A Father’s Love

The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue,
to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.
Isaiah 50:4 (NIV)

I love this verse! The LORD is so faithful! I praise Him that He gives an ear to listen and that He teaches because all too often the weary one that needs to be sustained – is me!
One morning, I was unusually tired. My body was sore. I was in the process of recovering from running my first half marathon. I was out of routine, counting the days until a much needed vacation and I was discouraged. I had picked up an offense and I had given in to being ruled by my emotions. I was stunned by how quickly I had lost hold of God’s freedom and I was so weary that I couldn’t seem to see which end was up.
My eyes opened and tried to focus on the clock. It was time… time for those precious, quiet moments before I am a wife or a mother when I can just sit alone as a child with my Heavenly Father. I stumbled to the kitchen only to realize that the timer on the coffee pot hadn’t gone off. As I waited for the pot to brew, I got distracted. Instead of making my way to my spot, I started sorting through emails. There was one there from my father-in-law. He had forwarded me a video and, in all caps, he had said, “KARRIE, U HAVE TO WATCH THIS!” Well, I had no idea what I was about to watch but I pulled the computer onto my lap and pressed play.
It was a video of Team Hoyt, a father and son team who compete in Iron Man competitions all over the United States. This is no ordinary Iron Man team. The son, Rick Hoyt, is severely disabled with cerebral palsy. His father pulls Rick in a dinghy as he swims 4 kilometers through the waves. He then carries his son’s twisted body and settles him into a buddy seat on his bike as he cycles 180 kilometers only to top it all off with a 40 kilometer marathon pushing Rick in a wheel chair! As I watched this father spend himself on behalf of his son, my muscles still ached from the exertion of a mere sampling of this grueling undertaking. What this father was willing to do for his son was not lost on me and the tears poured down my face.
I had heard of Team Hoyt before. Memories of an interview that I had seen flashed through my mind. I remember hearing how Rick told his father that when they ran and raced together, it was as if he were no longer disabled and he was free! The Lord spoke to my heart. Couldn’t I see that He was willing to do whatever it takes for me to be free? He was willing to pull me, push me and carry me – to spend Himself on me – because it is His desire for me to live in freedom. I simply need to surrender to His loving arms. What an awesome picture of the love of our Father!
I found another video on the pair. Something expressed echoes in my ears… Rick is the one who runs the race, his father merely offers him his power. My God doesn’t expect me to run this race of life on my own. He knows my disabled state. He knows that I am but dust and yet He breathes His life into me. He offers “His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 1:19-20)
How awesome! Why do I get so discouraged? Why is it so easy to lose sight of the price my Lord paid for me to be free? As if it weren’t enough, another email came through while I was pondering these questions. Though it was sent by Sylvia Gunter (The Father’s Business), it was penned by the Lord… “Be blessed in the name of the One who will never forsake you, as He says to you: do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand… (Isaiah 41:10) Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. The LORD Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. (Deuteronomy 31:6,8)
There was no call for discouragement. There was no need to be afraid. As I allowed myself to rest in His loving arms, all of the fatigue and cares of life fell away. Once again, I was free!

“I will run in the path of Your commands,
for You have set my heart free.”
Psalm 119:32 (NIV)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJMbk9dtpdY

The Power of Praise

Rejoice in the LORD always. I say it again, rejoice!
Philippians 4:4 (NIV)

Have you ever stopped to consider that we are told to rejoice? Commanded to really. It’s not a case of rejoice if you want to or when things are going really well. No, God wants us to rejoice always. The key is that we are supposed to rejoice in Him.

When life is not playing out according to our plan and it seems that God has forgotten who and where we are, still we are commanded to praise Him. And when we obey His commands, we are blessed. Have you ever stopped to realize that praise blesses us? God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen to inhabit the praises of His people. (Psalm 22:3) Evil has no place in God’s presence. It’s in our darkest hour, when praise is the furthest thing from our mind that we need to praise God most. I learned this lesson when I least expected it and from such a young servant of God – my 4 year old daughter.

I was discouraged and disheartened with life. Times were very difficult and I felt so very alone. I had let my eyes fall from Jesus, the Author and Perfector of my faith, and instead focused on the burdens I had picked up. I knew that God wanted more for me than what I was experiencing but I was powerless to see the way. I was listening to the lies of the enemy. I was focused on the size of my problems and I had forgotten the size of my God.

As I was driving my little girl to preschool that morning, I couldn’t hold back the tears. I was frustrated by life and lost in my own thoughts. I turned on the CD player. I was oblivious to the song playing until all of the sudden I realized that Taylor was singing every word out loud and clear…”From everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Brian Doerksen, Everlasting, Today CD). I looked into the rearview mirror and was immediately struck by the fact that she wasn’t just singing, she was praising God. No sooner did that realization strike than the words of Psalm 8:2 rang almost audibly in my ears…”From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.” (emphasis mine).

I was speechless. I was so overcome by what God had just done that I nearly pulled over to the side of the road. You see, that verse had come to me in it’s entirety – complete with reference – and I had never memorized it. The week earlier, it had been one of many verses mentioned in my Bible study but it hadn’t even registered with me enough to underline it. God knew that I was losing the battle. He knew that I needed to be rescued and He used the vessel close at hand to minister to me. He ordained praise from Taylor’s tender little heart. As she lifted up the Truth of who He is, He made His home on her praises and silenced the foe and the avenger who was savagely attacking me. In that moment of recognition, I was set free! O God, “What is man that you are mindful of him?”

We are so precious to God. We are His children and He takes great delight in us. He desires to rescue us. When we are losing the battle we need to remember whose team we’re on. We need to remember God’s faithfulness in the past and trust what He’s doing in us today. He alone sees the big picture!

In Psalm 77, the psalmist is crying out to God for help. He’s distressed and his soul refuses to be comforted. He wonders if God has forgotten him. Will God never again show mercy? “Then I thought, ‘to this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy…You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.” Make a choice. Choose to dwell on the faithfulness God has shown you in the past. In the midst of your circumstances, trust God and bring a sacrifice of praise before His throne. Not only will He be delighted, but you will be changed for having been in His presence!

Rejoice in the LORD always. I say it again, rejoice!
Philippians 4:4 (NIV)

A Note From the Lord

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

Have you ever wished that the Lord would speak to us today as He did with the apostles? Have you read how Jesus bent down and wrote in the dirt causing a mob to disperse and felt a twinge of envy wishing He would do that for you? Have you ever wondered if He really sees and cares what you’re going through? One day, in the midst of life’s darkest season of my life, He proved to me that He does.

It happened five weeks after we buried my Dad. Mom was having an exceptionally difficult day. If you have ever grieved for someone so close to you, you know that some days loneliness attacks you from nowhere with such force that it takes your breath away. This particular day, the loneliness was accompanied by that ache way down in the pit of her stomach and she clutched it in an attempt to dull the pain. To make matters worse, she had been called to my grandparents early that morning because my grandfather’s health was so poor that we wondered each day if it would be his last. Unlike Dad, Grandpa had been satisfied by a good, long life. Normally, the threat of such a loss would be easier to take but the tender hugs of my grandfather seemed to ease Mom’s heartache more than anyone else’s those days. She simply couldn’t bear to lose those too.

After settling the kids into bed, there was a surprise knock on my door. It was Mom. The prospect of spending the evening alone in her house was too much for her that day. She wanted to “do something”. When I asked her what “something” was, she said, “let’s go shopping!” Now, my Mom is incredibly different from all other women I know in the fact that she hates shopping. Wandering through the women’s department is not pleasurable for her. So when we found ourselves in a local department store, I was a little taken back. It was even more rare that she actually tried on clothes when she shopped. My Dad had always bought the majority of her clothes for her. Within a few minutes, her eyes lit upon a cute denim skirt with tiny flowers embroidered on the pockets. There were a number of them there in assorted sizes. She just grabbed one, which wasn’t her usual size, and off we went to the change rooms. I’m sure silent tears spilt behind those closed doors.

The doors opened and out came Mom. The skirt fit perfectly and instantly won our approval. Mom slid her hands into the pockets as she turned before the mirror. She stopped and pulled out a scrap piece of paper – probably the remnants of an old envelope. On it were scrawled these words, “He (Jesus) healeth the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds.” They are the words of Psalm 147:3. You could have blown me over with a whisper! Where had that note come from? Why was that old scrap of paper in the pocket of that new skirt? Only God knows that! And only God could possibly know how desperately she, we, needed to be reminded that He sees our broken hearts. It hadn’t escaped His view. Many times as people expressed their sympathy to us in the countless cards we received, that very verse was used. But you are used to seeing it there. You expect it. Somehow, for me, it was devoid of some of its meaning as I thought to myself, “yes, yes, I know that Lord, but it just hurts so much.” Well, I know now that God understands. He understands the loneliness. He understands the pain. And He understands when we just really need to see things in black and white – like in that little note…
…we have a great High Priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God.

Let us cling to Him and never stop trusting Him. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet He did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.
Hebrews 4:14-16 (NLT)

God Keeps His Promises

I love the LORD because He hears and answers my prayers.
Because He bends down and listens, I will pray as long as I have breath!
Psalm 116:1, 2 (NLT)


Have you ever wanted something so badly that you aren’t sure how you can live without it? I have. When my husband and I had been married about 5 years, we decided that it was time to start our own family. What began as such an exciting adventure soon became full of anguish as month after month, no child was conceived. If you have ever struggled with infertility, you will know the intense feelings of personal failure that come with the knowledge that your body isn’t capable of doing that which you feel it was created to do. You fight a vicious emotional battle with yourself as, for some paradoxical reason, you are now keenly aware of a world full of pregnant women. Being barren can be an incredibly painful experience that can only fully be appreciated by those who have been there. This is the situation that I found myself in.

As if it were yesterday, I remember sitting in a doctor’s office and hearing the words, “I am 90% sure that your body does not release any eggs and that you will never conceive without fertility drugs.” When I immediately begged to be prescribed the drugs, I was told that until she had documented two complete years of my infertility herself, she would not prescribe any fertility medication. How I made the drive to my husband is a miracle in itself. The tears that poured down my face would have put any rainstorm to shame.

I poured over the scriptures, trying desperately to claim the promise that the LORD made to Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. Try as I might, I knew that the LORD wasn’t giving these verses to me. If I presumed to claim them, I knew it would be a lie. I went to visit my pastor and poured out my heart in a flood of tears. His response was so far from what I had hoped for as he said, “Karrie, God never promised that you would have children.” I knew that he was right but the truth of those words devastated me. His next words held a challenge that comes from wisdom. What was I going to do now? Would I still love the LORD? Would I still serve Him? Where did this leave me and God?

It took quite some time, and I would be lying if I said it was easy, but I made the decision that God was my God regardless of if I ever had children. My grandfather later voiced what I think became my wordless conclusion, “if God never did anything more for me than send His Son to pay the ransom for my soul, it would be enough reason to serve Him forever.” My husband and I went to visit my younger brother and his wife and their newborn baby. It was a painful experience but I knew that if I was never anything but an aunt, I would be alright. In hindsight, I know that this is the lesson that God was waiting for me to learn.

I came home from work early one morning and turned on the television. I caught a glimpse of a Christian TV program. To be honest, I would normally keep flipping through the channels in search of something more interesting, but for some reason that I can only attribute to God, this day I decided to watch. The next guest on the show read from Psalm 113. When she read verse 9, it was as if God Himself tapped me on the shoulder and gave me the promise “He settles the barren woman in her home as the happy mother of children. Praise the Lord!” Praise the Lord indeed! There was such an exquisite excitement that filled me as I knew that the Lord was giving this promise to me. It wasn’t like before. I wasn’t trying to claim someone else’s promise. I wasn’t trying to make God say something to me that He wasn’t. I knew the difference. How awesome! I began praising God in advance for the children that we would one day have.

That day arrived only 10 months later! God gave us a son! He was gorgeous! He was healthy! He was perfect! And he was mine! He wasn’t the product of fertility drugs, although I know that using them in no way diminishes the power of the miracle of a new life. He was a priceless treasure from God Himself.

When God makes a promise, He doesn’t miss a single detail. Less than a year after Carter was born, I was once again pregnant. This time, though, I miscarried. It was a heartrending trial to go through – but God got me through. You see, I had such an assurance in my heart that God had promised me children that I was able to accept this as something that God would explain to me some day and waited with anticipation for God to completely deliver His promise.
Soon I became pregnant again. This pregnancy flew by without problems – until I went into labor! The umbilical cord was wrapped twice around our baby’s neck. To make matters worse, the baby was coming face up. The heart rate was skyrocketing at an alarming rate and I was exhausted from pushing with no progress. The doctor told me that we had to get this baby here – NOW – and tripped a silent alarm. The frenzy of medical staff flying past the waiting room left my parents wondering who wasn’t going to make it – me or the baby. They were helpless to help but isn’t that when we learn that we aren’t truly helpless at all? They prayed!

Ephesians 3:20 b says that God “is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.” If I had ever dared to voice my deepest desires, I would have admitted that I really wanted a son first and then a daughter. When you have been so desperate to have a baby you feel ashamed to be as particular as to request anything more than to have a healthy child but I had a vivid picture of a little girl living in my dreams. She was dainty and petite, with big dark eyes and long dark hair. I had even met a little girl that I had described as the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen – that is until our daughter was born!

Two and a half years after I first held my son, I held my daughter. The nurses told me that I had a million dollar family but I knew I had been blessed by God. Despite a prolonged lack of oxygen, we have a healthy, intelligent, beautiful daughter! God hears our cries. He cares about the desires of our heart. He keeps His promises! Praise the LORD!

It has been five years since my daughter was born – seven since the birth of my son. You couldn’t really ask for a better big brother. He’s gentle yet strong, protective and quite tolerant of his sister’s “spunk”. And my tiny daughter, she has a head full of the most beautiful long dark curls, striking big dark eyes that dance with enthusiasm, and a heart for the LORD! Oh, what an amazing God…

He settles the barren woman in her home
as the happy mother of children.
Praise the LORD!
Psalm 113:9 (NIV)