Trusting God

What seems like failure from man can be just that from all views… except God’s. God doesn’t see as man sees. God sees the potential, the talent, the life and person one truly is despite “apparent” circumstances. God calls us to be in a relationship with Him to fulfill His purposes not our own. We must trust that God knows what He’s doing. We must realize that things don’t just happen. They happen because God allowed or ordered them. God will speak to us implicitly. We will know it in our very nature. When we communicate with God, and we realize that he is guiding us then we no longer seek to find His purposes, we accept that God knows what He’s doing. If we have our own purposes it destroys the peace, simplicity, and effortlessness that we should have as His children.

God, may we learn to accept and rejoice in the fact that you do know what you’re doing even if it’s not explicitly clear in our hearts and minds.

©Stephanie Thompson August 26, 2009

Love....

Love is opening yourself to someone.

Trusting them enough to truly be yourself.

Giving of your best and sometimes your worst.

Not having to pretend.

Faith to believe.

Knowing you are safe.

Believing in another.

Sharing dreams.

Leading.

Following.

Guiding.

Building.

Being your best.

It keeps quiet sometimes.

It speaks when necessary.

It grows.

It fulfills.

It is knowing, just knowing.

It is a feeling, such an unexplainable feeling.

©Stephanie Thompson July 22, 2009

Do You Wonder?

Do you wonder? What do you wonder?

How many stars? How vast is the ocean?

Do you wonder? What do you wonder?

Who is happy? Who is sad? Fears? Who is safe?

Gazing out over a city at night, Lights in the windows,

Who is hungry? Who is scared? Being held? Begin hurt?

Staring into the darkness, do you wonder who you are?

Consider how insignificant you are…in the vastness of it all?

Yet, how truly important you are to some.

Do you wonder? What do you wonder?

©Stephanie Thompson July 22, 2009

Popsicle Healing

The events, whether seemingly big or small, that occur in our lives shape us into the people we are either positively or negatively. In the early 1990s, after prayer and soul searching, I began to ask God why I was, in general, untrustworthy of people and why that for the most part I looked at situations expecting them to end negatively. One day the Lord spoke to me and reminded me of an incident that happened when I was 9 years old. Nine years old??? Really?

I was taken back to a 9 year old little girl in the Helena Hospital who was having a tonsillectomy. I remember before surgery the nurses promised me that I could have popsicles when I got out of surgery. I don’t remember being afraid of the surgery. I believe I was just ready to have it over with so I wouldn’t have sore throats anymore. I suffered from tonsillitis at least once monthly. When I began to wake in the recovery room in pain and groggy, I cried for my mom. I don’t know if I was loud or not but I do remember crying, and I remember the nurse, not her face or her name, but her words. She got down into my ear & said, “If you don’t be quiet, I’m not ever taking you to your mother”. How awful! How do you say that to a child? I’m thinking she really missed her true calling in life…just sayin’.

That wasn’t the end of the memory God uncovered. He also reminded me that while they promised me popsicles when I asked for them to soothe my hurting throat, they were out!?! But they promised! Now they were just out? How does that happen? How do you explain this to a kid? Well, I’m thinking the bedside manner of the recovery room nurse probably provides a little insight to how it was handled.

I’m sure my parents got me popsicles & ice cream & whatever else I wanted for my sore throat. Honestly, I don’t remember, but the other memory that was recalled to me as an answer to a soul searching question was revealed. I didn’t trust people, and I expected the negative because of a hurtful, distressing event that happened to me that was out of my control. People who were supposed to care, nurture, and heal me weren’t trustworthy, they weren’t reliable, they were damaging.

As I let that memory sink in, I thought, how absolutely senseless this all seemed. It seemed so unbelievable that events so seemingly insignificant and minute could change the way you view life, but it was a reality. A wounded child becomes a wounded adult.

At that point I prayed that God would heal my heart, my spirit, and my emotions so that I would not view life from the perspective of a hurt 9 year old but a whole person, one who wasn’t wounded by the actions of an uncaring nurse. He did just that. God can take negative experiences and circumstances and turn those around to mold us into the person he wants us to be. Is it because of this incident so long ago that I am very observant of people and tend to catch things that most overlook? Do I look at life from a realistic point of view? Has this made me a person who generally faces problems head on? Is this a result of my pain as a nine year old girl? Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing I do know is that God is faithful. He will show us what we truly want to see, and He will touch our lives and make us completely whole!

If you truly want revelation knowledge about your life and answers that seemingly no one can answer, seek God. He knows our hearts, and He can reveal to us exactly what we need to be whole. 1 Chronicles 28:9 says “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.” God’s Word is true. He knows our hearts and He wants to heal them from whatever hurt we’ve ever experienced even hurts from our 9 year old selves that superficially are nothing…even popsicle hurts.

©Stephanie Thompson 2011

Where's the Fruit??

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

One day a good while back when my oldest son was probably around 9 or 10, we were riding in the car having a family “discussion”…if you know what I mean. The conversation was loud, tempers were flaring & there was not a lot of love being shared. I honestly don’t remember what the “discussion” was about, but I’ll never forget the exact location where we were or the words that were said. There was a moment in the conversation that my oldest son got a word in, and he said very quietly & matter-of-factly, “well, I don’t detect much fruit of the Spirit in this car.” To which my husband & I looked at each other knowingly. No, there wasn’t much fruit of the Spirit at all. We laughed & said, “You are right!”

It is funny to look back now & laugh at the comment but oh how true it was. In life sometimes things get overwhelming, frustrating, & just down-right “not fun”, and sometimes we tend to not act like we have much fruit at all.

I love the fact that our children who we are guiding and directing & trying to mold are sometimes the best at teaching us. They can innocently bring us back to reality and make us realize that we need to stop, think, & behave differently. They can show us things about ourselves that are beautiful and things that are ugly. They can show us God’s love through simple things.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to teach my children about God. I’m thankful for that freedom. I’m thankful that prior to this incident we had at least 9 lessons on the fruit of the Spirit, & it obviously sunk in!

It is in our homes that we can practice cultivating those fruits in our lives. The one’s with whom we are the most real. The one’s who know us the best, our shortcomings, our weaknesses, our successes, our failures. Are we practicing those fruits? Are we abiding in the vine? John 15:4 says, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.” We must abide in Christ or we cannot be successful in our Christian walk, our families, or anything we do.

Matthew 12:33 says "A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad” God help us to be identified as you desire us to be….good. May our actions reflect that & may we nurture the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. And may we listen even when our children are our teachers.

©Stephanie Thompson 2011