While today may be my birthday, it really has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God.
I used to contemplate suicide on a daily basis. No one knew. No one had any idea. Well...no one except God.
If it wasn’t for God I most likely wouldn’t be having this birthday. I would have never met my husband or gotten married or had my 2 beautiful children. I wouldn’t be writing this now. I would have most likely ended my life when I felt like things were too hard and I couldn’t overcome them or achieve perfection.
The ONLY thing that kept me alive was Jesus. The ONLY thing that keeps me away from going down that path of thoughts is Jesus.
Life is difficult, and your circumstances are not always ones you enjoy or would have ever chosen for yourself. You may have doubts and question “Why? This isn’t fair.” You may want to throw in the towel and quit, quit what you are called to do or even life itself. Wherever you may be I encourage you to turn to Jesus.
God Himself, the Creator of the universe, came down to earth as a baby, a helpless little baby. He lived a lifestyle that wasn’t lavish and came to lay everything down for us. He committed social suicide, He was tortured and beaten, He was murdered, and He came back to life. Why? For you! For me! He took on the weight of our failures, of our insecurities, of our self doubt and the horrible thoughts we think of ourselves and others. He took on ALL of the evil that we have and will ever commit and died as a living sacrifice for it all, so we could be one again with Him.
Then He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit, one that gives us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That gives us things that don’t rely on our circumstances, because He freed us from our circumstances! He freed us from death! Not the death of our bodies, but in our spirit and souls. Death in this very life. I know I have felt the realness of walking in death while living. It’s a horrible tortuous experience.
God thank you for lifting me out of that place and continuing to on a daily basis. I am by NO means perfect and you know that. That’s why you came and died for me, because there is absolutely NO way I could accomplish any of this myself. That’s why you walk beside me, because you know I need you in every moment to overcome this death in life. Thank you Jesus for ALL you've done. Thank you for dying on the cross for me. Thank you for this birthday. Amen
Popular posts from this blog
Up until the moment that I wrote this, I’ve viewed Abram in quite a negative light. “He’s so passive. Besides going where God calls, He doesn’t seem to follow God in any of these situations.” While Abram has moments of not trusting God, he also has moments of reflecting Jesus and what Jesus stood for. “Now, Lot who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. But the land was unable to support them as long as they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they could not stay together, and there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock…So Abram said to Lot, ‘Please, let’s not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives. Isn’t the whole land before you? Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.’” Genesis 13:5-9 CSB Abram was not avoiding conflict here. He faced it. Did he lay d...
“He also said to Him, ‘I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.’ But he said, ‘Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?’ He said to him, ‘Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half….When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying ‘I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River. Genesis 15:7-10,17-18 CSB This is an obscure weird occurrence for us to read about. Surprisingly it was weird in Abram’s time as well, but for very different reasons. The instructions that God gave to Abram were something he was familiar with. It was a common practice wh...
"You are to take seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female, and seven pairs, male and female, of the birds of the sky – in order to keep offspring alive throughout the earth.” Genesis 7:2 (CSB) Once I was able to get past the initial shock that it wasn’t just 2 of each animal, as I had grown up thinking, I was then curious about why He was so specific and why there needed to be more of the clean animals for them to survive than the unclean. Was it because of the Jewish laws of only being allowed to eat clean animals? “Every creature that lives and moves will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.” Genesis 9:3 (CSB) No, the Jewish laws weren’t established yet. They were free to eat any animal. “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Genesis 8:20 (C...
Comments
Post a Comment