captivesofhope

Finding renewal and hope

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Prayer is a Place

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Slipping into prayer is like slipping beneath a warm blanket in the winter time or like soaking tired muscles in a bath of Epsom salt. Jesus is a pool of love just waiting for me to dive in. I dive in with my problems and let Him wash them away. There are times when I get so deep, I don’t have to say anything. I just let Jesus move and speak His purpose to me. He restores the strength that life has drained from me. He repairs my broken heart so that I can stand to have it broken again. He heals my mind that is weary from the pressure of this world. He takes my burden and gives me His. His burden is light and full of peace for my soul.

His burden is this; Jesus loves people. He loves people who don’t love Him back. He loves people who insult Him and misuse His name. He loves people who used to walk with Him, but who now go in a different direction. He loves people who have never known Him. He loves people who will never know Him. He loves the people who have hurt my feelings. He loves the people whose feelings I have hurt. Jesus loves people I have never met. The scope of His love is beyond my understanding. I don’t understand how Jesus could love so many people so perfectly and at the same time. All He wants me to do is to tell the ones within my reach about his love. Well, here goes… JESUS LOVES YOU.  No matter where you are or how many times you have failed. There is a place for you in Him. A place that is beyond anything you have experienced. If you believe in Heaven, you’ll want to know Jesus because He is heaven. I feel Heaven every time I close my eyes and say His name. Life is not easy, let Jesus carry your load. He is so much stronger than we are.

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Beauty Is Not Skin-Deep

I used to be a size 4 in highschool. I was thin and healthy looking. But, when I look at the pictures, I am not impressed. I don’t want to look like that person in the pictures anymore because I was lost. I had problems. I did not know God. That made me ugly. Even though I am no longer a size 4, I feel beautiful. I feel beautiful because every time I look in the mirror, I see the work that Jesus has done. That is beauty. There is a light behind my eyes that was not there before.

Today, pastor preached about the fact that Jesus was not a handsome man to make people want to follow Him. He did not pick the most handsome body for Himself. He wanted people to see His heart and His love for them, not his body. Today, people judge others based upon how they look. If a person appears to be less than desirable, that person is often shunned or mistreated. I saw a news clip about a little girl whose mother consented to getting her plastic surgery because she was being teased. One of her ears stuck out a little further than the other so the other children made fun of her. I can’t judge her mother for deciding to fix the problem. Parents want to protect their children whenever possible. The point is that people young and old make fun of or avoid things that are out of the norm. Beauty is truly skin deep in our society today. I have found that beauty comes from Jesus. Nowadays,  people are attracted to me and can’t understand why. They do know that it is not my looks. They see Jesus and they need Him. They need what happened to me to happen to them. Let it be, Jesus. Amen.


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God’s Paintbrush

Last night at revival, the preacher spoke about putting the paintbrush in God’s hand. He spoke about letting God make the strokes of our lives. After all, God is a master painter. He blends the most beautiful colors together. This is extremely evident this time of the year. No painter can create a sunset like God. No artist can quite duplicate God’s glorious arrangement of posies and daisies, butter cups and sunflowers. God really is amazing. If He can make a flower that blows away and grows again, I know He can make my life into a masterpiece even though it started out as a mess. He can take any picture that we have marred with our intentions and our ideas and make it into a piece that reflects His beauty. A piece that declares He is real. I am happy to give Him the paintbrush because I don’t know how to paint anyway.


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Children and Depression

The topic on my heart today is children and depression. When I was a child, I got the message that children were not allowed to be depressed because they don’t pay any bills and have not lived long enough to have gone through anything truly traumatic. This argument is not only untrue, it is hurtful. I interpreted the above comment as, “you are not significant enough for me to care about your feelings. Besides, you are weak for getting upset over such small things”. Needless to say, my depression that began around the age of six increased exponentially as time passed. It continued until God healed me in my twenties. Even after becoming a Christian, I still struggled with this issue for some time. I had to learn that my feelings did matter even if no one agreed with them. I had to learn that my pain was just as valid as everyone else’s even if other people’s situations were worse than mine.

This experience with depression has helped me to easily recognize this bitter enemy at work in others. I have worked with many children, including 3 and 4 year olds, who were already deeply affected by intense inner pain and rejection.  I can recall one child in particular, a 4-year-old, who had an explosive outburst in my classroom. The child suddenly began screaming and throwing things across the room. Ordinarily, I would have disciplined a child for such behavior, but not this time. God showed me the root of this tantrum was not naughtiness. This child was hurting in deep places in her soul. All I could do was to scoop the child up into my arms where she broke down and began sobbing uncontrollably. She screamed for her mother whom she felt had abandoned her. I prayed and held her for as long as I could. I knew that I could not fix her problems. Only Jesus could. The child I held is still struggling with depression and behavioral issues to this day and this incident happened several years ago. It truly pains me to see children suffer because they have no voice. They cannot adequately express sorrow and when they try, they are often written off as being dramatic. Depression is claiming too many children and adolescents. The news is full of victims who only get to speak after the worst has happened. As I look around, I see so many fading and screaming inside for someone to listen, but often no one does. Depression is quiet, but deadly. I pray that adults would begin to speak for these children to prevent the enemy from stealing them right from underneath our noses.

Dear God,

Please help me to do my part for Your children. Help me not to simply stand by as the devil steals child after child. Help me to be a good listener and to recognize and understand what children cannot express. Help me to recognize the results of rejection and abuse. Please
help me to be the solution and not part of the problem. Help me to be a beacon of hope because You rescued me.

Amen


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Palm Trees Don’t Grow Here

 

         Would you find it strange to see a palm tree planted firmly in your front yard in the middle of winter? Of course you would. You would wonder how is it possible that a palm tree has survived in a climate that has such harsh winters. You would necessarily have to delve deeply into the situation.

Some people are like palm trees. They kind of fit in, but then again, something is different. Palm trees are very sensitive people who require lots of love and nourishment to grow, much like the palm tree requires consistent sun. God created them this way. Why then do palm trees, or sensitive people,  have to experience the same hardships as others? It kind of seems unfair. Palm trees are much more sensitive to cold temperatures than other trees. Sensitive people may be affected by negative circumstances more easily than others.  It doesn’t seem fair to plant them in a wintry world, and yet God does just this. Why? God does this as a testimony to His ability to make anyone live. He can be heat. He can be rain. The more we need, the more He is.  If you need more sun to live, Jesus has it. Not only can God make a palm tree grow in the winter, He can make the most rejected, the most broken person to flourish and to grow in an adverse environment. When nothing else is moving and the world is frozen over, that palm tree will stand strong and healthy as a sign that God is able.


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Fragrance of Praise

When you lay at the feet of Jesus to pour yourself out, the fragrance from that worship lingers on you and on Jesus. When the woman poured her oil from the alabaster box onto Jesus’ feet and wiped His feet with her hair, she anointed Jesus, but she also anointed herself. Surely the scent of that moment remained in her hair and on her hands long after she arose to leave. Others probably smelled that expensive sacrifice on both her and on Jesus. Those people knew that she and Jesus smelled the same. Tufts of that sweet aroma floated on the breeze as her locks of dedication lifted with its blowing. The scent traveled and touched others even without her knowledge. They experienced the vestiges of a heart broken onto Jesus like the alabaster box. When we pour the ointment of sacrifice and praise upon Him, it causes us to draw others because we smell like Jesus. God then positions us to cross paths with precious souls that He wants to draw in.

Yesterday, I was sitting in a parking lot eating. Once I finished, I tried to start the car and nothing happened. I could have panicked, but I didn’t because my life is on the altar. I waited for a moment and a young lady came over and offered her assistance. She let me use her phone and she drove me home. On the way home, we both realized that God had set us up. I got to give my testimony to a lovely stranger. Perhaps God wanted her to smell my hair.