Ephesians 4

Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past, See I am doing a new thing!

Ephesians 4:31

So the Lord has been leading me to read Ephesians lately, and in my usual procrastinating way it took me about 3 weeks to finally read it.

While I was reading it today, I felt the Lord showing me or highlighting the part of Eph 4:31 ‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice.’

Now why would the Lord show me that? In the week He showed me another person speaking on ‘The root of bitterness’. At that time I felt the Lord tug on my heart; there is some root of bitterness I have not dealt with, in regards to my family.

Now the situation with my family is that I had multiple reasons to be angry with the life I should have had compared to how things really did turn out for me, so I’ve always thought. My family, my parents, made many mistakes leaving us as a family in very awful situations, in which, I thought I have the right to write about them. I mean, I didn’t want to shame anyone, I would write under a pen name so that no one would know who this family was or where we came from. But, the reality is, the bitterness held up in me needs to be emptied.

Ephesians 4:32

Ephesians 4:32 ‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ The antidote to the bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, and malice I have in my heart.

My thoughts of “doesn’t someone need to know what I went through… what I felt… how their lack of judgment, wisdom, or any adult thought-life ruined my life, left me in situations young people should never have been left? What should have happened, where I should have gone to school, studied and the problems I encountered in my life that could have been avoided if I’d had parents who took care of me? Don’t I have the right to tell the world about how some parents who seemingly aren’t doing the best for their families are, actually letting their children down, neglecting them, sometimes knowingly not doing their best for them? Or is this just self-pity in disguise?

Forget the former things

Well, I still can’t tell, but I now feel the Lord is leading me back to Isaiah 43:18-21

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.
²⁰The wild animals honor me,
    the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
²¹    the people I formed for myself
    that they may proclaim my praise.”

So this is the 2nd time this week that get rid of bitterness has come up, only when writing it here I realised I have rage and anger at times and I guess the way I speak to my husband sometimes is brawling and at times slander is the way I speak about other people.

Wow, what a terrible revelation, I guess at times I justify myself by saying if I only get angry at home, if I only speak to my hubby unkindly at home then it’s ok, it doesn’t matter, but that means those things are harboured in my heart and shouldn’t I be cultivating my heart attitude at home with the ones who matter most?

God HELP ME! Please God HELP ME! Show me the root of the issues in my heart so I can change it and be pure in Your sight and no longer hurt my wonderful husband and cause my children to speak or hear any unkindness from me or slander about others.

Ephesians 4:29-30

Ephesians 4:29-30 ‘Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.’

God showed me that my feeling unimportant and never enough is half the reason I fight with my husband, that I actually have to get my fulfilment in Him, order to be the wife, and then… the mom, I want to be. I need to be full of You first and then I will overflow into being a woman who will be kind and compassionate forgiving, just as You forgave me, with no unwholesome talk leaving my lips – self controlled by You, which I desperately need, and only saying that which is helpful for building others up according to their needs to benefit those who listen.”

God’s Help

I ended up saying God heal me please, on the inside, I hurt so deeply, I don’t even know where it is and I’ve even denied that I hurt anymore, but, I hurt in such a way that it doesn’t feel like I hurt anymore, I hurt in such a way that I have taken it on as part of who I am. This is what I want to change Lord. Please help me be who You want me to be… holy, acceptable, pleasing and not wanting anything, being the woman of God You have called me to be.

Show me that I’m good enough, show me that I’m precious enough, show me that I’m your special one. Do Your open-heart surgery God, PLEASE, renew a right spirit in me but also a whole me, put me back together the way You made me to be. (Holy Spirit You are welcome here)

Now in spending sometime with the Lord, allowing Him to work on my heart. I asked Him to show me some examples of how I am good enough. This may sound vain to you, as it is certainly not something I would normally do, but I felt that given the circumstances, of not knowing I felt undervalued, this was a necessary opposite of my normal thought process. God wants us to know we are well-loved, well taken care of, well thought of by Him, Almighty God and if He can see good in us why would He not want us to see our own good in order to be the blessing someone else needs today to see Him in His full glory, Amen??

What an incredibly personal journey, ask the Lord to show you some examples of how you are good enough. You will be surprised to find that He wants to show you where you have gone right, unlike us who are so fallen, we can only think of where we and everyone else went wrong.

Trauma comes flooding back

The Lord has been saying to me “Let go of the past, forget the former things,” but then the things that have happened to me as a result of what my family’s trauma has done to me come flooding back to my mind, and the shape and effect it had on my mind and life starts to replay itself in my mind… But, God, You are telling me to let go of the thoughts, that this shouldn’t have happened, and let go of the memories of what happened. Unless I let that go, I cannot move forward to the life I want to have in You, no matter how devastating, no matter how I wish for an apology, or a re-do… that part of my life is done. Thank You Lord!

My Goal

I must give it over to You, Lord, but keep my eyes on the goal of reaching You with others like my family in-tow, we must journey together to You, I can’t hold the past against them, I must move forward towards the end goal of “Well done, my good and faithful servant” and I can’t if I don’t let it go, no matter how painful and how badly they’ve ruined my life as a result of the actions that I suffered the consequences of, I must leave them (the consequences and the people, fallen as am I) at Your feet.

Please help me do that Lord… I need You so much in this!

I pray for you, dear reader, and me, especially me, as I am the most fallen of all! I pray Lord that You would clear our minds of our past. The past mistakes we’ve had to endure as a result of other peoples choices for us and towards us, but also our own mistakes and choices that were not the best, or Your best for us. Teach us to hear Your voice, still and small, gentle and marvellous! Help us to love You and Your presence more daily. In Jesus Mighty Name Amen!

20th Jul 201830th Sep 2018

Kids/Parenting

My all-time favourite book on parenting has to still be Shepherding A Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp. This book changed my perspective, gave me hope that although I was brought up differently to what I probably should have been. I could do it differently through Christ who strengthens me, for my children.

Perfectionism is not in the bible

Even if I thought other people were brought up perfectly, they probably also should read the book, set a side some of the “I was raised that way and survived or came out close to perfect” emotional thought processing and come down to earth; where none of our opinions matter but our favourite Uncle Angus’s saying applies – “The bible says it, I believe it and that settles it” is all encompassing for every part and season of our lives.

A truly grounding book that realigns our understanding of how to look at life and our children. Very helpful and practical regarding discipline and behaviour as well.

You can buy the book through my affiliate link, if you still like my thinking after what you just read. I have decided I’m not going to apologise for the candid nature of my thoughts. You are welcome to not read my blog, sorry to loose you and love to hear your constructive thoughts even if they are criticisms. I do truly believe perfectionism is not in the bible. I am not condoning tardiness or laziness but I am acutely aware that many people, like myself, come from a background where what is normal to perfectionists is not to us. I, for one, would love to achieve a beautiful, organised, successful home, but have no idea where or how to start.

One of the reasons for my blog is to hopefully get helpful input from the people around me, who do life so almost perfectly they look like saints to me and I must look awful to them. You may make your suggestions available here.

18th Jul 201827th May 2020

My Back was Healed

Back Ache

In another post I discussed miracles that have happened to me. Here I want to mention when my back was healed.

We were having a time of prayer and fasting and someone said, is there anyone who has back pain that needs to be healed. We were a small group of people, it was 05:30 in the morning and we came in for a special time of prayer and fasting. I thought nothing of it, really didn’t think they were speaking about me. Then I realised no one else was answering and I was wearing special shoes because of my back ache, it was so bad I couldn’t get through the day without these special shoes. I decided to swallow my pride and admit it was me. When they prayed for me I felt instant relief, but as the day went on and I was at work it started to feel much better, I couldn’t believe it!

I never went back to wearing high heels to work everyday, I never did daily, only on special occasions. Really never wore them again as much as I had as I thought that wouldn’t be wise. But my life really went back to normal, I could run, play sport, I was in no way injured anymore.

These are a few miracles that happened to me, I’d love to hear your experiences.

13th Jul 201827th May 2020

Miracles I personally experienced

Miracles

I want to take the time to tell you about a few miracles I personally experienced. This is the first one. You may think it vain of me to put this all out here like this, the only reason I am writing this is the feeling that someone else can be helped by this story.

Birth, Miracle I personally experienced

When I was born I was 3 months premature, this age of birth most often results in the babies lungs being under developed. Now beginning with my lungs being under developed, I was 3 months old when I contracted pneumonia too. This with the under developed lungs was a disastrous combination, needless to say I could have died.

My mom had 2 other sick, very sick people at home at the time. She was really trying to cope with all these things going on when she thought I was getting better, rather than worse, and that’s why I had stopped coughing.

My pastor on his way past our house felt the Lord say, just stop in here something’s not right. He came in and picked me up. He said I was cold and blue. In Zimbabwe in the middle of summer, it’s almost impossible for a body to be cold. As temperatures soar to 40+degrees celsius.

My pastor, a very down to earth, lovely man. He really loved the Lord and worked his whole life for His people(God’s). Took me in his hands, lifted me up to the Lord and prayed. He said it was a miracle and I started breathing and came back to full health.

Life-long closeness

Naturally he and I enjoyed a life-long closeness not really understood by most. In fact when I was a teenager even I didn’t understand it. Our family had moved away from that town to live hundreds of kilometers away. I hadn’t seen him in many years but my parents would always tell me about him. How he was and how his family was. I never really could understand that. He would always tell me about the miracle of my being healed.

Only when I saw him face to face again, and, he recounted that story for me himself, that I remembered why we were so close and we enjoyed each other so much.

Help

I hope this helps someone out there, if you have your own stories of miracles it would be lovely if you shared them with me and let me know if I can share them to encourage others, much love!

If you feel, as I often did when I was struggling with life itself, that’s great for you but how would that affect my life. There are, few to no, miracles I have personally experienced. Believe me God has them all in-store for everyone. Look for Him. Call to Him, and He will answer you. He promised in His word. Please contact a local bible-believing, God-fearing church. They will be more than willing to help you find His love and acceptance. If they make you feel at all unwelcome, unloved or unaccepted, they are not who they say they are, try another church. We are all human, many people make mistakes in their efforts. Please try another church and pray ask God to show you the right place and time. He will, as He did for me.

Other Miracles I personally experienced

I think I will weekly update this list of miracles I personally experienced. There have been many miracles at various different stages of my life. I will list some and come back to this list and write the details as necessary.

My hips were healed.
My back was healed at church one day.
2010 car accident.
The miracle of my daughters birth.

One of my favourite authors, Pastor John Piper has a full sermon on miracles and said the following regarding the subject:

Miracles surround our lives, physical miracles that we can see, hear, touch, and taste. But what is the point of those physical gifts and visual miracles that abundantly surround our lives? It’s a theme Pastor John took up in a sermon earlier this year titled, “God’s Peculiar Glory: How We Know the Bible Is True,” a message delivered in Houston.

Please enjoy this preach at this link.

4th Jul 201827th May 2020

Unexpected Turns

Spiritual Growth

The spiritual goals I had set out for myself at the beginning of the year were really simple, almost… trivial goals. In comparison, the year the Lord had planned for me was much greater. You might remember them from my initial post on the year and the goals I had. The aim was to be more in tune with the Lord, more in tune with my relationship with the Lord and the purpose for which Jesus created me.

The year the Lord had planned for me was much greater

than anything I could ever have imagined. If you ask me, setting aside every agenda I ever had as far as growing spiritually and focusing my life on the Lord and all He wants from me was the best thing I could ever have done. Not entirely sure why I’m saying that as though it was something that would surprise myself or you? I guess you could say that is almost what I expected, just on a much larger, greater scale.

The Lord spoke to me and reminded me of how He has personally touched me at times when I went to ladies meetings and no one physically came to pray for me but the Lord personally ministered to me. Then a few hours later my husband, God bless his soul, came and said to me you need to have a ladies tea. I told him what had gone through my mind earlier that day and realised it was the Lord speaking to us.

Great personal loss in our community

In our immediate community we had suddenly experienced a great deal of loss. Many parents and children had been tragically lost within the space of approximately 18 months and our community was left reeling. Parents and children alike were feeling insecure, unsure and the minute anyone became ill or admitted to hospital there was an almost unspoken panic.

Multiple tragedies

In this tragic time, a parent lost his life and I was personally acquainted with his wife. After this tragedy I was privileged to be on the team hosting a ladies tea in the community where we were able to minister to the ladies hearts concerning loss.

This is one of the most amazing privileges and most humbling experiences of my life. I am awe stricken when I think about the way this whole picture played out. From conception to realisation it took 3 weeks to put this tea together in a place, where, if it had not been the Lord’s doing or timing, we would not have even been able to see the people in charge of the community within that time frame, let alone arrange and accomplish all of this in His time.

All the glory and honour to God Almighty who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we can ever ask or imagine!

I have the privilege of praying with my friend who is a phenomenal prayer warrior with the most awesome authority given to her by God and together we have prayed our community through this time of grieving and loss, we have had revelations of what to pray for and who, through the Lord’s leading and timing of everyday events making it clear to us what all the different issues are in our community to intercede for.

The Next 6 months

Promise of the next 6 months is also nothing short of amazing. I will keep updating here, but I will not go into detail as yet in case of any undoing of our plans. The Lord knows them and has them in His hands.