift from God which I do not deserve. Yet, God in his mercies has made it available for me at all times, for every need or problem. Grace makes me to have sufficiency in all things. It is by grace that I can walk through the wilderness and yet find springs that sustains and gives life. Where grace is found, God's unconditional love abounds.

In the old testament requests were usually made from God or kings with " if I have found grace in your sight" and in the new testament, grace became a benediction that the disciples declare upon members of the church. Therefore, nothing stops me from asking for God's grace on a daily basis as finding grace is having the presence of God.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13:14 NIV

The excerpt below was published by Faith.Full,  a women's newsletter by faithgateway.

Loved Unconditionally

Sanya Richards-Ross, Chasing Grace

My whole life has been about running against the clock. The time between Olympic Games makes each one so important that seizing the chance to participate is often a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. No one is guaranteed even one Olympics, and I was finally the favorite, primed to stand on top of the podium. It had been my only consistent dream since I was a little girl, and the unknown of another four years was enough to keep me from taking the chance. I had lined up against some of the sport’s biggest and fiercest competitors. I had even run against cheaters, but this was the biggest giant of them all. It was me against my sport. Against myself. I will always say it was one of my greatest blessings to be a professional athlete, and I treasure the lifelong lessons and relationships the sport has afforded me. But the dark reality of being a professional female athlete was becoming clear. Just as I neared the peak of my earthly climb, I had to turn back and see how far I could actually fall. Most of the women I knew in my sport have had at least one abortion. Prioritizing athletic goals over the gift of life was the norm. It was all around me, but not until it was me did I realize many of these young women only wore a mask of indifference. During the car ride to the clinic, I felt both relief in the decision I had made and panic in what was to come. I entered the clinic composed, yet I was filled with an inner turmoil. All of the crying leading up to that moment had left me so numb that I barely remember the cold instruments as they brushed against my skin, and the emptiness that followed. It was a quick procedure, but it felt like an eternity. I made a decision that broke me, and one from which I would not immediately heal. Abortion would now forever be a part of my life. A scarlet letter I never thought I’d wear. I was a champion — and not just an ordinary one, but a world-class, record-breaking champion. From the heights of that reality I fell into a depth of despair. But like the champ I was conditioned to be, I boarded my flight to Beijing the very next day. My mom figured it might be too much to handle a fifteen-hour journey with all of my USA teammates, so she planned my flight with one of my best friends, Bershawn Jackson. We had been friends since I was sixteen years old, and he was the friend who could make any situation better. No matter how dire or awkward my circumstances were, he always made me smile. I didn’t tell him for a few years, but he had no idea how much he helped me that day. We talked about our journey from the World Juniors in Kingston to becoming two of the most dominant one-lappers in the sport. We were heading to Beijing to finish what we started, and he helped me smile through my pain. The doctor had recommended two weeks with no activity, but that was an order I couldn’t follow. I didn’t tell my coaches, my father, or anyone on Team USA. I landed in Beijing determined to bring home gold. Winning was the only medicine I thought I needed, and I was ready for that medication. I bottled up my sorrow in the deep recesses of my mind. For a brief moment, I felt free. The first day of competition went well. I was on autopilot, but instead of just outrunning my competition, I was hoping to outrun myself, and the now uncomfortable feeling of living in my own skin. I won my semifinal round, but my conscience could not be defeated. The night before the final, my mind worked in overdrive. I couldn’t shut it off. * I had really screwed up this time, and I knew it. How could I ask God for this blessing when I had just done the one thing I never thought I’d do? Finally, I’m running. Running for real. I pushed out hard and fast. Within the first 100 meters, I chased down and passed the two runners to my right and was tearing through the first straightaway. My legs are stretched out underneath me, holding my stride, and my arms are vigorously pumping me into the next gear. I held the lead with 100 meters still to run. This is where I bounce, where I kick one last time and fly to the finish. This is where I leave everybody behind. They can’t touch or catch me. There’s nothing between me and the line. Keep your eyes on the finish line and just run. You can do this. Nobody knows. God still loves you. Stay focused. In the moment, San. But there is something. And it’s pulling my focus down. The interlocking Olympic rings rise up from the track like ghosts. My past, present, and future. Instead of a clear mind focused on executing the 4 P’s, my mind is cluttered, filled with doubt, shame, and unworthiness, and these are manifested in my body. No. Oh please, God, no. My right leg jerks stiff and straight, as if those rings leaped up and lurched onto my hamstring. I can’t shift. Form is gone, poise a distant memory. My body is nothing more than a sack of bones, dragging these limbs. All I can think about is the cramp in my hamstring. Keep running, I tried to tell myself. I can’t. It’s gone. The runners on the inside pull even and then surge ahead. I have no answer. Even though my hamstring remains intact, I’m in shambles. I have nothing left to give. I’m the third one across the finish line, and gravity lowers me to my knees. My left hand covers my eyes as I try to bury myself beneath this track. Please take this weight away from me. In the dream the night before my race, I felt the sting of defeat, and I succumbed to it. In some weird way, I felt it was my sacrifice back to God. I didn’t deserve to be on the track that day or stand on top of the podium in Beijing. I didn’t feel worthy of His love. As I composed myself to head to the podium, one of the staffers came toward me with an odd smile. He could tell I was hurting. And he wanted to say something to lift my spirits, maybe even make me laugh. “We already had your name on the gold medal,” he said, confirming the expectations of the world and affirming that I’d be waiting in vain for another four years. I burst into tears. Humiliation covered me. The bronze medal hung around my neck like a burden I was too broken to carry. It was crushing in a way that can’t be explained. I was so broken, physically and emotionally. Eyes swollen by the tears, body aching from the loss, I willed myself to the medal stand. All I wanted to do was get to my family and the safe harbor of their apartment and cry. After I left the stadium, I jumped on a public bus to head away from the media, the village, and my fellow athletes. I needed a refuge, and I needed it fast. As I boarded the bus, the loss started to sink in, and I quickly found a seat to sink into. My shoulders collapsed under the disappointment. As the bus lurched forward, I realized I didn’t know where I was. Was this even the right bus to be on? I searched the seats for a familiar face; a trace of red, white, and blue; a Team USA hat — anything that looked familiar. Nothing. Anxiety began to suffocate me. My throat tightened, and I found it hard to breathe. A full-blown panic attack was setting in. I felt totally lost, confused, and scared. My internal warfare was now my external reality. I got off at the next stop, weeping in agony as I tried to navigate a crowded Beijing sidewalk. It was in the midst of this foreign hysteria that a shallow “help” squeezed through the battlefield of my mind and out of my mouth as a whisper. My shaking of soul eased, and the anxiety diminished. This all-consuming peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding, flooded my heart and illuminated my spirit. I could hear the familiar, loving voice of a friend — my Father, my healer, my protector, my everything — calling out to me that it was OK, that I would be OK. Until then, I had never truly experienced the mercy of God, had never felt His love in a physical presence. I had yet to feel Psalm 139:8: If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. I didn’t see that God was there with me, weeping, praying. I couldn’t understand that His Son’s sacrifice on the cross was for me at my worst. He alone was carrying me out of my darkest time. Gentle tears fell down my cheeks as love rushed in. I felt forgiven before I even asked for it. I found my way to my family in their rented rooms in Beijing and felt God’s care, His mercy, take me there — back to a place where I knew I was loved unconditionally. We stayed up all night. We talked and cried, and I shared with them my experience of God on the bus. They too opened up their hearts to the power of God’s love that comes to us when we invite Him into our valleys. Four days later, I was scheduled to compete in the 4x400 relay. My feelings were still raw, but enough time had passed for me to render the emotion. I heard and felt God on the street corner, and in the days that followed, I was again comfortable speaking to Him, asking for His presence and guidance. My prayers changed from confessions of guilt and pleas for mercy to expressions of gratitude and rejoicing. My God never deserted me, even in the moment I was completely lost. He never left my side. What else could I do but say thank you? His love is always because of His favor and grace. I did not earn God’s love; He gives it freely. And that meant I didn’t have to ask Him to give it back. Excerpted with permission from Chasing Grace by Sanya Richards-Ross, copyright Sanya Richards-Ross. http://www.faithgateway.com/loved-unconditionally/