Last week was Hannah's 7th birthday! We had an awesome weekend celebrating God's awesome gift of Hannah! We are so blessed that He choose us to be Hannah's parents. Hannah is a loving, generous girl. It is often the case where Hannah steps up and offers something kind to her brother or sister. She gives up her stuff out of love for others. She is always drawing me a picture or making me a project. Her growth in her journey with her Savior has been amazing to watch this year. Her prayers are open & honest & refreshing. It is an honor to raise her for the Lord.
We went out to eat for her birthday and had a great time. We spent the weekend playing with friends & family doing a ton of things.
And then there is this bee. On Thursday Tyler called me at work, from school. He said, "Mom I won a bee" I said "huh?" He told me that it was too big for the bus & I needed to come & pick it up. ok. So after school we went to get his bee without knowing what exactly I was picking up. It was hard to get it in the van!
He can't wait to hang it from his ceiling. Huh? But honestly, I am so proud of him. He won it for scoring 60 correct math problems in 90 seconds. The first person in the class to accomplish this goal won the bee. They have been working at it daily for a couple of weeks and he practiced & tried so hard. He is proud of his accomplishment & so am I. God has blessed our Tyler with the ability to do some math skills! And with a giant bee...
In answering God's leading, I have started a new blog called Seeing His Mercy in the Mess. You can follow the link to go to it. There I explain why I started a new blog. I will still have this blog, but I hope to take this one back to more about my kids and our life and things that we are doing. Mercy in the Mess will be specific to my journey and I pray that you will follow me on to the next step in that blog.
As we are approaching the 2 year mark on events that changed my life and my family's life forever I took some time today to read back some of my posts throughout the last year. I tend to only post after I get through a "lesson" God has been taking me through. Which I think may give a perspective that I am just doing awesome and staying strong. I don't tend to write on here in my weakest moments. And believe me, those times are there, a lot. But I look back and see just how much God is growing me in so many ways! I am in awe at His amazing grace & mercy in this trial. My God loves me enough to mold me more and more in to His image. What a humbling realization.
While God has graciously changed me, there is one thing that while it has changed in how it looks and how it affects my daily life - the core of it remains solid. God has called me to love my husband unconditionally and to wait patiently for the Lord to act while I stand firm for my marriage, not knowing how long it will take. I know that many friends and family do not understand this, and I have had to make the choice between desiring the approval of man or following the leading of my Father. To accept what I can physically see & know or to trust in God "who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" (Eph.3:20). I have continued to make the choice to have faith. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." Hebrews 11:1 & 6
I have no promise from God that my husband will be coming home. But I have faith to believe that God can do it. It doesn't look like it from the outside. And there is the long list of "why would I want that back?". But that's a point - I don't want that back. I want the marriage that God created me & my husband to have. It is not God's will for him to be with anyone else, and that will be dealt with accordingly by Him who judges. God allowed me & my husband to enter into a convent relationship that we will both be held to answer to on judgement day. And no matter what, I firmly stand alongside my God while HE fights this earthly battle. I will not falter because "reality" tells me something different. I know the truth.
The truth is that God came to save the lost. He died for me and He died for my husband. My God, He is pursuing my husband's heart. He is moving on the other side of this mountain in ways that I can't even begin to fathom. I believe it. I really resonated with a website Rejoice Marriage Ministries. On their home page they have a standers affirmation that I posted around my house to remind me to have faith in the only one that is able - God. Jesus is the answer. Which leads me to a change that has taken place. This is God's work, and it is not mine. My call is to stand for my marriage and to be in constant prayer & fasting for my husband and our marriage.
Have you ever prayed Ezekiel 36:22-38 for someone that you love who needs Jesus? It has an amazingly powerful experience to get on your knees and pray scripture by personalizing it by inserting names into it. I pray that scripture for myself, my husband and our marriage everyday and I lay on the floor crying my eyes out as the Spirit moves while I pray. You should try it, you will be blessed by it. There are a couple of phrases and a theme that jumps out at me that is throughout the chapter. "It is not for your sake that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name" "I am the Lord" "I will..." (as in God, not me) "Then they will know that I am the Lord" Obviously these are just excerpts taken from the chapter, so please go read it all. But the point is that God WILL act and he WILL answer and he WILL deliver. But not for me and not necessarily how I think it should look. Not because I want it. Not because my whole list of reasons why my husband should or needs to come home. God will act because He is the Lord and everyone who has been even remotely observant, been touched or involved in this trial - they will know it was the Lord God who acted and there will be absolutely be no other possible explanation. Whether that is an act of bringing my husband to Himself and then home to his family - or whether it is by holding me up on his right hand to stand for His truth in the face of heartbreak and sin. Do you laugh? Roll your eyes? Think, oh Kari, you are going to be so hurt when you figure out the truth? Do you dismiss it? Think I'm crazy? I say think what you want because I know the truth of who my God is and what He can do. And He can be your God too. Whether you join me in my stand or not doesn't matter. Whether Jon runs to his Father or not or whether he ever comes home or not is not the point. I'm standing firm because of God's strength and grace. And just wait and see...one day, you will know - as all the glory goes to Him.
Have you ever wanted anything so badly that you can't imagine not wanting it? Yep I do.
Have you ever needed allow yourself to be vulnerable to more hurt in order to keep wanting it? Ugh, yes!
And then start to wonder why in the world you want it anymore?! All the time.
Do you ever beg God to give you something, anything, to let you know if you are still in submission to His will? More than I should.
And then He answers, what is your response? Um, fear.
What?!?!? Yes, I've learned this week that I am afraid of having hope.
I spent the weekend begging God to give me a reason to keep on keeping on. I see nothing, am I crazy? Why am I standing firm for my marriage anymore?
God answered me. His precious presence answered a long standing prayer. And while it is not a full answer to everything, to me, it is something that spoke directly to my heart straight from my Father - in a direct response to what I asked Him. It may be small, and others may argue that it was nothing. But to me, it was answered prayer which makes it huge. And I thank God for his answer! It spoke loud and clear that God can do anything He wants and at any time, it can happen. My God is able and my God is Big!
Satan is actively trying to steal and distort my hope and trying to prevent me from giving God the glory for answered prayers. I want it so bad, but I'm afraid to really have any hope. Why? Because I'm tempted to keep hoping in something, or someone, other than God alone. I've been let down before. I try to manipulate and control. I've read into things before that were not facing reality. Hoping means I could end up hurting even more and I don't want to hurt anymore. It even took me a while to be able to name that as my response.
I've been so afraid to hope. Mark 4:40 "He said to them, Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?"
I confess my sins of unbelief and little faith. Mark 9:24b "I believe; help my unbelief!"
Because of God's work in me...satan has lost this battle. My God is victorious! I claim my victory over this as God's child. I do have hope because my hope is in God, not in people or circumstances. I'm clinging to Jesus. I'm rejoicing in the answered prayer. I continue to pray and leave it all in God's hands. What God does with it, is God's story. And I am resting in the casting of that burden.
A dear friend texted me some of these verses, and it hit home for me... Lamentations 3:21-26 "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him; The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord"
Father, I'm waiting and hoping in You alone. You Lord are able. You Lord are doing work that I can't see. Thank you for allowing me see my sin of unbelief and misplaced hope and for giving me the grace to turn from it. Please give me the grace to sit here in this place of hoping in You as the only way. You are not good just because of what You are able to give me, but because of who You are. Give me strength to stand. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Friends, keep standing. Allow yourself to hope in Him. To God be the glory. Kari
My awesome sister-in-law gave me a cd for Christmas that I love. It is Matt Hammitt Every Falling Tear and the whole cd makes me cry, but I love it. At the end of this post is the "video" of the song Let Go. You will be blessed by just sitting back and listening to it.
As many of you know, I am on a hard journey. Some days by God's grace I am very strong. But it would be deceiving for you to think that I have it all together. God IS good, which is why I can be broken before Him. I have been wronged. I have been sinned against. I am rightfully hurt. Other people have chosen to cause hurt to me and my family and are able to justify it to themselves because they are so blind to the truth. Some days I pray that God would have mercy on them, and other days I want lightening to plain old strike them down. Oh, sins will be revealed and truth shall prevail, praise God for that! But that doesn't take away the hurt. It doesn't take away my kids & I crying together and the reality of pain & confusion that exists. It doesn't make it ok. Some days all I can do is cry in fear & hurt, some days I am so incredibly angry, some days I'm numb, and other days I cry while resting in His arms. Which leaves one thing left to do. Let Go.
Let go of what? That's my question. Do I let go of my marriage as in give up on it? No, that's not what God is asking me to do. Continuing to pray for a restored marriage with the man God created my husband to be is a good thing. I've let go along the way of ways that I can fix it on my own, so that's not it; although that is an ongoing process! The frustrated feeling of just wanting to know what I'm suppose to let go of is too much to take some days! Do know how many times I've cried out "God just tell me already! I'll do whatever you want, just tell me!"? As many have pointed out, my blogging has almost taken on a sense of being prophetic. (Don't get all worked up. I'm not claiming to be a prophet or anything). When I blog something, within days, God makes me live out that my words are not just words, but truly the way I want to live. So even knowing that risk, I think I have my answer.
I need to truly let go of me & my plan. What I thought my life would be and how I think my life should be. I can't just let go of trying to fix things to fit my plan, I need to give up the whole plan all together! Guess what, what those people did to me was, and is, pure evil. It is the work of Satan in this fallen world. It messed up my plan for me and my kids & my life. There is a huge wake of hurt and consequences everywhere. But the glory of God is that he takes what Satan intended for evil and uses it for my good! But if I keep holding on to my stuff, I can't get to the good! And this song speaks to that. God knows so much more than I know. He knows the big picture, he can see whole quilt not just my one patch. He knows what I don't, because he knows everything about the past, present and the future. He knows every thought and every action and every everything. I'm not meant to know it but because I am a child of God I can rest on His promises to use it for my good. I can trust Him. While I hate everything about this whole situation, I have to trust that God is laying protection around me. He is using more evil actions & sin to protect me & my kids from whatever is coming down the pipe in the future. And I have no idea what that is, but I can confidently say that for me & my kids, it will be good. Our suffering will not be for nothing. And I can't let go all on my own, that is only by God's grace.
Father, please help me to let go of me. To stop being so self-righteous, arrogant & proud that I actually think I know better than you of what is good for my life. Give me faith to let go and surrender to your ways for your arms are the ones I want to be in. I do have more questions than answers right now. But what I really need impressed upon my heart is that You Father are good, and faithful, and strong, and right and able. I can let go because you are - who you are.
"If God is sovereign, then he is in control of all the details of my life. If he is loving, then he is going to be shaping the details of my life for my good. If he is all-wise, then he's not going to do everything I want because I don't know what I need. If he is patient, then he is going to take time to do all this. When we put all these things together-God's sovereignty, love, wisdom & patience- we have a divine story." from A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller
Anyone who has ever taken the time to talk to me throughout my journey knows how far I've come. I have learned to give up control and accept with my whole heart everything in that quote. I believe it. I am no where near the same person that I was. I was a bad wife, a messed up person, a horrible sinner because I didn't obey and submit to God. My life seemed normal to pretty much everyone around me. Behind closed doors, my life was a mess. I didn't trust God. I didn't believe he was loving or wise. I was in complete control of everything around me. I knew what I needed a whole lot more than God knew. I deserved to be happy because that's what God wants for us all - to live happy lives.
Wrong.
God doesn't want us to live happy lives. God wants us to live holy lives. This is not to imply that God doesn't want us to be happy. In fact, God faithfully bestows amazing blessings to His children. He even commands us to be joyful in all circumstances. God IS joy and happiness. I'm talking about a wordly sense. To keep in perspective of why He created us - for HIS glory, not for us to find happiness outside of Him. Looking back, my life wasn't happy and it sure wasn't holy. Do you know the only reason that I can look back and see that - because God saved me from it. He grabbed a hold of me, he opened my eyes and he freed me from it! God is so merciful and gracious that it makes me cry just thinking about it. He has so much more for my life than to live short of being the woman He created me to be! I was going to go through life never living the good life. I was missing out! Make no mistake about it. I'm no wounded bird crying in the corner. I am flying on eagles wings! "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians & how I bore you on eagles' wings & brought you to myself" Isaiah 19:4 No man can deny or steal the glory of God's life-saving work. God had mercy on me and revealed my desperate need for a savior and he brought me to him. That is God at work.
God works everything for HIS glory, not for my happiness. He is in complete control and HIS will be done. I have been called to trust in Jesus. And that is exactly what I am doing. I have given up control of my life. I have accepted that nothing happens that He doesn't allow so that He can use it for His glory. Even when it makes no sense to me. Even when others don't agree with me. I don't make decisions out of fear anymore. I make them after waiting at the feet of Jesus for His direction and leading.
Don't ever doubt for a second that I've given up on my marriage & my family. I have given up on MY ability to do it, on MY ability to save it. That's never going to work. I've submitted my life & the people in it, to God's authority and God's plan & God's timing. I'm fighting for it in the only way that I can...on my knees before the life-saving, life-changing, miracle-working Heavenly Father. I've turned it over to God and I am remaining on my knees for everything that matters to me on this earth. As a paraphrasing quote from Beth Moore says, "girlfriend, get on your knees and let God take it on. You just have to duck because one day He is coming!" or "You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, & see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf" 2 Chronicles 20:17a. I need a miracle, and I'm asking God for one. My hope is in the Father, the only one capable of performing miracles, and trust me, He performs them every day. I'm living proof of that.
By God's grace I'm standing firm and letting Him fight this battle with the ones that need to be fought with. And God is sovereign, God is loving, God is wise and God is patient. God is very much working at weaving together a divine story. I'm finally aware to the truth that it is God's story. And that, is God at work.
What has 2011 brought into my life? By worldly standards I have a "right" to say this year has been horrible. I've "earned the right" to feel abandoned, betrayed, hatred, bitterness, self-righteous, vengeful, hurt, and so on. And the events of my life these past 19 months have brought me through many of those feelings. I've been hurt very deeply. Things hurt inside that I never knew existed, in a way that I never knew was possible. The literal ripping apart of my life could have robbed me of my life. I don't know if I can say that I have had even one easy day this year.
But I have the gift of being a child of God. And that means that I do not use those other words to describe 2011. Instead, some of the words I use are: joy, freedom, blessings, peace & comfort.
I have learned that all I need is God. He is my redeemer, my defender, my supplier, my refuge, my strength, my unfailing, ever faithful Savior. God has lovingly torn away everything in my life that was above Him. Leaving me broken, ashamed and desperate for the only thing that can give true life - God himself. I went down paths that were desperate attempts to maintain control of something, anything. I have wrestled with God over big things and little things and everything in between. I have always considered myself a Christian. I have always believed in God. But this year I learned what it really means to know God instead of just knowing about God. God called me into a genuine relationship with Him and there could never be a greater gift. There is a huge difference between knowing about God and being a follower of the One True God. It's a difference that you don't realize until you've experienced it. People who don't know it, don't get it. Once you truly submit your life to God and His will, your life will change in dramatic ways. It is the process of God making all things new.
I love my husband dearly and I desire to have a loving relationship and marriage with him, as God intended, with HIM as the foundation. But God has set me free! I am free from needing any man to make me ok. No man can determine my worth, my love, nor define me in any way. I am defined by God alone. I am made whole in God alone. I am finally free to love my husband as God intended. If God's plan includes raising my marriage from the dead and restoring it to His glory, I will remain free from the bondage and receiving the blessing that can come from the Almighty God alone.
God has showered me with blessings and answered prayers. Everywhere I look I see an answer to prayer. I am 100% dependent on God for everything in my life. I literally live day to day not knowing how things might go. But I am confident in God's faithfulness. He has transformed me to live Ps. 112:6-8 "For the righteousness will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries." I have absolutely no idea what 2012 will bring for me and my family. I have no clue what will happen. But I'm not afraid. I am at peace because I have God's comfort. I can be certain it won't be easy, but it will be glorifying to God. God will carry me. God is faithful. God will provide. God will be my strength.
I am finally finding joy because God is joy. Rejoice! Rejoice! And through it all, The Lord has been so good to me!
I am a woman who is in love with God. I am eager to follow Him in the trial He has seen fit to bring into my life. A trial that is heartbreaking and yet loudly proclaims His mercy & love for me because He loves me enough to shake up my world to draw me to Him. I have 3 young children and a husband, whom by God's grace, I am able to love unconditionally.
