Comfort in Death

Hello Wonderful Children of the Most High God.

This isn't the best time for my family because on Friday my Grandmother died. Even though I didn't grow up with her I still love her. She worked so hard in order to send my mother and I to the United States and my Aunt to Guadeloupe. It really sucks that I never really got to know her but I'm happy that I did get to meet her. My tears have been an on-and-off thing and were the worst Sunday morning during Praise and Worship. They were singing I Will Run and the moment they started signing the line "Come, Come, I hear you calling come" I was gone. Tears rushing down my face because God called my Grandmother to leave us and go to him.

I haven't cried since but I know I will be this weekend. Her funeral will be on Saturday, so my mother and I will be traveling to Haiti to get everything situated. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this weekend but I know that I will get through it.

This is just so surreal. It feels like she's still alive but reality will hit like a ton of bricks once the wailing starts and I actually see her. The cry's of grief from Haitians are so passionate that they WILL evoke emotion within you, and I don't know if I'll really be ready for that.

This is a bit different but I wanted to share some of my life with you all and what has been encouraging me all weekend. Gods just been telling me that he's my rock. First in Deuteronomy 32, then in a comment made during church, and again in my devotional Monday. So as encouragement I want to share with you something I posted on facebook yesterday.

The quote comes from Sheri Rose Shepherd's book His Princess- Love Letters from Your King. The title is "My Princess... Don't Ever Compromise" on page 66.

-:- PeaceLoveHarmony -:-

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"Hold on to Me and My power within you, and I promise that you will make it through. When the wicked winds try to blow out the flame of your faith or try to cause you to compromise, stand on My truth...I am your solid Rock, and you can conquer anything in My strength."  

Seems like my theme at the moment is "Lord as Rock." Yeah this moment in time sucks, but I'll get through. When tears want to fall, my Rock will keep me standing. He gave life and when his perfect will is done He will take life. Every step we take and every move we make God knew long before we were ever put into the womb. He knew every single moment leading do our deaths and everyone we would impact. Through hardships and tears HE IS WORTHY of all the praise we can pour out of ourselves. (I feel like I could go on but this status is long enough. I do hope this encourages someone else who is also going through the death of a loved one.)

Never Forget

Joshua 4: 6-7

“We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' Then you can tell them, 'They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the LORD's Covenant went across.' These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.” [NLT]

God doesn't want us to forget where he brought us from. We may or may not know where we would be right now if it wasn't for God's grace. In my case, I would still be living in a third world country possibly without a formal education. I would either be roaming the streets looking for love and entering dangerous relationships or in a loveless marriage. But because of God's love for me and his plan for my life, whatever it may be, I'm here in the United States in my last few years of college interacting with his people. God had the Israelites use stones to build a memorial so that his FUTURE children will ask what they meant. If there is nothing to represent where we were brought from then our kids and those who will be entering the body of Christ won't know and their faith in Christ won't be strengthen completely. I guess that's the power of having and giving our testimonies.

A woman in my life tried showing this to me a while back. I guess at the time I focused too much on the fact that whatever testimony I had wasn't great enough to help anyone so I really thought I had no testimony. Now I realize that it doesn't have to be some huge thing like God delivered you from some huge sin (as the eyes of man would see it), but something that you feel is so minute can be GREAT in God's eyes.

So one of my great testimonies is that God held me TIGHT! He didn't allow me to fall into some sin that I would feel like I could never get out of. He held me so tight that he gave me the mother I have to discipline me as a child. A mother wouldn't have let me run the streets thinking I was a big girl at the age of 7. My testimony is that God brought me out a desperate country to another country where my full potential can be reached, and will be reached through Him, with Him.

Song that popped into my head:

Artist: Hillsong

Song: I Could Sing of Your Love Forever

-:- PeaceLoveHarmony -:-

 

The Two Jesus'

Hello Beautiful Creations of God!! I hope your Resurrection Sunday was wonderful. If not then there is still joy because Jesus rose to give us all hope for salvation.

Today marks Day 1 of my fast in preparation of an event being put on my the members of my campus ministry. The details of the fast are dependent on the ministry. As part of the fast, my Praise Team Director wanted us to share on facebook our devotion of the day. I want to share my post with all of you.

-:- PeaceLoveHarmony -:-

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Initially my devotional scripture was Luke 9:62. But an app on my phone allows me to look up the Hebrew or Greek words for the English translation. So I clicked on “Jesus” and these are the definitions it gave me:

Jesus = “Jehovah is salvation”

1. Jesus, the son of God, the savior of mankind, God incarnate

2. Jesus Barabbas was the captive robber whom the Jews begged Pilate to release instead of Christ

It also tells me that there were several other people who had the name Jesus, but what blew my mind was that the two people that were put up to be judged and thus only one freed by the Jews were both named Jesus. So I looked more into it and Barabbas means “Son of Abba” AKA “Son of the Father.” Now we all know that Jesus was also the son of the father (another crazy coincidence.)

So now we have two people who are named Jesus and who are the “Son of the Father” but both are completely opposite with completely opposite fathers. What I got is that we have a choice to make everyday. We either choose to kill Jesus Christ, the son of the true and living father, or we choose to kill Jesus Barabbas, the son of the devil. With every negative thought about ourselves and every impure action we are killing Jesus. The devil wants us to keep Barabbas alive so he will attack us in every way possible, even with the use of manipulation. And we can see that in Mark 15:11: “the leading priests stirred up the crowd to demand the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus.” But every time we shoot the devil down and overcome his tactics we are taking Jesus down from the cross.

Phases of Healing

So I've recently come up with the Three Phases of Healing.... and by recently it was like a few hours ago. I was on a networking site and a young woman had a post titled "Unforgotten Trauma." She gave vague descriptions of what happened to her in her past and how the trauma from them is still effecting her now. I responded to her post and in my response I came up with the Three Phases of Healing.

1. Dealing with the Pain

Sometimes it is so easy to throw bad memories into at chest deep in the closet of your heart. No matter how deeply hidden the pain is, it somehow finds a way back up and then is needed to be hidden even deeper. Dealing with the pain doesn't mean "get over it and move on with your life," but it means to no longer hide it from yourself. Let the pain and hurt and sorrow flow out and manifest. If not then you can't move on to the next step because you won't let issues surface and other issues will arise.

 2. Crying over the Pain

Crying.... The action that many people don't like to do, myself included. But a catharsis comes from crying. All your frustration and anger is released from you every time you cry to God. God hears every one of your cry's and knows exactly how many tear drops you shed for each problem and because of each person. Nothing is too complex for God, not even what your going through.

Here's an analogy I heard a few days ago. For every child at the playground in the park there is a parent. The children are running playing while the parents are mingling amongst one another. One child starts crying and his/her parent(s) run right over to see what's going on and comfort the child. But notice that every other parent pays no mind because the child isn't theirs. Now change the story around: the playground is life, we are the children, and God is the parent. We go through the normal motions of life and WILL get hurt, whether from our careless behaviors or from the selfishness of others. And when we get hurt we feel pain, and can choose to bottle up the pain or cry. If we bottle up the pain, God can't really do anything about it. But if we cry God will hear and will instantly run to us to comfort us. We won't feel better right away but will be in the process.

There's just something powerful about crying out to God. They don't have to be huge alligator tears but having a sincere heart and calling on him to get you through your pain is enough.

3. Handing the Pain over to God

That's it. God will deal with the pain. God will deal with those who hurt you. God has your back so there is no need to hold on to it anymore. This is the point when you no longer hate someone or get severely angry or depressed when you hear the person's name. It doesn't mean that the actions of who ever hurt you will no longer have an emotional effect on you, but that it no longer holds you captive. You are free and in being free you can freely serve a well deserving master.

-:- PeaceLoveHarmony -:-

~*Scripture*~
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them. They cried out to you and were saved. They trusted in you and were never disgraced....... For [God] has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy. [God] has not turned his back on them, but has listened to their cries for help.

~Psalm 22:1-5 & 24 [NLT]