The weakness in that strength ....

The weakness in that strength…………… This was said at church on Sunday and I have been thinking about it since then. I even wrote it down in my phone that day. The phrase impacted me.

When God created us he wired us with gifts, abilities, and strengths. And within your God given strength there is a weakness and I believe if you are not grounded in the Lord you can succumb to that weakness. Satan will use it to try and destroy you, if he can get to you through it.   This really made me think about how I am wired and the DNA God created me with. That DNA is the same as it was before I became a Christian.

For a long time I didn’t want to reflect on my past in any way because I feared I would get angry and bitter so I concealed the neglect and ultimately the abuse locking it away deep within. I honestly was scared when all the pain and dysfunction I had survived came into the light I would be a different person completely. And although I was a total mess, I liked who I was on some level  . I have always been compassionate and kind, I liked that about myself. Even as a child my heart hurt for those who were hurting.  I was scared I would lose that part of me for some reason. I was scared if I unlocked that box of hidden pain and shame within me, anger would take over.  But what I learned is the compassion and mercy that I liked about myself is how God created me before I was born, it was wired in and part of who I was.  And when I cleaned up the mess that I had become and surrendered to HIM the strengths HE put within me only grew stronger.   As I grew stronger in the Lord I could then deal with the weakness that comes with that strength.  Before I had the Lord the weakness overpowered me and  it caused me to hurt myself and ultimately hurt others.

I believe the weakness that comes with compassion and mercy (at least where I am concerned) is being overly sensitive and that can create problems if you don’t keep it in check, if you’re not rooted in the love of God.  To be compassionate you have to be sensitive to the needs of others but if you are too sensitive you become overwhelmed. The last year I taught Special Education there was a boy named Michael that had many problems but he was such an overcomer and I admired him so. He was born with cerebral palsy and only had partial movement in his arms, he could maneuver his electric wheelchair with accuracy most of the time but it took a lot of concentration. His parents had died in a car accident when he was younger and he had been raised by his grandmother until she couldn’t’ lift him anymore to change his diaper. He had to have a kidney transplant as well.  When I taught him he lived in a group home but was being moved to a nursing home because the group home didn’t have the equipment or man power to handle him. As I would take him down to change him he would cry to me because he didn’t want to go to the nursing home and my heart broke.  I hated seeing him in pain but there was nothing I could do about that, all I could do was love him . I tried to create a positive place for him but I was so messed up I didn’t succeed.  I felt like such a failure.  It was so overwhelming and through it all I would get angry with myself.  I was reeling from the loss of my sister,  using meth daily, and when I looked at him I hated myself because compared to him I saw myself as so fortunate. It is so very dangerous to compare yourselves to others.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.                Max Ehrman

This was a no win situation . My sensitivity prompted me to care and have compassion for him but since I didn’t have the Lord it drove me to feel so guilty about my own circumstances that I just numbed myself more as I spiraled deeper and deeper  into my addiction.

Today I am a different person and of course I am still wired the way God created me in the first place with the same compassion and mercy. And I am still sensitive (  that is a part of it)   but it doesn’t overwhelm me anymore. I can put all my feelings into  perspective and there is no guilt or condemnation. That is what happens when we surrender to God , HE empowers the strengths HE created us with to fulfill the purpose HE created us for !! That is what is on my heart today :)

50:20 Vision : No matter what is happening, God is still working for good.

Genesis 50:20

New Century Version (NCV)

20 You meant to hurt me, but God turned your evil into good to save the lives of many people, which is being done.

I have been studying this scripture Genesis 50:20 and hope that I can always see with the vision that Joseph did.   When I did a segment on Renewal Radio Dr. Gene Getz said  he felt this scripture was my life verse as well as Romans 8:28  because God has brought good from all the tragedies that occurred and poor choices that I made.  This verse means a lot to me.

As I was reading about this in the Bible it made me think all the different things created that have been  used for evil but how God can turn that evil around and  use it for good. Everything that is created God has a purpose for . (God made everything with a place and purpose; even the wicked are included—(Proverbs 16:4 MSG) This had been on my mind as I was studying Genesis 50:20 and looking at how it seems everything can be used for good and for evil. For instance let’s take a look at Facebook, I have heard more than one person say Facebook is the tool of the devil.  Now I’m not saying Facebook is evil or created for evil . All I am saying is that I think the enemy has used Facebook to bring evil into many lives.  I have personally heard of marriages collapsing as old flames have reconnected through Facebook. I have heard of many people being bullied and harassed.   Satan is cunning and is out to destroy, he will use any means he can to attack with his fiery darts, he will try to make anything his tool even Facebook. But as with everything in this world  it is how a person chooses to  use it and how we allow God to work through us to fulfill HIS purpose .

Personally for me this social media has been of great support  : encouragement through loss, encouragement through victory .  I can  honestly  see both  the bad and the good, knowing God is ultimately in control . But I wanted to share one Facebook story that changed a life and I know without a doubt God’s hand was in this.

Let’s go back to Palm Sunday of 2011 my old friend Randy Smith  asked me to speak to his Sunday School class at First Baptist Church of Allen and share my testimony which he knew about from Facebook. After I shared I became Facebook friends with some people in the class,  one being a man named Steve Wade .This story kind of paused there for a while as if that was the extent of it . But God , the master choreographer , was working behind the scenes all the while.  On November 9, 2011 ( Yes it was the 9th.  9’s are always so significant in my life both good and bad ) I wrote this post on my Facebook Wall . I have shared the snapshots of it in this post today, November 9 ,2013 : ))) . After  sharing my heart  I received a message from Steve Wade whom I had met that fateful Palm Sunday  at FBC Allen telling me he wanted to help Alexis and that he might have a job for her. It was a job at the First Baptist Church of Allen. He is the Facilities Manager and oversees all the maintenance of the church.  This was an answer to my prayer on a much larger scale than I could ever imagine.

Long story short I took Alexis to meet Steve at the Starbucks at Spring Creek and 75 where she had an initial interview. I remember helping her pick the dress and boots for her interview. She looked so pretty. Then there would be another interview with Steve’s boss. This interview was harder for Alexis , she had made a poor choice that had legal consequences . The whole situation had caused her to feel shame but she made the decision to be open and transparent in her interview and told the truth. Because of her honesty  she got that job and started in January of 2012.

This job changed the trajectory of her life and the environment she worked in drew her closer to God,   as you can read in her journal :) It was a hard job and not glamorous but God used it to penetrate her heart. I could literally see the difference in her countenance. (There is a spiritual shift within you when you go from a victim stance to a stance of gratitude and humility. I experienced it myself when I got my first post incarceration job as a cashier at Dickey’s making minimum wage, there was no “I am too good for this job”.  I was  overcome with gratitude and thankfulness that they took a chance on me.  My heart was much different when I got out of rehab and thought I was too good for many jobs because I had a college degree. God had changed my heart and I knew God was working on Alexis’ as well because I could see it through my experience. I love how God works)

This job opened many doors for her and seeds of hope were planted through it and through the people she worked with. She finally had some extra money and even took on an extra day of work. They saw the best in her and she recognized that. Her self-esteem changed and she had so much hope for her future. Sadly she just didn’t have much of a future left on this earth but because of this job she saw herself differently the last 6 months of her life and for that I am forever grateful.

So today I am so thankful for Facebook, for Randy Smith, and for Steve Wade. God orchestrated and intertwined our lives to meet the need of a young 19 year old mother who was trying to make positive changes for her and her daughter. . And because of Steve’s attitude of “Let’s give this girl a chance” her life was changed for the better. After her death Steve told me that he admired her so much because she was trying to change a lot of things in her life to make a better life for her and Riley. I was so moved by that. God really brought good into Alexis’ life and used Facebook to tie it all together.

Genesis  50:20 vision. What the world, the human plan, the human scheme planned as an evil, self-serving act – God took and used for good, preserving life!

Joseph’s 50:20 vision tells us that despite all evidence to the contrary, God is at work. God is making things good despite the evil.

The story of Genesis is that God is always working for good despite human efforts to the contrary. God has stuck with us, and seeks to work in and through us. No matter what we are facing, we can be sure that somehow, someway, God is still working for good.

That’s 50:20 vision!

This an excerpt from a sermon by Bob Kraylor , I felt it was fitting. I hope we all can see and look at others  with 50:20 vision. That is how Steve looked at Alexis, he chose to look for  the good within her and found it letting her know he saw the best in her. It changed how she viewed herself It changed her life. When I think of this I want to look for the best in everyone and sometimes that is hardest with the ones we love the most because of our history . But it certainly makes me want to be intentional about this.

The Eagle and the Prairie Chicken

"A man found an eagle's egg and put it into the nest of a prairie chicken. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life, the eagle, thinking he was a prairie chicken, did whatever the other prairie chickens did. He scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. He clucked and cackled. And he flew in a brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers no morethan a few feet off the ground. After all, that's how prairie chickens were supposed to fly.

Years passed. The eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong wooden wings.

"What a beautiful bird!" said the eagle to his neighbor. "What is it?"

"That's an eagle - - the chief of the birds," the neighbor clucked. "But don't give it a second thought. You could never be like him."

So the eagle never gave it another thought. And it died thinking it was a prairie chicken."

How tragic : built to soar into the heavens , the chief of the fowls of the air. This eagle settled for being a prairie chicken. In this world it is easy to live like prairie chickens . It's easy to opt for a wrong way of life. Thinking all the while that because everyone is doing it it is right. 
Chuck Swindoll 

I listened to this on Insights for living and it really moved me. 

Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”