Feel like you are being chastised?

Esperanza: Hope

Today, I was enormously blessed by a woman who told me how much an article I had written for a Christian magazine had helped her.  At the same time, I was brought up short in the knowledge I have not written for most of the year.

This has been a stressful year for me.  God has been stirring the depths of my soul to refine me.  I hate it. But I love Him for it.  His word says He chastises them whom He loves. (Hebrews 12:6)

Punishment is not pleasant while it is happening, but it produces good fruit, much like pruning a rose bush produces more blossoms. 

Those things (even relationships) we find ourselves putting before Him, are stumbling blocks in our walk.  Many years ago, the Lord showed me that those things, or people that had power over my emotions, other than Him, were idols.

I was brought up short, because I had put my husband in a place in my life that was more important than my relationship with God.  I worried constantly about my man.  If he was late coming home, I had him dead in a car wreck.  If he was sick, I wondered if he would recover.  I was a mess.

I still remember the day the Lord spoke to my heart and revealed to me I had made Jack an idol.  We were in a prayer session in our healing center in Georgia.  I do not remember who we were praying with, or anything else about the moment. But I remember Jack telling this person about idols.  I felt as if I had been slapped.

It was a most healing moment.  I repented, and gave him over to God and determined to trust the Lord for his life.

I walked in that freedom for years.

Recently, the Lord has shown me another idol in my life.  It has been a painful revelation, but one for which I most grateful to be shown.  I never want anything to come between me and my precious Lord Jesus.

As I have labored to give it over to Him, He has revealed depths of glory I would never have known any other way.  His love and life is so eternal.  I am living in the right now eternal life of God!

So, I am slowly making my way back to the written word.  There is a freedom that comes from sharing one's journey of suffering with others.  I pray that you will be encouraged by these words.  There is nothing we can go through that is not common to man. (1 Cor 10:13)

to be continued.....blessings, Anna Marie