Delayed Gratification

Today I've been thinking about patience. Truthfully, I have been thinking about it a lot for years. To be a good teacher (especially a middle school teacher), you have to have more patience than the average person. You have to have the ability to get extremely calm and under control in the most heated of moments.

This is not a skill (yes, I consider it a learned skill) that comes easy. It's one you have to work on constantly. If patience were something we were all naturally gifted with, I don't think there would be so many passages in the Bible that tell us to "wait on God".

In my years working with kids, I have noticed that a majority of them struggle with waiting. And the hardest part about waiting is when you've been promised something you really want. All you can think about is getting it. This Ted Talk is only five minutes long and it really speaks volumes about human nature. It's not about where you come from on planet Earth. All humans struggle to wait. Check out the talk "Don't Eat the Marshmallow" here.

Personally, I feel like God has made me a promise. In fact, on April 8, 2014, I felt like He clearly spoke something very specific to me. Instead of receiving this promise, I am still sitting here on October 22, 2017 having received the opposite of this promise. Instead of the beautiful gift, I have lived in constant agony. My zeal and passion for life have been destroyed. Everything I love was touched and negatively affected. It has left me heartbroken. And like the Scripture says, "a broken heart dries the bones".

I don't know what the hold up is, but the pain and adversity have taught me a lot about patience. Patience as defined by the dictionary means "the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like; an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay; quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence".

According to the above, I have not remained totally patient in these long, heavy years. As a middle school teacher, I have known all along that patience is a learned skill, not a natural quality. The hard lesson has been to see that it is a learned skill in all aspects of our life. It's hard to say this, but ultimately, I am grateful for God's promises not being quickly and easily handed to me. I am glad He sees fit to strengthen me through fiery trials. I'm thankful for the harsh pain because when His promise is fulfilled, it will mean so much more to me.

I have learned much about delayed gratification. When I receive that marshmallow, it will be all the sweeter because I had to wait. I don't know how much longer I will have to wait, but I wait and I choose to believe. And through the pain, I will continue to obey and practice self control. That means taking a breath when I am punched and forcing myself to calm down. That means enduring sometimes excruciating pain without letting the pain move me. It means working hard no matter how many beatings I am forced to take. Staying quiet and at peace deep inside while I wait.

Some day, I will see the promise fulfilled. I have no idea how it will happen. But I know it will happen because my Father in Heaven owns the cattle on a thousand hills and with Him, all things are possible. Teach me Lord to wait.

Jesus Loves Me

In February of last year, right at the beginning of a very traumatic experience that has left me in constant pain, I felt like the Lord told me to take a day off from asking Him for anything or praying for anyone at all. I believed He told me to just spend an entire day loving Him. In my prayers, I only thanked Him and loved Him without bringing any of my pain or concerns to Him about myself or anyone else. I wrote a blog post about that (you can read it here). On that day, I felt incredible peace and I believed that this was God's way of helping me enter into a tough battle, strengthening me for what might be a very challenging time.

But as time went on, and the battles were many and very painful, I kept wondering where God was. Why did He make me spend an entire day loving on Him, while He hasn't loved on me? It's been well over a year and instead of reaching down to me and making me feel His love, He has allowed me to be destroyed! He has allowed me to go down into a dark pit where I've been beaten and mocked. Why would God be so cruel? Why would He tell me to love on Him without even once during any of this allow me to feel even a tiny glimpse of His love for me?

I never complained about any of this, but I did wonder. But today on my walk with my dog, I got my answer. Jesus is with me wherever I go. He doesn't want my heart only in the good times, but in the bad too. He wants me to believe in His presence whether I feel it or not. So, He's been silent, but He's been with me. And He has loved me more than I will ever understand. He has not been up there watching me suffer with a smile on His face. He's been holding me in His arms while I cry. He's been wiping my tears and feeling compassion for me through it all. And He taught me way back in February of last year to love Him so that I could remember that feeling of peace when I was in the dark pit. You see, the greatest lesson I learned that day I just loved on the Lord was that I feel PEACE when I concentrate on loving Him. No matter where I am or what is happening, when I put my focus and energy on loving God, my pain decreases. I'm still in the pit, but I feel peace!

He reminded me of that peace on my morning walk. He reminded me that He didn't ask me to love on Him that day for Him, but for me. It was so that I could look to Jesus Christ in my most desperate moments and find peace. He will handle all the bad stuff for me. He will fight for me. He will ultimately destroy those tormenters of my soul. I just need to look to Him and find peace. God doesn't need my love. I am the one who needs His. And because He loves me, I love Him. He desires my love and wants it to come from my heart, not lip service because I need something from Him. Well, He has my heart and always will. I love Jesus because Jesus loves me.

Beauty for Ashes

It was March 2014 when my life would forever change. Because of certain legal battles and for the need to protect some people I love, I cannot write about specifics. But here I am more than three years later and instead of seeing justice, instead of seeing God avenge us, the battles have continued. They have been fierce and have left me bleeding on the ground with barely a breath left in me.

Does this sound dramatic? That is only because I have lived through some things I could have never imagined anyone enduring. I have actually laughed about it a few times and said, "my life is a telenovela!" But it's not funny. It's devastating. But, if you continue reading, you will see why I haven't given up and why this blog post isn't a pity party, but a story of hope.

I always believed that God would give beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3), yet I am laying here in smoke and ashes, choking on my pain and exhaustion. I know loss. I know pain. I know destruction. I am intimately acquainted with grief and sorrow. Those outside of this who have witnessed my suffering don't know what to say or what to do. They love me and hate seeing me suffer, but they can't fix it. No one other than my husband knows the extent of this trouble. He has endured most of it right alongside me. I have been in awe as the past few months, he has picked himself up and strengthened his mind, body and spirit. I am in the process of doing this too, but I get knocked down every time I attempt to stand.

Today I have been thinking about the book in the Bible that really tests our hearts- Job. This guy was living a good and decent life and then everything was taken from him. He had no idea why! Sadly, his "friends" tried to figure it all out. They tried to speak for God and tell Job that surely he must have done something wrong to be in this state. The devastation was too intense and there was no way that God would bring such destruction to anyone unless that person deserved it. There was Job, suffering like no one around him could comprehend, and instead of holding him and crying with him, his so-called friends preached. You know what? There is a time to speak and there is a time to shut up.

There will be many lessons I take away from my own suffering. This will end some day and I will look back and thank the Lord God for loving me enough to allow all of this. When that day comes, I would like to remember what it feels like to be in this smoke and ash. I would like to look at others who are suffering and hold them. It may be that they need to hear: "this isn't happening because you did something wrong, but because God is preparing you for something big".

Today I needed that reminder, so I listened to a sermon from Dr. Charles Stanley about God's timing. He mentioned a boy named David. This young man was anointed to be the next king of Israel, but 14 years went by in which he was in danger, fleeing and hiding for fear of his life.  According to Dr. Stanley, "God had a plan. It was a perfect plan. He executed His plan, but not on someone else’s schedule. His timing was perfect. God has a plan for YOUR life and that doesn’t mean that what’s in that plan is yours today. It is yours when God gets you ready. And what was God doing to David in all those years? Getting him ready. Teaching him how to suffer. Teaching him how to forgive. Teaching him to be wise. Teaching him to be loving. Teaching him to be respectful of the king who tried to kill him. Twice he could have killed Saul, but he didn’t do it. That wasn’t God’s timing."

Does God have a plan for your life? Yes. Will it look like my journey? No. It will, however, very likely include some pain and suffering. Everyone likes looking at the end of the story- you know, the one where the cancer patient becomes an Ironman. But the glory of the story isn't the Ironman. It's the pain of the cancer and how God gets the patient through it. True glory comes from God helping us get through darkness. The LIGHT has come and we get to look toward that Light while we grab the sword and fight through the darkness.

I know I'm not perfect, but I also know that my current situation is not due to some anger or judgment from God. He has a plan for my life and He's bringing me to my "promised land" in His own timing and His own way. That way happens to be very painful. If you hear me cry or scream, don't judge me. Don't be like Job's friends. Just let me cry. Let me scream. It's part of my journey. It doesn't mean I don't love God or that I don't trust Him. In fact, Jesus Christ Himself both cried and screamed. He even screamed out "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Then He died and went to Hell before He rose from the grave.

I will rise from the smoke and ashes too. I will have beauty for ashes.