Ever glance through old pictures and think to yourself, “Woah, did I really live through that?” 

Oh, man.  I happened to run across this one this week –  taken on a hot summer day in 2008 – the day we arrived home from the hospital with the surprise of our lives: a brand new chubby baby girl – an entirely new adventure after we had accepted that God’s good plan for us would be to raise a house full of rowdy boys.  All these years later, I marvel at these sweet faces that God has entrusted to Tyler and I (all six and under here!), and can only laugh at my lack of personal space and sweaty brow.  I’m pretty sure I’ve been sweaty and piled on top of ever since. Ha.

I remember my thoughtful, intentional, prayer-filled road leading up to becoming a mom.  I had my plan for how things would go.  I read a few books and committed to some strategies.  I knew we would be far from the perfect parents and we’d never have even close to a perfect child, but before we idealists are forced to hit the trenches, we hold on with everything we’ve got.

And hit the trenches we did, right out of the gate.  There was colic and exhaustion, which turned into Children’s Hospitals and diagnoses.  And to be honest, those things paled in comparison to the challenges we faced with a very “spirited” little three year old (“spirited”… good one, huh?), who often gave us a run for our money.  I was the mom who had to leave birthday parties early and say no to playdates at the park, because I just couldn’t handle one more scene.  I remember wondering how I could pour so much passion and love and commitment into this thing called motherhood, only to feel so defeated and lonely at the end of the day.

Anyone ever been there?

I’ll never forget the night, after an especially difficult day (of correcting and redirecting and training and correcting again…), when I laid my weary body down on the floor outside of my sleeping toddler’s bedroom, and began to sob as I prayed out loud, begging for God to supernaturally intervene.  Crying out for His wisdom and mercy.  Petitioning Him to grab hold of my boy’s heart, and pleading for Him to comfort mine.  I prayed my way deep into the night; oh, there was much to say as I exposed all of my grief and fears to my Father.  

God, would you remind me that I’m not alone in this battle?

And like a flood, His words of compassion battled their way into the forefront of my mind:

My grace is sufficient… (2 Cor. 12:9)

I am close to the brokenhearted… (Psalm 34:18)

Draw near to me and I will draw near to you… (James 4:8)

I gently lead those that have young… (Isaiah 40:11)

Be strong and courageous, for I am with you… (Joshua 1:9)

I will never leave you nor forsake you… (Hebrews 13:5)

I am mighty to save… (Zephaniah 3:17)

Nothing is too hard for Me… (Jer. 32:17)

I am the One who sustains you… (Psalm 54:4)

The battle is mine… (2 Chronicles 20:15)

Do not fear, for I am with you… (Isaiah 41:10)

My compassions never fail… (Lam 3:22)

You may weep in the night, but joy comes in the morning… (Psalm 30:5)

My daughter, you are not alone in this battle.  What a compassionate, loving Savior!

That night was over eight years ago, and by God’s grace, I’m not the same hopeless momma I once was.  God has poured His compassion over me, and He’s changed me.  His presence and peace have refined me and brought me joy.  His grace has made me alive in Him.  I can tell stories of His goodness and can now even encourage those in the trenches - not because life is always easy or I’ve figured it all out – but because of the hope that He brings beyond what this world can offer.

Have you ever had moments… days… maybe even years… in your life when you could identify with the grieving widow in Luke 7?  Probably not in the literal sense for most of us, but maybe you’ve grieved the death of a dream, or endured a load that seemed much too heavy to bear.  Maybe you’re mourning over dead relationships, or the loss over any hope or security for your future.  Could it be that some of you have just had some really hard days - for whatever reason - and are simply longing to feel alive again?

Oh friend, run to your compassionate Father, who knows what it’s like to suffer great loss, yet rise victorious over death!

He so longs to bring His love and life to your situation today.  And once you’ve experienced His compassion, you won’t be able to keep it to yourself.  Then you’ll be able to say more than you just “lived through it.”

You’ll be able to bear witness to the beauty that came from it, because of Jesus.

“When the Lord saw her, He had COMPASSION

on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”

~ Luke 7:13

At His feet,

In 1660 Thomas Watson wrote an exposition on the Beatitudes. It is so good that I am going to be drawing from it in this post. You can read the whole thing here if you want.

After healing a number of people, Jesus goes up on a mountain and begins to preach his famous “Sermon on the Mount.” He starts with the beatitudes which are a collection of truths for those who want to truly be blessed or “happy”. I want to focus on the very first one because from it spring the rest.

   “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Luke 6:20

What does he mean by “poor?” Is he referring to those who are without material possessions or who have a hard time paying their bills? There certainly is truth in the fact that those who belong to Jesus are the richest in the world, despite any current financial hardships, for they will one day lack for nothing. But the “poor” Jesus addresses here are the “poor in spirit” (Matthew 5). It “signifies those who are brought to the sense of their sins, and seeing no goodness in themselves, despair in themselves and sue wholly to the mercy of God in Christ.” (Thomas Watson) Someone who is poor in spirit has a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). They are humbled by their sin and know that they approach the living God with absolutely nothing to offer but their own filth and unrighteousness.

The reason we must all be “poor in spirit” is because:

1. “Until we are poor in spirit—we are not capable of receiving grace” (Watson)

Someone who is full of himself is not able to be filled with Christ. “God first empties a man of himself, before he pours in the precious wine of his grace.” (Thomas Watson)

2. “Until we are poor in spirit—Christ is never precious” (Watson)

The person who see the dirt that covers him will view the garment of Christ’s righteousness as desirable (Zech. 3:4). But if you think your works are good and beautiful on their own then what Christ offers will seem neither necessary or precious.

3. “Until we are poor in spirit—we cannot go to heaven” (Watson)

The kingdom of God belongs to those who are poor in spirit. The Kingdom is for those who have nothing, know it, and receive what is promised by faith alone.

“Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling”

I don’t know about you, but I have a major problem here. I can never be poor in spirit on my own. I am by nature proud, self reliant, forgetful, stubborn and rebellious. Even as one who has been saved through the death of Christ I easily revert back to my old nasty habits or self righteousness.  But just as my salvation was wholly of God so is everything else pertaining to my spiritual life. Where I fail, Christ succeeds for me. Where I am proud, Christ is humble. And the best part of all is that when I run in the wrong direction Christ pursues me and lovingly brings me back.

As Francis Thompson wrote, Jesus, “The Hound of Heaven” pursues those who are his with an “unhurrying chase, unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, and majestic urgency”.

We must pray that God would make us aware of where we have filled our lives with “self” instead of Christ. We must pray that God would make us poor in Spirit and fill us “with the graces of his Spirit.” He is faithful, he will hear our prayers. He will change our hearts.

Looking To Jesus,

Haters. It’s a slang term for people who dislike you to the point of hate and speak ill about you.

I have them.

I have a massive boatload of haters on-line.

And God is teaching me SO much through them.

Here’s an example of some negative comments I have received on my Women Living Well Youtube Channel:

• I hate you. You need to be slapped, promoting these erroneous morals that destroy progression in our modern world.
  
• Keep this in mind: You make the world a worse place. You are the reason for war. You are the reason for violence. You are the reason for all of the willful ignorance in the world. YOU are the cause of EVERYTHING evil involving gender equality. YOU.
  
• How sad that you treat a book that has been rewritten and proven false to be absolute truth. I feel pity that you will never know real life by throwing it away. Stupid doesn’t begin to cover your retarded beliefs. Here’s hoping you grow a brain and are unable to have children to grow up into this self-destroying dogma.
  
• Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
  
• You are a foolish woman!!!
  
• It’s preposterous to claim you follow God’s word literally. You follow what your warped surroundings have ingrained in your twisted mind
  
• Crazy that my post didn’t make it! Can’t deal with the true contradictions of your flawed bible, you ignorant creature? you’re an idiot bigot.
  
• you want to brain-wash your kids into your silly myth and keep them from the truth

The first time I ever had a “hater” comment on my blog – I was devastated…it was four years ago on a post about my daughter and this woman commented and said ~ “I hope your daughter becomes an atheist and never speaks to you again.”

Total shock! I only had about 50 followers at the time and it came so out of left field that it troubled me for weeks!

But as my blog grew – the volume of haters grew too.

With each new hater comment, I was a little less shocked…then there were these forums that google sent me alerts about. I was being talked about – so I peaked to see what women were saying. Oh my, it was mean. These women not only hated the gospel but they hated my blond hair, my horse teeth, the sound of my voice and on and on it went. OUCH!

Then there were mommy bloggers who wrote really mean things about me - oh my!!! Where does it end? Facebook, Twitter, blog posts, youtube, and emails – everywhere I turn = HATERS!!!

And I cried out to God – how in the world do I respond to these people? Today’s reading has the answer:

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Mercy.

I remember the first time I felt a tinge of compassion for my haters. I thought – this is not natural – I should be angry and crying…but instead I felt sorry for them. Goodness, these angry people must have had someone treat them really horrible in their childhood…that they would grow up and be so mean to others. I bet somone close to them had hurt them deeply with sharp words that cut like a knife…

…they need Jesus!  It was a reality check.

We follow a crucified man…the crowds hated Jesus to the point of death –of course we’re going to have haters!

And while I continued to delete most hater comments, I began attempting to respond from time to time to some of them with mercy, grace and love.

This is NO glory to me but just a testimony of the power of God’s mercy…some of my haters started apologizing and even complementing me!  There was this group of wicca witches who wrote harsh blog posts about me and some of my blogger friends who later came to my blog and left surprisingly kind comments. There was the Christian blogger who has very different doctrinal views who wrote a post attacking me, who later apologized to my face at a conference just this past October.

There was one situation where a non-Christian mega mommy blogger who has over 280,000 twitter followers wrote a blog post and mocked me something terrible! Then over 400 of her commenters said how I made them want to throw up, gag or want to slap me. One even said they voted to kill me. Though I got a boat load of negative traffic during this time, I did not respond. Actually, I started leaving kind comments on her blog. And eventually we were private emailing each other in a friendly manner!

That’s God! That’s the power of his mercy!

***Pause for a moment…is there a person that God is bringing to mind that you need to love.

Be kinder than you feel.

Give mercy.

Luke 6:35 says – “your reward will be great” if you extend mercy.

I have a feeling the Holy Spirit is bringing someone to mind for all of us. Do you feel that nudge?  Don’t ignore it!

We have a direct command from Jesus –”Pray for those who mistreat you.”

Go heap kindness on your enemy! You will be blessed!

Walk with the King,

,WomenLivingWell.org

 ***Special note to those who responded to the Mentoring Option.  Please check your junk or bulk mail folders for Amanda’s response.  Thank you!