When Peace Roars

~ Written by Cassie Rayl 

It was a heartbreaking and tumultuous time. I found comfort in a weekly walk to a babbling brook at the foot of a mountain. When it seemed as if everyone was against me, seeing God’s peaceful yet constant stream of water made me breathe more slowly, think more clearly, and let God speak words my heart couldn’t hear otherwise. Within those moments, I was reminded of God’s gentleness, peace, and quiet creativity.

Recently, almost a decade later, I stood before the majestic Niagara Falls in Canada and laughed joyously at the roaring water and the mist that hit my face. There was nothing peaceful and quiet about being a stone’s throw away from such a breathtaking display of God’s creation! But still, in a quiet moment with my husband next to me, I felt God’s power and His gentle but confident and loving voice whisper, “I’m still here. I will never leave you.”

The God of the roaring Niagara Falls is the same God of the babbling, peaceful brook. When we need Him to instill peace in the midst of our turmoil, He can. When we can step away from our circumstances and glory in His power and faithfulness, He’s in those moments as well. In every season, in every circumstance, He is exactly what we need when we need it.

No wonder we call Him Savior!

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Right Questions, Wrong Goal

~ Written by Viki Rife

Nine little girls sat in a circle, listening intently as their teacher explained the project. They were to make a poster showing their favorite animal. In teams of three they were to choose an animal, cut out pictures, and prepare their research. They would present their project to the group and their teacher would ask them questions.

After designating the teams, the teacher sat back to watch. One team couldn’t agree on an animal. One team found an animal they all liked, but everyone had a different idea of what pictures to use and where to put them on the poster. One team got upset with another one because someone had cut out an animal they wanted to use.

When the hour was up, the teacher called them back together. The girls were ready and eager to answer her questions.

The teacher began to ask questions:

What does this situation teach us about working together in real life?

What was it like to work with the other people on your team?

How did you help the team be effective?

Who was the most helpful person on your team?

What conflicts did you have? How did you handle them?

What could you do differently next time to handle conflicts better?

You see, the teacher’s goal wasn’t to teach them about animals. It was to teach them to work as a team, a much more essential life skill. Sometimes I wonder if God is doing the same thing with us. He wants us to be a united body, working together toward carrying out His mission. Throughout Scripture, it seems that the way we work together is often more important than the end product.

Let’s seek to approach whatever we do in Christ’s body with as much concern about how we get to the goal as we have about getting there.

(Team-building exercises such as this are a part of the curriculum for SMM (Sisters Mentoring with a Mission). For more information on how SMM helps disciple girls, click here. 

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When The Future Changes

~ Written by Cassie Harris

There were two men in my life. They both wanted to officiate my wedding. They both decided – separately – that if they never met the man I married, I wasn’t allowed to get married. Both Terry and Ray jokingly-but-not-so-jokingly fought each other as they planned for my future wedding together. Who would get most of the limelight as the officiator of my wedding? Who would get to kiss my cheek first? Who would get to harass my groom the best?

Usually, I just laughed instead of focusing on the confusion their bantering created. I was loved, that’s what I remembered. I was 16 and both these men had higher dreams for my future than I did. When I nearly ruined my life with childish decisions at 19 years old, they both spent hours almost daily on the phone talking me through my decisions and asking me hard questions no one else wanted to ask.

Both of these men passed away within a year of each other. It didn’t hit me until recently neither of these men get to see my wedding. Neither of these men get to ask me the hardest questions of all: “Can you support your husband when he seems unsupportable? Can you make him laugh when all you want to do is make him cry? Can you show him Christ when all you want to do is show him yourself?”

Even at 16, Ray and Terry warned me about those questions. They told me what they wanted the answers to be and what they would do if my answers didn’t represent Christ. They were futuristically minded when I couldn’t be. They cared more for my future than almost any other non-related acquaintance ever had.

They didn’t plan on not being around to help me grow up, but they prepared me for the future just in case they weren’t.

What if we discipled like that more often? What if we strove to be involved with our mentees but prepared them to be just as godly, wise and prepared without us as they are when they are with us? What if we didn’t shield them from hard things but rather taught them they can prepare for a storm before it comes?

What if we discipled in such a way that those we disciple don’t pine after us after we’re gone but rather strive to emulate the Christ-like characteristics we focused on the most?

(Adapted with permission from author’s blog Defining My Sanity.) 

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The Costs of Remodeling

~ Written by Viki Rife

I walked into the guest room and reached for the light switch. My finger encountered a thick powdery substance. I sighed. Here we go again!

In the past month, I have experienced the same thing over and over. I reach for a coffee cup and it feels gritty. I go to use an appliance and it’s gray instead of black.

When we started our remodeling project, I had no idea how very much drywall dust can find its way into every nook and cranny of a house. The sanding part of the project is over, but I keep finding places that need to be cleaned. How in the world did such thick dust get into rooms that were closed off?

I can’t help but compare it to how the Lord lives in us as He remodels us. Sometimes his work in us stirs up more dust, and we realize we need to go in and clean something we thought was safely closed off. It can’t be just a quick job—confess and walk away. It has to involve a thorough check of what we have been doing and how far the wrong motives have gotten. Every crevice needs to be carefully examined.

Slowly, I’m learning to appreciate the remodeling God is doing with my life. And, hopefully, I’m becoming more prepared to cooperate with Him in the job of removing the dust of sin from every corner of my life. 

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Urgent Bells

~ Written by Viki Rife 

The kid down the street couldn’t resist ringing doorbells. He’d move along the row of houses, pushing buttons and hiding when someone opened a door. Ten times a day wasn’t too often for him to interrupt our lives.

Just ignore the doorbell, right? But my dad was the pastor, and because we didn’t have a phone in those days, the ringing of our doorbell could mean someone was in crisis. There was no way our conscience would allow us to ignore the doorbell when it rang. I felt tyrannized by that unpredictable bell.

Recently I realized that I’m caught in that tyranny again. This time, it’s my smartphone. It lets me know when I get a text, an e-mail, or certain Facebook posts or messages. It lets me know if there’s an Amber alert, or a Silver alert, or a weather alert. It reminds me that I have 17 tasks to do this day, or that I have an appointment, or that someone from a group text I was sent two days ago has finally gotten around to responding.

Because I am a conscientious person, I feel obligated to answer. Even if someone sends a mass Facebook message to all their friends that says, “Have a good day,” I feel I should at least acknowledge it with an emoji. I feel tyrannized by my phone. Because I travel a lot, people often don’t realize that I’m in a different time zone, so they send a text that awakens me at unearthly hours.

Yes, my phone has a button to turn it off. I have been turning off notifications on apps that intrude. But my parents are both in poor health, and I want to be available if needed. And I feel ambiguous because sometimes people are waiting on my answer to accomplish what they need to do, and are frustrated that it takes me so long to see their message and respond.

The way my brain feels right now, I understand what Jesus meant when He told His disciples to come aside and rest. The constant demands of everyone at any time was taking a toll on His relationship with His Father. I’m finally allowing myself to let go of the guilt for not being at everyone’s disposal constantly, and making conscious efforts to sit quietly, uninterrupted, at the feet of Jesus. Only He can teach me to live at peace in a frantic world. 

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Forgive And…

~ Written by Sue Knight

Forgive and forget.

Forgive and move on.

Forgive, but return to the offense and allow it to overwhelm you once again.

Forgive and plot your revenge for later.   

You can fill in the blank to this familiar phrase using a variety of words. Personally, I do not adhere to the “forgive and forget” camp (nor to any of the other options listed above). It is true that memories can be triggered at a most unexpected moment and an avalanche of thoughts comes rushing back into our hearts and minds. However, it is what I do with those thoughts that counts.

When I look back on the hurts and offenses I have experienced in my life, I am learning to say, “Thank you, God, for this reminder of how important forgiveness is.”

Forgiveness is as much for the offended as it is for the offender. God granted us forgiveness before we even knew we were sinners and separated from Him. Ephesians 4:29-32 speaks directly to forgiveness – “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.” A powerful step to take, one which can bring God’s healing balm to soothe our pain as we ask God to give us a Christ-like heart of forgiveness.

But does a painful ordeal end with forgiveness? While forgiveness can be both thrilling and powerful, if we are able to experience reconciliation as a result of that forgiveness, it is even more exciting. Max Lucado has said, “The key to forgiving others is to quit focusing on what they did to you and start focusing on what God did for you.” Forgiveness is required by God. The next step, reconciliation, is forgiveness in action.

The process of reconciliation depends upon the attitude of both the offended and the offender. The wounds which hurt so deeply in the beginning have been replaced by scars. Forgive and forget? Forgetting is just about impossible because of the way God uses painful experiences to shape our lives. The scars left behind are just that, something we don’t think about a lot, but every once in a while, we notice them. Ask our Father to use these times as a reminder to thank Him that they represent forgiveness and perhaps reconciliation—reconciliation as illustrated by the Cross.

The purpose of the Cross is to repair the irreparable. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. We have not only experienced that reconciliation through our salvation, but recognize that reconciliation has brought us back together into oneness with God. Praise God—forgiveness is the prelude to reconciliation. 

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Don’t Wait Till Sunday

~ Written by Cathy Simms

Have you ever thought about how you treat people when you enter your church on Sunday? Do you enter your bank or grocery store and treat others the same way? How about your friends and family?

Philippians 2:4 (NLT) says, “Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.” It begins with taking “me” out of every situation and putting “others” in its place. When we have the mind of Christ, we are able to see others as Christ sees them.

The word “servant” is defined as “one who serves others.” Galatians 6:3 (NLT) says, “If you think you are too important to help someone in need, you are only fooling yourself. You are really a nobody.” It is in small acts of serving or looking out for others’ interests that we grow like Christ. He specialized in menial tasks that everyone else tried to avoid.

Small tasks often show a big heart. Having a servant’s heart is revealed in little acts that others don’t think of doing. Sometimes we need to serve upward to those in authority but sometimes we need to serve downward to those in need.

So I challenge you, don’t wait until Sunday to think about how to help someone. The people God puts in your path today need to know somebody cares! Who will you be willing to serve today?

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