Monday, July 26, 2010

My Daddy

A week has gone by since I came back, came back from the trip of a life time, a get away to meet with my Father in heaven, who turned out to be that amazingly loving, caring, understanding and merciful one...
the closeness I found has allowed me to continue to enjoy the new found intimacy, the shelter, the SECURITY I have always longed for and never had before..
My prayer life has changed, it always was a continuous conversation, somehow always addressing Jesus, my Lord and Saviour more than the Father, I still have this, a privilege beyond anything imaginable, but now there is this other place I am, constantly, in the strong embrace of my Daddy in heaven, He never lets go of me, how amazing is that??
He is right there with me , in all circumstances...it's almost as if I just look Him in the eye and we have this understanding, that doesn't need any words..
Some of my friends are blessed in that way, that their father was portraying who God the Father is to them pretty well...I, though, was afraid of my Father to an extent that as a young child I would cry when he would speak to me. He never made it to the hospital the day I was born, business was a priority, not his wife and his second child, me.... He could get quite furious and sometimes I didn't even know why, when he got angry he sometimes would hit me very hard... there are memories of him breaking through a locked door to get to us, because we had been making noise and woken him up from his nap... my sister would wake up almost every night because of an asthma attack.... she never dared to go into my parents bedroom to wake my mother up because she was afraid my father would get angry... so she woke me up and I went to get my mother every time..He didn't allow my grandmother to come to our house, he kept the dogs in the house and would continue to come to the house in his riding clothes even though my sister had horrible allergies and this caused her more asthma attacks, ..... he threatened to kill my mother and I believed it to the extent that I took my 2 1/2 year old, my newborn baby , and myself ( 10 days after my C-section) on a trip with them because I felt I had to protect my mother...
These are the memories that just come, without having to think about it too much....
When I became a Christian I worked through forgiveness and my father for sure was one of the people I had to forgive...
As a result of who I am and who my parents are I had to put up wise and healthy boundaries... if anything this has caused my parents to be angry at me even more.
My father continues to "love" ( if you can call it that) conditionally only.....
So you get why this encounter with my Daddy in heaven has me smiling whenever I am thinking about it. I know that we all fall short, in all that we do. I know that I am by far not the mother I want to be, or let alone need to be... I am sure my father didn't get up in the morning and decided that today he would mess his kids up even more.... so he is forgiven....
But thank the Lord, thank my heavenly Father, my Daddy for revealing Himself to me like He has been doing over the last few years, culminating in my encounter with Him on a Cruise ship in Alaskan waters...I praise Him for His goodness and mercy, for His love and acceptance, for His loving kindness and gentleness... for being all and so much more for me and for all of you!!!!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Natalie grant held

Grace That Moves....

Grace that moves...
This was on the Michael W. Smith Cruise…
I heard a great Devotion this morning..
It basically said that God’s Grace,( the unmerited favor) Jesus dying on the cross,  is what has moved us from living in the servant quarters to the Mansion..living with our Father...
What an amazing thought, the concept is not new, but have I ever really believed it....I am an heir of God, I am Jesus’ sister, God’s child, I do not have to prove by my works that I am worthy to be accepted by God ( and we all know that never worked anyways) 
It is in believing in the fact that Jesus did exactly that.... He died and paid for my sins and now I am forgiven, I am righteous in God’s eyes... when looking at me He sees Jesus’ righteousness, not my stained and torn up clothing...but the white robe of righteousness.
My Father is rejoicing over me, He delights over with me with singing... He loves me, He longs for me to run to Him with all my fears, worries, sorrows and pain.. He is not like my father who never gave me the time of life, who only expected perfection and whose love has been and always will be conditional, who inflicted physical and emotional pain and despair...
He instead is my Abba... He is my Daddy, my Papa..... He chose me before the beginning of the world to be His beloved child...He has prepared a room for me in the Mansion in Heaven where I will live for eternity in His presence..my citizenship is in Heaven with Him and not here on this earth.
It is His Mercy that brought this about... because with God Mercy triumphs over Justice...that’s why He sent His son, because He loved us so much that He couldn’t just punish us the way we would have deserved it. He sacrificed His son, who was without sin, the lamb without any blemish, so that we could be reconciled with Him...
Amazing Grace...My King died for me....He suffered and did not complain... He fixed His eyes on the joy laid out before Him!!!!!! That was me, the joy to call me His own...
So I desire to live in this reality every moment of my life, when rejection, frustration, hurt and pain comes my way.
I want to become more like Him, I want to please Him because I love Him so much. My life needs to be focused on Him, filled by the Spirit and carried by Him..
He is the One who is the author and perfecter of my life. With Him all things are possible, without Him I can only continue to run against walls of concrete..I am lost and in despair without Him. With Him there is light, joy and eternal peace.
Light the fire of my first love again Lord... I do not want it to grow dim.. I want to live full out for you... I don’t just want to go through the Motions...Use me Lord for Your glory... Thank you Lord for allowing the Valley... I know that you have cried with me, that your heart is broken for me, and that you are rejoicing over me as I am learning to trust you more and more...Oh if I could just stay right here with you and not run away again... Keep me close to you, let me not take my eyes of you....let me focus on what is eternal and not what is temporary because those light and momentary troubles are achieving for me a treasure in heaven that far outweighs them all... Oh Lord you are my all and all... I love you with all my heart, soul and mind........ Take me, mold me and refine me by your fire, make me pure and allow me to worship you all the days of my life...because one day in your courts is better than thousands elsewhere!!
I praise You Oh Lord of my life... reign in me Lord, fill me Holy Spirit....I am YOURS!!!!
And I gladly move into the Mansion and sit at the table with you as your child!!!!!

I love you Abba Father….

Friday, July 2, 2010

A Psalm of Praise

Jesus,
The great red dawning that rises over the mountains of all eternity.
The shining bridge of stars that arches up and up and gives us a path from earth into heaven’s throne room.
To our ship, battered in a storm He is the lighthouse.
He brings the message of eternity to us over the vast gulf of time.
He is the well of our hope.
He  is the reason our hope endures.
He has brought us so much more than the happiness we might wish for.
He has stretched out His arms in humility so that the gap between us and a Holy God could be bridged.
He was the lamb without blemish, sacrificed for our transgressions, once and for all.
Without Him we would be forever caught in the futility of ever striving and never arriving.
Without Him there would be no light, only darkness. Without His unfailing love there would be NO HOPE.
Let us Praise Him,
Let us bow down before Him in eternal gratitude and awe.
In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was  God, He was with God in the beginning.
He, who being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God 
something to be grasped,
but made Himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
 being made in human likeness..
..he humbled Himself 
and became obedient to death,
even death on a cross!
Let us Praise Him and Worship Him,
Let us come before Him with thankfulness in our hearts.
Because we are the people walking in darkness,
who have seen a great light.
We rejoice in you, oh Lord and Saviour,
Oh Father of the fatherless,
Oh Lover of the souls of all the lonely and rejected.
We love You because You first loved us...
You considered us worth dying for 
even while we were still your enemies,
dead in our transgressions.
Let us Praise You, Jesus, 
Lord of Lords
and King of Kings
Brother and Friend,
You are worthy of our Praise
Both now and forever more!!!