I need to say before I start that I wrote the beginning of this to a dear friend of mine, after reading her blog post, early this morning because of a situation she is in. So I would first like to ask that everyone say a prayer for my friend. That's all you need to know because God already knows.
I got up early this morning because I forgot today is “trash day”, and I have a lot of trash this week. After reading your post I sat here and thought about the trash and filthy garbage that Satan likes to fill our minds with. He takes great joy in the things that frighten us and take hold of us even for a few seconds, because during those few second we are not focused on the love of Jesus Christ and all that He has done for us and is doing for us. I have my own fair share of “trash” that I carry around, and usually it is the same “trash” over and over again.
I have trash (fear) about the future. I worry about whether or not I will move home again, and then I worry about leaving Odessa behind and all the wonderful people God has brought into our lives to bless us and love us here in Odessa. See I let fear sneak in even when it comes to a blessing God has given me. I wonder how many times we do that. I am embarrassed to say I do it a lot. I try to take just one day at a time, live in the moment, live in the day that I am in. When I look too far into the future I get so scared. I see my kids growing up, leaving home, starting lives and families of their own, and in my mind's eye I see an old lady alone and lonely. Satan doesn't even let me consider the possibility that my kids might live near by or that I might have a friend or two to share my life with. Satan doesn't want me to see that, but God wants me to trust for "I know the plans that I have made for you, plans for you to prosper" (sorry bible study girls I don't remember where the verse is or know it word for word). God would never plan for me what Satan wants me to think. God loves me, yes even me.
I have trash (fear) that I can't be an effective single parent. Every day I think in my mind "what would Mel say about this, how would Mel react to this". Satan gets me to question this, because Mel and I inevitably thought the same about discipline, love and training and bringing up of our kids. We never argued about it, and when we talked about it we were always on the same page. So here again Satan wants me to think I am ineffective as a single parent, but I forget that God so blessed me with my perfect husband that I already instinctively know what "we" would do to raise our children. I also believe Mel is watching over me and that he is proud of how I love our kids and how I preserve our memories of him.
I have friends who fear about pregnancies because they have lost babies in early, middle and late pregnancies. When I was pregnant I feared that my baby would die because God was going to punish me for having had an abortion in my teen years. My mind was Satan's field of victory for over 25 years with this subject. In my mind I knew that God forgave me, but in my heart I, I, I could not forgive myself. All my life all I had ever envisioned myself being was a mother of many children. It took reading our church's newsletter and the message from Pastor Hal to make me learn that I had to get help with this "piece of trash". He wrote about a barge floating around in the ocean that was full of garbage and had nowhere to go, so it just floated around all day, every day in the Atlantic Ocean doing nothing but becoming stinkier by the day. Quite an analogy of Satan's lies don't you think. After I read this, and I read an article in the paper written by a Catholic priest about a healing retreat they held each year for women who had undergone abortions. I went and talked to Pastor Hal. Until this, very few people even new this about me. I was afraid that if people at church knew about it they would scorn me. I believed that they would not want me to work in the nursery and take care of their children after I had killed one of my own. I feared they would shun me. I never wanted to think about this story in my life, much less share it, but I believe it speaks to the overwhelming, all surrounding, all consuming love that God has for me. I went to a recovery support group. I learned that 1 in 4 women have had an abortion. To me that meant that even in my church there were women who had tragically made this decision, and I was right. I was friends with one of them and never even knew it until years into knowing her. So just the fact that I no longer beat myself up over this every day, that I can now claim being pro-life without feeling like a liar to God, is a miracle to me. God has blessed me with two children, and I know now that God smiles upon me and them and the fact that I am trying to raise them to make Him first in their lives. I think it is important for people to know that not only does abortion take a baby's life, it also destroys a mother's soul. I encourage compassion with people who have had an abortion and have suffered in silence, fear and self-loathing for years for making this decision.
For all my friends and family I want you to know I pray for His peace upon you, His love and presence surrounding you, and please know how very many people are interceding on your behalf for God to bless you abundantly. Our last bible study here was on intercessory prayer, and it is so powerful, so we need to take comfort that when we are our most frightened and can’t seem to catch a breath and fear takes hold of us that there is still intercessory prayer going up to God on our behalf, that even when we are weak, there are many of Christian brothers and sisters being strong for us. That’s what Family is for, and we belong to the highest family, we were all created equal by the one and only King of all Kings, and he DOES NOT CREATE TRASH.
I got up early this morning because I forgot today is “trash day”, and I have a lot of trash this week. After reading your post I sat here and thought about the trash and filthy garbage that Satan likes to fill our minds with. He takes great joy in the things that frighten us and take hold of us even for a few seconds, because during those few second we are not focused on the love of Jesus Christ and all that He has done for us and is doing for us. I have my own fair share of “trash” that I carry around, and usually it is the same “trash” over and over again.
I have trash (fear) about the future. I worry about whether or not I will move home again, and then I worry about leaving Odessa behind and all the wonderful people God has brought into our lives to bless us and love us here in Odessa. See I let fear sneak in even when it comes to a blessing God has given me. I wonder how many times we do that. I am embarrassed to say I do it a lot. I try to take just one day at a time, live in the moment, live in the day that I am in. When I look too far into the future I get so scared. I see my kids growing up, leaving home, starting lives and families of their own, and in my mind's eye I see an old lady alone and lonely. Satan doesn't even let me consider the possibility that my kids might live near by or that I might have a friend or two to share my life with. Satan doesn't want me to see that, but God wants me to trust for "I know the plans that I have made for you, plans for you to prosper" (sorry bible study girls I don't remember where the verse is or know it word for word). God would never plan for me what Satan wants me to think. God loves me, yes even me.
I have trash (fear) that I can't be an effective single parent. Every day I think in my mind "what would Mel say about this, how would Mel react to this". Satan gets me to question this, because Mel and I inevitably thought the same about discipline, love and training and bringing up of our kids. We never argued about it, and when we talked about it we were always on the same page. So here again Satan wants me to think I am ineffective as a single parent, but I forget that God so blessed me with my perfect husband that I already instinctively know what "we" would do to raise our children. I also believe Mel is watching over me and that he is proud of how I love our kids and how I preserve our memories of him.
I have friends who fear about pregnancies because they have lost babies in early, middle and late pregnancies. When I was pregnant I feared that my baby would die because God was going to punish me for having had an abortion in my teen years. My mind was Satan's field of victory for over 25 years with this subject. In my mind I knew that God forgave me, but in my heart I, I, I could not forgive myself. All my life all I had ever envisioned myself being was a mother of many children. It took reading our church's newsletter and the message from Pastor Hal to make me learn that I had to get help with this "piece of trash". He wrote about a barge floating around in the ocean that was full of garbage and had nowhere to go, so it just floated around all day, every day in the Atlantic Ocean doing nothing but becoming stinkier by the day. Quite an analogy of Satan's lies don't you think. After I read this, and I read an article in the paper written by a Catholic priest about a healing retreat they held each year for women who had undergone abortions. I went and talked to Pastor Hal. Until this, very few people even new this about me. I was afraid that if people at church knew about it they would scorn me. I believed that they would not want me to work in the nursery and take care of their children after I had killed one of my own. I feared they would shun me. I never wanted to think about this story in my life, much less share it, but I believe it speaks to the overwhelming, all surrounding, all consuming love that God has for me. I went to a recovery support group. I learned that 1 in 4 women have had an abortion. To me that meant that even in my church there were women who had tragically made this decision, and I was right. I was friends with one of them and never even knew it until years into knowing her. So just the fact that I no longer beat myself up over this every day, that I can now claim being pro-life without feeling like a liar to God, is a miracle to me. God has blessed me with two children, and I know now that God smiles upon me and them and the fact that I am trying to raise them to make Him first in their lives. I think it is important for people to know that not only does abortion take a baby's life, it also destroys a mother's soul. I encourage compassion with people who have had an abortion and have suffered in silence, fear and self-loathing for years for making this decision.
For all my friends and family I want you to know I pray for His peace upon you, His love and presence surrounding you, and please know how very many people are interceding on your behalf for God to bless you abundantly. Our last bible study here was on intercessory prayer, and it is so powerful, so we need to take comfort that when we are our most frightened and can’t seem to catch a breath and fear takes hold of us that there is still intercessory prayer going up to God on our behalf, that even when we are weak, there are many of Christian brothers and sisters being strong for us. That’s what Family is for, and we belong to the highest family, we were all created equal by the one and only King of all Kings, and he DOES NOT CREATE TRASH.