Black Friday

Today in the retail world is Black Friday - a day that retailers hope will bring their spreadsheets from the "red" - an indebted state of affairs - to the "black" - where they are actually showing a profit. Today is black Friday in our house for a different reason. The blackness of sin has permeated the peace of our home and it is strangling the occupants within. Our oldes has, for some time, been involved with drug use and abuse. The company he has been choosing to keep furthers this lifestyle. We do not. When he came to us four months ago, he had been away from home for two years and while we knew of the choices he was making, we did not know the depths to which those choices had taken him. Now, four months later -we're learning. I was awakened from sleep hearing my son loudly screaming death threats at a drug dealer and I could not believe my ears. Oh, Father God - what have we done wrong that our son would be so low in his estate. Oh Father God - wasn't it this same sin of each of us that brought you to the cross that Black Friday more than 2,000 years ago? While the "Black Friday" that we have come to know and understand in earthly economy gives retailers hope for their businesses to end on a good note, the Black Friday that Jesus knew gives us a future . . . and a hope. For God so loved THE WORLD that He gave HIS only begotten Son that WHOEVER believes in Him shall not perish but SHALL have everlasting life. As the holy season of Christ-mas is on us, let us not lose sight of the Hope that was born, lived among us, knew our pain and bore our sins on His Black Friday so that we ALL - regardless of our sin - could have an eternity with him.

Trusting God

I am learning, dear ones, that what Satan intends for evil, God WILL use for our good and for His Glory. We see this play out time and time again in the Word. With Jonah, Nehemiah, Esther . . . Job. Mind you, I am not typically fit to stand in the company of these saints but I claim the promise of God's Word that if ANY man (or woman) be in Christ, he (she) is a NEW creation.
I can honestly say that I have loved Jesus all my life. As far back as I can remember, the cinema depiction of the sweet face of the Master touched me to my very core. Even before I truly understood what Jesus had done for me on the cross, seeing Him hang there hurt my heart. If you know me, you know I have been singing since I could practically open my mouth. Not that it was always a good sound but my precious parents, at the urging of a friend, enrolled me in classical voice lessons when I was 14 and I took them for four years. By the time I was 18 I had been learning to sing - either through school, church or private lessons for 12 years. I have to tell you that it was not until I truly entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ on January 1, 1998 was the anointing of the Holy Spirit on my voice. Someone I was talking with recently asked me if I was a singer. I told her I was and she told me she could hear the song in my voice. Friends - I trust God and the song in my voice is from Him! With all my heart, soul, mind and strength and I KNOW that I KNOW that I KNOW that nothing Satan ordains - NO weapon he forms against us shall prosper and with my voice and in my heart I will sing the praise of Jesus and I will trust the Almighty God to be my voice, to use my voice to minister HIS love and mercy and HIS truth. Things get tough some times and things happen we don't understand. There's a song by Kari Jobe that I just love - it's (appropriately) titled "I'm Singing." The chorus to the song says

"And I'm Singing to the God who brings redemption to the nations

Kings and oceans bow to Him in praise

And I'm Singing to the God who wrote the book on our salvation

To the One who covers me in grace

I'm Singing"

© Gateway Create Publishing; Sixsteps Music; Vamos Publishing; Worshiptogether.com Songs

Come what may, any day, I am trusting God and I'm singing, For His Glory.

A Heart of Flesh

It doesn't take many years of living to realize that the insults and assaults of life can leave us with a very wounded heart and pain that only God can heal. If we're not careful we become jaded and cynical, bitter and walled off. It is this reaction to hurt, pain . . . life, that turns a soft, reachable, touchable heart into a heart of stone that only the love of God can reach. While Ezekiel was in exile with more than 3,000 Jews, he received his call from the Almighty to become a prophet. Ezekiel's job was to urge the exiles to renew their commitment to the one true God. It is really amazing to me that God is ALL His glory spoke directly to men then . . . and He still speaks directly to us today. One of the messages that God gave to Ezekiel was found in Chapter 11, verse 19 when God said to Ezekiel "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit. I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people and I will be their God." Oh, dear ones, I encourage you, according to the unending Grace of God that you allow Him to soften your hearts and whatever pain and hurt and injury is making you cynical, leaving you jaded or bitter, you will turn over to Him and allow Him to restore you. You are not alone. We are all living the same lives, suffering the same hurts but God is STILL God and the same God who spoke then, is still speaking today and the message of His love and healing is still the same. Let's listen, be still and know that He, indeed, is God. He loves you . . . I do too. In His Glorious Love - AA