Carnal Struggles

We have the power within us to spark desires and lust of all sorts. How we chose to wield that power says a lot about our inner character…not the character we show our peers…but the character we hide in our minds. The character we let out in private conversations and emails. Let me be brutally honest…we are beings that gravitate to the affections and admiration of others. Good friends or even friendly agitators could find themselves fulfilling some emotional need lacking in the other’s life. Once emotional needs are being met, it is a small step to physical needs without appropriate restraints. Too many times, we let our emotions and desires dictate our choices. We don’t stop to consider the cost to other people in our lives.

I have watched couples go from happy loving marriages, to depraved relationships spawned by reckless thoughts, words and actions. None of us are immune to it…we think we are until someone fails to guard their lips or their eyes or their hands, and inappropriate possibilities are set loose in our mind. We might never have thought about such things otherwise, or maybe the thoughts were already there, we just did not entertain them because we had no cause to believe they could become reality…or that the other person might actually want to be a part of those thoughts.

This is all very personal to me, both in pain caused by others and pain I have inflicted myself. My Grandpa left us when I was 11. He drove off the family farm and left us…for another woman. The farm was sold. The family gatherings were fewer and farther between, and I remember sitting on the porch for hours, watching and hoping Grandpa would come back. My Grandmother cried for what seemed like months, then tried to commit suicide several times. Even after 27 years, she still can’t be in the same room with him, and we’ve had to train our kids not to mention him at all.

The more I write about him, the more I want to cry. You see he’s not in my life anymore…not like those wonder filled days I spent on the farm as a child. I might see him once a year now. I have such a great sense of loss when I think of him, that it is just too hard to spend any real time with him anymore. He still calls me Sis, and he still has that warm, raspy, loving voice (A man in our church has the same voice, and I think of my Grandpa every time I hear him speak). But my kids will never know the man he once was. So many memories…so many missed.

Don’t get me wrong…I love him, and I wish, I wish, I wish I could have gone hunting or fishing or feeding with him a few more times. I wish I could sit comfortably and talk for hours just to hear his voice. I wish I could snuggle up next to him, and tell him how much it hurts, but he knows. He made a choice he thought was right for him. He thought he was leaving his wife for a better life, but he ended up losing so much more. He knows the pain he caused, and has become just a shell of the man I knew.

I think the life I knew then is why I love living where we do…out in the country, on a hill, with a pond in the field behind our home. Frogs and birds filling warm nights with the same beautiful song I remember from my Grandpa’s farm. And the smell…in the spring and summer the cedars give off a fragrance that reminds me of the creek bed where we used to swim. I miss him.

This is what we don’t consider when we make those selfish choices based on our wants and desires. We forget the lives we are changing…the hearts we’re supposed to love and protect…we forget that we have a purpose…God placed us here to fulfill some purpose, and throwing away His blessings of family, friends, ministry…is like stomping on the Blood of Christ, and shaking our fists at Him like it’s not good enough. When in truth, we are proving that we were never worthy in the first place.

Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Your Story

As I sat in the choir loft waiting for revival services to start last night, my eyes glancing from one friend to the next, I began thinking of their stories. Each one had a unique set of obstacles they had overcome: drug or alcohol addiction, depression, loss of a child, military wives, long term illness, abuse, renegade teenagers, teenage pregnancy…and the list goes on and on. Then my eyes rested on the beautiful lady sitting next to me…a woman with so much faith, yet so much to shake her fist at God in anger…but she doesn’t. She means so much to me. She is my friend, my singing partner, my confidant, my counselor and my mentor. She prays for me when I need her, she listens when I go on and on, and she holds me accountable for those weaknesses in my life. I just pray that I am those things to her also.

She used to share her story through her testimony and singing ministry, but circumstances have robbed her of the joy of that ministry. But why not share anyway…we get so bogged down in life, and we forget that our story is everyone else’s story too. We all have a story. We all have tragedy and triumph that in the end was a blessing from God to share with others. Why don’t we? Why don’t we take the opportunity to share the glory of God’s work in our lives with those struggling in the same problems? What’s your story?

Romans 15:17-18 (NIV) Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me…