Believe it or not… It’s never too late

 

I started my day with a devotional about regrets. The writer listed several regrets she, as a nurse, had heard people who were near death state.

I read the question at the end to fill in the blank of what I regretted, and I had to stop and think. I’m ashamed to say that I wasted so much of my life by putting off things I should have gotten up and started.

Now, at my age, that habit hasn’t grown easier but harder. I have this long conversation telling myself that once I get up and get started, it will get done. (The elves have never come in overnight and done any of my projects.)

It's strange that when I was younger, I remember saying to myself, “Sue, take it easy, or you’ll burn yourself out and have nothing left when you get old.”

I should have listened. You wouldn’t believe what I could do in one day when I was younger. I didn’t know how to pace myself. I thought I had to get it all done in one day.

Now I spend so much time trying to convince myself to just get up. Now that I’ve confessed, the thought came to me as I contemplated my regrets, when the Holy Spirit clearly said, “Sue, no matter what you regret having not done, you can start right now.”

I thought about that. Today is the day that the Lord has made to rejoice and be glad in. Even if today is the very last day I see this side of heaven, that thing that I kept putting off, I can start today.

When I moved here to Florida, I wanted a new beginning. The main thing I prayed for was that my faith in the Lord would be the same on the outside of me as it is on the inside. I wanted God to be more important to me than anyone or anything else. I thought at seventy-six it was surely time.

God has been answering that prayer, but not in the way I thought. Several things took a turn I wasn’t expecting. It threw me. But once He loved and comforted me and got me quiet, I began to see that He really was answering my prayer. Nothing is like having your schedule wiped out along with things you thought were going to happen.

I had no choice but to draw close to the Holy Spirit. I was so discouraged and hurt. But if the things I had been planning once I got here had happened, I wouldn’t have drawn nearer to the Lord. We think we are going to do something when, in fact, if you are like me, you end up every night telling the Lord I promise I’ll start tomorrow.

Don’t let the lie of it being too late overwhelm your mind. The other thing that the Holy Spirit whispered to me was, “Why not start now?”

No matter how much time any of us has left here, we can use it wisely. We can start with rejoicing and being glad in this day. We can focus on the goodness of God. We can tell Him how thankful we are for another day. Then let that lead to listing the blessings we have. Before I knew it, I was sitting here writing this post that I had been putting off.

Whatever you regret in your life, if you are physically or mentally able to do it, start right now. Begin by telling the Lord, Thank you for this day and see where it goes.

 

I bless you.

                                           Endless loneliness.

If reading that title makes your mind begin to scream, your breathing quickens, and your stomach tightens, then you need to keep reading.

I don’t think there is a human condition worse than loneliness. Usually, loneliness is brought on by separation from people. Whether family, friends, or even an occasional relationship with someone who isn’t strongly connected to you. In my times of loneliness, I would have opted for even that marginal relationship.

My absolute worst time of each day started around 5 o’clock, with between 6 and 7 o’clock the hardest. It came like a subtle, thick fog-soup that rolled over my heart and mind every single day. No matter what I tried to do to distance myself from the fact that I was alone, sometimes it made it worse.

The automatic pictures began to play in my mind. Husbands and wives were coming home, kids were preparing to ambush them at the door, all vying for their attention to share what had happened in their day.

Once the initial greeting was over, they gathered in the kitchen while finishing touches were put on the evening meal. Kids scrambled onto their chairs, and Dad stole a kiss from his wife before they, too, were seated at the table. Plates were served while the chatter found a lower urgency. But it was then taken up with laughter, or even tears, of the frustration of growing children. But somehow it was always resolved. In my mind, even the house seemed to hug its occupants, reassuring them of its protective walls.

The picture continues through babies and younger children peeking out from a bath full of bubbles. Tickles and hugs were given without limit. Bedtime stories were picked up where they left off until little heads nodded off in safe, contented sleep. Nightlights were left on to guide a sleepy child later in the night to find the bathroom or crawl up into mom and dad’s bed. Even though the people in my daily scenario had settled down, the picture still held a strong sense of peace and safety.

Standing outside through the hours of this daily torture left me exhausted as I tumbled into my own bed—alone. For a few brief hours, I was paroled from these mental pictures only to be set on a new course of daytime activity.

People heavily invested in coworkers, agreeing to go for drinks or dinner together after work, or catch the latest movie. The list never ended. Every direction I turned, there was someone making plans to be with another person. I'm glad that the screaming that was always going on in my head never found its way out of my mouth. I'm sure I would have been committed to a mental ward somewhere.

Now, to be completely honest, there were a few times I dove headlong into relationships for brief periods. I can’t tell you exactly what drew these people, who I thought were going to be my forever friends and family, but something always did.

My most recent heartbreak due to desertion by a friend came with my latest move. Oh, what glorious expectations I had! This time of my life was finally going to be the fulfillment of the Word God gave me years ago—My later years will be greater than my former years.

For a brief moment, it appeared that I was about to walk in the long-awaited promise. Instead, the all too familiar fog of loneliness and depression rolled into my apartment. Along with it, this time was a massive dose of guilt for not forcing myself to become something that I am not—a social butterfly. God didn’t give me that personality.

But once the major disappointment grew quiet, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and made a conscious decision to venture out into this senior community where my life had been deposited. Four people began to look like they might hold the promise of at least one of them becoming that close, intimate one-on-one friendship my soul longs for. Slowly, it began to dawn on me that they, too, had other friends, family, and obligations that drew them away.

My heart has been crying out for months now. Who’s left? Where is that close friend that I was so sure we would be inseparable? There’s nothing like hearing the crickets of silence in your loneliness.

I had prayed a prayer just before moving here, asking the Lord to make my faith more real than it ever has been before. The plan I saw wasn’t anything like what has been unfolding for the past year.

Sitting on the side of my bed, crying out to the Lord to lift these disappointing trials, has been met with a resounding reassurance by the Holy Spirit, telling me that He is with me.

I’ve been hearing the Lord constantly reminding me of my prayer. It’s hard for us human beings to believe that God longs for our friendship even more than we long for the friendship of others. He waits in the line of people and activities to become empty to us so that we will draw near to Him and He will draw near to us.

I am ashamed to admit that my life’s desire to have that one close friend wasn’t always looking to Jesus as THE One who will fulfill that desire. The one who promises to stick closer than a brother. The one who promises to never leave me or forsake me. The only one who can and will meet my every emotional, mental, and physical need.

The argument I have had with the Holy Spirit is because I can’t SEE Jesus. It’s an internal dialog that I have to surrender to and trust that the two voices I hear are my own and that of the Holy Spirit, all by faith.

When I do this, every physical sense of loneliness fades away. I’m talking to my friend. He’s listening to my heart’s cry. He reassures me that He is truly here with me, and I am finally not alone. And I hear His voice even more when I submit to times of reading the Word.

I am facing another insurmountable situation again. One where people have already disappointed me with not doing what they said they would do. So the Holy Spirit sweetly reigns me back in closer to Him with the promise that He is working everything out. That he once again will overrule the world’s systems on my behalf, but it might not look like it did the last time.

So, I came to my keyboard today, right in the middle of all the swirling thoughts, to surrender what I think should happen and most of all, when it should happen, and trust God with it all. Especially the human element of people not doing what they say. I have to let go. Once I have followed all the Lord’s leading in doing my part, then I have to rest in Him.

When I try to force the situation, all I do is end up spinning my wheels, becoming more frustrated, and end up sitting on the edge of my bed at 3 a.m., reaching for God.

It’s a never-ending day, moment by moment walk with God. I’ve decided that I’ll never get it right. But the times that He draws me close, quiets my heart and whispers that He’s got me and not to be afraid, there is nothing in this whole world worth trading that for. No human relationship. No perfect mental pictures. Nothing. There’s nothing like having your heart and mind overshadowed by the Love of God when everything in you is screaming out for release.

If you find your life in the whirling pool of emotional craziness and hopelessness, let me assure you that there is a place you can go. God is waiting on you to run into Him and be saved.

I bless you.

 

Has anyone ever told you, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

When all hope is lost in our lives, we give up. I’ve been there. It took years of my soul being beaten down by my father’s broken promises. I truly believe that God gives all of us as children a sense of hope. The Biblical definition of hope is this,

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. vs. 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I placed all my hope in my father. Over and over, he proved unfaithful. I sought my father’s love continually. No matter how many times he disappointed me, I went right back believing that he didn’t mean to disappoint me, and THIS time it would be different. After I was in my late thirties, I finally ran out of hope and love for him. There just wasn’t another drop in my tank.

In a way, it was a relief. It was over. I’d not have to go another second waiting for him to come to some sort of epiphany—It never came. I had to face the truth at last. As I walked away from my earthly father, I saw my Heavenly Father walking toward me. He embraced not only my tired adult heart but my broken child heart still within me.

There’s not a feeling in this world like having the arms of God go around you, drawing you close. Nothing was being said, just a warmth and acceptance in that moment. Was there work to be done in me now? Yes, the path was before me to regain all the hope that I had lost since a child. That seemed like a daunting task. But the difference now was WHO I was putting my renewed hope in.

I searched the Word and the ways that God has been faithful to me in so many ways. I’d been a Christian for fifteen years. I’d come to know God’s faithfulness through so many other times in my life when I went to Him like I had my father. It took time. But two promises that God has never broken have been that He would never leave me or forsake me. These were the first two things I asked God to promise me.

I’d been left by my father, and still I hung on to the belief that he was coming back. He destroyed my trust in him too many times to count. One day I asked myself why did I kept doing this. I knew he wasn’t trustworthy or even had a glimmer of regret about anything he failed to do in my life. That undeniable childlike faith, trust, and hope that is deposited in each of us when we are born is oftentimes misplaced. We place it in a broken, sinful human. A parent, a teacher, a friend, or someone who looks dependable but proves otherwise.

When I realized that I had exhausted all my hope on my father, I cried to God, asking, “What do I do now? How do I ever get any hope back?”

The above scripture tells us that God is a REWARDER of those who diligently seek him. His character is flawless. Slowly, day by day, I took my brokenness to God. Some days I felt absolutely nothing. And then one day I began to feel a small sense of hope quicken about something I had gone to God about. But the underlying fact that I learned about hope wasn’t just being hopeful, but Who I was placing my hope in.

This time it was God. The God of the Word. The God who can not lie. Is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The God who doesn’t change how He feels about me. The God who never stops loving me.

For years, I blamed myself for my father’s flawed behavior. I thought it was me. That I was wrong. That it was because of something I did or didn’t do. Coming to finally see that it wasn’t me, it was my father who was broken. He didn’t know how to love or keep his promises. The day I realized that he never once meant to ever keep any promise he made, it was enlightening! When that fact dawned on me, I saw the total waste of all those years. I had placed my hope in someone who had never had any intentions of keeping a single promise he made. That was an eye-opening moment. Devastating but freeing. At last, I was finally able to face the truth.

The word says, in John 8:31, Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Although facing the truth about my relationship with my father was hard, it released me to begin to hope again. At that time, no one could even mention my father or speak to me about it without it devastating me. Today, I am so very grateful to say that all that is gone. God healed that childlike part of me. He replaced all my ability to hope again.

I always pray that anyone who takes the time to read what I post here will go away changed. This blog is written by someone who has had to walk out what she shares. It’s God in me reaching out through this page with an invitation to come to Him for everything you need.

I pray that you will take time now to go to God yourself. 

I bless you.

 

 

 

 

What impossible situation are you facing today?

 It's not over until God says it's over.

 

There’s only one person in my life that I believe everything that He tells me. And that is God. Believe me, I have a lot of people lately saying something about my life that isn’t true. I share the Word of God here because it’s the only thing to live by. If you are listening to any other source, you will suffer discouragement, dismay, and disappointment. Only God can make promises that are 100% trustworthy. But don’t take my word for it.

Titus 1 KJV

Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

 We are living in a world right now where we are being lied to every day about something. False promises about products, fake news, and people who are not real people but photoshopped pictures. What do you need right now in your life? God’s got a Word for it. No matter what you have been told about God by religion that has caused you to doubt Him, I’d ask you to do one thing today.

I can guarantee this will work. Go to God yourself. If you have a Bible, get it out. If you don’t own one, go on the internet or go buy your own. Sit down, put God to the test, and see if He will not reveal Himself to you. If you think it won’t work, you are missing out on not only real Life here, but you are jeopardizing your future life. Why would you risk salvation when it is being freely offered to you today?

One other point I want to make perfectly clear. If Church or someone in it has disappointed you so much that you are holding it against God and blaming Him, please, I’m prayerfully asking you to go to God.

He has large shoulders. He can listen to ANY complaint or any angry belief that you have. Trust me, I have taken so many moods to God and poured out my heart to Him. Never once did He turn me away or fail to bring me back into a calm, trusting sense of His love for me.

It truly breaks my heart when a person tells me they refuse to believe in God because of another human being’s opinion.

I’m sure you have heard of this scripture at least once in your life. Are you a whosoever? Then this will be the very first promise God will make to you. Open your heart today by acknowledging that Jesus died for your sins, ask the Holy Spirit to come into you, and watch what happens. This is a personal step you have to take; no one can take it for you.

John 3:16 KJV

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Or you can read this and walk away thinking this is just another person trying to sell me on religion. I’d have to agree with you about religion. It’s not religion, it’s a relationship being offered to you today.

I pray over this blog that anyone who takes the time to read it will be blessed. So you have been prayed for today.

As a child, were you taught to believe in yourself and that you could succeed?

I’ve been quiet here for a while. It’s crossed my mind several times to write a new post. By the Grace of God, when I come and look at the number of views on my blog… I have some! So someone is reading what I write here. I wish I could find the words to truly express what that means to me. Writing has been my main passion since I was a child. Sadly, as a child, I was never taught to believe in myself or set up for success in my life. In fact, the opposite was true. I don’t want to use your time here reading about another victim of their childhood, but I had a father who never once praised his child for anything she did. It was always the opposite. I learned at an early age that nothing I did was ever going to be enough. Yet my young heart, still tender with childlike hope, brought the things I did for him, believing that one day I would hear, “Well done! You did a good job.”

Instead, as the years passed and my hope of ever doing anything right were stripped away I tagged my father with this phrase, Not enough nuts and raisins. It came from cooking desserts for him. They either had too many nuts or raisins or not enough nuts and raisins. We never got it right.

Incredible as it seems, even to me, I have written several books which I sent out into the world each one a precious child, hoping that they would find acceptance, and each one read with the anticipation of more.

But after over twenty years of creating my books from start to finish, regretfully, I’m not a blip on the world’s literary screen. This has sent me in so many directions. From wanting to delete everything I've ever written and walk away, never to write another word, to what I've just done recently.

I’ve pulled all my self-published files up and re-edited them for one last time. When you write, you can often miss simple mistakes. A coma here, using there for their or you when you meant you’re. It happens.

But the thing that always brings tears to my eyes is the feeling like I’m reading a book for the first time that someone else wrote. I often have to pause and cry for a minute, asking the Lord why the work of my hands has gone unblessed. These are good stories. Positive stories. Relatable stories. And might I even add—page-turning stories.

So for the past several weeks, once again, I’ve sat in my world with my heart breaking over what my hands have created. As I confess here on this page, what God already knows,  they are not my books. I know this. Sometimes I can’t even remember writing them. It’s always been that way. An idea comes to me from some outside source or life experience, and when I sit down and start writing, as silly as it might sound, the story just seems to write itself. Characters’ experiences, places, love, loss, and even a mystery or two begin to become real.

January Sky was the very first book I wrote. It came to me from a picture of polar bears on the January page of a calendar. A young girl whom I worked with in my office was named January Sky, and I asked if I could use her name for the title of my book. She was thrilled, and I was certain that it was God’s leading to write the book.

Somewhere along the way, my expectations got all mixed up with my Faith. God says that he blesses the work of our hands. But please don’t get me wrong. God has blessed my life in so many ways over these seventy-six years through this scripture. I don’t know what I’d ever have done without Him. It’s just in this one part of my life that all the seeds of my efforts have lain dormant, fruitless.

Deuteronomy 28: 1And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: 2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. 3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. 5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. 6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. 7 The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. 8 The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto, and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

As in each of the lines of this scripture my life has been carried through many flood waters and I found myself still standing. God has provided for me over the years, and even now, into my “silver-haired” years, He has never forsaken me. But in this one area of my life—the work of my hands—it still remains unfulfilled.

Yet, I still go to my author page where sales and pages read are posted every month—hoping that the screen will open and there will be sales! Sometimes, if I’m being honest, I ask myself why I do this. Something in me just can’t stop hoping. God restored my hope years ago, and I guess it’s going to take actually seeing success come from all my efforts with my books becoming fruitful to meet this deep need in my heart.

I pray for anyone reading my post today that you know success. Success in whatever you give yourself to in any creative way. I pray that all our lives will one day have—Enough nuts and raisins.

I bless you.

https://susantoddstoryweaver.com/books