Category Archives: Testimony

From Sexual Ambiguity to Ontological Uncertainty

03 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Biblical Womanhood, Complementarianism, Egalitarianism, Female in the Image of God, Practical Theology, Submission and Headship, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman

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This post was written as a prelude of sorts to the series Human Sexuality & Redeemed Image-Bearing Series. It is me sharing a little bit of my life experience and how it has fostered in me a particular desire to understand issues regarding human sexuality and female image bearing specifically. It is an explanation of my personal interest in this topic, it is not part of this study per se. But, for any who are interested, it is an opportunity to get an idea of where I am coming from on this issue and why I have made such efforts to understand this topic.

Sexual Ambiguity

Having been raised in a home deeply impacted and driven by a feministic agenda, I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to untangle the subtle strands of what I would call a psychological sexual ambiguity. In the home that I grew up in, there was no clear distinction between male and female. There were, of course, the obvious physical differences, but beyond that differences between the two sexes were neither acknowledged or encouraged. Generally, sexuality was understood to be a matter of sexual practice, and masculinity and femininity were defined in terms of lust and desirability.

My mother had more education, a better job, and made more money than my father did (at least in the early years). For the most part, my father was the more emotionally intuitive parent that often played the role of both mother and father – cooking dinner when he wasn’t working, doing the food shopping on the weekends, attending school meetings, and doing what he could to pull the family together. On the other hand, my mother was a tough, no-nonsense sort of woman that prioritized her career and education. Although she tried, she generally found that childcare, housework, and the domesticated life were frustrating, overwhelming, and boring. 

As a public-school student in the eighties, I was constantly bombarded with the message that girls could do anything boys could do – and probably even better than a boy could do it. Women’s rights, education, and the pay-scale divide between men and women in our country were common topics in literature, curriculum, and in the class-room. Women were tired of being ‘stuck’ with the kids, relegated to second-in-command, and making less money than their male counterparts for the same jobs. The repeated refrain for girls was ‘get your education’ and ‘do whatever you have to do to get a good job.’

The Battle of the Sexes

Marriage and a family were the furthest things from my mind, and being a female seemed to me to mean that I was in a cosmic battle of the sexes. A battle that women had been losing for years – and it was on my generation ‘to right the ship’ and win the war! I think that we were supposed to become the men that our mothers wanted to marry….

Anyhow, after highschool, I enlisted in the army. And after taking the ASVAB test, I was given the option of becoming a chaplain, a police officer, or a fire-fighter. I chose fire-fighting. I had never thought about fire-fighting a day in my life, but I knew that I didn’t like church people or cops – so the choice was easy.

At that time the military had just made a transition in how they were training their fire-fighters – they had adopted the National Fire Protection Standards and built a new multi-military training facility. I was one of the first female recruits to be trained to the new standards. Unexpectedly, I became the first female recruit to complete the training with no interruptions in the training cycle or mandatory restarts. (Most females were not able to complete the arduous physical requirements of the training. Although, from what I understood, there was one experienced professional female firefighter that underwent the training program successfully.)

My success in the training – as well as my easy adjustment to military life- went right along with what I already believed about men and women: there were no real differences between them. For all intents and purposes, on an emotional and mental level, I was sexual ambiguous.

I believed that there was no male or female per se, we were all just people – people with guy-bodies and people with girl-bodies. And, if anyone had asked me if there was a difference between a man and a woman, I would probably have responded by saying that the only real difference was that women were unfairly treated by being underpaid and undervalued. Knowing how audacious I could be back then, I might have even added that as a female firefighter for the Army, I had just won a small but decisive victory in the battle of the sexes.

He Treated Me Like a Lady

However, the Lord had other plans for me.

Around that time, I became a Christian. When I started attending church, I noticed that among church people there seem to be an intentional difference in how men and women behaved. I felt out of place and not really part of this new sexually diverse world. I felt most comfortable in tight fitting jeans, a flannel shirt, and combat boots – not a dress, flower prints, and matching heels. I wasn’t offended by the difference between me and the ‘church girls’ – but I knew that I wasn’t one of them.

After about a year of avoiding people at church, I met my husband (to be). Ironically, he came from a family of fire-fighters. Our earliest conversations were about taking a civil service test for the Boston Fire Department. He was a Christian, respected what I said, and wasn’t insecure about my job in the Reserves as a firefighter.

Most significantly, he was gentlemen. He opened the door for me, helped me take my coat off, and pulled the chair out for me to sit at dinner. Something made him different than all the other men that I had ever known. He never said anything inappropriate and always paid for dinner when we went out (there was no ‘Going Dutch’). In short, he was a man, and he treated me like a lady.

And, much to my own surprise, something about me wanted to ‘be a lady’ when I was with him. I felt bashful when he opened the door for me and happy when he complimented “the red in my hair.” I was free to be quiet when I was with him, free to have strong opinions or free to have no opinion at all. It felt uncomfortable at first (being treated with such deference), but I didn’t want it to stop. And, something deep inside of me knew that I had finally met someone who was (as the song goes) ‘strong enough to be my man.’ It is no wonder that we were married less than six months later.

When I married, I wholeheartedly embraced the role of wife and mother – I was relieved that I didn’t have to prove myself by doing what men did. My husband provided for me to stay home and study the Word, pray, and serve in the church as I desired to do so. I quite happily stayed home! I cooked, cleaned, and enjoyed every minute of it. When I gave birth to my first child, a baby girl, I felt that I had finally discovered what I had been created to be. And all in a moment, there was no more sexual ambiguity. I was a wife and a mother. That is, somehow I had come to understand that I was a woman through and through.

Ontological Uncertainty

In the following years, I read many, many books on being a Christian woman. I listened to as many teachings as I could find on Biblical femininity and sought out mentors and older women to “Titus 2” me. All of this, in the hopes of becoming the woman that God had created me to be. But even though I knew that I was created to be a woman and longed to understand femininity, I still didn’t know exactly what being a woman meant.

All of the teaching on Biblical womanhood that I received could be boiled down to two words: biology and function. I became increasingly convinced that true femininity couldn’t be reduced to merely childbearing and submission. (Although in the Lord, I do believe both of those things are beautiful and fitting in their rightful place and time in a woman’s life). But, as the task of teaching my daughters what it meant to be a woman became more of a priority in my life, my desire to understand true womanhood became more important to me. I wondered, if femininity isn’t primarily biological and functional, what exactly is it?

In other words, I wondered what does it mean to be a woman at a soul level? What does it mean to be a female created in the image of God – distinct from being a male created in the image of God? I wondered, are there any essential-to-nature (dare I say ontological?) differences between men and women – differences that have their foundation in the creation account, are easily perceived throughout the Biblical narrative, culminate in the new creation work of Christ, and are present everywhere in all female-image-bearers in varying degrees regardless of their spiritual state?

And so, it was, that I had moved from a state of sexual ambiguity– to a state of ontological uncertainty. And here we are. The rest of the posts in this series are explaining the truths that have helped me move from a state of ontological uncertainty to a state of sanctified sexuality.

Other Posts in the Human Sexuality & Redeemed Image-Bearing Series:

Introduction

Foundations: Sexuality, Gender, Essence and Ethic

 

Hadassah’s Words

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Call to the Cross, Testimony, The Christian Home

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“I am young in years, and you are old; that is why I was fearful, not daring to tell you what I know. I thought, ‘Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding. It is not only the old who are wise, nor only the aged who understand what is right.”        
Job 32:6-9   
We all must bear the cross in our lives, as our Lord carried His for us. Perhaps we are not always given the choice as to which one we are willing to bear; but God, in His great mercy, knows what will bring about the greatest transformative work in our hearts, and I think that is what He is after. I would never have chosen my cross. I could not choose it. But I thank God with all my heart for using heartbreak and loss to teach me just how kind, loving, and gracious He is to all who reach out to Him from the darkest, lowest places.

My daughter, Hadassah, died when she was 18 years old. In her short life, the Lord took her on a high adventure that was fraught with peril and uncertainty; but as He promises, He swooped down at just the right time to rescue a dear heart who cried out to Him for mercy. His love, indeed, never fails.

And an incredible surprise awaited us on the other side of our daughter’s death. A gift of infinite comfort and grace. A hidden jewel that had been in the making for years. A month or two before Hadassah died she told me that she had felt compelled to write all her life. But no one had ever seen the treasure that she called her journals. They were carefully guarded so that no one would see them until the appointed hour. At first we thought that perhaps they were intended for us alone, her family, as a gift to aid us in our grief. But the more we read, the more we were sure that this hidden legacy was an offering of love from Hadassah to the One who said, “I’ve got you, my dear. I could never let a little one like you fall. And I will show you just how much I love you by what I will allow you to do for my kingdom and for my glory.”

That is when Hadassah’s Words were born. She tells her story, the story of a God who seeks to save that which was lost, who restores all that a dreaded enemy meant to steal, and who fights the final battle until the victory is won. Here are Hadassah’s Words. Here is the triumph that is found in God alone.

Hadassah’s Words

Bettie’s Testimony

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in Boasting in Weaknesses, Call to the Cross, Christian Love, Cross-Bearing, Family, Marriage, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, The Christian Home, The Glory of God, The Kindness of God, The Sovereignty of God

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“And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Revelation 12:11

The testimony of God’s work in the lives of His dear children is a source of great encouragement to me- especially, the testimonies of the older saints that have walked with God for a long time. I love to listen to His beloved ones testify to God’s faithfulness to them through the decades. Bettie is one of those older saints who has walked with God for many years. Her story is one of the most remarkable testimonies of God’s sustaining grace that I have ever heard in my life.

Here, Bettie shares the hard truth about her painful marriage. She tells about the decades of her life that were full of rejection, loneliness, and longing. She even shares about her own personal struggle with the temptation to find some way out of her marriage commitment- either by suicide or divorce. And, then she shares about the abounding grace and the astounding providence of God that kept her from both of these things. She shares about how after 58 years of marriage, God answered her prayers and gave her the desires of her heart by blessing her relationship with her husband beyond her wildest imagination. Most importantly, Bettie shares how God used the severe mercy of a painful marriage to conform her into the image of Christ, teach her to love her husband selflessly, and trust God with her marriage, her emotional needs, her very life.

At this time, Bettie is a model of beauty, elegance, and dignity. When I met her, her husband had come to the faith, and their marriage was a testimony of God’s abounding grace for all to see. Bettie shared this testimony at a woman’s retreat that I was part of last year- I share it with her permission. I wanted to post this testimony here because I believe with all my heart that as Christian women we need to be assured of God’s abounding grace to us in the midst of adversity. Really, this testimony is for every believer that would be reminded of the sovereign abounding grace of God. It is, especially, for every Christian woman that needs to know that God is working in her life for her greatest joy and His greatest glory, even through the severe mercy of a difficult marriage.

God’s Grace Abounds in My Life-To God be the Glory

“I became born again a Billy Graham crusade in 1952. Shortly after that, I met my husband, fell in love, and became a Catholic in order to marry him. During our courtship, he was very attentive to me. We married in 1953. I loved my husband more than I loved Jesus.

From the very beginning of marriage, God took me by the hand and led me on a life changing journey. I did not realize it at the time, for many times did I say, “But Father, I do not understand.” In due time God showed me and I now understand. It took my life time to do it.

My husband changed after we married. He would not look at me, talk to me or even say my name. When he came into a room where I was, he acted as though I was not there. There did not seem to be any way that I could please my husband. He always seemed angry. I became a non-person. When I confronted him and asked him why he was treating me that way, he denied he was doing so.

I began to read everything that I could on how to have a happy marriage. I was told on the one hand that if I was not happy in marriage- it was up to me to change it. I was also told not to accuse, but to express how being treated like that made me feel. My husband’s reply was usually, “Why should that bother you? It would not bother me.” He wanted me to live my life, he would live his life, and we would just be friendly with each other.”

As time went on and four children later, I thought of suicide. I remember driving and coming into town at the top of the hill and thinking I could just drive over the cliff with the four children (because I knew that my husband would not care for them). Suicide- the thought gave me energy. For a whole week I tried to decide how to do it. By the end of the week, I knew that I could not and would not do it. (God’s grace!)

Years went by, and somewhere about the fifteenth or sixteenth year of our marriage, God led me to a Bible study. (God’s grace, yeah!). I knew attending the Catholic Church something was seriously wrong. I did not know what it was. I found out by studying the Bible. The Bible, the precious Word of God, was like (and still is) sweet, sweet water to my parched soul and spirit. I felt like a dry sponge soaking it up.

I began to search the word for a way out of my marriage commitment. NO WAY! What I found were two very important commands for me. I was to be submissive and respectful to my husband. There were no pre-existing conditions, such as a loving husband. No. Those commands were from me from God. I did my best to obey.

Time went by. By this time, we had 8 children. We went for counseling. The counselor at this time, wanted to see us separately. First, he saw me, then he saw my husband. The counselor called me and said that I should divorce my husband. The counselor asked if I had a lawyer. I said, “No.” He said that he would help me get one. I said that I had to think about it. I sat for a long time thinking, going back and forth in my mind, weeping over the whole situation. I did not really want a divorce, but I did not want to continue to live as we were, either. That night there was a fire in the house where the counselor lived. The house burned down and he died in that fire. Thoughts of divorce were gone (God’s grace!) I do not mean to imply that this was God’s grace- that the man died in the fire. It happened, you must take it for what it is. I only know, from then on, I did not think of divorce again.

I continued in Bible studies every week. I learned that we are to pray for our enemies. So, I thought, if I am to pray for my enemies, then I most assuredly had to pray for my husband. I started praying for my husband.

We went to counseling again, together, to a Christian this time, for several months, then stopped. Things did not change, in our marriage. We started again, and stopped, but our marriage remained the same.

I continued to pray for wisdom and guidance for myself, and I continued to pray for my husband.

In Bible study, I was learning that my life, as a Christian, is a struggle; a constant battle between my old nature and my life in Christ. Through all of this, God was helping me to get my priorities straight. I began to want to be more like Jesus. Over time God would reveal my besetting sins- sins of self-pity, bitterness, and the terrible sin of envy. I envied other people’s marriages that I thought were happy. Over and over again, I had to run to God and cry out, “Lord, help me!”

God was teaching me how to be obedient, how to persevere and endure, how to forgive, and how much He loved me. I slowly began to realize that it did not matter if my marriage was happy or not. What began to matter to me was my relationship with God.

By this time, I knew my marriage was not going to change.

I submitted the last vestige of myself to God, and said, “It’s okay. I except this, if this is to be my life, then it’s okay. Help me to be the woman You want me to be.” (God’s grace.)

But wait! God had something more wonderful than I could have imagined for me. By this time, I am 77 years old, and my husband is 80 years old.

God led my husband and me to another Christian counselor. It started out as we were attending counseling for one of our grand-daughters, who was struggling with behavior issues. God led this counselor to see that something was seriously wrong with our marriage relationship. In this Godly man’s counseling, my husband began to see things differently. My husband began to change. He now treats me with love and respect.

I know that were it not for my marriage situation, it would have been something else that God would have used to each me and correct me. Jesus says in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Also in John 14:14, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” I asked God to renew my love for my husband, and He did it! After 58 years of marriage, I did not expect this. (Grace abounds in my life.)

I thank God for my life, and the lives of my children that I did not destroy. I thank Him for not allowing me to destroy our family. I thank God for not allowing some other man to come into my life. I was so vulnerable, so lonely, so starving for love, if someone had treated me with the least bit of kindness, I would have succumb, I believe. Thank God, He spared me that temptation!

Through this whole marriage God has become more and more BIG! And, I have become more and more small.

I cannot stress enough how important God’s Word is to me. God’s Word is food for my soul, my very being. I see my own sins. When they were revealed to me, (thank the Lord, not all at once!), the struggle to overcome them made me realize I could not do anything apart from Jesus in my life.

I began to see that I did not really need my husband’s love. I want my husband’s love, but I now know that I am loved far, far greater than I can even put my mind to. This, God’s love for me, truly is everything to me. Jesus does meet all my needs. Through what God has done in my life through Jesus, my love for my husband is different now. My love for him is cleaner, more pure, and unselfish.

This weeding out and fine-tuning that God does takes its time, sometimes a long time, but for me, it was worth it- the suffering, the obedience, and waiting! I like the way Spurgeon worded it- “No, our master’s experience teaches us that suffering is necessary, and the true-born child of God must not, would not escape it if he might.”

Barbara’s Testimony

03 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in Biblical Parenting, Edification, Family, Motherhood, Salvation, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, The Christian Home

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“And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”   (Revelation 12:11 ESV).

When I met Barbara seven years ago, she shared her testimony with me. Although, until recently, I had not seen her for about four years, I had never forgotten what she had shared with me that night. How God had sovereignly intervened in her life through her children’s involvement with a local youth ministry. How at a time of great difficulty in dealing with her first husband’s addiction and subsequent death, God was working for her salvation and her joy. And, how God brought her husband Michael and her together for a long joyful marriage of service to God. Barbara came to know the Lord 44 years ago, and yet her love and exuberance for Jesus is as contagious as if she just came to know Him. The Lord has carried her through years of difficulty and living life in a fallen world. Her testimony can and, I believe, will encourage any woman who needs to be reminded that the Lord is sovereign. And, that for those that love Him, He is working all things together- (all things including the addictions of loved ones, widowhood, single parent child-rearing, church ministry)- for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.   (Romans 8:28 ESV)

Barbara’s Testimony

“I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic church faith from 1931 to 1972 when Jesus changed my life. I attended Sacred Heart School in Yonkers, NY from kindergarten through high school graduation in 1948. I received First Communion at age 8, and Confirmation at age 12, attended all Novena services, sang in the choir, and prayed the Rosary novenas. One of my uncles was a Roman Catholic priest, and my Father was a St. LaSalle teaching brother at Manhattan College until he had to leave the order to take care of his mother and sisters when his father died. My mother’s family also were strong Roman Catholics.

In 1953 I was married in the Catholic Church. God gave us four boys and four girls. In 1974, my oldest daughter was invited to a service in a Baptist church, and I gave her my permission to go there.

My husband had a problem with alcohol and our family was suffering from the results of his addiction, but he was unwilling to get help. After being out of work as an accountant for a company involved with hotels and motels he finally, after a year at home, went for a job interview and, as I found out later, he was hired. On the train coming home, he had been talking with people in the bar-car and got off at the wrong station. When he realized his mistake he tried to get on the moving train, but people tried to pull him off. When they let go of him- he lost his grip and went under the wheels. He died an hour later at the hospital. That was November 6, 1970.

I started to notice my daughter who had gone to the Baptist church taking her Bible and notebook to her favorite spot every day and sharing with her brothers things that she was learning. I went to see my parish priest and asked him what he thought about the Baptists. The only answer he gave me was, “Keep yourself and your children away from them.”

My daughter was telling her brothers about the things she was learning and I started to notice a change in their behavior. To satisfy my curiosity, I invited the youth group to have choir practice in my home. I heard the messages of love for the Lord and reaching out to people with the message of God’s love that changes lives. I found out the reason why Jesus had to die a horrible death. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, the stain of their sin of disobedience was passed on to every person who was born. Baby baptism does not remove the stain of sin. The person being baptized has to acknowledge their separation from God, as they are put under the water to be buried with Christ in His death, and brought up out of the water to be raised out of death to walk with Jesus in newness of life.

On October 30, 1972 at 10:00 A.M. I went into my bedroom to pray the prayer of the rosary devotions. After saying a few Hail Marys my mind turned toward remembering the messages of the songs. One song says, “All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give, I will ever love and trust him, in His presence daily live. I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.” With tears rolling down my cheeks, I surrendered my life to my Lord Jesus Christ. I gathered my children around and shared my experience with them. I prayed the sinner’s prayer with each of them, but at different times the Lord gave each one their own experience.”

At one time the Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church needed a secretary and asked me if my daughter Joan could come for an interview and would I be present with her. While Pastor was gathering information from Joan, in my mind the Lord was impressing on me that “This is my job.” In my mind, I told the Lord that Joan was the one being interviewed, not me. Three times the Lord impressed on me that this was my job.

After two years as Pastor’s secretary Joan was offered a job at Rug Works which was owned and operated by members in the congregation. And so, Pastor was, again, without a secretary. Three weeks after Joan left, I asked Pastor if he needed a secretary. His answer to me was, “When can you start?” The next day I began my career as a church secretary, which lasted until my retirement in 2006.

My children Anne, George, and I were baptized by immersion in 1973.

I served the Lord under Pastors Haire, Farber, and the present Pastor Pandolfi.

While I was secretary I was involved with the youth group, and for three summers my two-week vacation was used traveling with the youth group to churches, sharing the Gospel message. My brother and sister-in-law stayed with the children while I was away.

On November 6, 1974, Billy Graham had a crusade on television ministering to young people and my future husband Michael listened to the message. In the course of his life, he had traveled around and worked at Yellowstone national park. He had met some people who shared the gospel with him. As he listened to the message, he remembered the things that had been shared with him in his travels. When the invitation was given, he poured his heart out to invite Jesus to take control of his life. He prayed asking the Lord where he should go to church. He remembered seeing a church being built not far from where he was staying.

The first person he saw was the minister of youth. Michael said to him, “Is this where you find Jesus?” Of course the answer was, “Yes, Sir, you’re in the right place.”

After about a year of observing how involved I was with the youth group and gathering information from church members, Mike found out that I was a widow with 8 children, a church secretary, a piano teacher for children of two families who were church members, a Sunday school teacher (4th grade students), leader of ladies Bible studies, sang special music in some of the services, and had traveled with the “Agape” youth group for two weeks, two summers (to Georgia one year and Niagara Falls another year). Mike went to a family in the church and expressed to them his desire to ask me for a date. They encouraged him to ask me. I agreed to do Bible Studies with him. We waited three years before we got engaged and three years before we got married.

My husband and I now live in an apartment complex in Port Jervis, New York, with 49 other families; and we share the Gospel message as the Lord leads. My eight children, Anne. James, Robert, Joan, George, Kathleen, William, and Maryan have their own families and live in different states.

As a side note, When I was still searching for answers, and had gone to the priest and asked him what he thought about the Baptist church, the only answer that got from him was “Keep yourself and your children away from the Baptists.” I also wrote to the Bishop of Rockville center, New York City, and I asked him if her knew if he would go to heaven. His secretary sent me a short note saying, “We have to leave that up to the Lord.”

I remained a Catholic for about one year after I accepted the Lord, and I left tracks regarding the Lord’s message of salvation where people might find them. Before I was saved, I had been elected ‘Corresponding Secretary’ of the Rosary Society; but, because I had given my life to the Lord, I gave back all the materials they gave me. I also took my daughter’s best friend to one of the ladies homes to witness to her. I never saw that lady again. Some nights I stayed up all night reading the Bible, and when the children left for school I would go to bed for a few hours.”

Becky’s Testimony

09 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman

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“And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”  (Revelation 12:11 ESV)

I have heard people that were raised in  Christian homes claim that they don’t have exciting testimonies. I don’t agree, at all. I have often thought anyone who thinks that about their own testimony does not understand how sinful or how needful of God’s grace they really are. Here is a great testimony of God’s grace to a young woman who was raised in a Christian home. Her name is Becky, and I love her dearly- I especially love her tenacious love for God. Here is her testimony, I am sure that it will greatly encourage you- especially, if you think that your own testimony is boring because you were raised in a Christian home.

Becky’s Testimony

Ever since the first time my parents held me in the hospital I have been privileged to hear the gospel but it wasn’t until I was about twelve years old that the Lord started working the miracle of salvation in my heart.

Before I came to know the Lord I had a constant thirst for sin. I often meditated on sinful thoughts and I enjoyed watching things that I knew where sinful and God would not be pleased with. However, what God was pleased with made no difference to me, I did whatever would “gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16), i.e. whatever made me feel good at whatever time I wanted it, I chose not to think about the possibility that what I was doing was only storing up wrath for me. Whatever made me feel and/or look good was what I set my mind to do. I read the Bible daily and quickly prayed before I started my day, but I saw devotional time only as a duty. I didn’t think, whatsoever, about the Word in depth, and I never even paused to think about who I was praying to. There was no joy in spending time with God. As long as I could check it off my to-do list, I was set. I wouldn’t say I thought I was a good person, I knew everyone was a sinner and I knew God hated sin, but I never stopped to think about myself personally. I assumed I was already a believer, at least until I was about eleven. Around that time, I went into about eight months or so of a spiritual depression. I can’t remember exactly when it started, but I began to have terrible thoughts about the Lord Jesus come into my mind. I tried fighting them with all my might-  but I couldn’t seem to get them out of my mind. It was because of this that I thought God hated me. Worse than that, I thought He detested me. I tried over and over again to beg for his forgiveness, but no matter what I did I felt filthier and more depressed as the days wore on. I felt a heavy, heavy burden on my soul that was far more weight than anything I could ever explain. I thought for sure God would not forgive me, I was His one exception. No one else could ever be as wicked as me and my thoughts were. It was because I knew God was perfect and He demanded perfection that I thought He would most definitely reject me, for I had ruined my only hope. I constantly bore the overwhelming feeling of what I thought was God’s anger and rage towards me, it was as though it were a thick fog, always all around me and all I could see in front of me. I can remember times just lying awake at night crying myself to sleep, thinking about what my eternity would be like. But God never ordains anything without a purpose. My weakness and helplessness before a holy and almighty God led me to finally bring my depression to my sister. She encouraged me to go to God- to get up early to daily read the Scripture and have a prayer time- not to just do devotions for the sake of checking it off my to do list, but to really spend time with God. So I did.

I was also able to finally bring my depression to my parents and specifically, my mom.  God used these things mightily to bring me to Himself. The Lord used many people and things to lead me to see Him as He really is, not how my puny, sinful mind portrayed Him to be. I came to realize first that God will save anyone He wants to, you can’t out-sin God’s grace. As Daniel 4:25 says, “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stay His hand or say to Him, ‘what have you done?’” I also realized that He is the One that places the desire to know Him in us. I came to realize I was hopeless, wretched and deserving of eternal torment, and that was exactly what I was going to get, except for one reason and one reason only – Jesus Christ. He is everything to the believer, He is everything to me. He is the only one that took away my sin and wicked deeds on the Cross. He died because He loves me, not because of me- but because of Himself. And He rose again so that I can have new life, eternal life, in Him. I also came to realize a little bit about spiritual warfare. The Scriptures say in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The Enemy is really at work in this present darkness and the only One who can defend us is God, we are indeed weak.

Through all of this I’m not exactly sure what moment God changed my heart from loving me to loving Him, but I know I started to see a lot of changes in my life, mind, and heart. I started enjoying my time with the Lord first of all. I now look forward to being able to pour out my heart to Him and thank Him for His work. I love reading Scripture and I get excited when God gives me an insight in His Word. During those prayer times I started confessing sins and bringing them to the Cross. I started being able to actually encourage and talk to others about the Lord from my own experience with Him. I started meditating on the Lord instead of immorality. One of the most joyful things for me was when I found myself actually joyfully anticipating the second coming of The Lord Jesus. These things didn’t come simultaneously but God did work and He is definitely still working.

Since coming to know Christ I have had sustained, immovable joy in God. The joy I have in Him is sustained and immovable because He is the one who saved me. I can and could do absolutely nothing to save myself I was dead. But Christ raises the dead. He saved me and “He who began a good work will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6) The more I think about it, the more overwhelmed I am at God’s kindness to me, He is so good. Now, I have a joyful eternity in front of me because of Jesus. Luke 11:20 says, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”. I can now be a part of bringing glory to God – that is perhaps the best gift of all that we receive in Christ. To sum it all up, Ephesians 1:11-12 says, “In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.”

 

 

Jonathan Edwards: Living for the Glory of God and Family Bible Time…

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Boasting in Weaknesses, Call to the Cross, Edification, Encouragement, Jonathan Edwards, Reformed Theology, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, The Glory of God

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For several years now, my husband and I have been meeting with our kids for Bible Study on Monday nights. I take the girls and we have a “Ladies Theological Society Meeting” -complete with Bible Study, prayer, and chocolate. And, my husband takes the boys to another room in the house, and does “Men for the Lord” (which, by the way, was quite an undertaking for those years when some of Dan’s ‘mighty-men’ were still in feety-pajamas and needed to be in bed by 8:00 PM). Anyways, I share this about our home study time with the kids, because Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions are a regular part of study time with my girls. We have read the Resolutions together, talked about them, and prayed over some of them for each other. Last week, one of my girls asked me to pray that she would be like Jonathan Edwards- that she would be resolved to live her whole life for the honor of the Lord. It’s for this reason that I decided to post Jonathan Edwards’ first resolution. I figured that maybe some one would read it- and (just like my girls and I have begun to do) catch the passion and intensity of Jonathan Edwards’ intentionality in living for the glory of God!

Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

One more thing! Here is a link to the Christian Classics Ethereal Library where you can read all 70 of Jonathan Edwards’ life changing Resolutions for free. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works1.i.iii.html

 

God Always Keeps His Word- So We must Trust Him

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, The Nature of God, Walking in Newness of Life

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“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” Numbers 23:19

Trusting in God is a necessary means to the end of experiencing the many graces of walking in new life in Christ. God is the only sure foundation for our lives, and if we are going to walk in newness of life, we must know and believe (deep in our hearts) that we can always trust God. After all, our new life is completely dependent on the trustworthiness of God to change us and make us holy. Of course, we begin to know that we can trust God when we start to think about God in the right way (as we considered Saturday). However, there is more to trusting God than simply acknowledging that He is real and that He is holy, even demons do that (Luke 4:33-34; James 2:19). Truly trusting God requires understanding that God is the only person Who is always worthy of our trust, and also understanding why God is the only person that is always worthy of our trust. Trusting God also requires understanding that we cannot even trust ourselves as much as we trust God.

Often, women who have been disappointed by people that they have put their trust in, feel as though they cannot trust anyone, including God. Perhaps, you are one of those women. I use to be one of those women. If you are, then this Scripture may help you, as it once helped me: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19). That Scripture is very interesting, is it not? In it, we read that ‘God is not a man that He should lie’ – as if to say that all men lie. The Scripture also says that ‘God is not a son of man, that He should change His mind’ – as if to say all men change their minds. It is probably for these two reasons that, in John 2:24-25, we read about Jesus that He “… Did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that anyone should bear witness concerning man; for He Himself knew what was in man” (John 2:24-25). The Numbers passage above ends by asking a very good question regarding the trustworthiness of God: “Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” Personally, I think that this question is the only question that matters when it comes to whether or not we can trust God. We must ask ourselves, “Has God always done what He said He would do?” If the answer to that question is no (which it, emphatically, is not) then we should not trust God. However, if the answer to that question is yes (which it, emphatically, is) then, we must trust God.

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I Asked The Lord – Indelible Grace

08 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by in Boasting in Weaknesses, Call to the Cross, Confession of Sin, Cool Christian Tunes, Edification, Encouragement, Good Poetry, Music, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman

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Totally where I am at today. Found the hymn by a “providential-accident” (that is an intentional oxymoron). I haven’t heard this hymn for a while, but I needed to hear it today.  I needed to be reminded that coming to grips with the wickedness and treachery of my own heart (at deeper and deeper levels) is a necessary prerequisite to true holiness. I also needed to be reminded that when I do become painfully aware of my sin- it is a blessed gift of grace that shouldn’t cause me to despair of any hope for true holiness. But, instead, that awareness is intended by God to drive me to Him, and seek Him for more of the gracious blood-bought sanctifying work of the Lord in my life.

If you are feeling the “hidden evils of thine heart” or as though the Lord has allowed “the angry pow’rs of hell” to “assault thine soul in every part,” then perhaps this hymn is totally where your at too.

Happy Saturday.

John Newton wrote this hymn. The following paragraph gives the nut-shell testimony of his conversion experience. You can read the entire biographical sketch by following the link at the bottom of this post. I have also included the words to the hymn on the bottom of the page.

Newton, John, who was born in London, July 24, 1725, and died there Dec. 21, 1807, occupied an unique position among the founders of the Evangelical School, due as much to the romance of his young life and the striking history of his conversion, as to his force of character. His mother, a pious Dissenter, stored his childish mind with Scripture, but died when he was seven years old. At the age of eleven, after two years’ schooling, during which he learned the rudiments of Latin, he went to sea with his father. His life at sea teems with wonderful escapes, vivid dreams, and sailor recklessness. He grew into an abandoned and godless sailor. The religious fits of his boyhood changed into settled infidelity, through the study of Shaftesbury and the instruction of one of his comrades. Disappointing repeatedly the plans of his father, he was flogged as a deserter from the navy, and for fifteen months lived, half-starved and ill-treated, in abject degradation under a slave-dealer in Africa. The one restraining influence of his life was his faithful love for his future wife, Mary Catlett, formed when he was seventeen, and she only in her fourteenth year. A chance reading of Thomas à Kempis sowed the seed of his conversion; which quickened under the awful contemplations of a night spent in steering a water-logged vessel in the face of apparent death (1748). He was then twenty-three. The six following years, during which he commanded a slave ship, matured his Christian belief. Nine years more, spent chiefly at Liverpool, in intercourse with Whitefield, Wesley, and Nonconformists, in the study of Hebrew and Greek, in exercises of devotion and occasional preaching among the Dissenters, elapsed before his ordination to the curacy of Olney, Bucks (1764).

Link to Hymnary.org: http://www.hymnary.org/person/Newton_John.

I Asked the Lord  (Words taken from Cyberhymnal.org)

“I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
“’Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

Link to CyberHymnal.org: http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/i/a/iaskedtl.htm

 

Personal Red-Sea Experiences?

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Boasting in Weaknesses, Call to the Cross, Cross-Bearing, Edification, Encouragement, Exhortation, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, The Sovereignty of God

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The cross is the  place where our weaknesses and God’s sovereignty make sense.  When we bring our weaknesses, brokenness, and messed up pasts to the cross of Christ, we can start to grasp the weight of the truth that Jesus, of His own volition, identified Himself with our frailty through the incarnation, and then willfully identified Himself with our brokenness on the cross, so that by sovereign grace, we can identify with Him in His powerful resurrection life. It is at the cross of Christ that we begin to understand that Christ is not the indifferent Sovereign Bystander that some assume Him to be. But that our Lord is the voluntary Sovereign Substitute, who has voluntarily identified Himself with our weaknesses through His cross. And it is at the cross that we learn that the Lord overcomes all of our pain, because it is the cross that leads us to experience the resurrection.

We find at the cross that the Lord is not at all the Silent Witness to our brokenness, neediness, and weaknesses, but that He is, in fact,  the Silent Lamb, who has been slaughtered for them, and that He is the Sovereign Lord who even now, by the power of an indestructible life, rules over them.  When we begin to understand the cross-work of Christ, we can begin to understand in a very personal way the massive and life-changing reality of the sovereign power and deep love that God has for each of His children. For, the cross is not the end of experiencing the redemptive power of God, but it is actually the means to the experiencing the resurrection power of God.  At the cross we  begin to really appropriate the awesome truth that God is most certainly and most emphatically sovereign over all things in life – working them all to the end for our good and His glory (Romans 1:4; 6:3,4; 2 Corinthians 13:4).

God has given each one of us our own personal Red Sea Experience – some life changing providence intended by God to lead us to a desperate need of experiencing the awesome power of God in resurrection. These events, as painful as they may be, are all part of God’s perfect sovereign ordering of our lives. Our personal Red Sea Experiences are the practical outworking of the sovereign grace of God in our lives. Each one ordained to the end that we would turn to Christ in saving faith; experience the powerful redemption of the cross, and know the depth of the love of God and the power of His sovereignty more intimately through our union with Christ. So embrace the cross and experience the sovereign power of God in resurrection.

Paradigm for Life

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Sanctification, Testimony

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“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:3-4

My personal paradigm for life is identification with the Lord in His death, burial, and resurrection from the dead. I see each affliction, difficult relationship, and painful circumstance in my life as an opportunity to identify with Christ in the cross. I see every season of my life spent in waiting or in rest as an opportunity to identify with Christ in burial. I see every victory that God gives me as an experience of resurrection. And, when God gives me sustained progress in something or a pattern of victory in my life, I see that as walking in newness of life. My mental process for dealing with life centers on the cross of Christ. To me the Christian is by definition a parable of Christ, and her life, an analogy of the glory of God expressed in the power of the cross.

This all started about 10 years ago when the Lord began to a healing work in my soul. After, living in denial for my entire adult life that the abuse in my past had any affect on me, I sensed the Lord prompting me to take a closer look at what had happened in the abuse of my younger years. But, having grown up in a home where I was bottle fed Sigmund Freud and spoon fed Carl Jung; I was not very happy about the prospect of counseling. However, I was extremely zealous for God and very much desired to do what I thought He was prompting me to do. SO, after much prayer (and a lot more prompting from the Holy Spirit), I looked for a good Christian counselor and got busy trying to figure out what was the matter with me. I wanted to understand why it was that I felt depressed; why I was having such difficulty being vulnerable and meek; and why I was having an increasingly difficult time connecting with people (relationally and emotionally). I mostly wanted to understand why I did not have the abundant life which Christ promised that His followers would have.

After about three years of counseling with a professional Christian counselor, I had learned a lot about myself and my past, but I came to the conclusion that therapy had brought me as far as it was going to bring me. I understood what had happened, I understood that it was wrong, and I began to understand that the abuse had permanently impacted me. I guess, I just realized that my past was not going away; it was seriously messed up; and I wasn’t doing that great either. At the same time, I was trying to reconcile these conclusions with the truth of the Gospel –  that in Christ I was a new creation. Paul wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (See 2 Corinthians 5:17). The problem was I did not feel like my  past had passed, or that the new me was very new at all. As I prayed about these seemingly contradictory realities, I realized that I needed to put the past on the cross with Christ, and by faith appropriate His resurrection life to overcome the soul-deadening effects that the abuse had on me. I started to identify the “deaths” in my soul, with the death of Christ on His cross. For example, He was betrayed with a kiss; I was betrayed with a kiss. He felt forsaken; I felt forsaken. He felt the filth of the sins of other people upon His soul; I had felt the filth of the sins of one other person on my soul, etc., etc . Through this process, I began to fellowship with Christ on the cross.

For me, this was the beginning of experiencing the power of resurrection for walking in newness of life. When God began to resurrect what was dead in me – through this type of intentional and conscious fellowship with Christ in the cross – I began to experience in real-time the powerful reality of the doctrine of my union with Christ. I guess; it was then that I began to live in the Biblical truth that “…all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death… …We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). It was at this time in my life that all of Paul’s seemingly enigmatic statements about having been crucified with Christ, and having fellowship with Him in His sufferings, and filling up those afflictions that were lacking in His body, started to make sense to me. Identification with Christ on His cross was no longer an abstract, theological statement to me, it had become… Well, I guess that it was then that it became my paradigm for life.