Losing

I absolutely love this song by Tenth Avenue North, the more times I hear it the more I love it. It's such a neat reminder.




It is so sad to see stupid little things break up families and friendships. When I think of all the times I have betrayed my Savior, forgot to spend time with him, not told someone about Him when I had the chance, ignored him to spend time on the computer or reading a random book or watch tv and those are just the dumb daily things; and yet he has forgiven me for SO MUCH and continues to daily. I have no right to hold grudges against others.

It's so true, my holding a grudge is not hurting them, it's hurting me. I am the one putting my mind in a prison of anger. Besides that, I cannot be in a right relationship with the Lord if I am holding a grudge against someone, especially against another believer. It makes me think of the story in the Bible of the servant who owed a huge debt to the king, the king forgave him his debt but the servant would not forgive the small debt of another. He was an idiot right? So are we if we are holding grudges. We have been forgiven so we need to forgive also.

When I was looking for the Official video (which I don't think exists) I found this one (on their website) and loved it, it's excellent enjoy. :)

Blessings

I've been reflecting a lot the last couple months on the past year and the different things God has done. About a year ago a friend of mine and I mostly lost contact. Some things had happened which, although they weren't between the two of us really, greatly affected each of us (and many of our friends) and even though we didn't really mean to lose touch we did.

My friend has gone through some huge struggles this year and one of them was waiting to move (her husband has been doing a 1.5 hour commute to work for 2 years now so they wanted a fresh start closer to where he works. Their house has been on the market for a long time but wouldn't sell.

It was pretty random how we regained contact. A mutual friend (Sherry) came for a surprise visit and wanted to get some of our old group together, we had a great night and since then our friendship has been rekindled. Actually I don't even know if that is the right way to describe it. We were friends before but not like we are now. She is a very dear friend now, one who encourages me every time I see her or talk to her. She points me to Christ even when she doesn't feel like she does.

I've thought a lot about how if her house had sold and they had moved back when they first wanted to, If  Sherry hadn't decided to drive up on a whim (she lives about 10 hours from us) and suggest they call me of all people. If Aurora hadn't heard my phone ring (I would probably not have checked my messages until too late) All of these things are pretty small thing but each one was such a "God thing". I am so thankful for each of these things.

She is moving in a month now and although I am so happy for her I am also a bit sad. She'll be a little over an hour away instead of 15 minutes away, but I am confident that our friendship will not change. Thanks to text messaging and facebook distances aren't so bad anymore. :)

That is just something I wanted to share. Sometimes when it feels like God is ignoring us now or taking way too long to do something, it's for a wonderful reason like this. He has showed me this over and over in the last decade but this was such a wonderful way he's showed me his love these past months. Two very dear friends who mean the world to me and have been such an encouragement to me already. I look forward to deepening our friendships this year, encouraging each other in the Lord and ditches out insecurities (LOL, we have been going through Beth Moore's book So Long Insecurities together)

Bind my wandering heart to Thee

This has been a bit of an emotional weekend for me. Earlier this week I found out that a couple we were friends with in Bible College are separated. The husband walked out on his wife (Bethany) after at least 8 years of marriage (It might be more but I am actually not sure how long they were married for before we met them. They have 3 children, twin girls and a boy and he's left them for another woman.

Over the weekend another friend from Bible College told me that a another couple we were friends with there is now divorced and that although her marriage is good she and her husband no longer have any interest in God.

It just breaks my heart to hear all of this. It was a year and a month ago that another affair that changed everything in our lives and especially in the lives so of two couples very close to us, so this all seems like a new wound on a still painful area.

In church today one of the songs we sang was the old hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blesssing" and one verse says:

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love; 

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for thy courts above.

Growing up in church the words are not new to me and it isn't like this is the first time that particular verse has stood out to me either, but today they jumped out even more. Just reflecting on these three couples we spend 2 years studying God's word with and seeing the pain in their lives now and the choices they have made. Choices than any one of us could make tomorrow if we don't guard our hearts and minds today.

How important is it then for us to not only be going to the Lord daily and not take our eyes off of Him, but to be keeping each other accountable in these things. Once again that is nothing new, everyone always talks about how important accountability is, but really do we listen, do we really really listen? and are we the kind of friends who would risk or friendships to confront each other about things in each others lives? That is something I've had to think on a lot in the last couple months. Are we so worried about offending the people we love that we ignore or don't talk about the things we should? I have been guilty of that so many times, I often forget that if I really care about them I will risk our friendship for their sake:

Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy. - Proverbs 27:6

And another thought I had was maybe it's good to have people who aren't close friends, or at least are not our peers, keeping us accountable. People who aren't going to be worried about offend us or ruining any friendships who can ask us on a regular basis how things are going and who can watch us and call us out if things don't look right. Isn't that what the body of Christ is supposed to do anyways?

If so man people who have had such great relationships with God and devoted so much of their lives to him, missionaries, pastors, elders, and others can stray so far away then every one of us is in danger of the same. Bad choices, tragedy, burnout, so many things can cause us to turn away from the God we love.

That was my ramblings for the week.

PS. Please pray for my friend Bethany who I mentioned at the beginning of this post. She is asking for prayer that God will break Ben(her husband)'s heart and bring him back to his family and her. I know he can do it, I watched Him do it last year.