When the foundations are destroyed

~ Rebecca ~ Leave a comment

We recently returned to Belize after a year away (really more than two years, but had a brief time back in early 2021). We had family looking after our home, and they did an excellent job. In fact, they had caught the track of some termites headed into our house and had dealt with them. However, just a couple days after we arrived here, Clifford made an important discovery. The cement flooring of our house has a long crack. We have been aware of this crack, but we did not realize it’s insidious side effects: hidden access to the lumber in our house for extra clever termites. It is relatively easy to see the pathway of termites trying to attack from outside the house, but some of those nasty bugs had found their way underground to the crack in the cement, undetectable to the casual observer. All of the exterior walls of our house are made of cement block, and even the bathroom walls inside have the same construction. But, the only other interior walls, the ones that frame our closet, are made of 2 x 4 pine lumber. And pine lumber is soft and delicious for the termites. They burrowed their way through the crack in the cement and up into the irresistible pine boards. Although the caretakers of our home had faithfully checked for termites around the exterior of the house, the crack in the foundation allowed hidden intruders; intruders that were only detected when the owner of the house tapped into the wood.

When Clifford suspected a termite infestation, the outside of the boards looked good: nothing appeared to be amiss. But, when he tapped into the boards, they crumbled into dust, their interior completely eaten away. Of course, he has since been on a quest to remove all the damaged boards and figure out a long-term solution to the entry point: the cracked foundation.

As I thought on this, applications to my own life appeared. Psalms 11:3 says, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Scripture tells us that Christ is our Cornerstone, the rock upon which our lives should be built. If the foundations of our lives, our grounding beliefs, are not firmly set on that Cornerstone, then they have a fatal weakness… one that will allow the foundations of our walk with God, our marriages, our relationships to be compromised. To the outside eye, we may appear to be “okay,” walking through life as a Christian, but those imperceptible cracks in our faith give the enemy a place to slip in, unnoticed, and eat away our hope, our joy, our confidence. After all, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Before we know it, our lives, in various aspects, begin to crumble around us. How important it is for me to walk daily in the Spirit, to ground myself in God’s Word, allow Him to reveal His truth to me in fresh ways, and search my heart for faults in my belief system; not so that He can bring condemnation, but so that He can shore up the foundations and keep me secure in Him. 

How are your foundations today?

 

A Strengthened Heart

~ Rebecca ~ Leave a comment

Do you ever have one of those “aha” moments, where something suddenly becomes very clear to you, and you wonder why you were ever confused before? This happened to me as I was reading the Psalms one morning a couple of months ago. I grew up reading the Psalms, walking through the chapters, verse by verse on repeat, month after month, year after year. I used to be fairly condemning of David: he sure seemed to whine a lot! Doesn’t God expect us to buck it up and be stronger minded than that? These days, I am much more compassionate towards David, and realize that just maybe one of the reasons he was called a man after God’s own heart was because he was willing to be so completely open and honest with God about what he was thinking and feeling. Anyway, I’ll get off the bunny trail and get back to the “aha” moment.

Psalm 27:14 is a well-known verse to many of us, “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” I read this verse back in February and was going to keep moving on, when I paused and reread it, thinking about how my mind has interpreted it all these years. In my mind, the verse read more like this: “Wait on the Lord: show Him you are really strong in faith, and He’ll reward you with what you are waiting for.” Not exactly what the passage actually says, right? Where that narrative came from, I really don’t know, besides it was a lie from the enemy seeking to exploit my faith and cause me to believe God doesn’t keep His Word.

The truth is that sometimes we wait on God, we cry out to Him, our faith increases, and He answers our prayers in a way that matches our expectations. We see that in several instances of Scripture. Hannah is a good example. She was barren and ashamed because of the culture of the time and the taunts of her competitor: her husband’s other wife. She prayed and cried out to God, and He granted her request. However, we see other examples in Scripture where that didn’t happen. Paul, the great Apostle, and champion of the Gospel cried out to God to have his “thorn in the flesh” removed. Here was a man doing great exploits for God; full of faith and zeal for the kingdom of God, if anyone deserved to have their request granted, it was him. But, no, we are told that he was left with his thorn, and that God’s strength would be made perfect in his weakness. Why are there two, vastly different scenarios here? Obviously, I am not God, so I do not know His purposes and plans, and I don’t think we’ll have a full answer to that question on this side of eternity, but one thing I think it does show clearly is that my version of Psalm 27:14 is not the accurate one. It isn’t the version that God uses to orchestrate the events of the world. Big surprise, right?

I took a second look at what the verse said, and the reality of its truth resonated deeply into my heart: as I wait on the Lord, praying, crying out to Him for the things on my heart, He uses the circumstances of life to strengthen my heart, to build up my trust in Him, to solidify my dependence on Him and my relationship with Him, and as I result, I become more like Jesus, which is, after all, His goal for my life.

2019 was hard. Really hard. Hard on a lot of fronts, so many difficult, heartbreaking, intense situations have affronted myself and my family in the past months (long before COVID and all the new sets of trials our nation finds itself in), that it sends my head spinning if I stop and think about it. But I realized something that morning as I meditated on Psalm 27:14: in spite of the crazy hardness of this past year, I was not devastated, blown out of the water, or emotionally shipwrecked by it. Yes, I absolutely cried. Buckets. Some of the things we went through are too hard for words, tears had to take the place of words. But although I had my moments of weeping, I consistently found peace, joy, and rest in my Savior. I was not despondent. I grew spiritually. I grew emotionally. I look back and see how God sustained me throughout all the trials. And do you know what made that possible? Infertility. The journey of infertility we have been on since 2015 has caused me to wait on the Lord, over and over again. In God’s perfect kindness, He has taken the shattered shards of my infertility grief to draw me closer to Him than I ever have been before. As a result, my heart was strengthened. When 2019 came along with its deluge of heartbreaking trials, I wept, yes, but my soul was anchored. My heart was ready for that moment. God did not cause the infertility, but He graciously worked through those circumstances to strengthen my heart. I am so grateful.

What trials are you in, my friend? Wait on the Lord. Cry out to Him, pour out your heart to Him, let Him know your sorrows. I don’t know what the end of the story for you will be, just like I don’t know the end of my infertility story, but I do know that He will strengthen your heart. He will anchor your soul and draw you tenderly closer so that He can be your tower of strength when the adverse winds of life blow.

I love the lyrics of this song by City Alight:

Mine are tears in times of sorrow

Darkness not yet understood

Through the valley I must travel

Where I see no earthly good

But mine is peace that flows from heaven

And the strength in times of need

I know my pain will not be wasted

Christ completes his work in me

There are a couple of other verses, but I love the call at the end, it reminds me that my feelings follow the choices of my will:

Come rejoice now, O my soul

For his love is my reward

Fear is gone and hope is sure

Christ is mine forevermore!

Come rejoice now, O my soul

For his love is my reward

Fear is gone and hope is sure

Christ is mine forevermore!

Through the trials of 2019 I was sustained by our Savior, and countless times would sing this part of the song through my tears, calling my soul to re-center on Him and the knowledge that my pain would not be wasted, He was strengthening my heart.

When 1 + 1 does not equal 2

~ Rebecca ~ 1 Comment

When 1 + 1 does not equal 2.

I grew up thinking 1 + 1 = 2. I imagine you did too. After all, that’s what we were taught, right? If you have ever experienced having something you grew up believing/being taught shattered at your feet, you know it is devastating. When something you believe to be fact is debunked, you start questioning everything you believe. Mathematically speaking, I still know that 1 + 1 = 2, but in another area of my life, that did not line up, and it sent me reeling.

I grew up in a wonderful, loving Christian home, raised by parents who sought God first and always tried to obey His leading to raise their children. Nearly every morning of my childhood and teenage years we met together as a family and read God’s word together. We went to a fellowship of believers on a regular basis, attended seminars to gain further insight into God’s Word, and often hosted Bible studies in our home. I remember my parents as Godly people who sought to hear from God and then adjust their lives to what they learned (they still are that way). At the same time, they were not the sort of people who heard teaching and just swallowed it as truth. No, they modeled for us how to take teaching to the Word of God and evaluate it for ourselves.

But, back to the 1 + 1 equation. Somewhere along the line, I picked up the idea that if you are a Christian, you obey God, and live for Him, you will have a happy life, full of blessings. I’m not sure where the idea comes from, but I guess it fits the typical fairytale type story: accept Christ and then live happily ever after. Except, it’s not exactly Biblical. Oh yes, the ever after part is, when you are referring to eternity, but I was expecting it here and now. Live right = have a good life, your prayers answered, blessings poured in, etc. In other words, 1 + 1 should equal 2. Except it didn’t.

There were a number of hiccoughs and bumps along the way in my life that should have clued me in to this false perception of the gospel that I held, but I was “strong” and pressed on. That’s how I went through life, troubles came, rocked the boat, and I reassured myself in the Word of God and held fast. After all, I was the strong one.

A couple of years ago, though, the strength became incredibly hard to maintain. My faith in who God is and my belief in my salvation through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection did not change, but slowly I lost my joy, my hope, and my fellowship with my Father. Things in life were not working out the way they should. I saw my parents going through some incredibly tough stuff, and that just was not fair. They had been faithful (1) + God was God (1) = so why were their prayers not getting answered? Why were things not changing? Why were they becoming more difficult? Situations happened in various siblings’ lives that were not fair. They were faithful to God as well, why weren’t things working out “better?” Over and over again it seemed like we were running into walls. Actually, it felt like we stepped on the end of a two by four and it came and hit us in the face.

And then it happened to me. Infertility. It was something Clifford and I talked about before marriage, knowing I had some health issues and wasn’t incredibly young, but we thought we were fine with it. Until it became more of a reality that stared us in the face. I had surgery a few months after we were married to deal with fibroids, and we were pretty sure everything would be okay after that. God revealed to me during that time that I had been doing quite a bit of bargaining with Him. Without saying so explicitly in my prayers, I felt in my heart that I deserved for my prayers to be answered, after all, I have done x, y, and z… I repented and sought to deal with those thoughts. In reality, I basically made them just a little more “holy:” my parents deserve to have grandkids, they have been faithful, they’ve been through so much, etc. Still expecting that 1 + 1 = 2 equation to work out.

A little over a year later I had surgery again to deal with some issues left from the first surgery. And even though the doctor felt really good with the results of that surgery, reality began to set in. I’m over 40 and not likely to have kids. Shortly after that, in February 2017, I was diagnosed with some more health issues. This was after working diligently on health issues since 2014 when I had been diagnosed with Celiac disease. After all the work I had put in to improving my health, the major diet changes, the supplements I had been taking, I really wasn’t expecting more stuff. But there it was. And the doctor recommended more MAJOR dietary changes.

We headed down to Belize shortly thereafter, me with a list of stuff I couldn’t eat, and a very weary soul. I was weary of trying to fix everything, of thinking that if I do this and this then maybe God will do that and that. Most of all, I was weary of believing that 1 + 1 = 2, but seeing that so many times, it simply does not. I was weighed down with our infertility journey along with that of my brother and sister-in-law. I also had a book. No More Faking Fine. If you had asked me, I would have said that I hadn’t been faking fine. I thought  I really was fine. I still believed God. I still talked about Him and the things that He did. I still did things because of love for Him. But inside, I really was hurting, and I didn’t know what to do about it. No More Faking Fine let me see what I could do about it. I could talk to God about it in a way I never had before. It really hit home when I realized that even Jesus had asked God “why.” I had always kind of judged David and the other Psalm writers for not having enough faith: after all, they often asked God why in their Psalms and did quite a bit of whining. Yet, even Jesus asked God why on the cross: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” And I realized that God really does care how I feel, that it is okay to pour out my heart to Him. I realized it isn’t a sin to ask “why”, to say I don’t understand. Because really, I don’t understand a lot of the stuff happening. It doesn’t make sense. Often, we are willing to bare our emotions, our thoughts, our feelings to those closest to us: it is a level of trust reserved for those who have been allowed in our inner circle. And yet… I wasn’t willing to give God that level of trust. I felt that I had to keep a front up with Him, or He would think I didn’t have faith (as if God couldn’t see my heart anyway!?).

And so, I began to pour my heart out to God, to ask Him “why,” to tell Him I didn’t understand, to ask Him how long I would feel like He was neglecting me. As I did, I noticed a wonderful thing began to happen: I felt His presence and love more than I had in a long time. I realized that God really does draw near to the brokenhearted, and in the pride of being “strong,” I had resisted His grace. Over the next few months, He drew me patiently closer to Himself, and I started to find joy again. I realized that instead of looking for the reasons for joy around me, I had been wallowing in self-pity.

I also discovered that 1 + 1 does not equal 2. God never promised it would. Here I was frustrated with Him because I felt that everyone had done what they were supposed to, and yet He hadn’t fulfilled His end of the bargain. But, it wasn’t ever a bargain He had agreed to; He never said that life would all work out happily for those who followed Him. Besides, even if He had, who of us have followed Him perfectly enough to deserve blessings anyway? I realized that the 1 + 1 equation of a Christian life was something I believed but had no basis in Scripture. I’m pretty sure I’ve even heard some messages along the way that reinforced my belief. You probably have too. But the reality? God promises that those who follow Him will have tribulation. He doesn’t promise an easy life, but He does promise to be with us, to never leave us. He does not promise that we won’t feel the effects of sin in this fallen world. There will be things that happen that hurt us because of the work of sin in the world around us, but He does promise to use those things for His glory and our good. And that’s okay. Because He is God and I am not. He could choose to step in and fix things in my life if He wants to, but He is under no obligation to do so because of some imaginary scale of everything on my side of the equation plus everything on His side of the equation equaling a rosy life. I had allowed myself to be devastated, frustrated, and even angry at God because of an untruth that I had believed. I had never made a conscious, deliberate decision to believe a lie, but it had crept in, taken root, and the enemy had used it to destroy my joy, my hope, and my trust.

So, 1 + 1 does not equal 2, and I’m glad. So very grateful. Because the whole point of the Gospel is because a people, a people chosen by God, could not reap all the promises God had for them, because they could not keep their side of the bargain. The Old Testament shows us that over and over again. But somehow, I still wanted it to be true. Because I thought my filthy rags were beautiful garments of righteousness to God and deserving of a glorious life of dreams fulfilled. Instead, I’ve been given something far better: a relationship with a loving Father Who is constantly at work for His glory and my good. Who takes my broken pieces, loves me unconditionally, understands my heart, and gives me joy. Now that’s awesome math!