Repentance and Forgiveness Are Not Dirty Words

Not too many days ago, I listened to a friend lament over the fact that she had judged herself in many areas.  In addition to recognizing that the source of her thoughts and emotions were coming from self-judgment, she also believed they were being caused by the judgment of others. Her words pierced my heart like a fiery arrow. 

I knew that I had judged her, not in an all-encompassing way, but it was judgment all the same. To hear her heart-felt sharing and not recognize my part in her struggle felt dishonest and dirty.  Though my heart was not filled with judgment toward her, it had been tainted ever so slightly and even that was not acceptable to me and, more importantly, it was not acceptable to God.

My heart exploded with sorrow over the truth of my actions. This was someone I loved and respected! How could I have felt these feelings, particularly when judging is not generally a part of my nature? All I can say is that a “little fox had slipped into my vineyard.”

Song of Solomon 2:15 Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.

In my sorrow, I heard the Lord. I needed to ask for forgiveness. My spirit so agreed with God’s. I wanted to ask for forgiveness and I wanted to do it right away. I praised God for His kindness in arranging a time and a place for me to release my friend and myself from the power of this act of judgment. 

2 Corinthians 7:9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.

Once the joy and relief of knowing that I was being given this opportunity to repent of my sin settled down, the reality of what I was about to do set in and fear rose up.  “What would she think of me? What if she didn’t want to forgive me? What if I hurt her with my words?” were just a few thoughts that ran through my mind. I was feeling ashamed, fearful and exposed. My natural self wanted to hide and cover myself.

Genesis 3:7-10 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."

 In desperation, as the time for my friend to rejoin me grew near, I began to rationalize that it would be best if I lessened the impact of the blow by watering my words down a bit. This was the scenario that I settled on, “If I have judged you, I am sorry.” But, no, this was not God’s plan. I clearly heard Him speak to me, “Not IF you have, because YOU HAVE.”  Ouch!

  

The time had come. My friend sat down beside me, and before I could lose my courage, I turned to her in tears and said, “There is something I have to tell you. I have judged you and I am so, so sorry. Will you forgive me?” With barely a pause, she looked me in the eyes, with her own tear filled eyes, and said, “I forgive you.” Then she embraced me and said, “ I love you my sister.” A warm, healing balm spread over my pierced heart.

Repentance and forgiveness my friends are not dirty words. They are blessings from God. 

Acts of repentance and forgiveness promote vulnerability, humility and intimacy. They restore right relationship with man and God.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Looking back, I can’t help but think that God thought, “Well done my good and faithful daughters.” Why? Because together, we painted a beautiful picture of a Christ-like exchange between two of His children. Believers who were both willing to risk for the sake of love.

What Does it Mean to Be Favored by God?

I am participating in a Beth Moore bible study (Stepping Up - a journey through the Psalms of Ascent) this summer and in one of the lessons, Beth wrote, “Insecurity is a serious problem, but self-security can be an even bigger problem – even our self-security drawn from our position as a child of God.” She went on to share this scripture (emphasis mine):

Psalm 30:6-7:

“When I was secure (another version says “prosperous”), I said, ‘I will never be shaken.’ Lord, when You showed Your favor, You made me stand like a strong mountain; when you hid Your face, I was terrified.” (HCSB)

At first, I did not understand what she was trying to convey, so I kept reading. She explained herself like this: 

“…God’s favor and His person are not synonymous. If our trust is in manifestations of God’s favor rather in God Himself, we will crumble like dry clay when He calls us to walk a distance of our journeys entirely by faith and not by sight.”

In other words, in this instance, Beth interpreted that David was basing his security and trust on the manifest favor of God and when he had no manifest evidence of favor, He was terrified. I can relate!

My heart broke when I realized that in some measure, I too respond to God in this manner. Not only have I believed this distortion of truth, I have inadvertently taught it to others. I often say to my daughter Jeneva, “You are favored by God,” speaking those words based on the fact that God always seems to work on her behalf in a very clear and “manifest” way. I have repented for my error and have apologized to Jeneva for promoting God to her in that way.  I said to her, “I guess that would be like you only loving me when I did things for you or gave you material things – manifest evidence. As a parent, I don’t want my child’s love based on such things. I want my children (I have two girls) to love me simply because I am for them and not against them, even when I cannot provide or choose not to provide an answer or a fix for the hard things they will encounter in life.

So, here is my understanding of the favor of God:

The favor of God means that He is for me and not against me. That simple. Simple, but powerful when you think about it, which I invite you to do.

In Part 2, "Oh, From Where Do My Insecurities come? "I will share some possible reasons for my financial insecurity. I find that most of the time, if not all, my fears come from a very real place. Hopefully, as I have related to what Beth Moore shared, you will be able to relate to what I am going to share.

Preview of Part 2:

One of my greatest areas of struggle has to do with money/finances. I feel very insecure and afraid (or as David said, “terrified”) when it feels as if God has hidden His face or withheld His favor from me and has left me to make my own way – I believe that would be the self-security Beth Moore was talking about.

Romans 8:31

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (NIV)

A Tribute to One of Man's Best Friends

Our beloved dog Pitch died today from secondary complications of an infection.  He leaves behind our family, his doggie "wife" Trudy, and his good doggie friends Lucy and Bandit.  He was a good and faithful friend to us and will be missed tremendously. 

The photo Joe took to put on the "lost dog" flyer

His Story

We know Pitch was an old fellow, but we were not sure how old. You see, Pitch adopted our family in 2007. Yes, he adopted us, not vice versa. 

Sara and I came home one day to see this bear-like creature sitting by the front door. I approached it cautiously, fearing it may attack us. It looked very capable of doing great harm. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a bear after all. Whew! It was a very furry, large male black dog. My husband informed me that the dog had shown up out of nowhere. Later on, our neighbor Lisa said she saw him walking around her front yard, peering into her fence at her dogs and then saw him head for our house to do the same. Apparently, he preferred to take up residence at our house. He chose wisely because I have a very soft heart when it comes to taking in animals.

As Joe began creating a flyer to put up in the area – we don’t live in a neighborhood – Jeneva drove up into the yard. I thought, “Oh no, she is going to be really scared when she sees this big black dog.” Not so. She came through the door and the first thing she said was, “Who does that big dog with the sweet brown eyes belong to?” To her credit, she recognized his goodness right away.

Sara followed in her big sister's footsteps, going even further. “Can we keep him Mommy? Can we keep him?" was repeated over and over. Joe and I explained that we needed to locate his rightful owner. Not only did we put up flyers, we also posted his picture on Internet sites that were for that purpose.  

In the meantime…

Joe instructed me not to give him food and water in the hopes that our new friend would go home. I followed his advice that afternoon, but we decided not to withhold water the next day when we found him still sitting by our door. It was fairly clear by the third day that this dog was not leaving. We then decided we could not withhold food any longer. Over these same days, Sara began to “take ownership” of him. She even wanted to name him. She decided to name him “Pitch” because he was pitch black. Naming him created an even deeper bond between us all. 

One of the things that first touched our hearts about Pitch, other than those sweet brown eyes, was how he would escort us to and from our cars. When we went out the door, he got up and walked us to our car and then returned to his spot by the door. When we would come home, he would greet us at the car and escort us to the front door. He was such a gentleman. Surely someone had to be missing this fellow, but who?

As each day passed, Pitch would venture a little further from the door. First he sat under a nearby tree and then he eventually began to explore the yard. We live by a fairly busy road and I began to worry that Pitch was going to get hit by a car. I asked Joe if I could put him in the backyard, which was fenced. At first he hesitated, not being sure how Pitch would get along with our other dogs, Trudy and Lucy, but quickly changed his mind when I told him, “Okay, then you can be the one to tell Sara when he gets killed by a car.” Pitch made it into the backyard and indeed stayed with us. We were never able to find his true owner.

Pitch playing basketball

We discovered many things about Pitch. He was so polite and well mannered. It appeared that he only liked to eat when someone was near by. It was like he was trained to wait. He obeyed commands and, believe it or not, he could play basketball! When Sara and Joe would shoot hoops, Pitch would get the ball on the rebound and put it between his front legs and press down on it with his very strong chest. It was almost impossible to get the ball back. Sara wrestled with him over that ball many times.

Things we loved about Pitch:

He liked to howl when the train went by

He also howled when Sara practiced piano

He could play basketball like a champ

His gentle and sweet in nature

His big brown eyes

His extraordinary fuzziness

We were heartbroken when he became ill. We nursed him night and day. In the beginning, we thought there was no hope, but he rallied from his original infection and appeared to be doing well. Then, just as quickly, he began to decline again. This time no matter how much we cared for him, it wasn’t enough. We did have some very good time together as we administered comforting care, being thankful that he did not appear to be in any pain. We assured him of our love and told him it was okay to let go. Today he let go. He is gone, but we have our memories of him. I am sure one day we will be telling tales about him to the next generation of our family. He was that kind of dog.

Sara and her friend Sarah just after performing the "marriage ceremony" of Pitch and Trudy.
 The white cloth is Trudy's veil. Aren't they a cute couple?

Farewell Pitch. Again, thank you for choosing us.

P.S. We recently acquired another sweet boy, Bandit, from friends. Was that God’s plan? I would like to think so. He doesn’t replace Pitch, he just moved into the queue of love.

Good Medicine

Most of us have heard that laughter is good medicine. Well, it’s true. Last night I heard my daughter’s voice faintly through the wall that separates our bedrooms. She was calling for me. When I went into her room, she said, “Mommy, I can’t breathe.” Because of some other very recent experiences, I knew immediately that she was having an anxiety attack. From what I can glean from her experiences, an anxiety attack is a horrible thing to experience – difficulty breathing, chest pains, nausea, sweats and chills at the same time, etc. Watching my daughter try to catch her breath while looking at me with frantic eyes was gut wrenching to say the least. 


I got her started on some deep breathing exercises and calmed her by rubbing her forehead and speaking words of comfort that I have had to say all too often lately, “It will be alright. It will pass soon. I will stay with you.”  We tried to get on the internet to see if we could Google ways to stop an anxiety attack, but our internet connection would not work. She said, “What a time for the internet not to work.” I agreed. However, she remembered some videos she had made with her two best friends on Photo Booth and wanted to watch those instead. 

Photo Booth Shot

If you have the Photo Booth program, you have probably figured out that you can change the settings to do weird things to the images. We watched clip after clip of her and her friends being silly and using the settings to make some very strange and funny faces. We laughed and laughed. Okay, I did most of the laughing and she laughed at me laughing so hard. I had tears coming down my face. Within a few minutes, I heard some very beautiful words, “Mommy, I can breathe again.” We were searching for a remedy and we found one. We were looking for answers from an external source, when the answer was right there within us – LAUGHTER!


I would like to say that I went back to bed with complete peace of mind, especially after praying fervently for God to comfort her in my absence, but I didn’t. I worried that she might have another attack and I wouldn’t hear her calling me. I worried that it was really a heart attack and she would die because I didn’t take her to the doctor. Are there any other parents out there that have these thoughts when your child is very sick?  I had to practice my own deep breathing and relaxation exercises - praying and trusting in God’s good care.  


Well, I made it until about 5 a.m. before I did "the test.” I call it that for lack of a better title. I went into her room as quiet as I could and stood over her bed to see if she was breathing. There. I admit it. When either of my children are sick, I often check their breathing. In this particular instance, I couldn’t see my precious girl very well in the dark and I didn’t want to touch her chest because I didn’t want to startle her and bring on a heart attack for sure. As I hovered, waiting, staring intently at her little body, she sighed and rolled over onto her side. I sighed too. 


Some may say that I did not trust that my prayers would be answered and maybe this is so. Regardless, I would like to think that God was not interpreting my conduct as an act of distrust, but rather that He felt my mother-love for my child and responded with His own great love and compassion. I would even like to think that He smiled to see my relief.


Laughter, prayers, and a mother’s love – like a spoonful of sugar – sweetens an otherwise unpleasant situation. Don’t you agree?

"A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22 (Amplified Bible)

A Different Kind of Bully

There is a big bully attacking the body and soul of my very, very precious 12 year old. It requires sacrifice after sacrifice from her. “Give me this and this and this,” it greedily demands. She grows weary of the price it exacts from her. She is very long-suffering, but at times, she cries out, “It isn’t fair! Why me? I don’t like it!”

In these moments, my heart grows so heavy it feels like a stone is sitting on my chest. It is hard to bear. I desperately want it removed. Pressure builds behind my eyes as they are assaulted with an onslaught of unshed tears. I hold them back as I look into the pained eyes of my little girl. The corners of my mouth lift into a weak smile and reassuring words flow out. “It will be okay. I love you and others love you and we will be with you through this thing.”  The words are true and easy to speak, but the reason they are being spoken is very distressing. 

You might be thinking at this point that something needs to be done about this terrible harasser.  I agree, but there isn’t a simple solution because her foe is not a person, it is a medical condition.  This particular type of condition is very elusive. The hows and whys of its appearance and subsequent behavior remain a mystery. The kicker is that in most cases, as in hers, the culprit doesn’t appear by itself, but feels the need to bring a couple of other like-minded friends along with it - which is typical of a bully. As we all know, there is strength in numbers, which usually works to one’s advantage, but not in this case.  

Through medication, two out of three of our daughter's attackers have been subdued – not eliminated. The one that remains is a real stinker and is resisting the prescribed treatment. We as a family have had to make some very big temporary adjustments to our day-to-day routines, knowing that there is a possibility that some of these adjustments may become more permanent. As a result, other things have had to shift as well, certain mindsets, expectations, short-term vs. long-term views, to name a few. 

As I rail against this enemy, I have found that my greatest weapon is in the wonderful promises of God, which I happily share with my child. Romans 5:1-5:

 1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

We will get through this trying time. There may be a few more (or a lot more) tears and hurdles that need to be jumped, but in the meantime, we will rejoice in knowing that God is using this circumstance to create and/or refine some very wonderful things in the hearts of our family. If we as parents remain steadfast in God’s love, we will have the awesome privilege of teaching our child at a very young and impressionable age about His great faithfulness. We cling to the indication that things like compassion and empathy for others are being sown into her life now. We expect that sometime in the near future, she will be able to share about her experience, and through her experiential knowledge, bring hope into someone else’s difficult circumstance. 

I love how cathartic writing my feelings down can be. The stone has been lifted from my chest. I sincerely thank you, Lord, for your presence with me tonight and your listening ear.

Ode to a Friend

I have a new friend in my life and she is already so, so precious to me. We had shared a few short conversations over the past several years, but this year all that changed. We became more intimately involved in each other’s lives as a result of a shared experience – one that I had gone through and one that she is currently going through. Conversation after conversation took place and wondrously, we began to see that we had so much more in common than our trials.

Though we are alike in many ways, there is a distinct difference between us. She has the gift of mercy and I have the gift of prophecy. As a result, we see many situations from different perspectives. I will be quick to speak truth and she will just as quickly extend mercy. I am not saying that she doesn’t speak truth and I don’t extend mercy, but I am saying that these are our first response reactions. The difference is so apparent at times that we laugh out loud, finding humor in it. The thing we both share that helps balance out both our gifts is our desire to do all things in love.

A couple of Sundays ago, I was sitting beside this friend in church when a revelation hit my heart like a beautiful, energizing bolt of lighting. I turned to her and said, “I have to tell you something.” The power of the revelation was so strong that it took me a minute to be able to speak. Finally, I said, “You are a gift to me. You are going to teach me how to love fearlessly. ” We shared a special moment and then went our own ways. A short time later, I got a phone call from her and she said with excitement in her voice, “I know what you are teaching me.” I said, “You do?” She said, “Yes. You are teaching me how to have courageous hope.” How marvelous is this: “Tender Mercy teaching Fearless Love” meets “Lover of Truth teaching Courageous Hope.” What a pair!

I wrote this poem to honor the lovely thing God is doing in my friend and me.

The Meeting of Two Hearts

Tender shoots of Fearless Love

Stretching toward the Light above

The beating wings of a gentle dove

Deliver freedom yet dreamed of

Binding roots of Courageous Hope

Clinging to life’s most grueling slopes

Though in darkness you may grope

In God’s brightness you boldly lope

Here we have two lives intertwined

Connected by Perfect Love divine

Broken bread and poured out wine

Firming your heart, softening mine

After I wrote my poem, I found this amazing verse which sums up my thoughts perfectly.

Psalm 85:10 Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Love Offerings

During a time when light was quickly fading from my world as I descended deeper and deeper into a dungeon of despair, God gave me Jeneva.

She was a walking, talking gift of love. Without her to love and to receive love from her, I am not sure how much longer I would have been able to hold on to the lifeline that connected me to this world. One of the simple, yet profound, things that brought me joy was my frequent walks with Jeneva. I loved being outside (I have always viewed four walls as a confining environment for many good reasons) and feeling the freedom in the vastness of the space around us. Though I was not intimately relating to Jesus at that time, I now recognize that He was still there with me and was for me. This poem is a glimpse into that precious time and a thanksgiving offering to the Lord for such sustaining moments when I needed them most.

Love Offerings

Walking hand and hand, fingers entwined, feeling the smallness of your palm in mine,

Watching your eyes looking to and fro in search of a treasure worthy of your gaze,

Feeling the warmth of the sun’s rays as they rush forward to kiss the tops of our heads,

Laughing as the mischievous wind sneaks up and tickles our skin and ruffles our hair,

Pressing hard against our flesh, our souls move us toward our own private corner of the world.

Arriving, I disappear into a world of chocolate brown eyes, rosy cheeks and girlish giggles.

Exhaling, all my cares evaporate and rise into the sky to be carried away by the clouds.

Smiling, I bask in the pleasure of your small offerings of love - a rock, a flower, a leaf

And all is made right in my imperfect world.