Thursday, April 10, 2008

Popcorn Pours Out Encouragement



Bible study yesterday with my (our, not my, narcissistic slip, my bad) group of precious, stimulating, loving, and adorable women was a worshipful and encouraging experience. We are studying God's love. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? We all know that God is love. God loves us wholly and unconditionally. He protects us and wants only the best for us. We as Christians are instructed to trust in these things with all our hearts and in that state of trust, fear is driven from our hearts, minds, and souls. When fear(panic attacks, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, headaches...all fear driven ailments) creeps in, this indicates a diminishing trust in God. What kind of things might cause this shift from total trust, to kind of trust, to I'm not sure about this one Lord, to O MY GOSH WHAT'S HAPPENING I AM PETRIFIED OF LIFE RIGHT NOW! Well, you can fill in your own blanks but here are some I have observed that really ignite fear in people and Christians certainly notwithstanding: A dire diagnosis such as cancer, loss of job, loss of loved one, marriage on rocks or ending, husband cheating, child very ill, loss of child, teen experimenting with drugs, teen child betrayed by best friend, loss of father, loss of mother, loss of sibling, broken limb that totally interrupts life for many months and causes self to have to sit around and not exercise, loss of friend to a move, waking up to Bell's Palsy, loss of friend to misunderstanding,airline crash affects your family, 911 catastrophe kills friend, friend miscarries, you miscarry, chasing dreams harder than first thought it would be, child chronically makes bad grades, financial pressures, on and on the list can go. The edict of God to continue to rest in His love means in these circumstances, too. Especially those that seem horrific. Hard as is may be! Doubt will permeate the situation if you let it. But don't. Do not. Resist it. Hang on tight to Him. Pray hard, be transparent and cry out to Him. Drag that thing out in the open and let your friends pray with you! Don't retreat and hide out. As my friends and I discussed yesterday, it is the absolute only way to get through rough times, and I don't mean when your manicure appointment has to be canceled or when your decorator gets the flu. xxoo

1 comment:

Super Churchlady said...

Popcorn - I'm encouraged...and I thank you.