Savor the Handprints

 

There was a time in my life when as soon as I noticed any handprints on the windows or glass doors in our home that I quickly grabbed the Windex bottle and promptly cleaned them off.  After all, there’s not a mother alive that enjoys seeing kids smear their handprints all over clear shiny glass, right?  But as I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed that my standards have loosened regarding all of the smudges I see left behind.  I knew something strange was happening to me several months ago when my sister and three of her kids stayed at our home.  Their youngest little daughter was about 18 months old at the time and she really seemed to enjoy playing peek a boo next to our glass French doors.  After they left to go home, I was cleaning up around the house and distinctly remember walking past the doors where my sweet little niece had been playing.  It brought me joy to discover that her handprints were all over the glass.  My heart was warmed so much that a little part of her still remained for me to enjoy that I couldn’t bring myself to clean the smudges off.  What in the world was happening to me?
 
I truly believe at that very moment that God was revealing to me one of His tiniest blessings to savor. It was sad for me to realize that I’d missed out on “seeing” those handprints as special occurrences over the years as our kids were growing up.  When it comes to our spiritual lives, many times we’re totally blinded to the amazing handprints that God lovingly leaves behind for us to enjoy. Often we may only notice the more substantial blessings He bestows on us and tend to overlook the tiny details He has orchestrated together for our good and for His glory.  No matter what stage in life we may be going through, it’s never too late for us to finally open our eyes to God’s divine handprints all around us.

As my husband and I are nearing our 24^th wedding anniversary this next month, I recently revisited in my mind all of the amazing details of how God brought us together almost a quarter of a century ago.  I look back and marvel at how all of the pieces of our love story fit perfectly together, just as if it had all been planned by a sovereign Creator.  Here are some of the interesting details of how God began to knit our lives together years before we even met.

1)  In the spring of 1987 at the Youth Conference at Faith Baptist Bible College, Richard recalls seeing me because I attended the youth banquet with one of his friends.  I was sixteen years old.

2)  In the spring of 1988, as a senior in high school attending the Youth Conference once again, I noticed Richard for the first time and almost fainted because he was extremely handsome and wore a suit!  I found out he was actually a Youth Pastor who had brought his teen group to attend the conference as well.

3)  In the fall of 1988, my freshman year at Faith, I briefly dated a nice young man who I found out was one of the teens in Richard’s youth group the year before.  At Faith’s college break, this guy went back home and told his Youth Pastor Richard all about me and thought he had found his wife already.

4)  I became very close to my resident advisor in the dorms who was giving me special insight on Richard because she had actually dated him right before me.

5)  I’d been writing letters to a guy in high school who I later found out was a friend of Richard’s as they grew up in the same area in Nebraska.  This young man was able to give Richard special insight on what kind of person I was.

6)  On November 1^st, 1988, Richard’s friend that had been writing me finally introduced Richard and me in the college cafeteria.  That same guy drove me two hours to go on my first date with Richard and was our chaperone for the weekend.  Of course we included him in some of our special wedding photos 8 months later.

7)  When I gave Richard my family’s address back home where I grew up, he thought it sounded very familiar.  It turned out that he had actually been sending letters to the girl that lived in my house long before I moved there, about 8 years earlier.  My bedroom was in the very room where she wrote her letters to MY future husband.  How many times does that happen?

8)  As a Youth Pastor, Richard had attended a conference in Indiana a few years before we met.  He thought my last name sounded familiar at the time when we were introduced.  He figured out that he had stayed at the very same home as my uncle during that conference.  Richard enjoyed visiting with my uncle and getting to know the family he’d eventually be marrying into.

Just in case you haven’t realized it yet, God cares about every microscopic detail about His children.  So much so that in Matthew 10:30 we are told, “And even the very hairs on our head are numbered.”  Our Creator knew each of us before we were even born and fashioned our bodies into existence.  Psalm 139:13 says, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  I absolutely love Psalm 34:8 which says, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good…” because our Amazing God is extremely good to us and gives us “exceedingly abundantly above ALL that we ask or think.”(Ephesians 3:20)  God deeply loves us and longs to bless us more than we can ever imagine.  He also greatly rewards those who delight in His goodness.  Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourselves also in the Lord: and He will give you the desires of your heart.”   We need to greatly praise and thank our sovereign God for all of the many ways He touches our lives with His divine handprints.

 If you desire to be truly blessed, I challenge you to take some time to recall all of the little details that God has pieced together in your life. God not only desires for us to see Him working in the more visible things, He also wants us to look close enough to notice the smaller handprints He leaves behind for our good.  We are to share these visible “handprints” with others and encourage them to look for God’s touches in their story as well.   I will never look at handprints the same as I once did and I’m learning to be more careful to savor them.  Now that I have been blessed to be called ‘Grandma’, I do believe I will cherish those tiny precious handprints in a way I never have before.  

 If you come to visit my home sometime, do not be surprised if you see some smudges and smears on my lower windows.  It only means that I’m taking the time to finally focus more fully on ALL of the little blessings my heavenly Father has given me.  How about you?  Do you stop and take the time to savor the handprints God has left behind on your life?  Too many times we are quick to rush over and wipe the smudges clean without giving thought to taking delight in the very One who put them there.  God is unfathomably good!

Hoarders of a Different Kind

 In 24 years of marriage my husband and I have moved our family with all of our earthly possessions to 13 different locations. Although I actually do enjoy many parts of moving, the one facet I extremely dislike is the whole packing process. While packing things up, it is very difficult to keep the house clean and once the boxes are full and taped up, where in the world do you put them all to maintain any sense of order? It seems as if boxes and totes end up lining almost every wall in the house before moving day making it very difficult to even find a path to walk through. We usually need to begin packing several weeks ahead of time, which leaves us living in a very crowded and cluttered space for WAY too long!

Anyone who knows me well can vouch for the fact that I do NOT do well in a cluttered environment. I begin to have some peculiar symptoms when everything is messy and out of place. I have difficulty breathing, become completely drained of all my energy and feel extremely stressed out. Many times while packing to move, I just wanted to roll up in a ball and laugh and cry all at the same time. Trust me, the adverse effects clutter has on me is definitely not a pretty sight!   

A few months ago while packing up our farm to move, I strongly felt the need to overemphasize to any visitors stopping by that we were really NOT like the ‘hoarders’ you see on t.v. and we were not ready to sign on for our own episode on the cable network.  Feeling overwhelmed as I stared at the boxes stacked nearly from floor to ceiling everywhere, I was often tempted to reveal my “TRUE” status regarding ALL of our clutter on facebook.  Thankfully I had enough sense at the time to stop myself!  I told my husband that if I was ever kidnapped by terrorists, the best form of torture they could inflict on me is to hold me hostage in a messy cluttered house for awhile.  Eventually I would go crazy in that environment and most assuredly tell them anything they’d want to know.  By now you’ve gotten the drift that I have a strong aversion to having clutter in my home, but boy did I ever used to enjoy collecting massive amounts of clutter in my heart!  For years I was definitely a hoarder of a different kind, a hoarder of hurts.  

From the time I was very young I collected and packed away all of the rude things anyone ever said or did to me.  I not only carefully boxed up those offenses like you would a fragile Mikasa vase or family heirloom, I taped them completely shut and piled them around every available corner of my heart.  I never overlooked, never forgave and never cleaned out any of that nasty clutter.  Wow, was I ever miserable inside!  I know from experience that collecting that kind of clutter is extremely bad for you, not to mention the damaging effects it has on everyone else around you.  Bitterness is like a virus that has the potential to unknowingly infect the people you come in contact with.  We are warned in Hebrews 12:15 about how our bitterness can easily spread to others, “Looking diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any ‘root of bitterness’ springing up causes trouble, and by this many become defiled.”  My hoarding of hurts not only caused A LOT of trouble in my life, it almost destroyed my relationship with my husband, other family members and most importantly with my God.  The deception from Satan sounds perfectly rational to us because we believe the lie that we can punish our offenders by holding them captive by our unforgiveness.  In reality, WE are the ones that end up being locked up and held prisoner to our own bitterness and suffer the horrible consequences! 

If we continue hurt hoarding for any length of time, our thoughts, attitudes and actions are poisoned with the stench of our pride and selfishness.  No one enjoys being around us for very long because a bitter person is neither pretty nor pleasant.  That nasty bitterness will also begin to permeate our speech and how we talk to others.  It’s extremely sad, but the damaging effects of words spoken to others from a bitter heart can never be completely erased.  Those destructive words we choose to speak pierce the hearts our spouses, family and friends like poisonous arrows.  In Proverbs we see how powerful our tongues can be.  Proverbs 18:21 shows this significance, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.”  In fact, there is absolutely NO area in our lives that our bitterness will NOT leave untouched and eventually destroy.  We are witnessing that widespread destruction in Christian marriages today in part because one or both spouses have unresolved conflicts from hoarding hurts, which leads to bitterness.  We will ultimately experience the outward tragic effects from willfully CHOOSING not to forgive offenses.  This is one of the biggest and most effective tools that our enemy Satan uses to destroy us as women!  

If the medical community knew an outbreak of a highly contagious poisonous disease was primarily targeting women and destroying their health, EVERY media outlet available would be warning the public of its dangers.  We’d all want to learn about the precautionary measures we’d need to follow to avoid this terrible illness no matter what the cost.  If we had already contracted this deadly virus, we'd surely be desperate to find out the cure for it.  That’s the sole reason why I’m writing this blog post about hoarding hurts!  I’ve seen in my own life, the destruction that the virus of bitterness will bring.  I’m passionate about warning women of the disastrous consequences of refusing to forgive others.  

The Great physician, Jesus, has lovingly given us the precautionary measures we need to follow to avoid the virus of bitterness from infiltrating our lives.  Bitterness is actually not only an epidemic mainly affecting women, we need to be aware that it’s spreading at pandemic proportions because Satan uses it to attack ALL people whether male or female.  The only remedy and hope Christ provides as a cure for this pandemic outbreak affecting all of humanity is called ‘FORGIVENESS’ which He so graciously modeled through His sacrifice on the cross.  It’s simply our choice whether to follow Christ’s own example and be blessed or completely ignore what He teaches in His Word and eventually endure the devastating consequences.  Keeping all of those fragile boxes full of our hurts, taping them shut and piling them up until we are completely blinded is exactly what Satan has planned for us.

If we know that Satan wants our destruction, then why do we choose to make ourselves suffer miserably by following the path of unforgiveness rather than living the life of freedom, joy and peace that God has provided?  The answer to this question lies in the fact that we are prideful and we do not FULLY comprehend the amazing and awesome significance of Jesus shedding His own precious blood on the cross so that WE can have forgiveness for OUR filthy sins.  Isn’t it ironically heartrending how WE expect others to forgive US for our faults BUT we CHOOSE to collect and hoard the offenses that others commit against us?

God deeply loves us and shows us in His written Word how to live a life full of His blessings.  This is why He reminds us over and over in Scripture to be tenderhearted and forgive others.  Ephesians 4:32 tells us, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as even Christ for God’s sake has forgiven you.”  God also tells us that we shouldn’t plan on Him forgiving our sins if we choose not to forgive others.  Matthew 6:14-15 says, “For if you do forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  BUT if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”  This concept shows us that the forgiveness we extend to others is completely and directly correlated to whether or not our sins are forgiven by our Creator. 

I’ve learned that whether its clutter we’re collecting from material possessions in our homes or in our spiritual lives by hoarding hurts, it only brings chaos and confusion never peace.  Are you living the amazing joy filled life that Jesus died to give you or do you have cluttered areas where you’re selfishly hoarding hurtful offenses from others?  It’s a life altering choice each of us must make every minute of every hour of every day. I now willfully choose to live the clutter free life, absolutely no more hoarding!  How about you?

Helpless, Hopeless, & Slightly Hazardous

 

What do gas stations, diesel trucks and me all have in common?   This unlikely trio is the perfect environment for continual lessons of review in humility, patience, flexibility and learning total dependence on God.  Because of our pride at times in thinking we can rely on ourselves, God allows us to go through situations to remind us of where our source of strength really comes from.  In an attempt to lead us to total trust and reliance on Him, God will sovereignly place events in our lives that will teach us WHO is ultimately in control.  Okay, I admit it!  On my own I am helpless, hopeless and sometimes slightly hazardous. 

A few nights ago I had the opportunity to fellowship with a dear sweet friend for a few hours.  I’m thankful for the times God allows us to visit because she is such a constant source of joy, wisdom and encouragement to me.  We had been in discussion about how God doesn’t waste anything we go through but uses every single situation that we encounter in our lives to teach us and then equip us to minister to others.  Our Father also desires for us to learn and grow closer in our dependence on Him through those unexpected bumps in the road.  Little did I know that I was headed straight for another one of those ‘learning situations’ just a few short minutes after my friend and I said goodbye. 

While driving home from the church my son reminded me that we needed to get gas in our truck. I’m extremely thankful for his promptings because I have to admit that I rarely think about checking the gas gauge.  And after the “putting wrong gas in our diesel truck” incident from several months ago, Lord willing I will always remember that NOT every gas station carries diesel fuel.  Once we found the right gas station, it was already about 11:30 pm.  I then got out to help our teen son with fueling up the truck.  The boys claimed that they were extremely thirsty and pointed out the fact that the fountain drinks were on sale for 79 cents.  I usually encourage them to wait until we get home for a drink, but for some reason I agreed to treat them this time.  We finished getting fuel and I grabbed my purse from the truck as we all proceeded inside the gas station.  Trying to avoid any drinks with red dye 40 in them, we found some suitable beverages and checked out at the counter.  We finished paying and I went to grab my keys so we could finally leave and go home.  They weren’t where I usually try to put them, but that doesn’t always mean they aren’t in my purse.  Sometimes I lose things in there for weeks, but the missing items eventually do turn up. I believe for this very reason, our oldest son while growing up lovingly referred to my large purse as the ‘endless abyss’.  After searching for a few minutes for my keys, our teen son went out to the truck to see if I had left them in the ignition.  Indeed, he could see by looking through the window that the keys were locked safely inside our truck! 

Of course I knew I'd eventually need to call my husband to inform him once again of what was going on at the gas station. Whenever I get myself into these sort of crazy situations, I always begin my conversation with, “Don’t worry Richard, we are still alive and well.  We have not been in an accident and we are safe and okay.”  I think he has learned from that point what to expect from the rest of this type of conversation.  My goal is to help him remember to be extra thankful that we are okay, and that this tiny little incident is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of life. Of course, he has been quite understanding each time and only wants us to be safe but I’m covering all of my bases just in case.

Okay, I’m being totally transparent and admitting that I’m really not an independent person.  For this very reason I believe God sovereignly knew I needed to get married two days after my 19^th birthday.  My husband is seven years older than me and very much the opposite of me, which is exactly how God planned it.  He is usually aware of what is happening around him, knows where he is going, doesn’t get lost while driving and doesn’t usually forget things.  If my personality is the exact opposite of those characteristics, then you’ve guessed it; I don’t always pay attention to everything that’s going on and I don’t always know where I’m going.  I’m directionally challenged and get lost on a regular basis while driving.  I tend to get distracted easily and don’t always remember things.  You are probably wondering how I am able to even get along in life?   Well, the simple answer is that I am dependent and I realize that I need lots of help.   Don’t get me wrong, I have other God given strengths and qualities that my Creator uses to glorify Him and serve others but I must admit I have many weak areas that I seriously need help with.  I believe that in our marriages, families and churches today we have gotten so caught up with the world’s philosophy and mentality of “I can do it all on my own”, that we don’t even realize that we do need each other’s help and support.  We’ve gotten away from closely knitting ourselves together in our relationships. We’ve drifted away from sharing our needs and vulnerabilities with others because we want to appear to be able to fine on our own without anyone else’s help.  

Because we all like to believe that we are totally self sufficient, we often depend on our own human ability to handle life's situations . We must come to the realization that we just don’t have the strength and wisdom it takes to solve all of our problems.  We must remember the reality that we are not independent and we cannot do anything apart from God.  Jesus says in John 15:5 “ I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me, you can do nothing.”  No matter how big or small your trial may seem, God always has one goal for His children.  Our loving Father wants us on our knees in prayer of adoration and praise to Him, trusting and depending on His sovereign will and plan for this life He has given us.  Apart from this, we CANNOT expect to be blessed by God when we are trusting in our own human abilities or intellect.  Our power and strength come from admitting we are weak, powerless and absolutely nothing with our Savior.  In our weakness we can rest assured that Christ will always show His strength.  We see in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

I’m thankful to God that our gas station story has a happy ending.  I’m learning that we must always look for the beneficial reasons for why God may have allowed a situation to come into our lives. The blessings from our little escapade actually turned out to be numerous!  We were able to witness the kindness of the gas station attendant who gave us a free box full of donuts to take home, which the boys were extra thankful for.  I was able to share with the man about how God answers my prayers every time these kinds of things happen.   I got to spend quality time talking with our boys about the importance of flexibility and patience during these kind of situations.  We were thankful that we only had to wait only an hour and thirty minutes for the tow truck to come and unlock our door for us.  I also knew that God wanted me to share what He was teaching me through this situation with others through this blog.  No matter what happens in this life, we always need to look for the things we have to be thankful for.

Our sovereign God is Amazing!  I praise and thank Him for His love and patient reminders that He is always there for me as my source of power to accomplish what He has for me to do.  I am extremely grateful that I never need to rely on my own meager strength to accomplish anything.  Apart from God’s power, I’m a miserable failure and I’m okay with that. He continues to work daily on me by stripping away my pride and bringing me to my knees in humility. God’s strength is always perfect even though in my own strength I am helpless, hopeless and sometimes have the potential to be a little hazardous.