A Christmas Miracle

It was the week of Christmas – you know, the time when everyone is hustling & bustling, last minute gift shopping & baking… my favorite time of year. But this year was different, instead of enjoying the summer weather on the beach with the sand between my toes with friends and family… I spent time in the tiled 4 walls of the bathroom. As gross as that sounds, it is honestly as gross as it was.

I was man-down. Somehow I had contracted what seemed to be Gastroenteritis (Gastro) and my body literally felt like a balloon that had been pricked – deflating fast. I have never been that sick in my life. Everything hurt and because I couldn’t keep any food in, my body was weak, dehydrated and I had no energy. I will never forget lying on the bathroom floor one night wondering if I was going to die. I remember crawling back into bed and all I could utter was the Name of Jesus.

“Oh Lord my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.”(Psalm 30:2 NKJV)

But I wasn’t getting better – I felt like I was getting worse. After 4 days both my parents & my husband were trying to take me to hospital, and I was resisting with everything. I was believing God for a miracle. (Now do not get me wrong, I am in full support of hospitals – I am personally just terrified of pain and specifically needles – so the idea of getting put on a drip gave me enough energy to resist.) Christmas eve came and as I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom, I knew this wasn’t right. I should be outside with my family, boating, swimming and EATING (hello, we wait all year for the Christmas goodies to come out!)

I went to bed that night, and I asked God for one thing: a Christmas miracle. I asked Him to work a miracle in my body as I slept (sleep…something I hadn’t done for the past week either).

God gave me a miracle.

 As I enjoyed the most restful night of sleep in a while, the Lord worked a miracle in my body. In the above Scripture, “healed” means: to repair, refresh and take care of. And that is what He did – He repaired, He refreshed and He took care of me. I woke up on Christmas morning feeling stronger than I had been in a long while. Now I still wasn’t ready to run a marathon (I am never actually ready to run a marathon ;))

…but I was healed.

I don’t know where in life you are or what you may be suffering with (it doesn’t even have to be a literal sickness, maybe it’s a broken heart?) – what I do know is that God is the Healer. Maybe you say that you have asked God for healing for yourself or maybe a loved one, and you haven’t seen a result. Well, I didn’t see a result immediately either … and some things I don’t understand but the fact remains, He healed me. I pray that your level of faith would utterly destroy any fear that you are facing & that you come to know Jesus Christ as your personal Healer. There is power in the Name of Jesus – not just to save, but also to heal.

Christmas day 2015 will forever be engraved in my heart as the year I didn’t just celebrate the birth of a Savior, but the birth of a Healer.

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Worry about YOU

[You are hearing from my hubby today – yay! One of my favorite things about him is his teachable & humble spirit – so I was really excited when I found this post waiting on my desktop. Plus, he’s a great writer… so ENJOY!]

It’s not me.. it’s her!

Let me know if I am the only one that goes through this, but I have a feeling we may have some common ground. I am freshly married as of December 4^th, 2015. Many of you know when you first are married you find yourself in some funny situations. I’ll share an example to enlighten you to what I am speaking about:

Jade and I are both VERY strong willed people (I’m sure you see where this is going). Today we were in the house we are temporarily staying in, which is right next to Jade’s parent’s house. She had forgotten her contact lenses across the street and asked me to go and get them for her. As the loving, caring, awesome husband I am, I said no problem while I half listened to the instructions on where they were located. When I say half listened.. I actually only heard her say they were in the bathroom and that’s about it.

So, I heroically run to her parent’s house and browse through her bathroom finding 2 packs of contact lenses and grabbed one of them thinking the 2^nd pair were extras. I get back from what I think is a successful trip (hoping that it would get me brownie points for later) to an extremely frustrated wife. She expressed her frustration to me and told me I don’t listen and a few other statements, which really just made me irritated. Now, myself being so “obedient” I walked back to her parent’s house, but I carried something with me while I walked. I was thinking about how rude she was to me and how ungrateful I thought she was in that moment. I started thinking about all of the mistakes she made during our little “episode” and when I returned… I was mad! When I got back to her, she made a comment that was in a joking fashion and I REACTED. I told her exactly what she did wrong and all of those previous thoughts became words, words that hurt.

I went from being innocently mistaken to guilty.

The Bible says in Romans 12:17 “Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.” Not saying that my wife is evil in the least bit (she’s actually the most loving and caring person I’ve met), but often times we have an eye for an eye method! We need to not live our lives comparing ourselves to what others do and say, but we need to focus on ourselves. Jade and I always joke around saying, “hurt people, hurt people!”- it’s an inside joke for us, but it is so true. As a follower of Jesus Christ we need to align ourselves with what Jesus tell us to do. He tells us to love our neighbor and in my case He tells us to love our wives as Christ loves the church. There is certainly a standard set and it is our goal to rise to that standard and live an honorable life.

I will leave you with this. I pray the next time we find ourselves in a situation where we have every reason to respond with evil or bitterness we do not. We will allow the Word of God to renew our mind so we have the character of God. Also, that we will be obedient to the Holy Spirit and respond with the love of Christ. We will be judged on our actions not the other persons…

SO WORRY ABOUT YOU!

[Amen. Well let me just add that he actually tossed my contacts right past me and onto our bed…just saying LOL 😉 ) But I love the man & I love what he is saying. The most important part is that it applies to all relationships we have – from our spouse, to our friends, to even the random person serving us at a counter in the mall. How people treat us is up to them – but how we respond (or quickly react) is up to us. Whether in thought, word or action, we can go from the innocent receiver, to the guilty party. It’s so hard to only worry bout yourself when others have such a great effect on you…but at the end of the day, Jesus is going to be looking at me.]

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Grey-Haired Wisdom

Well, I am officially a married woman! (It’s so strange saying it!) The past 3 weeks have been a whirlwind of family, wedding & honeymoon – and I have loved it! Our wedding was absolutely beautiful, but I am thankful the pressure is over & I can delete my wedding Pinterest board. (Lol ;)) Marriage has been so much fun – it is like having a slumber party with your best friend every night! We are already learning a lot every single day – about God, about each other & about life – and I know it’s just the beginning.

You know, being young and getting married has always been a desire of my heart. I have always wanted to be a young wife and grow, learn & adventure with my husband. But with that desire, came a responsibility – the responsibility of being teachable and willing to learn, the responsibility of lending my ear to the wisdom of older and more mature women in my life.

The Word speaks in Titus 2 of the duties of the older and younger, and specifically teaches us as women that:

“These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.” (Titus 2:4-5 NLT)

This shows us, as young wives, that we need to do ourselves (and those around us) a favor and LISTEN to what the older women are saying! And these are not just any women – but they are older women who live lives honoring God, who do what is good and who have many years of loving their own husbands and children, that they are able to train someone else.

I love to study the Word – and one of my favorite things to do is to look up the scriptures in their original language. So, I went straight to the Greek and here is what I found:

The word TRAIN (found in the above scripture) is the word: sóphronizó which means to “recall one to his senses; admonish.” This word is talking about how to live life with what God defines as “true balance” – it is actually emphasizing older women passing on what the Lord reveals is “true balance”. Now if you’re wondering why we as young women need to learn how to balance – just go ahead and read the list of things Paul is exhorting us to do (and to do well) in the above scripture, ensuring that we do not bring shame on the Word of God. Talk about some pressure!

(I know this is kind of overwhelming, but just stick with me – we are going somewhere…)

The second word LOVE – is the word philandros. This word is speaking of “the special affection of a woman for her life-time mate (husband), embracing him as her “calling” (stewardship) from God.”

WOAH – hang on a second – I am called to be a steward of my marriage to my husband. Maybe you’re sitting there like, “duh!” – but this is quite a revelation to me, because it puts our relationship into perspective. Being a steward of something means that God requires effort & work from me as I will one day stand before Him and give an account of what I did with this treasure. I NEED HELP! (I am young, I have so much to learn, this is a serious thing!!) But of course, God already knew this which is why He through Paul gave a duty for the older women to fulfill – for them to train us, demonstrate how they effectively balance the many tasks in a day and encourage us to love & serve our men.

As young women in todays fast paced generation, I think we are quick to dismiss an older woman’s advice as “annoying” or “old-fashioned” but what we need to realize is that we are actually causing ourselves an injustice.

Last night, I was sitting and chatting with my Nanna. We got onto the topic of Chad & I’s honeymoon, where after discussing a couple of things, my Nanna was able to give me advice and encouragement. Now my Nanna and Grandpa celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary this year – so I am pretty confident she knows what she’s talking about! While I am super (and I mean SUPER) thankful for my younger married friends who can share advice and encouragement, I am even more thankful for the older women who speak into my life. Do you want to know why? Because they have built something – a successful, godly, loving marriage. For me, as someone who has not built anything yet, what they have to say is wisdom and precious gems to be put in the treasure box of my heart.

If you are young and you are reading this, regardless of being married or getting married or still dating – I encourage you to make the effort to lend an ear to older women who you see as godly examples – women of maturity and character. We can learn much from their lives and save ourselves heartaches and frustrations in the future.

If you are older and reading this – I pray that you wouldn’t keep quiet. I pray that you would see your journey as a testimony and a message that can help a younger woman in her journey.

I love God and His Word – I love that He is a God of order which He also requires in the Body of Christ. His desire is for us to live abundant lives…all we have to do is be obedient to His instruction! Don’t ever despise the grey-haired wisdom – it has years of substance behind it. 

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