In His Image

The following poem is one I wrote for my daughter a few years ago, when she was in the midst of one of the darkest periods of her life. I knew that the anger, rebellion, and downright self-centeredness she seemed to become at that time, were perfectly understandable by-products of the evils that had been perpetrated against her. That knowledge however, didn’t make the fallout of her various tirades any easier to bear, or her determined and deliberate acts of self-destruction less heartbreaking. My family didn’t just walk on egg shells, we maneuvered our days through mine-ladden fields. We watched as our younger children struggled to understand the battlefield our home had become, all the while carefully, wearily walking the tightrope of steadfastly holding on to our hurting child.

We were not willing to lose our child to her pain, to let her give up on herself by drowning her sorrows in any momentary, numbing distraction that came along. Yet we were so ill equipped to help her. We tried everything we could to heal her; iron fist, velvet gloves, love without consequences, tough love, counsellors, pastors, shrinks, medication, and facilities. Some made no difference. Some made a little difference for a little while. Most failed miserably. It was like fixing a broken bone with a bandaid. It wasn’t until, having tried and failed at all we could do, when we threw our hands up in the air and surrendered our girl to the only One who could help her, that we finally saw lasting results.  The God of the Universe, He who holds the world in His hands, was then free to step in, take the reigns, and take HIS child in His arms. The Peace came first (complete surrender will do that). Then it happened. Through prayer and worship, God took us and her to that place – where the Word becomes reality. That place where the Truth of who Our Father is and the promises of His love, becomes true to us.

God showed us that He absolutley can and will, make all this work for good for us, as long as we give it all to Him. He confirmed to us that He most certainly does have plans for a hope and a future for our girl, and He will prosper her life. By not holding back from God what He had only stewarded to us in the first place, we allowed the healing to begin. She began to look at herself through the mirror of God’s eyes and to see herself as God sees her.

Today, I’m thankful to say, my daughter has defied the “experts”. She is not a menace to society and herself, as many predicted, but instead is a loving, witty, determined young adult and a wonderful mother to a most precious little boy. Now, I don’t claim she is perfect (I know of only one person who could ever have claimed to be), but Glory be to God, I do claim her recovery. I claim she is a work in progress, as we all should be, and most importantly, I proclaim that she is an overcomer by the Blood, and by the Word of her testimony.  

In His Mirror  (July 27, 2004)

She looks in the mirror

But what does she see? 

The angelic face?

Bright eyes, big and wondrous

Brimming with with hope, fancy free?

Or are they just orbs,

Jaded by lies, burning with pain,

All clouded by anger and shrouded in shame?

 

She listens to her heart

But what does she hear?

The laughter of promise,

Life unburdened and boundless,

uplifted by dreams old and dear?

Or does her anguished screams

Burst forth like the thunder,

Fears too defeating,

Disgrace gone a plunder?

 

Her cup runneth over

But is it with wine?

Or the bitterest fruit, of the sourest vine?

Her vision compels her

But what is her view?

Blinded by darkness, perception askew?

 

Make haste then, dear daughter,

All parched and so strifed.

Drink from His spring and taste of His life.

Love everlasting and mercy unending,

He dries every tear, washes every blemish,

And bears all your burdens with the gentlest care.

 

Speak then, sweet sister,

Be not deterred,

To that false mirror, shout out His Word.

Fearfully, wonderfully He made you to be.

Fashioned in greatness, His love as your witness,

Victory, destiny, your fate is in He.

Re-covered by the Blood

Who comforts the woman – when in the flash of angry words and rising tempers, her fairytale life turns into a nightmare? And she realizes that instead of riding into the sunset with her knight in shining armor, she’s trapped in the isolated tower of her life, with the wicked villain?

Who comforts the child – whose innocence is forever shattered, when the very person most charged with protecting her (or him), the last person she (Or he) would suspect, becomes the monster that goes bump in the night?

Who comforts the mother – who holds the bruised and battered body of her child in her arms, as she grieves for the life this child would never have?

Who comforts the father – who struggles to cope (anyway he can) with his feelings of inadequacy, each time he looks into the anguished eyes of his hungry child?

I’ve known people like this…. I’ve been people like this!!! Probably some of you have, as well.

Sadly, statistics show  – the world is made up of hurting people. The church is filled with what I call, “the walking wounded”

People  – who by the definition of the world, and even the church  – are “survivors”.

By our faith we are charged to believe that when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior – we believe He died for our sins. We are new creations in Christ and old things – our old selves – have past away.

And this is true, so very true. THANK GOD!!!

But while we surrender our sins at the foot of the cross. We very often remain burdened with the wages of sin – the by product of sin – the price we pay as a result of our sin, or the sins that have been committed against us.

We don’t surrender those to Him, but the Word says He paid our wages – the ransom.

Yet we remain crippled by our guilt, our shame, our sorrow or our grief.

We hold fast to the Scripture…..

“…He was wounded for our transgressions….”

That’s right, you can say it with me, Isaiah chapter 53 starting at verse 5 – the King James Version.

“ But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.”

What a powerful affirmation of our salvation!!

What a hope when we are ill or wounded!!!!

But our God never does things in half measures. He considers the whole, even if we only chose to concentrate on just a portion of His Mighty Work of Salvation.

He created us body, spirit and soul. His salvation is for us  – body, spirit, and soul.

If we look at this chapter of Isaiah again, from just a few verses earlier, at verse 3, it says, (This time I’m reading from the New Living Translation)

He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!

At the cross, Our Lord, Our King, Our Savior – not only bore our sins, He bore our sorrows and our grief!!!!

WOW!! Where did we ever get the notion that we were meant to be survivors?!!??

Survivors move past their pain, grief or sorrow. They sidestep their past hurts, careful not to ever address them, but go through life dragging those things around after them.

We are called to be more than a conqueror. What do conquerors do? They face their problems (their enemies) and overcome them. We are called to be OVERCOMERS. More than overcomers.

It dawned on me recently, that you can’t have the word overcomer, without the word recover.

That in order to overcome – to be victorious over our grief or sorrow – we have to allow HIM to cover us.

You see, when we are wounded, whether by our own sins or as a result of the sins of others – we are left exposed at that point of hurt.

For healing to occur – that exposed area has to be covered – re covered.

We are covered – by the blood of Jesus.

I saw a special on Discovery Channel  a few years ago, on the various martial arts.

Now they spoke with various masters of the art of  “brick breaking” – I don’t know or remember if there was a proper technical name for it – but anyway these masters explained that when most students of this art started out they actually broke various bones in their hands.

But instead of that deterring them – they actually welcomed it. You see, it seems that when a bone is broken, the cells to that area and certain chemicals actually combine in that wounded area and fuse together. In that area, as the bone heals it actually calcifies – petrifies – like the petrified forest. It hardens  at that point of the bone to be harder and stronger than it was before.

Well that’s the way the blood of Jesus Christ re-covers us at the point of our wounds. We are made stronger in His covering – His comfort.

We realize that the God of all creation, Jehovah El Shaddai- the most High God – is in Control. He is not only the Alpha and the Omega. He is our Alpha and Omega. Our Beginning and Our End. From before the world was even begun, our life was completed in Him. Before the world was even begun, His work on the cross for ME for YOU, was provided for.

Our hurts, our pains were not a result of God’s turning His back on us, rejecting us, or not caring. Our guilt, our shame does not make His plans for us void, or negate His purpose for us. He is in control.

Romans chapter 8 and verse 28 says:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

IN ALL things He is working good. Not in spite of all things. Like Joseph, we can be assured that what the enemy meant for bad, God means for good. He means to prosper us and not to harm us.

We are not called to understand the Mind of God. Why He works things the way He does or what He means to accomplish. We just know that HIS PURPOSE WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED.

I Thank God for everything I’ve been through, for all I’ve overcome. Because they have all lead me to this place. This place of Salvation. An eternity with my Father, whose love for me knows no bounds.

I don’t know what His future for me holds – whether I’ll be successful in ministry, or rich or live in a mansion or in a village in Africa. But I do know – that I could never be more successful than I am now, or richer, or happier than at this moment, when I know who My Father is and whose child I am, and where I’ll spend my forever more.

Who Comforts the wounded?

2 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3& 4 tells us. (Reading from the NIV)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God