Seek to Live in God's Love

I Peter 4:8 - Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sons. 

I John 4:18 - There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 

Revelation 2:4 - "But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first."

Dear God, perfect love casts out fear. Love covers a multitude of sins. Today, God, I really need Your love surrounding me and my family. We knew that grandmother would not have much time left. She was discovered to have her stomach in her esophagus due to a really weak hernia that allowed it to move. Mom said she had lost a lot of weight as it was and she was not exactly that big to start with. The phone call yesterday from her sister was earth shattering though. She told my mom that she needed to go down and say good-bye and that my uncle was flying in as well. The doctors are apparently advising not to force her to eat or to give or any of her regular medicines and have her some morphine for pain. God, this raises a couple of issues for me personally. The pain and suffering that comes with the end of life stages at times is unbearable. Out of compassion, we allow our pets to be out to sleep. Why can we not allow our loved ones the same dignity other than some stupid laws that say it is wrong? What seems wrong to me is that we allow people to suffer so much? The second thing it brings up for me is that I don't know what to do or what to say to help my mom through this. The pain is so unbearable. I was never that close to grandmother but it hurts that she is going to leave this earth as well. And there are a lot of uncertainties now. A lot of loose ends that will have to be dealt with in the coming weeks after. God, mom feels betrayed right now. She just had the most awful woman basically abuse her and treat her like a maid when what she was hired to do was something else entirely different than what she got stuck doing in the end. And that lady is rude and old. And she feels You picked the wrong person to take away. And God, I don't know where grandmother stands with You. In her last years, I have not heard her talk much about You at all. She spent a lot of time by herself during the days. And she and I have never really had common ground. She was so quiet and withdrawn. I hate that the family will be reuniting under these circumstances. I really do. Today, God, not only do I need Your love to envelop all of us in my family, but I also need clarity. In these next couple of days, I will largely be responsible for myself and the animals. This is the main reason why I cannot go down yet. That and I cannot handle the emotional good-byes like that. I'm already so horribly confused by the emotions of this situation. I have to somehow be strong right now and I cannot do that if I am confused. Oh, God, perfect love casts out fear. Please help me! Thank You so much for love inexpressible. In Jesus' Name, Amen!

Crying Out to God

In the modern world, I'm sorry to see You excluded from church Jesus. Maybe churches have forgotten about the least of these as they continue to reinvent discrimination. I hardly ever see mixed race churches. Most of the churches I see are rich and white. I haven't exactly seen a church with a poor congregation. I hardly see a church with special needs people. Maybe one or two in wheelchairs, but hardly any other. Apparently hand flapping and squawking is too much for them even though You God accept them and gifted them just as much as You did anyone else. I hardly ever see a church with women who came from abusive families. I hardly ever see churches open their doors anymore to the person who needs food or shelter or even a friend and a kind hearted person willing to listen. Whatever happened to real ministry here at home? You know my family is facing financial upheaval and in the meantime, I need new eyeglasses, 12 dental procedures, our garage door is broken, our mailbox post and mailbox need replacing, our dog needs a doghouse that won't have the roof fly off in the wind, I need infusions as soon as the doctor agrees to them, I need an iPad before getting a job but need a job to afford the iPad, and we need food. My mom needs a new job. Without it, I can't go to the doctors for treatment anymore and I will die. But no one is checking to see if we are okay. Not one person. No one is checking to see if we need anything. No one is doing ministry to me or to my family. No church wants me. Why? Because as soon as they found out I had autism last year at my old one, they immediately grasped every negative and untrue thing about autism and pushed me away from You. And because I got vocal, the new one has pushed me away too. I have found NO SAFE CHURCH yet. No loving church yet. No church that knows how to include You. It makes me sad. And I have tried. I have tried so hard to be a person who can be respected and belong. I have tried to be a friend to others. But no matter how hard I try, no one seems to want me. Not the way You created me. They want me to be something or someone I cannot be. The only person I have had even bother to be a REAL friend to me-Tom-I don't even know anymore if it's a friendship because he still treats me as though he were still my pastor and not entirely as a friend. After almost five months, I still don't know him as a friend. And I'm really wrestling with that. After five months, I still see no sign of being moved toward church membership. And I'm ready to just give up. It hurts God to see and to experience this. And whoever sees this may end up judging me for it, but You know what? I don't care anymore because there may be one person out there who reads this who may be able to relate to what I'm going through right now and realize that they are not alone. I feel alone. I feel hurt. I feel rejected. I feel sad. I feel frustrated. I feel confused. I feel unwanted. I feel isolated. I feel like no one cares. I feel like You don't care. I asked You to help with the friendship with Tom and I feel like it's unraveling and not because I didn't try. I did. But even if it wasn't his intention, I still feel neglected and unwanted by him. I asked You to help my family be provided for, and now we're about to unravel. What did I do to deserve all the bad stuff? Why have You abandoned me? Why God? Why?

Second Month Days 5 Through 8

There will always be something that you will worry about: a big test, a new job, a big move, friends, family, health, money, weather, etc. But worrying can make you even more afraid and anxious. You can choose to worry or choose to trust God. In exchange for your worry, God will give you peace. So what are you worried about today?

Are you tired and weary? Go to Jesus. He will give you rest. Lift your hands in prayer to God and rest in His presence and His peace.

Pay attention to God and His direction for you. It won't be easy because there will be distractions: kids, pets, television, friends, telephone, Internet, etc. The devil will work to distract you from your focus on God. Does it seem like nothing is going right for you? God will use it for good. God is in control.

Are you in the middle of a storm in your life? Refocus. Look beyond the storm. Look to Jesus. And reach out in trust as you say, "Help me, Jesus!" Let Him pull you through the storm.

Dear God, help me! Help me feel Your calm peace. Even now as I have so many worries: doctors, finances, Tom, other friends, church-help me Jesus. I don't know all You have planned for me right now. Help me to feel rest and peace as I trust You more and more each day to work everything for my good. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

What Happens When Your Expectations Are Already Low?

Last week, I wrote about dealing with disappointment. And I did end up lowering expectations based on a pattern. But I'm at a point now where I lower the expectations anymore, there won't be any friendship with this person.

We both have repeatedly messed up, but consistently, I am left feeling neglected by this person.

First, I am going to speak in his defense based on repeated conversations. Yes, he is married and although I would not technically call his wife a friend right now, I can relate to her and if she chose to be a friend with me, I am definitely all for that. But because of technicalities that existed before, this was something that would have been a guarded area. So I honestly don't know how to define her right now.

As to friendship with him, based on countless conversations, neither of us are worried about anything inappropriate coming up. Matter of fact, I think that may be the advantage of autism.

But to some people, they think he is in the wrong. Because of the autism.

I am actually defending him right now. Nothing has happened not will anything happen. I trust him better than I would trust my biological father. So by comparison on that fact alone, I know I don't need to worry about him.

However, as to the friendship, I have felt neglected. He does always SEEM to be distracted when he talks with me on the phone or I feel like I'm just an afterthought. Maybe he doesn't mean to do this, but I just don't know anymore.

His "every other day" boundary is simply not working very well at all. There are days that are supposed to be my days on which he is apparently TOO busy to even bother to take two minutes to talk.

The other day, he commented how it seems I never feel like we're done talking and therefore cannot seem to end the conversation without feeling like I have something else to say. But wouldn't you if every time you talked with someone, you never really got to actually finish a conversation because the other person was so distracted?

He's about to be gone for a week. I want to respect and honor him during that time, but if I already feel neglected because yet again on one of MY days, he's TOO busy for me, how can I trust that anything can be settled before he leaves? I had something I needed to give him before he leaves and it appears as if that will definitely not happen.

I have tried repeatedly to tell him that I would rather talk a few minutes by phone every day than to have any text messages. I have tried to tell him repeatedly that I am scared of losing him as a friend because I mess up. I have tried to tell him repeatedly that I just need reassurance. But it seems everything has fallen on deaf ears with him.

However, I know he can "hear" me better when I communicate in the way I communicate best: my writing. So that's why I am writing this.

And let me just say that where things stand now, the threat of losing him as a friend seems even greater now than ever before. And I'm SCARED.

So now what? Remember that extra TLC I mentioned needing last week? Yeah. I could use that.

Oh, and if he is reading this, I'm sorry and will you forgive me?