A Higher Way

Forgiveness, God, Gratitude, Praising God, Trials 0

It is not punishment.  God never punishes.  And He well knows how you have been longing to do His will.  This sickness has been given you as a loving message to help you understand that there was a still higher and more heavenly way of reacting to the wounds and troubles that you were experiencing than you knew about.  Certainly God gave you a glorious victory even though your feelings were so wounded; you were delivered from resentment and were able to accept it all with forgiveness.  But perhaps there was a little self-pity because you did not realize about the glorious principle I have been sent to share with you.  For there is a still higher level of acceptance possible, and that is to accept everything that happens with praise, thanksgiving, and joy, knowing that every seeming affliction is really a blessing in disguise.  God allows only the very best things possible to happen to you at any particular time; that is to say, exactly the things and situations that are best fitted to help you, because they afford you the opportunity of reacting just as Jesus did.  Learning by His grace to react with praise and thanksgiving even to things that appear most evil, unjust, cruel, and deplorable, because God is allowing this opportunity to bring good out of evil, is just like waving a magic wand over an evil enchantment and being able to replace cruel spells with heavenly miracles.

— Hannah Hurnard, Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places, p. 56-57

Times of Change

Healing, Trials 0

It’s okay to be gentle with ourselves when we’re going through change and grief.  Yes, we want to maintain the disciplines of recovery.  But we can be compassionate with ourselves.  We do not have to expect more from ourselves than we can deliver during this time.  We do not even have to expect as much from ourselves as we would normally and reasonably expect.

We may need more rest, more sleep, more comfort.  We may be more needy and have less to give.  It is okay to accept ourselves, and our changed needs, during times of grief, stress, and change.

It is okay to allow ourselves to cocoon during times of transformation.  We can surrender to the process, and trust that a new, exciting energy is being created within us.

Before long, we will take wings and fly.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 298-299

Scar Tissue

Healing, Letting Go, Trials 0

There isn’t anything that happens that can’t teach us something, that can’t be turned into something positive.  One can’t undo what’s been done, but one can use it creatively….  The only thing is to accept, and let the scar heal.  Scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the body….  So, I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s the strongest part of the soul.

— Madeleine L’Engle, A House Like a Lotus, quoted by Carole F. Chase in Glimpses of Grace, p. 271

Learning to Wait

Letting Go, Life, Trials 0

I’ve started to realize that waiting is an art, that waiting achieves things.  Waiting can be very, very powerful.  Time is a valuable thing.  If you can wait two years, you can sometimes achieve something that you could not achieve today, however hard you worked, however much money you throw up in the air, however many times you banged your head against the wall.

— The Courage to Change by Dennis Wholey

. . .

We don’t have to put our life on hold while we wait.  We can direct our attention elsewhere; we can practice acceptance and gratitude in the interim; we can trust that we do have a life to live while we are waiting — then we go about living it.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 293

When Life Kicks Us in the Stomach

Relationships, Trials 0

When life kicks us in the stomach, we want someone to be with us as we are, not as he or she wishes us to be.  We don’t want someone trying to make us feel better.  That effort, no matter how well intended, creates a pressure that adds to our distress.

Why is it so difficult to simply give ourselves to each other when things are hard without yielding to the urge to give relief, to help, to try to make things better?

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 123-124

Communion with God

God, Trials 0

Satan’s desire is to keep us away from communion with God.  He doesn’t care how he does it.

God’s intention, on the other hand, is to use spiritual warfare to draw us into deeper communion with himself.  Satan’s device is to isolate us and wear us out obsessing about what he has done and what he will do next.  And he is very effective in using our particular Message of the Arrows to do it.  God desires to use the enemy’s attacks to remove the obstacles between ourselves and him, to reestablish our dependency on him as his sons and daughters in a much deeper way.  Once we understand that, the warfare we are in begins to feel totally different.  It is not really even about Satan anymore, but about communion with God and abiding in Jesus as the source of life.  The whole experience begins to feel more like a devotional.

Through my own experience, I begin to see more clearly that God is so confident in the good that he is willing to allow our adversary latitude in carrying out his evil intentions for the purpose of deepening our communion with himself.

— Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, p. 120

Seduced Into Growth

Life, Trials 0

There is a certain innocence about beginning, with its excitement and promise of something new.  But this will emerge only through undertaking some voyage into the unknown.  And no one can foretell what the unknown might yield.  There are journeys we have begun that have brought us great inner riches and refinement; but we had to travel through dark valleys of difficulty and suffering.  Had we known at the beginning what the journey would demand of us, we might never have set out.  Yet the rewards and gifts became vital to who we are.  Through the innocence of beginning we are often seduced into growth.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 2-3

Joyful Acceptance

God, Joy, Trials 0

Let’s make the decision to joyfully accept all situations — the lines, the traffic jams, the downed computers, and the rest — as opportunities to include God in our lives, in that moment, and then wait for the change in perception that will assuredly come.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 14-15