I don’t know if I am easily discouraged or not as it applies to the big scheme of things. I can recall days of discouragement along the way. Despite this profoundly amazing calling God has given me, I am admittedly human, flawed and broken. It has been a long and winding road to get to where I am – here with God. To be honest, God, for His part, is unmoving and unwavering. He has been right here beside me the whole time. Me, well…the term whirling dervish comes to mind.

To be fair, to my young and injured self, I think that I have always loved God. I cannot recall a time I didn’t believe in God or that I didn’t pray or cry out to Him. Some of my earliest memories are church. I was raised Catholic and our church was (and still is) simply beautiful, dark wood ceilings with beams and a marble alter with Jesus on the Cross on the wall at the back, and the wall that rises to a dome over the alter is painted soft sky blue and adorned with angels and clouds. The pews are dark wood that will remind you of your sinfulness if the priest talks longer than an hour. And flanking both outer walls are gorgeous stained glass windows each purchased and dedicated by early members of the church, among them are my descendents including my grandfather. As a child, I spent many hours staring at the light trickling through the glass. That was when I wasn’t fidgeting and being scolded by my mother or grandmother. I was far better behaved when I went to my Uncle’s church. He never scolded me. He chose the bribe me with sweets and pony rides method which was far more effective.

When my mother and the Catholic priest had a falling out over birth control in the late 1960’s we stopped going to church. My father was a Baptist, so when a new Baptist church was built at the end of our street and they had this thing called Vacation Bible School that I had NEVER heard about, I wanted to go. My parents agreed and at 10 years old I was suddenly Baptist. They had folk services with guitars and keyboards and fun music and VBS rocked. My favorite craft is one I repeated in our children’s church and with my scout group years ago. We made a framed stained glass picture of a cross. – See directions below. My favorite song was they will know we are Christians by our Love. I got baptized – again in this church. I accepted Christ as my savior in this church.

I stopped going in middle school. I was discouraged and sad. I was bullied terribly. I was depressed and in a very dark place at only thirteen. In my youthful ignorance I pulled away from God, because who needed one more thing to be tortured over, not realizing at all why I should have stayed entrenched in God. I just wanted to be liked and cool. It never happened until about 11th grade and cool….well, less uncoll maybe.

I look back and realize how when I have been going through it, because the world and that evil guy just love to pummel us sometimes, I instinctively withdraw – even from God. Why would anyone do that?? Crazy, right?

The irony is that in those very dark days, God who is immovable is back there fighting battles, protecting me, sending help, trying in every way to redirect my heart back to Him, despite my stupidity, lack of faith, fear or sadness.

I did pray though and God did answer. I think the real thing to remember when you pray in anguish is to pray for wisdom and to have God’s will revealed within the blessing, because I didn’t and I squandered a blessing with a whole mess of foolishness. Yep! (Raising hand) I was that person more than once, too. Thanks be to God for growth and maturity.

What I have come to see in the last few days – days which have been full of discouragement, sadness and a whole lot of tears is my response to flee and hide and lick my wounds and heal my heart and harden it are still alive and well within me. Fight or flight? I’m flying every time, I hate to fight. I’ve learned to stand my ground over time and stand up for myself and to stand up for Christ in my life. Even though, I’m not super skilled in all these areas, I have learned not to allow myself to be a doormat. I read a book long ago when I was going through my divorce from my abusive and alcoholic ex-husband who had convinced me of my worthlessness with skilled precision. It may have been called “Cinderella Syndrome”? There was one thing in it though that stuck with me. “Doormats say welcome on them.” It begged the question, if I felt so worthless that people could walk all over me, was I welcoming that behavior and allowing it?

There is a whole other battle that ensues – but that is for another blog. Because then we have where does humility end and pride begin. What constitutes submission and is there such a thing as self preservation within a place of faith? Oh the deep. I could certainly use some water walking skills right about now, cause wading into all the deep waters can be difficult. It is important though and is working in us something great for God’s glory. But that human side, it gets prickly.

I know God understands us better than we understand us. He created us and all our complexities and neuroses. As I launch myself through this season of discouragement, I have chosen this time to put on that full armor of God and lean in hard in prayer. I also couldn’t eat for a couple days out of sadness or because God wanted a little fasting to be going on. Usually I eat when unhappy. Although, when completely bereft – and thanks be to God that has only been one other time in my life – I lose my appetite completely. This week has been a bereft time, certainly.

It is hard to do things when you are discouraged. It is hard to pray, to accomplish tasks, to be efficient, to think clearly, or to even read. The last couple days have been those kinds of days. My pastor & son always reminds us that when things are difficult that evil one is just delighted at the opportunity to plant seeds of doubt and discourse and trouble. My prayer has been protection from all that and clarity so I can find the path through and healing over the entire situation and the people involved and protection for them too. God has been working on it too. He revealed scripture to me from 1 Corinthians 12:27-31 and all of chapter 13 – the love chapter. I’ve read it a few times over and over. God is so great. In the midst of an emotionally driven crisis filled with sadness and pain, God wants me to focus over and over again on love and what that really looks like.

We say “I love you” so mindlessly sometimes. I tell my dog I love her all the time. If I have food she loves me too. The point is we give love a lot of lip service. We mix love up with sex as if they go together, but although they can be an outward expression of an intimate love, they are not really related at all. We think love means lots of things it doesn’t mean at all, like that we can use it as a weapon and withhold it if we are angry or disagree with someone. We think we can use it to manipulate other people to doing their will. Oh the mangled mess we make of something so amazing. We forget what love really is. God is love.

Read that carefully. God IS Love. Not God is about love. Not God love’s everyone. Not God is loving.

GOD IS LOVE!

As a bibliophile I immediately ponder who a noun can be a verb. Is God a verb? He is active in all things. Hmmm. Is love a noun. Something that creates other verbs? There are bunny trails galore to explore in this one phrase. When you read 1 John 4:7-12, we find the verse and a little more clarity. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

In fact, in Christ’s missionary work love is a topic that comes up again and again and again. Why is that? Well, look around at what hate has wrought. Look at what selfishness creates. Look at what division brings. Look at what no accountability allows. Look at what anger and venom can do. Look at what unkindness does. Look at what lawlessness creates. Look at what sadness disintegrates. Look at what bile you see day in and day out. We are inundated with all that is not love, day in and day out. We also are lied to about what love is supposed to be, when clearly God has outlined love over and over again in scripture, not so we can twist His words to allow our terrible behavior to continue, but to soften our hearts to His will and to see the plight of others and to be merciful and loving and kind. Which is not the same as indulgent or enabling of sinfulness.

It is easy to find discouragement in a sea of lies and hatred. It is easy to get swept up in the anger and righteous indignation. Yet, Christ told us to turn the other cheek and to love our enemies. Think about that. How do you apply love as outlined in 1 Corinthians 13 to someone you hate. I know you don’t hate anyone. Right answer. In our hearts though, we still will find hate hiding out, because we don’t forgive easily, we do keep track of wrongdoing, we can be unkind to others – especially if they started it. We can puff up and be haughty – especially when we are certain that we are right and they are wrong. We do not always use gentle words or guard our hearts against anger. I personally have a long fuse – very long – but if you push me to the end of that fuse you will receive wrath that is so very ugly and not Godly at all.

So, if we lean into God and let this wash over us and ask God for wisdom and help in the application of love in every single area of our life from forgiveness to submission to obedience to distractions to relationships to ministry to strife and troubles. The discouragement flees. How can you be full of the love of God and have a bad day? You cannot. Ever. God is love. God is many things actually, but when you need a hug or to be pulled from the depths of despair, God is reaching out to drag you back to solid ground. Look up friends. Remember always look up.

1 Corinthians 12:27-31 & 13 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

If I speak in tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to the flames that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. It always protects always trusts, always hopes, always preserves. Love never fails. But, where there are prophecies they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I wa sa child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall fully know, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But, the greatest of these is love.

STAINED GLASS CRAFT

Supplies:

1 5×7 or 8×10 picture frame with glass or plastic insert, masking or painters tape, a printed out coloring page, multi color sharpies, black sharpie. Aluminum foil cut to 1/4 inch wider in each side than insert for frame.

If insert is glass, tape edges to prevent getting cut with masking tape. Tape should cover only about 1/8″ of glass around edge. If you do too much there will be areas of clear around your finished picture. Place glass or plastic insert over your printed coloring page. Make sure when you print that you print to fit your frame size. Outline the picture in black sharpie. Let it dry for a few minutes so you don’t smear it or wipe it off. Then use colored sharpies to color in the rest of the picture and background. Let dry. The colored side is the back of the picture. Meanwhile, crumple up your aluminum foil piece and carefully (don’t tear it) uncrumple and smooth it out to original size, but don’t smooth out all the wrinkles. Place aluminum foil over the cardboard frame backing and tape the edges down on back of it. Place picture you colored – with colored side down over the foil. Replace glass and cardboard back into the frame and secure. Have fun creating!!