This blog post deals with a "very uncomfortable subject: feeling anger and the unhealthy fear toward God over an experience of devastation."
As I was finishing up my bible study homework for this week it hit me that today is the three-week anniversary of a tragically devastating event that rocked my world and more so the world of a very dear friend. I cried and prayed as I completed the homework and as I prayed I kept hearing God's gentle whisper in my ear saying I had to share this information, not just to that dear friend but to anyone who would read it. Please stay with me, it's more than worth it!
{excerpts from Anointed Transformed Redeemed; A Study of David}
"A heart dropped form 90 feet shatters, splinters and scatters differently than the one dropped from 10 feet. A heart can shatter in so many pieces that we don't think even God could put it back together again. If I may be so bold, sometimes we're so upset with Him we feel like we wouldn't let Him if He tried. Sometimes we halt our progress and refuse restoration just to spite Him."
"God searches and knows every emotion and reaction we harbor all the way down to our deepest resentments and indicting questions. He longs to be gracious to us and restore us with his unwavering love."
"We can spend decades refusing to budge an inch with God because something happened that we couldn't reconcile with our assumptions. The cross of Christ stretched out across all humanity and won a work (that goes farther than any other) for every person who puts their trust in Him. However, we can choose to remain right where we are for the rest of our lives. Every inch of ground we refuse to take with God, we surrender to the enemy. Satan has no greater agenda than to talk you and me into believing that God is not good after all."
{2 Samuel 6:8-9}
"David felt anger and fear toward God, yet Scripture calls him 'a man after God's own heart.' Neither emotion was his last feeling. For David, both were means of reacting to and working through a tragedy on his willing way to remedy."
"We must not let anger or fear be our last feeling on a matter either. Neither can be sustained in our systems without turning to poison. Satan has too much to gain by your hanging onto them. You and your family have too much to lose."
I'm convinced that we are both safe to "bring the highest of our ecstatic joys to God and find company" as well as "bring Him the depths of our ugliest emotions and find healing."
"Acting like we feel something we don't is piety (reverence for God or devotions to religious duties). It is pretense. It is dishonesty. Sometimes it's even hypocrisy, dishonesty at it's ugliest. God looks straight at the heart and is more deeply acquainted with all we feel than we are. Psalm 44:21 tells us He 'knows the secrets of the heart.' In fact, He understands not only what we feel in those secret places but why we feel it. We'll have a mighty tough time getting over feelings we don't feel safe enough to voice to God."
You have the freedom to pour out the toxic parts of your heart, only then can you reach the tenderness, crying it out enough to realize the hidden truths. God never trips over our admissions, He know there's more and begins in that moment to slather us with the healing balm of His Spirit.
"Our hearts never need pouring out more than when they're filled with the toxic waters of bitterness."
"Accepting the challenge to work through crisis and conflict can be a tremendously important part of developing closeness in a relationship. Don't deny it. Don't work around it. Don't back up from it. Work right through the middle of it with your God. He has never left you. Never ceased loving you. Never shut off His goodness from you."
{2 Samuel 6} "David could either sit down in the dirt, throw a handful on his head, and refuse to get up or he could pour his heart, bawl his eyes out, catch his God-given breath, and cling to Him for dear life."
"At times in our lives we will have the same two options. Sometimes we arrive at a place where we can either lose or gain ground, but returning to life as it was before is no longer an option. Change has stormed the gate. We will decide over the days and months to come if it will be positive or negative and whether we will glorify God or, Lord help us, vilify Him."
"Beloved, God's ways will always be higher than ours, but we don't have to understand Him to settle the matter in our hearts that we can trust Him."
Jesus is the essence of spiritual, mental, and emotional health. He is healing. Even without all the answers to all the questions, He is the answer to our lives. He is the wandering soul's truest quest. Even when our hearts are broken by something we think He could have stopped, should have stopped, even if you try to back away, He will not budge from you.
"We were assigned purpose and placed within a God-created system where no pain can come to us unless it serves that exact purpose. We need to know that the events we find so baffling don't mean God has forgotten about us or forsaken us. Perhaps, if we'd stretch our hearts and minds to perceive it, He has instead trusted us."
"God has so far to take you and your family. In the depths of your heart, you don't really want to spend the rest of your life angry, and in the same old place, do you? Would you begin today by simply telling Him that you're willing to step forward with Him even if you don't have all the answers? His hand is outstretched. His heart is unleashed."
"Thank you so much for staying attentive through difficult subject matter. If you've endured a terrible devastation and found yourself responding negatively to God about it, my earnest prayer is that He'll use these words to open the floodgates of fresh dialogue between you so He can minister His lavish love and restoration to your soul. You are His cherished child."
"He caused his lame legs to dance on golden roads.
He caused his leprous sin to be cured for all eternity from
its hidden lusts, secret greeds, and self righteous boasts.
The dead were indeed raised and the forerunner
of Jesus heard the best news of all:
Welcome, my good and faithful servant!
Enter into your Master's happiness!"
Sometimes there's just a bigger plan.
My heart goes out to those you left behind. I love you.
As I was finishing up my bible study homework for this week it hit me that today is the three-week anniversary of a tragically devastating event that rocked my world and more so the world of a very dear friend. I cried and prayed as I completed the homework and as I prayed I kept hearing God's gentle whisper in my ear saying I had to share this information, not just to that dear friend but to anyone who would read it. Please stay with me, it's more than worth it!
{excerpts from Anointed Transformed Redeemed; A Study of David}"A heart dropped form 90 feet shatters, splinters and scatters differently than the one dropped from 10 feet. A heart can shatter in so many pieces that we don't think even God could put it back together again. If I may be so bold, sometimes we're so upset with Him we feel like we wouldn't let Him if He tried. Sometimes we halt our progress and refuse restoration just to spite Him."
"God searches and knows every emotion and reaction we harbor all the way down to our deepest resentments and indicting questions. He longs to be gracious to us and restore us with his unwavering love."
"We can spend decades refusing to budge an inch with God because something happened that we couldn't reconcile with our assumptions. The cross of Christ stretched out across all humanity and won a work (that goes farther than any other) for every person who puts their trust in Him. However, we can choose to remain right where we are for the rest of our lives. Every inch of ground we refuse to take with God, we surrender to the enemy. Satan has no greater agenda than to talk you and me into believing that God is not good after all."
{2 Samuel 6:8-9}
"David felt anger and fear toward God, yet Scripture calls him 'a man after God's own heart.' Neither emotion was his last feeling. For David, both were means of reacting to and working through a tragedy on his willing way to remedy."
"We must not let anger or fear be our last feeling on a matter either. Neither can be sustained in our systems without turning to poison. Satan has too much to gain by your hanging onto them. You and your family have too much to lose."
I'm convinced that we are both safe to "bring the highest of our ecstatic joys to God and find company" as well as "bring Him the depths of our ugliest emotions and find healing."
"Acting like we feel something we don't is piety (reverence for God or devotions to religious duties). It is pretense. It is dishonesty. Sometimes it's even hypocrisy, dishonesty at it's ugliest. God looks straight at the heart and is more deeply acquainted with all we feel than we are. Psalm 44:21 tells us He 'knows the secrets of the heart.' In fact, He understands not only what we feel in those secret places but why we feel it. We'll have a mighty tough time getting over feelings we don't feel safe enough to voice to God."
You have the freedom to pour out the toxic parts of your heart, only then can you reach the tenderness, crying it out enough to realize the hidden truths. God never trips over our admissions, He know there's more and begins in that moment to slather us with the healing balm of His Spirit.
"Our hearts never need pouring out more than when they're filled with the toxic waters of bitterness."
"Accepting the challenge to work through crisis and conflict can be a tremendously important part of developing closeness in a relationship. Don't deny it. Don't work around it. Don't back up from it. Work right through the middle of it with your God. He has never left you. Never ceased loving you. Never shut off His goodness from you."
{2 Samuel 6} "David could either sit down in the dirt, throw a handful on his head, and refuse to get up or he could pour his heart, bawl his eyes out, catch his God-given breath, and cling to Him for dear life."
"At times in our lives we will have the same two options. Sometimes we arrive at a place where we can either lose or gain ground, but returning to life as it was before is no longer an option. Change has stormed the gate. We will decide over the days and months to come if it will be positive or negative and whether we will glorify God or, Lord help us, vilify Him."
"Beloved, God's ways will always be higher than ours, but we don't have to understand Him to settle the matter in our hearts that we can trust Him."
Jesus is the essence of spiritual, mental, and emotional health. He is healing. Even without all the answers to all the questions, He is the answer to our lives. He is the wandering soul's truest quest. Even when our hearts are broken by something we think He could have stopped, should have stopped, even if you try to back away, He will not budge from you.
"We were assigned purpose and placed within a God-created system where no pain can come to us unless it serves that exact purpose. We need to know that the events we find so baffling don't mean God has forgotten about us or forsaken us. Perhaps, if we'd stretch our hearts and minds to perceive it, He has instead trusted us."
"God has so far to take you and your family. In the depths of your heart, you don't really want to spend the rest of your life angry, and in the same old place, do you? Would you begin today by simply telling Him that you're willing to step forward with Him even if you don't have all the answers? His hand is outstretched. His heart is unleashed."
"Thank you so much for staying attentive through difficult subject matter. If you've endured a terrible devastation and found yourself responding negatively to God about it, my earnest prayer is that He'll use these words to open the floodgates of fresh dialogue between you so He can minister His lavish love and restoration to your soul. You are His cherished child."
"He caused his lame legs to dance on golden roads.
He caused his leprous sin to be cured for all eternity from
its hidden lusts, secret greeds, and self righteous boasts.
The dead were indeed raised and the forerunner
of Jesus heard the best news of all:
Welcome, my good and faithful servant!
Enter into your Master's happiness!"
Sometimes there's just a bigger plan.
RIP Meagan Allen Kandis
Jan 12, 1996 - Apr 4, 2011 My heart goes out to those you left behind. I love you.
3 comments:
What a blessing these words were. I hope everyone who reads these will find healing for their broken hearts.
To Mandys dear sweet friend ,
Your daughter was beautiful ! I am so very sorry she is not here with you ! You are in my prays & thoughts . I pray God brings you peace ! Keep faith !
This was wonderful and I cried the whole way through. It's amazing how something so devastating can happen to someone else and your own heart breaks just as if the devastation had occured as close to you as it has the actual bearer. I love Angie like a big sister and so I feel as though Meagan were one of my own. Lily will be her age in just 5 short years. I wish I knew what to say to help the healing but it will only come in time and with the knowledge that God must've really thought something special of Meagan to have needed her so desperately. I'm sure she will fulfill her purpose in life and in death that he has laid before her. She is definitely agreat warrior addition to his great army of angels. RIP Meagan Allen Kandis...you were loved by people who had never even met you and your story has touched all of our hearts. Peace be with you Angela and John. I love you.
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