enjoy
Category: love
Does It Still Hurt?
Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” John 20-27 NIV
Our topic for the day was “God is Not Picking On You…..Trials Vs. Temptations.” It started as a lesson on discerning the difference between trials and temptations and how to rejoice in the trials that God gives you. However, very quickly, it turned into a discussion of past hurts, disappointments, and especially abuses in childhood.
As I watched several people compare stories and physical scars, instinctively I glanced at a recent one on my arm. A footprint shaped burn I received thinking I could cook a meal for my family the day after my youngest grandchild took his flight for heaven.
Forgetting I was the one teaching the class, my eyes began to well up on me, but the Holy Spirit nudged me to look again and then asked, “Does it Still Hurt?”
I was like “Of course Lord, it still hurts”.
“No, Chelle. You really mean that 6 month old scar still hurts?”
“No, Lord, of course the scar doesn’t hurt.”
“Okay then, give me all of it.”
Uggh, I felt it in my spirit and I asked the class and I asked you, the same question the Holy Spirit asked me. “Does it still hurt?”
In John Chapter 20:25, Thomas makes a bold statement, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe. This was even after Jesus had appeared to several of his fellow disciples during the 8 days since the crucifixion proclaiming that everything Jesus has said would happen had come.
Jesus had forewarned that He would take the sins and sickness of His people to the cross. That He would take on the pains of abuse, disappointment and despair. That He would whip these things to naught and deliver them and death to the gates hell, while snatching the keys from satan so that nothing the devil had could really win over us. And as evidence of His work, he broke the grave wide open and showed that freedom from all manner of trial and temptation could walk the earth.
However, how many of us now need to take on the title of “doubting” that history has given Brother Thomas? How many of us have received the written, heard, and Rhema Word of God and been flooded with the freeing testimonies of how others have seen the Lord move in their lives, yet still keep looking down at our scars declaring disbelief until we receive a full manifestation with our own eyes.
Jesus is still reaching out to you saying, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.”…
He wants you to know, that though yes there is a scar on your body and your heart that evokes a memory that will move you…….and yes, He understands because He was touched with every trial and temptation you face….., it is paramount that you understand that He bears scars on His hands, feet, and side that are witness that He took it all for you. He doesn’t want you to carry the burden any longer. He does not want you to smell like smoke though you have been singed by the fires of life.
When Jesus, invited Thomas to “Thrust his fingers into His side”, Jesus was still bearing the evidence of His wounds (aka your wounds), yet they could not have possibly hurt to the touch if he would allow Thomas to do so.
In essence, Jesus was reaffirming that it was possible to be bruised, beaten, broken and horribly scarred, yet be so healed in the promises of God that the discolorations and disfiguration become “smoothed out proof” that God’s Living Word is still living.
Jesus wants you to receive that gift from Him. He took it. He bears the scars. He gives you the freedom from what life delivered. Though you bear evidence of it, He does too. And since His wounds healed, so did yours. That moment when we trust in Him enough to give the pain to Him, even when we can still see and feel the scar, He will take that anomaly on your heart and make it a tattoo of your testimony instead. He will make you a walking, talking, scar bearing evidence that He is very much alive!!!!
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No Seed Alone
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless the seed of wheat having fallen to the earth dies, it remains alone.
But if it dies, it bears much fruit. – John 12:24 (DLNT)
It is an awesome blessing that, in very recent weeks, my earthly father, most certainly under the direction of my Heavenly Father, had taken great care into making sure that I would be united with my slightly younger sister, Tammy. The two of them had only reconnected a few months prior and though I had heard her name in conversation before, she never really knew I existed.
As I would soon find, timing is everything. On January 5, ironically on my birthday, Tammy’s mother died. My dad was devastated at the thought of his baby girl being alone and though we could not make the services, we had made plans to make a 6 or so hour drive to see Tammy. Daddy felt she needed him and that she would need me.
I didn’t fully understand his urgency, until just 30 days later, on February 5, both Tammy and I would lose Daddy.
As I went through Daddy’s papers in preparation to celebrate his entrance into Heaven, I begin to find “bread crumbs on a trail” leading me where he wanted me to go. I found Tammy’s birth card from the hospital where she was born. I found her younger brother’s newborn pics. Over and over, I found evidence of the six children he loved, lost in circumstance and had hoped to renew full fellowship with.
Tammy and I have not met yet, nor have I had the opportunity to meet two of my other siblings… yet. The memorial service is in a few days and I pray they will all be able to make the winter travel. But she and I have had a ball getting to know each other via text, phone and social media. We realized that we are actually pretty alike including our bad habit of not being able to sleep past 4 a.m. and that we are both warrior sisters who like to get stuff done and done right. LOL.
During one of our conversations, John 12:24 came to my mind… “Unless a seed falls to the ground…. It remains alone”. God knows we miss our parents. My mom died on a February day as well… on a day ironically important to Tammy’s mom too. But it seems clear to me that they had somehow planted seeds that are multiplying in us.
Seeds of wiping each others tears. Seeds of laughter. Seeds of hope. Seeds of forgiveness. Seeds of renewal. Seeds of never really being alone again.
Tammy says that she had always wanted a sister. She just inherited more than a few. My sister Melody says that the girls involved should never call ourselves half-sisters because we are all too chubby to be halfs of anything. Lisa can’t wait to embrace all of us.. thinking she was the oldest… but tickled to find out she was not.
I began to count out all the children from all the parents involved and realized that Tammy has a lot more sisters and brothers that she will be able to handle. All ages, sizes, colors and shapes ….not letting blood separate us …. But embracing each other as what my youngest sister, Cheryl, calls “grown orphans.” LOL.
Even though there are only 5 months between Tammy and myself, I am pleased that she thinks of me as a big sister. It remains to be seen if she will relish her role as a soon to be spoiled Baby Sis. I think we were both feeling loved when I got the chance to nag her this morning about making sure she lets me know that she got to work okay … snowy weather both here in Virginia and in New Jersey where she is. She agreed to comply with the request of this “mother hen.”
The seed has definitely been planted, Daddy.
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A Cause For Celebration
Anybody who knows me, knows that I am a bit of a Facebook junkie. One of the apps I use is an inspirational message service that says “Today God Wants You to Know”. It provides little tidbits of wisdom and advice that often have me imagining God at a computer typing away. One particular message came early on February 5th with the notation “Today, you should celebrate what an unbelievable life you have had so far:, the many blessings, and, yes, even the hardships… Take a time to acknowledge your life.”
It didn’t resonate that much at first, but it has come back to me over and over in the past few hours. Just a short while ago I received a call from my hometown sheriff’s office, “Michelle, we found your dad.”
In between the tears and phone calls and the identification process, I kept hearing over and over “celebrate.”
I found myself at one point wanting to scream out to a voice others could not hear, “ Celebrate What? For What?”
A resounding, “Sunday” was the answer.
You see, my dad had not been a part of my life for a lion’s share of it. I was an adult before I really became aware of him. By the mercies and the promptings of a loving God, the past 15 years were about forgiveness and us getting to know each other. Especially the last 10 where we had become so close that you could not tell he had not been there always.
One of the things we both looked forward to were our Sunday morning chats. Like clockwork, at 6:55 a.m. every single Sunday morning (including on my honeymoon) my dad would call and we would chat about his week and whatever was on his mind at the time. We often “watched church“ together on our respective TV sets as he lived 45 minutes away and was not able to travel as much anymore.
For about a month of Sundays, which makes perfect sense now, Pop’s conversations had turned more serious and purposeful. He talked a lot about regrets, and memories and things he wished he could have done. Our very last conversation, was very much about his biological mother, Ruth and his adoptive mother, Edith, both of whom I never got to know.
He had not been able to locate his biological mother, who had left him when he was four, and had concluded that she was the reason he could not understand the concept of family enough to be there for me and my brothers and sisters when we were growing up. He apologize for it again, as he had about a million times over the past 10 years. My answer to him was to let it go, thank her for giving him life and to release her and himself.
I pray I was successful in convincing him that her giving him away as a single mother in the late 1940s might have been her way of loving him and his younger brother. Knowing that she had no prospects and her rumored substance addiction were no life for them, she allowed them to be delivered to their adoptive mother, a blessed woman who had bore no children of her own.
Of Grandma Edith, he spoke specifically of the day she died, preparing him for what was to come by buying him a car and taking her hidden savings out of her account to make sure he had money in his pocket. Before she went to bed that night, the last words she would say to him were “I just want to make sure you were straight, cause nobody is ever going to love you the way I do, baby.” To this I said, “She was your gift, Pop. Always be thankful for her. She was your real mother.”
My dad went on to talk about all phases in his life. His joys and regrets. It moved me so much that in my spirit, I kind of knew what was about to come. I ended the conversation by telling him that it is not about what happened in the past and who did and did not love him back then, but rather who he was today and who loves him now. We went on to talk about the big birthday he had coming up and that in a few short weeks, I was going to take him out to his favorite restaurant to celebrate. I had planned to surprise him by making sure all the grands-kids and great-grands were in attendance, a feat that always eluded us.
My dad’s last words were to me were “ Thank you, Baby, you made my mama wrong….. somebody does love me like her… you.”
And I remember saying, “And Jesus.”
As I take my Facebook mandate to celebrate, I will be sure to not only celebrate my life with my dad , but also the one I now face without him. Though my heart is heavy, I have no regrets or qualms about the past because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Pop loved me and he knew I loved him….and most importantly…. AND JESUS.
Enjoy your Flight with Wings, Pop!
defygravitywithoutwings.com 