Every hour of every day

Have you ever been hurt?  Really, truly, deeply hurt?  Maybe you’ve been hurt or betrayed by someone you love. Maybe you’ve been hurt because of a certain situation in your life.  Maybe you’ve been hurt because of sin.  I’ve been hurt in all of those ways in my own life.  And my guess is that you probably have been too.   

I’ve been thinking about pain a lot the past couple of weeks - probably because I’ve been experiencing it.  I’m not talking about physical pain.  I’m talking about emotional pain - the kind of pain that hurts so much worse than physical pain.  I’m talking about heart pain. 

I’m not at liberty to go into any personal details at this time, but there is a situation in my life that has caused me a lot of pain over the past several years.  There have been many times when I thought the pain was gone – many times when I hoped and believed that I wouldn’t be hurt in the same way again.  But unfortunately that pain and hurt keeps creeping it’s way back into my life.  I say “unfortunately” because I don’t like it.  I don’t like being hurt.  I can’t imagine that anyone likes being hurt.  But as I’ve been thinking about pain the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to look at it differently.  Trying to realize that in some ways, it’s not ALL unfortunate. 

Now please don’t misunderstand me.  I am not trying to belittle anyone’s pain.  I am not saying that pain is something that we should all just say, “Thank you, God for this pain in my life!” and then smile and move on.  I know it’s not that easy.  Believe me, I know.  But as I’ve been pondering pain lately, God has been trying to give me new insight.

This hurt and personal pain I have been referring to, came back up a couple of weeks ago for me.  I sat at home alone, both in physical and emotional pain.  I was fighting an ear infection and sinus infection and I was miserable.  And then came the emotional pain.  I was crushed when it happened upon me again.  My heart was pounding and tears were streaming down my face.  Not only was I hurt, I was angry.  Really angry.  I found myself questioning God and wondering why he let this happen again. Things had been going so great and then, “bam!” I was at the lowest of lows.  As I sat there blowing my nose and wiping away my tears, I could feel the anger just welling up inside me.  At that moment, I knew I needed prayer.   So I sent a text to my dad and a close friend and asked them to pray for me right then.

Within minutes I could feel myself calming down and feeling less angry.  A peaceful feeling that can only come from God, washed over me.  I was still hurting, but I wasn’t angry anymore.  The chorus to one of my favorite worship songs, “Lord, I Need You” kept going through my head over and over again…

”Lord, I need You, oh I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You”

In that moment as I was crying out to God, I was reminded of just how much I need Him - every hour of every day.  I was reminded that He is always there, that he knows and understands my pain, and that He will never leave me.

As I continued to think about pain throughout that week, I couldn’t help but think that without this hurt and pain in my life, I would not feel the need for my Savior as much as I do now.  If my life was pain free, I would not be able to understand and appreciate God in the way that I do.  I would not know the peace that He can bring in the midst of pain.  I would not know the feeling of comfort I experience from knowing Him on such a personal level.  My God, my Lord, my Savior, my Defense, my Redeemer, my Friend.  I know that God doesn’t want us to be in pain.  He doesn’t want that for any of us.  But I do know that He wants us to need Him.  He wants us to cry out to Him.  He simply WANTS us.  For some of us (like myself) pain is something we must go through to realize just how much we do need Him - every hour of every day.

Years ago, when I was dealing with this exact same pain in my life, I had grabbed my Bible, left my house and went for a drive.  It was raining and after I drove for a while I ended up in the Kroger parking lot.  I just sat there crying, praying and reading my Bible.  Before I drove home, I decided to call my dad who was thousands of miles away in Bangkok, Thailand.   He answered the phone and I just started bawling.  I finally got myself under control so that I could tell him what was going on.  We talked for several minutes and he prayed with me.  I remember asking him a lot of "why" questions.  Why is God letting this happen?  Why me?  And he said something that has always stuck with me - "Nat.  If it wasn't this, it would be something else.  We all deal with different kinds of pain and we all wish it was something else.  Anything else.  Even though we can't always understand why, everything happens for a reason."  

During these past couple of weeks, I have also been reminded of just how perfect God’s timing is.  The Sunday after I had this emotional, painful week, my pastor started a new series of messages called “From Pain to Peace.”  God knew exactly what was going to happen in my life the week leading up to that Sunday.  He knew that I was going to need to hear that message and it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear.  My pastor ended the message by saying, “God never promised that our lives would be free from pain. He promised that in our pain He would be present and that in our pain there would be purpose.”  I know that my pain is not for nothing.  I know that God is going to use it some day in a mighty way.  Knowing that doesn’t make the pain go away, but it does make it more bearable.  And I can be OK with that - because I know that He will be with me – every hour of every day.

If you would like to watch/listen to the first message in the series “From Pain to Peace”, you can follow this link:

http://vimeo.com/51472338 

My husband wrote an amazing devotional for our church that goes along with the “From Pain to Peace” series that you can read here:

http://yourlcc.org/2012/10/daily-devotional-99/

I'm a rebel

I'm a rebel.  I always have been and probably always will be.

I grew up in a Christian home with three older siblings.   I have two brothers and one sister.  My brave mom homeschooled all 4 of us and to this day, I still don't know how she did it.  By the time it came for her to start teaching me, I'm surprised she didn't just throw her hands up in the air and say, "I give up, God!  I'm done!"...and then proceed to throw me out the window.  But she didn't.  She's an amazingly strong and patient woman and one of my best friends. 

My dad is a pastor and he is the most godly and humble man I know.  He has always been a very involved kind of dad.  He is very loving and patient and the kind of dad that you feel comfortable talking to about anything.  He is also one of my best friends.  

That's right, folks.  I'm a pastor's kid.  A big "PK".  I don't typically like to tell people that because a lot of people seem to have these preconceived ideas of how pastor's kids are and that so many of them are rebellious.  And maybe that is the case a lot of times, but I just don't like being stereotyped.  Now don't get me wrong - I was a little rebellious growing up.  I still am, actually.  And by rebellious, I don't mean I was sneaking out of the house, drinking and doing drugs and things of that nature.  By rebellious, I mean, I wore jeans and I had a bad attitude.  Go ahead and laugh.   My parents were always very conservative, and growing up, my mom made me wear jean skirts, jean jumpers, homemade plaid jumpers and homemade flowery dresses with big white collars...ugh.  Yes, we were one of THOSE families.  I had long, straight, scraggly-looking hair and wore these big ugly hair bows.  When I look back at pictures of myself, all I can think is, "Why me, God?!  Why didn't someone HELP me??"  Anyway, that's besides the point.

When I was 6 years old, I prayed with my dad in my bedroom one night and asked Jesus to save me and to forgive me of my sins.  I was baptized on a Sunday morning shortly after that.  I fully understood what I was doing and I know that I was genuinely saved at that point in my life and I have never doubted my salvation.  I do remember rededicating my life to God when I was 13 during revival services at our church one spring.  I went through different phases during my teen years of feeling close to God and really desiring Him and other phases when I didn't feel so close to Him.  During some of those years, I kept a prayer journal.  I recently found one of those prayer journals and after reading some of the entries, I thought that I seemed more spiritually mature then than I do now.

Like I mentioned earlier, my parents made me wear skirts and dresses a lot.  We ALWAYS wore them to church and most times when we went to any events, family get-togethers, or whenever we went to someone's house to visit.  I HATED it.  I always felt SO out of place with my friends and I just wanted so badly to be "cool" like them and wear "cool" clothes.  My best friend went to public school, played sports and got to wear pants to church.  I envied her.  Boy, did I envy her!  I was always the more athletic, tomboyish type (don't get me wrong, I still played dress up and played with Barbie's and such),   so needless to say, I wore jeans or pants whenever I got the chance.  You could usually find me climbing a tree, or playing in the woods with my neighbors, sliding down hills into the creek and coming home covered in mud. 

I was raised to be a homemaker.  I was taught to cook and clean so I could be a wife and stay at home mom some day.  College was never encouraged at my house and honestly, it was something I never even considered.  But I figured out when I was a teenager that being a stay at home mom was not what I wanted to do with my life.  So I got a job.  

I was engaged to my husband, Phil at 18 and married when I was 20.  I'll talk more about that in another post some day.  After being married for a couple of years we decided we wanted to start a family.  We now have two boys, ages 4 and 6.  Phil and I both knew from the beginning that we didn't want to homeschool our kids.  We didn't feel like the Lord was leading us to, so our boys now attend a private Christian school, which we LOVE.  

Phil and I grew up going to the same church (obviously the one that my dad pastored).  We attended there faithfully until a little over 3 years ago.  My dad had resigned from the church the year after Phil and I got married, because he and my mom felt called to missions and they moved to Bangkok, Thailand.  It was really tough attending our home church after my parents had left - a lot of things changed and it was a huge adjustment.  But we continued to attend for a few years even after they had left.  Phil and I both felt like we needed a change and we had been talking about it and praying about it for quite some time before we decided to leave.  Honestly, I had reached a point where I felt spiritually dead.  I hadn't felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life in a long time.  It was definitely time for a change for our little family.  

We decided to visit Lancaster Community Church because a friend of ours had invited us.  We knew after the first time we went that it was going to be a good fit for us.  We LOVED it and we still do.  Phil is actually on staff at LCC now and it is truly where we belong.  I could write a whole separate post on how LCC has changed my life personally (and maybe I will), and I cannot begin to thank God enough for leading us there.  I feel more spiritually alive than I ever have. 

So...I'm a rebel.  I wear jeans.  I have short hair.  I'm a Mom that works outside of the home.  I don't homeschool my kids.  I left the church I grew up in (which my dad is now pastor of again after moving back from Thailand).  I'm a rebel.  And I kind of like it that way.

I just want to add that I don't believe there is anything wrong with being a stay at home Mom, nor do I believe that there is anything wrong with homeschooling.  To those of you that are stay at home Mom's or do homeschool- I think you are amazing and you are stronger than you know.     

Me start a blog, God? Why??

For some reason that I can't figure out God has been laying on my heart that he wants me to start a blog.  It has been in the back of my mind for months and God just keeps pushing it forward.  I keep asking Him why and this is what my conversations with Him have been going like:   

Me:  Why God?  I don't get it.  What would I write about?  People don't want to read about my boring life or my thoughts and opinions. Trust me.  God:  I want you to write about yourself, your struggles, your passions, your LIFE and I want you to be REAL.  I want to use you.  Trust me.  Me:  Wow.  Geez.  OK, God.  I still don't get it, but OK.

So here I am.  Writing my first blog post about...nothing...yet.  

So now what?  I wait.  And listen.  Wait and listen for what He wants me to write about.  

Stay posted. ;)