Lessons In Loyalty

Have you ever felt alone?

 We are all going to go through situations where we are challenged, and that’s usually when you find out who has your back.  Knowing that you have people that love and support you unconditionally is a beautiful thing…something that is earned, almost synonymous with trust.  

If you have someone who is loyal to you in your life, don’t take it for granted.  Loyal friends stick with you through the highs and through the lows.  They don’t desert you when things get tough, but instead help you navigate your way through the mess covering you in prayer and assuming the best in you instead of the worst. This demonstrates love and kindness.

God loves his children no matter what and he gave us Jesus to help us.  This should be the model we follow within our own earthly families, but that can be hard to do.  When we are wounded by friends and family members it can take a long time to get over it, but it’s important to stand firm with people even when they have ticked you off.  

Humility is essential in bringing about reconciliation.  It is easy, very easy, to assume the worst: that the person MEANT to hurt your feelings, was looking to start an argument or purposely set out to stir things up.  It is much harder to swallow your pride and see the best possibility, to see the loyalty that a friend or family member has shown over the years.

Much of society is looking to get ahead and further their own agenda, and they will step on whoever is in their way in order to climb further up the ladder to the heights they are seeking.  Stay alert for people who might use you in terms of spreading your secrets, turn on you or just flat out make stuff up about you to tarnish your reputation.  One of the hardest things about being a parent is watching as your kids develop friendships with people who aren’t good for them, and then watching them hurt in the aftermath when that realization sets in.

If you read this, and feel that you are alone, know that you aren’t.  

There are people who love you.  

One person who loves you unconditionally is Jesus Christ.  You can trust Him implicitly.  When you feel like friends and family have betrayed you, He will be there.  He has been betrayed, knows the depth of the pain it can bring and He wants to heal you because He understands.  Don’t allow the enemy to mess with your mind.  Believe the truth.  Our thinking determines decisions, our decisions determines our habits, our habits determine our character, character determines our destiny. 

Father-
Help me stay true to what I believe in, not to be judgmental of others but loving them through issues, and relying onYou for all direction. Thank You for placing people in my life that have my back no matter what.  Open my eyes and allow me to see them and trust them.  Thank You for the sacrifice that Jesus made for me.  His betrayal and punishment took away my sins, and I am totally unworthy of that.   Forgive me when I allow my mind to assume the worst in people and choose to turn my back on people instead of love them.

Amen.

Passages to Ponder:
Romans 12:2- Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

James 3:17- But the wisdom from above is first of all pure.  It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others.  It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds.  It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.

Proverbs 19:22- Loyalty makes a person attractive.  It is better to be poor than dishonest.

Contributors:  Karen Bromby, Monica Brown, Kathy Derda, Maria Kucharczuk, Kim McClure and Kristy Tolley

June Hope Chest- Hope Tells Me That I Don't Have To Be Perfect by Chaminie Wheeler

Close your eyes – imagine sitting on a mango tree in a tropical island.  This was my favorite place to spend time.  I loved to read and wonder on this tree…

I would wonder many questions:

Who created the sky?  

Has it always been there? 

 Why were there so many world religions?  

Is Buddha real?  

Why was there so much suffering?  

Is there a real God?

I grew up in a Buddhist family in Sri Lanka.  In 1983- the Civil War was starting there (I was 11yrs old). I was the oldest child and my parents wanted me to be well educated.  They knew that the universities were going to close in Sri Lanka.  So, I came to the US to live with my aunt and uncle and their 5 children.  I was to get a head start in English and my family would join me in 1 year.

I hated the US.  Among those things that I hated were the food, the weather, the disrespectful children, and the noise.  I could not speak the language, and I cried a lot wanting nothing more than to be with my family in Sri Lanka.  I missed my brothers, especially Prasad because I always stood up for him.  I was worried about him and prayed that he was ok.  My brother, Samulitha, was only 4 years old at the time and I took care of him.  I missed them so much.  I missed rice and curry and just being with my parents.  

I felt that all hope was lost and I felt very much alone in this strange country.  I had a Buddha shrine in my room that I would pray to during my sorrow and ask Buddha to help me if he was real.  

The only ones who seem to understand me were the nuns that taught me at school.  They were sooooo kind.  They always told me that God loved me and that He was always with me even though that my family was in Sri Lanka.  They told me that I could always ask God to keep my family safe.  They told me that God had a perfect plan for me and that plan included me being separated from my family for this time.  I didn’t understand them, but I wanted to understand them so desperately.  I always wondered why these nuns were always so kind to me? 

After less than a year in the US, I went to a sleepover Christian summer camp at Triple R Ranch.  I could understand English pretty well by then and I heard the gospel for the 1^st time.  I liked being away from my aunt and I felt safe among the counselors.  They were kind like the nuns and spoke of the love of God.  They told me how God loved ME so much that He gave HIS one and only SON to become the sacrifice for my sin.  

I understood sin well because in Buddhism, I was always taught how important it was to be a good person.  That any bad thoughts I had or anything that I did wrong, that I would have to pay for it either in this life or in another life.  I believed that the suffering that I was under being separated from my loving family was because of my past sin in another life.  

I had been taught that to reach Nirvana, to end the cycle of rebirth, that I had to become sinless.  According to Buddhism, the only way to reach this state of perfection is to give up all desires for nice things like your family, clothing, good food, ect…  It is impossible to reach Nirvana as long as one has desires because your desires lead you to sin and hold on to this world.  As long as you have desires, you will never be able to break the cycle of rebirth.  You must live in such a way all of your life and do good deeds so that when you take your last breath, you will have a good thought because that good thought will determine what kind of an animal that you will be reborn again as.  If you live and do bad things, your last thought when you take your final breath is going to be bad and you could be reborn as an ant, as an human with a handicap or into poverty and so on.  

Thus, according to Buddhism, you must meditate and do good deeds all of your life.  

Eastern religions look very peaceful on the outside with tranquility with nature and mediation to live a better life, but the burden that is carried by each individual is HEAVY.  There is no hope because we are not capable of living perfectly every minute of every day.  Even killing termites from your home is sin because you purposefully killed many termite souls according to Buddhism and you will pay for that sin during some part of your individual cycle of rebirth.  You can of course do enough good deeds to try to offset that sin.

So, imagine my surprise that God would sacrifice HIS only SON to pay for my sin.  The most amazing part of this Christianity was that there were not many gods but ONE TRUE GOD that loved me so much that HE even died for me.  I was amazed!!!  I could see the hope that my counselors had and the peace that radiated through their life.  

Around a campfire that summer, I gave my life to Jesus.  I accepted what HE did for me at the cross and Jesus became my Savior and my Lord.  

I no longer had to be perfect.  It was not something that I had done wrong in a past life that I was separated from my parents or it was NOT my fault that things in my life was so messed up.  I knew that God would help me overcome all my challenges that were before me.

This has been the promise of God that I have clung to my whole life.  God has never given me more than I can bear and have always provided for me.  I have been reunited with my family (all are still Buddhist) after 11 years of separation. 

 God has given me an amazing husband and 3 beautiful children.

  God used a brain abscess in my husband for me to meet him and nurtured a friendship that drew both of us closer to Him.  

God used a feeding tube in my oldest son, to spare his life.  

God provided emergency surgery to save our 2^nd son’s bowels from an incarcerated hernia.  

God provided breath to our youngest son, as he was premature and later hospitalized with respiratory distress. 

 God has literally saved the physical lives of our 3 children.  I am about to face my 9^th surgery and am at total peace because God is good ALL the time.  I have hope because He is the author of Hope.  Yahweh is the beginning and the end.  Yahweh Yirah is God our provider and Yahweh Rohpe is God our Healer!  There are countless names to describe our Amazing God.  What a privilege to be lifted in a cloud of prayer to God Almighty who is able to do ALL things by the family of God!  What better place can I be now than in the mighty hands of God?  

Psalm 103 has been ingrained in my heart to show me what a victorious life I have in Christ alone no matter the obstacles.  I have hope because of grace alone… because of what Christ did for me on the Cross. 

 I don’t have carry the impossible burden of living a perfect life to end the cycle of rebirth and to reach Nirvana.  My debt for ALL my sins has been fully paid by the blood of Christ.  I am a warrior princess that has been adopted into the family of God because He loves me!  Hosanna … Jesus saves! 

June Hope Chest- Hope Is No Accident by Annabelle Suddreth

As a child, I noticed there were few pictures of me as a baby.  The first picture I saw of myself was when I was around five years old.  When I finally mustered the courage to ask my mom if I was adopted, she burst into laughter.  She explained that her hands were quite full when I came along.  

You see, my mom’s first child, Paul, was born blind and learning disabled, so the doctor recommended having a second child to help the first child develop skills such as eating, talking and walking.  364 days after Paul was born, my brother, Ben, came into the world.  

Three years after that, just as my parents completed the construction of a new home, they got the unexpected news:  mom was pregnant again.  

Three children in four and a half years.  Bless her heart.

That explained everything. It not only rationalized why there were no pictures of me as an infant and toddler, it also clarified why my father often told people I was an accident - and he said it a lot.

When we hear something about ourselves repeatedly, eventually we start believing it.  The comments can be positive, “You did a great job - you are awesome,” or negative like “You’re an accident - you weren’t part of the plan.”  The message becomes a song we play over and over in our head until it becomes our reality.

What is the recording that plays in your head? 

For almost four decades, the “accident” song played in my head.  But it didn’t just stay there.  That recording permeated my entire being: my heart, my soul, my gut.  Believing I was unplanned, I reacted by being a people-pleaser and an overachiever.

How have you reacted to your “song”?  Did you try compliance and overcompensation?  Maybe you chose the path of rebellion, taking risks and doing things you knew weren’t right. I did some of that as well.

Fortunately, somewhere along my journey, someone cared enough about me to tell me about God.  Not the “thou shalt”, rules-based God that I’d heard about my entire life, but God, the loving Father.  

In my quest to learn more, I uncovered Psalm 139:13-16, where David says to God:

“¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.”

This scripture was life-changing for me.  I wept as I read that God ordained my life before I was ever conceived, realizing for the first time in my life that I’m not an accident.  I was part of a plan all along – God’s plan!  

I learned that God himself knit and wove me together.  Those words paint such beautiful imagery of the Master carefully and painstakingly binding me together – a far different picture from an accidental interlude.

As if it couldn’t get any better, the words “fearfully and wonderfully made” leapt off the page. Never had I heard such deep and positive affirmations, finally turning down the volume on the music blaring for decades. 

Periodically, I still need reminding that I am a part of God’s plan.  That “accident” recording pops up every once in a while but I am now able to go back to this demonstration of God’s love and grace.

I pray this verse is a blessing to you also.  Try re-reading Psalm 139:13-16, this time personalizing it by saying it directly to God.  By realizing that you are God’s planned creation, these verses might just silence the negative recordings in your life, too.

June Hope Chest- Hope Reveals Blessings in Time by Whitney Gesner

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”   Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

For years, this has been my favorite scripture.  I have it memorized and repeat it to myself regularly.  It reminds me that I’m not always in control of my life or that of those around me.  God has a plan, if I’ll just sit back and let Him take the lead.  

For those of you that know me well, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Yea right!  That’s not the Whitney I know.”  I’ll be the first to admit this is not always easy for me, hence the need to memorize and repeat frequently.

Two words of this scripture stick out to me, hope and future.  Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.  Synonyms include aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, goal and plan.  Maybe I confuse hope with faith, but I’ve never been one to hope for a certain outcome.  I’ve always been much more likely to hope for whatever God has intended.  But according to this definition, maybe what I think of as hope is actually faith.   In any case, hope and faith go hand in hand for me.  

Hoping for certain outcomes or having specific expectations seems to take God and His plan out of the equation.  You can desire an outcome and dream of the life you want, but are you prepared for God’s answer to be “No” or “Not right now.”? 

Even people who seemingly go through life playing by the rules, making good decisions and striving to be good Christians go through unexplainable struggles.  Things happen along the way that don’t seem to make sense…illness, death, heartbreak, financial troubles, etc..

 Things may happen that are out of my control, but how I react and what I do with those circumstances is up to me.

Shortly after the birth of my first child, I was diagnosed with retinal lattice degeneration.  This is a disease of the eye where the retina becomes atrophic in a lattice pattern and may develop tears, breaks or holes, which may further progress to retinal detachment causing blindness.  It’s a genetic condition that is present in about 6% of the population.  Of that 6%, only 1% will suffer an actual detachment.  So for every 1 million people 600 will experience a retinal detachment.  And you guessed it…I’m the winner!  

I’ve worn glasses and contacts since the age of 12 but never dreamed an underlying condition could one day take my sight completely.  For 12 years, my condition was monitored closely and each time I was told there was no progression of disease.  

Then on July 9, 2012, in the course of 10 minutes, I went blind in my left eye.  

After 3 physician opinions and an emergency trip to Lexington, I entered surgery at St Joseph East Hospital on July 11 not knowing what the outcome would be but knowing that it was my only hope.  

There were no other options. 

 I underwent a scleral buckle procedure on my left eye and laser surgery on the right.  I’ll save the gruesome surgical details but you can easily learn more online.  My full recovery took months and only after 6 months, did we have a full understanding of where my vision progress would plateau.  And even then, there were various combinations of contacts and glasses used to further improve my vision.  To this day, I am legally blind in my left eye without the use of contacts or glasses.  Let’s just say the mornings I knock my glasses off the nightstand are fun. 

Through all of this I can honestly say God blessed me with a very strong sense of peace, particularly in the 2 days leading up to the surgery.  During the drive to Lexington, while lying flat on my back as instructed by the doctors, I had a conversation with my brother I’ll never forget.  

As word spread, my brother called to see what was happening and how he could help.  We talked for a while and then he said, “How are you so calm?  Aren’t you scared?  What if you’re blind now?”  

At the time I couldn’t explain it to him but I wasn’t.  That’s not to say I wasn’t scared of the surgery or the recovery. I also wondered about the future and what life would be like for my family if I were to go blind.  

However, with 100% certainty, I can tell you I knew everything was going to happen just as God intended. 

As I write this, I’m sitting in my front yard under my favorite tree.  This has been my family home since 1975.  In fact, in 1976 my father took a picture of me with this exact same tree.  In 2006, my husband and I purchased the house from my parents.  It overlooks Ritter Park and the Rose Garden.  The American Planning Association featured this area in its 2012 annual list of “10 Great Public Spaces.” 

 It’s a beautiful spring day.  The flowers and trees are in bloom.  The grass is a beautiful bright green.  Families and individuals are enjoying the park, and my son and his friends are playing baseball just across the street where I can watch.

 I am extremely thankful that it wasn’t in God’s plan to take my eyesight two years ago.  However, if that day ever comes, I know there is a higher purpose in the loss of my sight.  I’m sure I won’t see the blessing in the moment but feel certain it will be revealed in time.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:8-10 (NIV)

What Is Stealing Your Peace?

What do you think of when you hear the word “peace”?  

It might be the peace sign made popular in the ’60’s.  It might be total silence, or some might see a picturesque scene of nature.  The dictionary equates peace with tranquility.  Tranquility is defined as “being free from agitation of mind or spirit; free from disturbance or turmoil”.  Now, that sounds good.  Wouldn’t it be nice to go through life with no agitation, disturbances or turmoil?

Life isn’t easy.  It just isn’t, and just because you give your life to Christ doesn’t mean that everything is going to start being lollipops and rainbows.  However, one big difference between a believer and a non-believer is the way difficulties are dealt with.  That comes down to one reason.  We, as believers, have the Holy Spirit living in each of us, and He is a provider of peace and strength.

God, our Father, will give us the strength that we need to get through each day, and that will result in living a more peaceful life.  We have to strive for it though.  It won’t just be dropped into our laps.  The main thing we need to do is give up our power and start to become aware of the things that steal our peace.

What steals your peace?  

• comparisons
• competitions
• judging or being judged
• anger
• regret
• worry
• blame
• guilt
• fear

That is a list of ugly words that will not bring peace into your life, but instead agitate and irritate and cause turmoil in your life.  

Living a life where you’re constantly judging others or yourself in some kind of competition and comparison game will never allow you to be happy.  

Putting yourself in situations with people who anger you is not good for you physically or spiritually.  

Many believers tear themselves up with regrets over their past, blaming themselves or maybe other people for the mistakes they made.  That guilt can be overwhelming and heavy.  

Worrying about tomorrow and being afraid of what will happen next are things that will overtake your thoughts and be blown out of proportion in your imagination.  

So..what are you going to do about it?  Look UP instead of around.

When your co-worker gets the promotion instead of you, look UP and believe that there’s a reason for it, and that you are needed where you are.  

When a conversation begins to take a sharp turn toward an argument, look UP and walk away until you’ve had time to calm down.  

When you see someone from your past and that nagging tug of regret starts to form in your gut, look UP and believe that Jesus took that away from you.  He went through an enormous sacrifice to forgive you of those mistakes, we have to forgive ourselves too. We just have to.  

When your kid is struggling with life or there’s a big change coming in your future instead of letting that take the form of frustration that can affect your relationships, look UP and believe that He has it under control, and frankly, He doesn’t need your help in that area.

Sounds easy, right? A lot of times it isn’t.  Even the disciples who lived with Jesus and learned from Him on a daily basis doubted sometimes.  It takes strength to look up instead of around.  It takes strength to accept things for what they are, and hope for understanding when the answers aren’t coming as quickly as you would prefer.  It takes strength to push away those feelings of regret and guilt.  It takes strength to live a life of peace.  

So, look UP and ask for the strength to avoid those bad behaviors listed above, and to focus on the One who has a plan for your life.

Peace!

Passages to Ponder:

Psalm 29:11- The Lord gives His people strength.  The Lord blesses them with peace.

John 14:27- I am leaving you with a gift- peace of mind and heart.  And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.  So don't be troubled or afraid.

Philippians 4:6-7- Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Contributors: Kim McClure and Marla McDonald