Tag: god

christianity, Faith, Spirituality

Finding His Voice

modernministrymom
finding
The last few weeks have been such a volatile time in our nation. I have seen people say and do things I never thought they would say or do. The character of our people is being tested. Our love for one another is being questioned. There is uncertainty, and there is so much fear. I have cried with friends who have been hurt. I have listened to others rage and vent. Emotions are high. I have sat back, closed my eyes, and I have physically ached for my children and the kind of world they are growing up in. It is SO easy to despair and feel hopeless. It is SO easy to throw your hands in the air and give up.
In the middle of this chaos we cannot forget that we have the answer that not only we, but also this world so desperately needs. I have been sick the last several days and there has been something in me that is so much more sensitive and needy and just overall longing for more God connection while I have been stuck in my room alone. I am not fooled for a second that it isn’t because I have been too sick for TV, books, or social media and I am completely free of the responsibility of being a wife and mom to two wild toddlers. There has been a resetting so desperately needed in my spirit, I just couldn’t hear it over the noise I had allowed in my world. If we aren’t careful, the powerful voices in this world will drown out the most powerful voice in the entire world. And friends, we so desperately need His voice. Do you want to know how to love people? Listen to His voice. Do you want to know how to respond to pain? Search out His voice. Make listening for his prompting a daily priority. The bible teaches us that God is standing at the door and knocking. He isn’t hiding from us, sending us on some complicated chase, and yelling “Almost got me!” while running in the opposite direction. He is actively knocking. Waiting on us to open the door. Invite him in every day. Do this with prayer. Do this with a daily devotion and bible reading. Do this by taking time to fast social media or media in general.
I have been singing (as much as someone as tone deaf as me can sing) this old song the last few weeks:
O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see? There’s light for a look at the Savior, And life more abundant and free.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Through death into life everlasting He passed, and we follow Him there; O’er us sin no more hath dominion For more than conqu’rors we are!
His Word shall not fail you, He promised; Believe Him and all will be well; Then go to a world that is dying, His perfect salvation to tell!
How comforting to be reminded that even in the state of absolute pandemonium our world has found itself in, there is nothing quite like His glory and grace.Nothing can compare to His presence and the comforting sound of His voice. And what’s even more exciting is that we weren’t meant to just scrape by! We can have hope, we can have joy, we can have the love of God and we can spread that to everyone who is hurting. Don’t be so distracted by everything that needs fixing in this world that you forget the only one who can truly fix it. Don’t be so disheartened by the state of affairs that you forget you have the answer! Don’t be so blinded by the agenda of the enemy that you forget Mark 12. Love God, and love people. There is NO commandment greater than these.
I think we so often take on the burdens of our life instead of remembering that we are supposed to cast our cares on Him! I know I have carried a mental load the last few weeks. I forgot to let Him carry the heaviest parts, but I am so thankful for His voice these last few days reminding me that I belong to someone so much bigger, more loving, and kinder than this world. I hope you are reminded today to reach out to God and listen to what He has to say.
🖤 Sheena
christianity, Faith, Spirituality

New Year, Same God

modernministrymom

I love ringing in the New Year! This is one of the first years we stayed cozied up at home and let me tell you, as an enneagram 7 (anyone else love personality profiles!?) my FOMO was in full swing! Everything feels so exciting, people resolving to be better, the promise of starting fresh. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on social media the past 48 hours reading recaps of 2018 and hopes for 2019. I love the feeling that anything is possible and can happen!

2018 has hands down been the hardest year of my life. I lost my grandmother, I lost my aunt who raised me, some of closest friends fought unimaginable battles, my own health problems flaring up after years of no issues, and to close it out a few weeks ago I lost my precious pup. (I know some people don’t have the animal gene, but mine is strong and animals are family.) All of it written out like that and it sounds like a bad country song. Thank God I’ve still got the guy!

To say that I have handled this year gracefully would be a flat out lie. I’m sure if my life was a movie, I would be thanking The Academy in a month or so for being able to fake how together I am. I have never slept so badly, worried so constantly, or failed God with my lack of faith so fully as I did in 2018. I questioned Him almost daily. How could…? Why did you…? Why didn’t you…? What’s next? What are you trying to do? How could they…? When is it going to stop? The only good thing I did, the only thing that matters, was coming back to Him. Turning to him even in my frustration and doubt. I knew that however bad it was, without God it would be worse and that, my friends, was definitely more than I could handle on my own.

2018 was an avalanche of pain. I would finally pull up for air and the phone would vibrate with a new drama or unbelievable turn of events . I threw my hands in the air with sarcastic laughter and tears streaming down my face more than once crying out to God, “WHAT’S NEXT!?”. It’s so much easier to tell other people how to grieve or go through valleys. I’ve done it for over a decade as a ministers wife. I’ve prayed with people, begged them not to lose faith. Wait and see! The good the Bible promises He’s working together is sure to come! I truly believed it when I said it, and I still do. My whole life is really just one big miracle from childhood, but for some reason it was harder than ever to believe He was going to do it again. I preached all that to myself everyday. Every. Single. Day. of 2018 I had to consciously remake the choice to trust God when I wasn’t totally sure and definitely couldn’t see with my limited sight and wisdom that He still had it all together.

What I have learned the most in 2018 is that God is so good and so faithful. I know those truths so much deeper today than I did on this day last year. I look back on the darkest times and see His fingerprints so clearly. I have learned that joy is possible no matter how dark or bleak the situation. I have cried so much this year but I honestly don’t remember a time when laughter was so present either. I have begged for peace to come on sleepless nights and felt it settle on my soul like God himself covered me up in a cozy blanket. I’ve always prayed, but this year I learned about a constant dialogue that stops and starts on and off all day everyday. One that was raw and honest and corrective. A whole new understanding of what it means to pray without ceasing and dying to the flesh. I learned about His love for me in a more intimate way than ever before.

There is so much I still don’t understand. I know there will be more pain and heartache in my life that I won’t understand, that will feel unbearable. But I know now that I can do so much more than I ever thought through God. I’ve explored new depths of God’s strength, His mercy, His comfort, His peace, His joy, and so much more. And it’s crazy to think all of Him goes so much deeper than I’ve seen. There is still so much of God I get to discover.

I hope I can be a better wife, mom, friend, minister. I pray that my life points people to God. Most of all I’m going to strive to keep going deeper, relying more fully, and learning all there is to know about the One who never changes. The One who is always good. 2019, I’m ready for you!

Spirituality

When God is in the Chicken Strips

modernministrymom

A photo exhibit byAria Owens

Don’t be sad, because sad backwards is das, and das not good.

I have to be totally open and say that I haven’t written anything lately because I felt like I didn’t have anything “happy” to say. In the spirit of being transparent, if life is made up of seasons, then I am in Hurricane season. And that’s ok. It means blue skies are around the corner, right!? This isn’t a post to complain! I hope it is a post that will encourage.

I have spent a lot of time in my hometown of Columbus, IN lately due to sickness in my family and recently the death of my precious grandmother. While I am thankful I have the ability as a stay at home mom, to travel on a whim and be with my family, obviously I could do without the reasoning behind the travel. One of the things that I love and get very excited about when I head to the Hoosier state is seeing my lifelong bestie, Nicci. I am blessed with an awesome girl tribe. I never thought I would say that. 1 or 2 good friends, sure! A whole slew? No way. I mostly stuck to guy friends as a teenager because lets be real. Teenage girls are 1 of the top 3 meanest things on the planet next to Russian mob members and the Mexican Cartel. Nicci knows EVERYTHING about me and she can look at my face and read me like a book. Needless to say, she took one look at my face a few weeks ago and decided it was a girls night. She is married to the best guy and he kept the kids while we went to Dairy Queen. I am also in a season of eating my feelings, so I ordered my usual Reece Blizzard with extra, extra Reece cups and a chicken strip backset with gravy. We got back to her house and parked in the driveway so we could eat and talk. In the middle of Nicci pouring out heartfelt love and advice, I lost it. It went a little like this…I completely cut her off and I am TICKED. I only have 3 of the 4 chicken strips I paid for!! I WANT ALL 4! Oh, wait. It’s there. It’s just hidden behind the gravy cup. Silly me. Now here is where it gets really interesting. I start laughing hysterically…which very quickly turns into sobbing. Poor Nicci just rubs my back and lets me cry. Like I said, best friend.

I know that y’all have a similar story. Life gets overwhelming, we keep it together because we are grown ups and life needs to be lived. Our kids need us, our husbands need us, there are bills, and your toddler’s screen time to monitor, but sometimes we just have to take a moment and cry! I deal with anything hard in life with sarcasm, jokes, and a fair dose of the ridiculous. It’s just who I am and whether that is appropriate in everyones eyes or not, I like to believe that God gets it and uses it in our relationship. Looking back on my meltdown later that same night, I realized that the overwhelming feeling I had about those chicken strips was that same way I had been feeling about life in general. It was like God was saying, “Don’t worry! I didn’t forget you…you just lost me behind the gravy!” It was so silly. The chicken strip was obviously bigger than the gravy but I still lost sight of it. Isn’t that just how our real life problems are? We know that God is bigger, badder, stronger than anything or any problem that we can encounter but we still let fear and anxiety control us.

…and yet, after all that life brings me, I know of only one thing that is certain and it is that God is still faithful.

If you are in a similar season, know that God hasn’t forgotten you. One of my favorite attributes of God is that he is faithful. He never, ever, ever, ever fails. Trust Him, lean on Him. It can be so hard to let go when we feel like we need to control every aspect of our lives, but that leap of faith is always rewarding when Jesus is the one catching us. There is peace in his arms. Perfect love that casts out all fear. It is impossible to hang on to anxiety when we are resting in peace that doesn’t even make sense or seem possible in the middle of our raging storms. So take a deep breath, cry over chicken strips if it helps, and give it to Him. He never fails.