ABUNDANCE...

Yet another glorious day of Spring, I set about my daily chore of watering my small but pleasant garden.  Albeit much less than what I was used to with a previous property I owned, this still satisfied my soul to look at the beauty of each petal which has been hand crafted by our Father in Heaven.  In “stopping to smell the flowers” I noticed upon close inspection, that my impatiens have natural glitter!  Oh, how I love sparkle!  :) 

As I drug my heavy hose along with me and continued on to the larger pots placed on either side of the garage door for a stately adornment, I observed the potato vines planted over a month previously were still stunted with sickly brown leaves.  I had tenderly cared for them with great patience, watering faithfully and feeding with a product promised to produce abundant foliage and flowering.  Everything else had taken off with a vibrant display, yet these potato vines refused to obey and thrive.  Usually they are some of the first to adjust to being set free from their tiny, plastic, seedling pot and will spread and send full leaves and vines everywhere into the spaces they are given to fill, even spilling over to other areas.  However, these stubborn vines rebelled and declined to show their gratitude for freedom!  I was beginning to get to the end of my patience with them [ impatiens ;) ]  and even spoke, “If you don’t get going, I’m gonna’ pluck you out of these pots!”  Another week, and still I was pulling off the sickly looking, brown, stunted leaves.  I finally had enough and began looking for replacements.  However, I was set on potato vines and none were to be found except for one store which had them overpriced to the extent I wasn’t willing to pay.  I decided to replace with something else and again spoke to those vines, “I’m plucking you out tomorrow!”  Tomorrow came and went as well as the following day.  With all my busyness, I did not get to the destructive project promised.  Another couple of days flew by and the next time I noted those vines, I saw the beginnings of actual healthy growth, enough of which to cause me to pause and not pluck.  A few more days, and I had beautiful potato vines worthy of my admiration!  Thank goodness I didn’t pluck them out!  In my impatience at not seeing what I wanted to see when I wanted to see it, I would have destroyed a fantastic work in progress.  

Thoroughly enjoying the watering project now and not despising any once uncooperative plants, I smiled every time I watered.  I began to notice a trail of vines cascading over the pot and traveling down the driveway.  At first, I thought I would cut that extra portion off but my hubs thought it was cool, so I left it as a border.  It continued to grow at a swift rate…actually more than I really wanted.  Now I had to deal with daily retraining it because it wanted to creep over into the garden of flowers and cover them up.

In our love for the outdoors, we enjoy watching the local wildlife, one of which is bunnies…everywhere!  These precious cotton tails are the very reason I don’t put my petunias in the ground.  I’ve learned the hard way that I would have a glorious display one day, gone the next, as they would nibble them down to nubbins and I would be left with a mulch bed with no color.   

We have one sweet little bunny who loves to sleep in our front garden bed.  We’ve awakened him and watched him stretch out his legs as we go about our tasks with our yard.  He stays close enough by us that we marvel at his apparent lack of fear.  Something else we noticed about this sweet little Peter cottontail is that he is more than satisfied feasting on our trailing potato vines of what he must consider a delicacy!  He is devouring right down to sticks the portion of the potato vine that extends past the pot and streams down the driveway.  Out of our abundance, he is being satisfied to the full.  This gave me a greater picture of what God means when He gives us abundance.   

Abundance from God’s grace and favor is more than we need or want* and it is for the purposes of meeting another’s needs.  It’s not so that we can just bathe in waste, but so we can give to others.  

Abundance, according to dictionary.com is: an extremely plentiful or oversufficient quantity or supply; overflowing fullness; affluence; wealth. 

Sometimes God has us give even when it appears we have lack and that it will destroy us to give.  If that is the case and God is saying to give up even that last portion, He is setting us up to receive wonderful provision.  Mark 12:44 tells of the widow who gave out of her poverty while others gave out of their wealth.  This is precious to God and there will be times He will direct us to give even if it appears we don’t have anything to give.  Another widow, in 1 Kings 17, gave out of the last portion she had in order to meet the need of God’s servant.  Prior to her giving, she was preparing her son and herself to die due to lack, but God came just in time to save them and bless them with provision and life.

If we have abundance, which can be in finances, time, spiritual gifts, material possessions, etc., we definitely need to be seeking God about where that is to go.  If we have lack, we need to seek God about what we can “sow” in order to reap a harvest of what we need.  If we have surrendered our hearts and all our lives and “things” to God for Him to be Lord over, He will show us, by tugging at our hearts, what we are to give in order to meet someone else’s need.  It truly is more blessed to give than receive because God is setting us up to gain so much more back from Him in ways that will bless us far beyond what we gave up ever could have.

Abundance from the hand of God comes in His ways and in His timing.  It takes time for Him to grow what we have in our lives and transform it into a lovely provision far beyond what we need for ourselves.

Prayer:

Father, thank You that You are our Provider.  Thank You that all our times are in Your hands and help us to be patient in Your transforming work, trusting that You will provide.  Thank You, Jesus, that You came to destroy the works of the enemy in our lives and to give us abundant life, (John 10:10).  We surrender all we are and all we have to You to be Lord over.  Show us what You want to do through us and how You want to bless others through us.  Help us to let go and trust You with the outcome.  Amen

And God is able to make all grace (every favor and earthly blessing) come to you in abundance, so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation]. 2 Cor. 9:8 AMP

 

*This "want" is not carte blanche of whatever carnal "want" we have but is derived from legitimate relationship with Him, yielded to Him so our hearts are in union with His desires.  He does love to prosper and bless us, but not have us be harmed by what He gives us, "The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it" Proverbs 10:22.

Am I Wanted?

Yesterday, I had a tough conversation with my aged mother.  I was prompted to give her a call and ask a very difficult question which I had to develop tenderly so as not to offend or put her on guard.  I had to ask her if I was wanted…

During prayer time, I kept feeling that all too familiar sense of a dark place deep in my soul trying to rise up again to distract and crush me; that sad one that evokes a sense of being alone even when I’m truly not alone.  It creates a self focus that is unhealthy.  Wanting no more to do with that place I cried out to God, “What is this?”  I felt Him say I had to be willing to look squarely at it; however ugly it may be.  I took a breath for courage and said, “Yes.”  I then felt compelled to call my mother.

Her raspy, “Hello,” with the tell-tale sounds of 83 years on this earth greeted me.  I made a very conscious effort to construct my question carefully so as not to put her off but encourage an honest answer.  Truth has escaped some dialogue with my mom in her effort to at times, create her own safe haven of unreality which she has accepted as truth, as it is the place she feels most comfortable and unthreatened.

I began to develop the reason for my call stating I had to ask her a very difficult question but that I needed her to be honest.  I promised that I would not take offense to her answer as I totally understand how we do our best in every stage of life with what we have been dealt and with how we are equipped at the time.  I shared that I would have handled some things in my life differently had I known then what I know now.  I then checked myself to brace and keep my promise of no offense or hurt regardless of what I heard and asked her, “Mom, when you found out you were pregnant with me, did you want me, or when I was a small child was I wanted?”   

I must admit that I am astounded that I still need any reassurance or deliverance in this area at all because the Lord has had time to deliver me of much from my childhood. I can only express that we each are like an onion, layer upon layer of stinky stuff that just has to continually be pealed until the very core is reached.  We have victory at each level and then the Lord begins pealing off more, continuously stretching us and revealing hidden things we didn't know existed until He prepares our hearts to be able to look.

She cleared her throat and asked me why I was asking her such a thing.  Those tears of deliverance that had begun earlier in prayer time with my Father, reappeared and began to pour out as I tried to express my heart’s ache; that I just have a sense of being alone a lot in childhood.  My memories are that I was never told, “I love you, Kim,” until much later in life after formative years had passed.  I had no memory of being held, cuddled, and bundled up in arms that can’t seem to get enough of you like I did with my children and now with my darling grandchildren. 

I expected her to try to make excuses for why she didn’t want to be pregnant or have a second child.  After all, I would have understood the overwhelm she must have felt with a husband who was absent and emotionally unavailable.  I would have understood the shame and torment of dealing with an alcoholic in that same man. I would have felt confirmed in my belief of her that she just really wasn’t a woman who wanted children but was a career woman instead.  But what I heard coming out of her mouth was to the contrary.  She stated she did in fact want me and that she was happy to be pregnant again after the four year break between my brother and me.  She was especially excited to now have a girl since she already had a boy. 

Something didn’t resonate because if that was the truth then why did I have the memory of childhood which I have battled and vowed to NEVER instill in my own children’s lives?  I was determined that I would be a loving, nurturing mother; that my children would NEVER feel alone or unwanted;  that they would not only have my arms wrapped around them, but my lips would smother them in kisses and speak affirming words of love continuously.  As their tiny lives developed, they would be secure in the knowledge of my love and adoration for them.  

I had to admit, I felt a bit disappointed in her stance which denied what I have felt all my life.  Now I was confused.  How, if she truly wanted me, could my emotional development have been so unhealthy with insecurity, disappointment, frustration, self pity and self-blame?  As I silently asked my Father in heaven, “What now,” I sensed that I was to be still and the answer would begin to pour out of her mouth like the tears poured from my eyes moments earlier.

In her own searching of why I would ask such a thing, she began to share what life from her perspective was like in her marriage to my father.  Again, I checked my emotions and judgment at the door of the Lord’s heart, to help me remain neutral and supportive of her in order to provide a safe place for her so she could speak freely.  

To my surprise, which created a new found empathy for my mom, I heard her tell of stories of verbal and physical abuse by my father, one such event sending her to the hospital with the loss of her hearing due to a blow to the head.  I heard of my father’s intimidation to force her to sign documents creating business deals which ended badly even resulting in the loss of our house.

Her walls of self preservation came tumbling down as, for the next hour, I heard her recounting days of her own childhood in which her parents were harsh with her and that she never remembers being told, “I love you”.  She couldn’t remember feeling loved with the affection parents should bestow on their children to give them a sense of security in the love that we all need to develop soundly.  She made the same vow I had voiced myself, “I will never be like my parents.” 

My eyes widened at that because she was in fact just like them!  With such a heart posture, how then did she emulate the very same thing in my life?  I did not confess what was on my mind and pressed my lips together tightly so I wouldn’t spew what was trying so desperately to come forth from my own mouth.  I continued to listen and she continued to reveal stories I have never heard and which would have died with her when she is called home, if not shared.

She confessed that she remembered only one time she felt such love for all of us that it gave her hope that we could be a real family.  There it was…what I suspected all along…as I also only remember one time of “feeling” that gush of overwhelming love that feels like warm liquid running through your entire being, including the deepest places where love resides.  If she was only cognoscente of feeling that love once, then she was lacking the love for family which is normal and healthy.  I know this because I experience that amazing love too many times to count for my husband, children and grandchildren.  That’s not to say you always, “feel” love, because let’s be honest, there are times you don’t feel anything but disgust, anger, hopelessness, heart ache, but you still know that you love your family member.  There are times that true love must kick in until the storm or trial passes and you feel love again.  There are times we just have to be patient, kind, not easily offended or envious, and not counter what just hurt us with more evil or rudeness.  I have clung to the familiar wedding passage from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 many times when my “feelings” of love were snatched away for a time.  Sometimes I am successful with this love walk but sometimes I fail miserably.

Mom then proceeded to tell me of my father’s childhood.  My grandfather, whom I never knew due to a heart attack before I was born, was harsh with his words.  Living on a farm, Dad felt alone and headed for the city at his first opportunity to escape what he despised.   She then informed me Dad was terribly insecure.  Even though I had heard shocking details throughout this conversation, this was the most I was stunned and my jaw dropped with my mouth gaping open for what seemed an eternity as her words reverberated over and over in my mind.  I NEVER perceived my father as insecure.  As a child, I deceptively saw him as strong with the false empowerment of alcohol, and then later, upon sobering up and accepting Jesus to save, heal and deliver him, I knew him to be strong but in a gentle and self controlled manner.  Mom continued with recounts of his struggles to be a successful business man and the power he actually did possess in the Kansas City market area.  This was only to be for a season as the empire he built come crashing down to bad deals and dealings with bad people.

I don't know if those stories are true or not, as I have heard much in the past which wasn't, but it still softened my heart toward her as her perception is her reality. 

In this time with my mom she gave me the confirmation I needed to know I wasn’t conjuring up false memories of feeling alone and unloved.  There was legitimate reason for the enemy of insecurity of which I have battled to have entrance into our lives.  I was a product of generational curses.  Only God knows how much has been repeated in the blood lines of my parents.  In the beauty of my Lord, however, upon my vow that I would not be like my mom in how I parented my children, my Lord gave me the gift of grace which would be all the empowerment I would need; sufficient to overcome my childhood and become the parent my children needed.  It was my choice to receive that grace and run with it and I thank Him that I did.  The Lord was my model parent since I had no such knowledge of how to do that.  I haven't been the perfect parent, because no such being exists, with the exception of Father God.  He gave me an ear to hear His wisdom for specific instruction with each child so they could grow up safely and knowing Him, which is the most important gift and responsibility we have as parents.  In this, they will be able to carry on walking with the One who is Life in their own garden of life. 

It was time for the call to end.  I assured my mom of my love for her, and hung up to the sound of her tears which earlier had poured from me.  My heart is tender now for my mom.  How much easier it is to understand why people are the way they are once we have the answer as to why they are the way they are!

I finished my private time with my Lord to allow Him to purge the past and help me to just let it all go once and for all.  I have my answer and I don’t need to keep replaying it.  As deep calls unto deep, I can let the Lord have this deep place and fill it with more of Him. He is calling me to higher levels with each step up the mountain of God.  I am in the Refiner’s fire, which is painful but good as it is perfecting that which concerns me.   I have no reason to be insecure and am equipped to deal with the temptation to return should I sense it trying to creep back.  I can talk to myself the way my Love talks to me: I am my Beloved's and He is mine, I am accepted unconditionally by Him even though He sees every terrible thing still needing His touch.

We each are given choices in this life. We can continue with what is harmful or we can choose to go with what brings health and life.  Sometimes it’s tough to let go of the anger, frustration, self pity, unforgiveness or whatever else is in the way of our freedom, but it is imperative to our receiving the blessings of joy and peace.  There are going to be times in each of our lives when we have opportunity to feel insecure.  We need to make the choice to not believe the lies being whispered in our ear by the enemy who wants our focus to be on ourselves, looking down, so we will miss what we could have had if we had just been looking up. So in answer to my original question, "Am I wanted" the answer for each of us is a resounding, "YES!" from the very heart of God.

I smiled as He touched my heart one more time to confirm and reassure me with last night's performance on Jimmy Fallon they sang, “Let it Go” using children’s classroom instruments.  How simple…

Excerpts from "Let It Go"

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight

Not a footprint to be seen

A kingdom of isolation,

And it looks like I’m the queen.

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside

Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried

Don’t let them in, don’t let them see

Be the good girl you always have to be

Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know

Well, now they know

Let it go, let it go

Can’t hold it back anymore

Let it go, let it go

Turn away and slam the door

I don’t care

What they’re going to say

Let the storm rage on,

The cold never bothered me anyway

It’s funny how some distance

Makes everything seem small

And the fears that once controlled me

Can’t get to me at all

It’s time to see what I can do

To test the limits and break through

I’m free

I’m never going back,

The past is in the past

Let it go, let it go

And I'll rise like the break of dawn

Let it go, let it go

That perfect girl is gone

Here I stand

In the light…