Freedom and Gratitude

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain.” – Henry Ford

Sitting outside a local Starbucks typing since for the second time within the last 3 days we are once again without power and Internet service.  Complaining comes easy.  Action takes effort.  If you allow it, the circumstances of life will hinder you from accomplishing anything.  There is always an excuse or a reason why we can’t get something done.  Whether it is the storm that is raging outside, the lack of power, our busy schedule, there is always a reason that our plans can be thwarted or hindered.

I think about those who have been devastated by severe storms around the world and realize that a power-outage that can be fixed within 24-48 hours is nothing more than an inconvenience.  Our home is still standing, we drove down the street to get power, and I can even cook our dinner on the grill if necessary or grab a burger from the local fast food restaurant.  I really have no reason for complaints and with a little planning I can still accomplish what I set out to do today.

When I think about taking control of life’s circumstances when it isn’t convenient or easy, my husband always comes to mind.  He didn’t let sickness stop him and kept pressing on.  You can read more about his incredible journey and victory over diabetes and kidney failure at natefreemanstillstanding.blogspot.com. 

Yes, I truly have so much to be thankful for and in a few days we will be celebrating our country’s independence.  Freedom doesn’t come cheap!  The things we so often take for granted were bought with a costly price.  Jesus said that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for your friends.  As we enjoy the festivities these next few days, I am so grateful for those who laid their lives down for us to enjoy our freedom.  I am most grateful that Jesus laid down his life to give us true freedom over sin, sickness, death, hell, and the grave.

May we enjoy this time with our family and friends, remembering how precious our freedom is.  

Learning to Love

God has taught me a lot about love through my stepchildren.  I have heard many people say that they have learned to love through their biological children.  Do I believe that God places His innate love in the hearts of parents?  Yes, we see a glimpse of God’s love in a parent’s ability to love unselfishly.  However, how many times have we seen the headlines that report parent’s doing the most awful things to their own biological children?  The Bible tells us that God is love and that we are able to love because He first loved us.  People who don’t know God can’t love like God loves.  The Bible also teaches us that love for our children are to be taught from one generation to the next.

 

God has adopted us into His family. This type of adoption was a permanent commitment on behalf of the parent, however, the child could decide at any time to leave the relationship.  What a picture this is of the love of God!  He gives us the choice to opt out of the family but He will never abandon us.  What a contrast from our society’s adoption system that says if the kid turns out to be too difficult, return them to the state.  Or if your kids give you too many problems go ahead and send them across the country to their other parent.

So back to my step-kids, my heart broke for their time, their affection, their skinned knees, and the tears streaming down their eyes.  I rejoiced at their successes and cried at their failures. They came into my life as teenagers and through their lives I was able to see how much God rejoices over our successes and cries at our mistakes.  How He loves us even when we don’t love Him back.   

Has it always been perfect?  Of course not!  Were their times that I wanted to throw up my hands in frustration?  Sure.  It is important to remember that love never fails.  When you chose to love it might be hard at times, but it is always worth it!

Faith like a Recipe

I was contemplating adding a recipe for my newest homemade cooking endeavor when it hit me that our faith is like a recipe.  I remember asking my mom for her chili recipe and she told me all the ingredients but no proportions.  I asked her for some exact measurements and she said that you just put it in till it looks and tastes right.  I remember always wanting an exact recipe as I started out cooking and now I tend to throw different ingredients together until it tastes just right. 

When people ask what my secret ingredient is for a recipe, I like to joke that it is love.  Think of it this way:  love is to faith as warm water is to yeast.  Just as yeast can sit dormant for months and then become activated upon hitting warm water, so our faith can lie dormant until it is added to love.  The Bible tells us that our faith is activated through love.  We can have all the right ingredients. For example, we can know what the Bible says and we can say all the right “Christian” cliché sayings. However, our faith will not activate if we are not loving God and loving others.

When I think about faith, I find often we are looking for an exact recipe for a miracle.  The thing that I have found when talking to people who have a deep walk with the Lord and have experienced His hand move mightily on their behalf, they can give me the ingredients for faith but not the proportions.  Faith isn’t about how many hours a day you read your Bible or how long you pray or how many days you fast.  Faith is learning to trust in a loving God by knowing who He is and His character.  Of course, we cannot really know someone unless we have spent time with him or her.

One evening around midnight I was ready to fall into bed exhausted and Brittany told me, “I just remembered I have to bring brownies to school tomorrow.”  Off to the store we went for the necessary ingredients and as I began to make the brownies my eyelids grew very heavy.  As soon as I heard the timer go off, I pulled the pan out of the oven and went straight to bed.  I woke a few hours later to realize that the brownies were a gooey mess.  In my haste to get to bed, I forgot to check to see if they were really done.  I had all the right ingredients but I tried to rush the baking process.  If only I had left the brownies in the oven for 5 more minutes, the results would have been so different.  How often does that happen in our lives where we are tired and want to rush the faith process?  The result: our lives become a gooey mess!  Just because someone else received his or her miracle instantly doesn’t mean that you will receive yours in the same timing.  My husband received a miracle this past year that was 38 years in the making!  I want to encourage you today to not give up! 

As we go about our busy days, preparing our meals, may we have faith like a recipe!  Faith that tastes just right activated by love and not a gooey mess.

Family

I don’t have what some would refer to as the traditional family.  I live with my loving husband Nate and my wonderful stepson Trey.  My stepson Myles, stepdaughter Brittany and son-in-law Brandon live miles away.  We are not the dad and mom, with 2.5 kids.  We don’t have a white picket fence around our yard but we have two dogs that do their best to terrorize the neighbors!  Although not traditional, I would not trade my family for anything!

While making dinner tonight, Trey told me that homemade is “the imperfect perfection”.  It doesn’t always look like what you would find in a high quality restaurant but it sure tastes like something that you can’t get anywhere else.

People look for family in all different places and once again I go back to that thought about homemade.  Yes, family is that imperfect perfection.  Would we choose all the members of our own families?  I would guess that most would answer that question as no.  However, as imperfect as each member might be (including ourselves) there is something so comforting about being surrounded by those you love.  Our families share our greatest joys and our deepest sadness.  They know our greatest triumphs and our most devastating failures.  Yet somehow love us through it all. 

So where did the idea of family come from?  I believe that it formed in the heart of God, our loving Father.  God who loved us enough to know that we would mess it up and yet still wanted us to experience the joy that comes from having children.  God who knew that it was not good for man to be alone and He wanted man to have the companionship of a woman made just for him.