My Heart in His Hand

Who I am and Who I used to be

liberty~little reb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:54:21 +0000

You fought the fight in me

You chased me down and finished the race

I was blind but now I see

Jesus, you keep the faith in me

True Love? Where?

liberty~little reb — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:24:42 +0000

God only knows how disheartened I’ve been and how angry I’ve become at what I’ve seen called “love”.

In the younger generation depraved, perverted men lusting after a woman’s body convince her that they “love” her and they need to be together – this is the way he proves his love. How gallant, unselfish, and humble!

The women do all in their power to attract the eyes of men. Flirting, exposing themselves, and aggrassive behavior they use to try to draw the lust of the opposite sex. Hoping to draw “love” they give of their most valuable posession. How virtuous! How beautiful! How honoring!

I gasped at the results. Broken hearted/mental children, unclaimed children, adulterers and adultresses and alas, even suicides.

Surely if love was not in this new and younger generation, I would find it in the old. I had to go several generations back in time because I found that even of those in my parent’s era, many were divorced and living in or else on their third or fourth spouse.

So finally I went back nearly a century in time which found me in my grandparent’s age. I marvelled. Surely this was love; these old-timers had stuck it for an utmost of sixty years!

I watched them, I listened to them, and I was confused. I didn’t know what to make of it! I had been taught that love was a decision – for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, ’till death did part - and truly this was the case, but man! did these lovers quarel! A good friend of mine, an eighty-plus year old woman who was in her seventh year of caring for her invalid husband told me, “I hated him then, and I hate him now!”

After being several days in the home of couple who bickered and fought constantly, non-stop, I almost gave up hope.

I determined that in this generation marriage was sixty years of misery, in the next generation it was heartbreak and divorce, and in the younger it was trial marriages and polygamy. What did people find enticing about marriage?

Well, soon thereafter I came to know a pair of heavenly beings who walked the face of the earth. I have never in my life come in touch with such a holy and sanctified marriage! This couple was in something like their sixty-first or sixty-second year of marriage and you would have thought they were on their honeymoon. He honored her, served her, and adored her. She deferred him, revered him, and worshipped him. It was beautiful!

She’s gone now. She went Home after a long fight with cancer, and he has no reason to go on. She’s the only thing he’ll speak of along with their sixty-four glorious years of marriage. O, for more marriages like this one!

Anyway, all that (sorry for the long wind) to say that I thought this article was so sweet!

When Anna Kozlov caught sight of the elderly man clambering out of a car in her home village of Borovlyanka in Siberia, she stopped dead in her tracks, convinced her eyes were playing tricks.

There, in front of her, was Boris, the man she had fallen in love with and married 60 years earlier. The last time she had seen him was three days after their wedding, when she kissed him goodbye and sent him off to rejoin his Red Army unit.

By the time he returned, Anna was gone, consigned by Stalin’s purges to internal exile in Siberia with the rest of her family as an enemy of the people. They left no forwarding address.

Frantic, Boris tried everything he could to find his young bride, but it was no good. She was gone.

Now, more than half a century later, they were reunited, an extraordinary coincidence leading them both to return to their home village on the very same day.

“I thought my eyes were playing games with me,” Anna said. “I saw this familiar looking man approaching me, his eyes gazing at me. My heart jumped. I knew it was him. I was crying with joy.”

Now 80 years old, Boris had returned to visit his parents’ grave. As he stepped out of the car, he looked up to see Anna standing by her old house, where they had lived for the few days after the wedding.

“I ran up to her and said: ‘My darling, I’ve been waiting for you for so long. My wife, my life…’”

They stayed up all night, talking about everything that had happened to them and the cruel circumstances that tore them apart. They met when he was secretary of the Young Communists and had to make a speech in the village.

Afterwards, she was standing there in a circle of friends, but he had eyes only for her. Her father had been purged by Stalin before the war for refusing to work in a collective farm, but Boris did not care. She was too beautiful for words. “I loved her and would always defend her,” he recalled.

So the romance blossomed. When he came home from the front, she was always there, waiting. In 1946, they married. It was a hasty wedding; there was no time for anything else and they could not afford anything grand in those hard years after the war.

Three days later, he had to return to his unit. “We kissed goodbye – but I never expected we wouldn’t see each other for more than half a century,” Anna said.

A little while later, the state caught up with her. Like her father, she was branded an enemy of the people and forced with the rest of her family into internal exile in Siberia.

“I threatened to commit suicide rather than go because I couldn’t live without him,” she said, “but in the end I was forced to go. It was the most miserable time of my life.”

On his return, Boris was distraught. “She was always waiting for me when I came home, but this time there was no sign of her,” he said. “Nobody knew where they were, or what had happened to Anna. That’s how we lost any track of each other”.

In their new village, Anna’s mother resolved that the girl should remarry. She told her that Boris had remarried. “She said he had forgotten about me – that’s why no letters came.

“I didn’t believe it and I longed for him so much. But one day I got back home from work at a timber plant and my mum had burned all his earlier letters, poems and pictures – including our wedding photographs.

“She told me this other man was coming to meet me – and that I should go out with him, and if I was lucky, he’d marry me. I burst into tears and rushed into the yard. The world turned black for me. I wanted to die and I got a clothes line and went into the hayloft intending to hang myself.

“My mother came in and slapped me in the face and told me not to be so stupid. She persuaded me to go out with this man, Nefed, and gradually he and my mother persuaded me that this was where my future lay.”

Boris, too, finally gave in and re-married. He became a writer, penning a book dedicated to the woman he’d married as a young soldier but only ever spent three nights with.

In time, their respective spouses died. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Anna was once more able to travel home. Then came the chance reunion. “I felt the same when we met last year,” Boris said. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Yes I had loved other women when we were separated. But she was the true love of my life.”

He suggested they marry again. Anna resisted, but says he talked her round. “What’s the point, I said, we can just live together they rest of our lives? But he insisted. I never thought I’d be a bride at my age but it was my happiest wedding.

“Since we found each other again, I swear we haven’t had a single quarrel. We’ve been parted for so long and who knows how much is left for us, so we just don’t want to lose time on arguing.”

Chance?

liberty~little reb — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 03:56:48 +0000

Just recently I was speaking with a woman over the phone whom I’ve never met(but was referred to) and was asking her for advice in some decisions that I’m going to have to make. I was presenting her with my different options and she was educating me as to which ones would be best for which areas of field, but then she told me, “Whichever way you take, you can’t go wrong. You’re seeking God’s best in your life and as long as that is your focal point you’re good to go. Just go. You may head down a path and decide that it’s not the one for you and have to start all over again at the beginning of another. You might be able to take a straight shot, or you may end up taking a round about. Either way you can’t go wrong. You’re going to end up where He wants you.” At the end of our conversation she was praying with me and she told the Lord that He knew what my end would be. She told Him that before I was born He knew what He wanted of me and that even then He had my life’s course already planned out. I was overwhelmed – to say the least. As I was pondering over what she had said this verse came to mind:

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

I continued reading and thought of my calling and how small I feel, yet how marvelous and incredible are the promises of God! His promises make the anxious soul to sleep in peace. Whenever I’m discouraged my fist inclination is to turn to Isaiah and Jeremiah where I get chills up my spine thinking of how vast is His wondrous love and how openly He proclaims it in each and every promise! There are so many of them!

I claim God’s promise to Jeremiah…

Then said I,

“Ah Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.”

But the Lord said unto me,

“Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. I will hasten my word to perform it. Behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar. They shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee.”

His thoughts vs. Mine

liberty~little reb — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 05:05:42 +0000

Thy way...

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I’m beginning to realize a bit of the truth behind this statement. As my person cries for stability, and my mind for understanding, my heart begs for the divine will and my soul for assurance. Every day I must lay again my all at His feet, submitting to His purpose and plan for me, and trust in the fact that his thoughts and ways are the highest. Continuously, I wait.

::convictions::

liberty~little reb — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:37:27 +0000

Convictions: the left wing cries for them to be extinguished while the right wing fights tooth and nail for their existence.

Many of today’s Christians hold convictions that or more thoroughly based on man’s traditions then ever they were on Scripture. Yet many still, hold no convictions at all.

Some will put everything at stake to fight against smoking, drinking, and dancing. But as I sit in my pew and notice those in front, behind, and to the side of me, it just doesn’t seem to threaten me in such real way! On the other hand, I am constantly tempted with direct disobedience to the simplest of God’s commands! When has gossip been a conviction? Could that maybe be a real biblical danger that needs convictions to stand against it? What about forgiveness? Could that be such a conviction that it allows for no exceptions? What about love of the brethren? Could that be enough of a conviction that we begin to prove to the world who’s followers we actually are? The list goes on and on. Where are our convictions when it come’s to the commands of Christ? I have never seen a sin like gossip; so rampant among Christians yet so rarely preached against from the pulpit. Forgiveness? We don’t even know what that is! How many church splits, one after the other? How many families get up and walk out the door due to offence? How much gossip goes around and rumors started due to lack of forgiveness? Then the first and foremost of all commands: love. How many unbelievers are daily turned away from christianity due to the bickering and fighting amongst christians? How is the world to know that we are His disciples? They don’t know because there isn’t any evidence!

Then there’s those that just say “no” to conviction. Let’s not define and not draw lines. Let’s ‘up’ the toleration. Let’s be a little more excepting. Let’s not be so snobbish and radical that we can’t get down on the world’s level and minister to them.
Thus, here we sit: pious and complacent christians, who keep our thoughts to ourselves. We can’t tell the world of a living savior because we don’t want to turn them off. Our witness will be that we read our Bibles, pray, and go to church (they wont be able to tell by our daily life style because it’s no different), but surely by this they will know that we are a christian and will ask us how they too can be saved. We can’t speak out against sin amongst fellow believers because there needs to be peace and unity, not dissension.

O for the day we had conviction to preach the gospel to every people, nation and tongue! Conviction to prove our authenticity by our love for the brethren! Conviction to do all things to the glory of God! Or…JUST CONVICTION!!! for crying in a bucket!

Singin’ a New Song

liberty~little reb — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:51:20 +0000

Any of y’all who are regular readers will remember one of my more recent posts concerning women and the role they play in a man’s life. This post could be classified as repentance of that post. I do not repent of the influence idea as a whole, since we all know that everyone influences everyone else. Whether man or woman, for good or bad.

But what I set forth was that the woman has it all down and in essence she is the only hope for the male figure when it comes to turning them into men. I’ll admit it, I have been caught up in the “perverted guy” mentality. I’m ashamed to say it. Because I’ve recommended them in the past, (I still do) but I want to warn young women to be careful when reading the Ludy’s books, that you do not come away with a disdaining view of men. There is so much to be found in those books for the woman as to deepening your relationship with God, and I realize the whole idea of the book is for young ladies to get their focus off of men and onto Jesus Christ instead. But as for me, it really affected the way I viewed men.

And in that last post, I used “making” men, as an excuse for a woman to simply do her God given duty. Yes, a woman is supposed to let a man be a man, but not so that he will be a man, but rather because we as women are the weaker vessel(I Pet. 3:7) and in subjection to the man(I Cor. 11:3). Because of the curse(Gen. 3:16) we have a desire to usurp the man’s role; and sorry to say, but as I look around I stand in awe at where the woman stands in today’s world. I’m not just talking in the “world” either, I’m talking just as much in the Christian realm as anywhere else; maybe even more so. I have never seen the likes as I see right now of the man knocked, trampled, and spat upon. Neither the woman glorified and set up so much as to be the very image of God herself. O how it shames me when I think of myself as one of them, not more than a few months ago! But how I thank God for His mercy!

I hold now a very different opinion of the man-kind. I remember also mentioning in that post that I never really had a problem submitting to Daddy, but along with everything else at this time Christ challenged me to check the truth to that claim. Now, here’s where the problem lies. I’m not like my second oldest sister who was never ceasing to be in a conflict with my parents, just because she had no fear of speaking her thoughts and felt it her duty to make her side well known to the opposing figure. I’ve always avoided conflict at all costs. This generally meant just keeping my mouth shut. That was my submission. Daddy and I have never had very many run-ins, I mean not even ones where I just had to keep my mouth shut. Mama has always done most of the confrontation, just because Daddy is a lot like me in this area (or maybe it’s the other way around? ).

However, as I moved into the first-born’s seat, it forced me to open up and speak my opinion. Now this is where submission is tested. When I give my opinion and it’s disregarded, keeping a meek and quiet spirit. Not only this, but I realized how many times I tried to sway Daddy from a decision. It’s usually just a rule or judgment for younger siblings that I feel is far fetched and I know that if I speak up I have a good chance of getting it changed. But then I realized how dishonoring that is. No, I’m not stopping this so that Daddy can become more of a man (referring to my old post) but so that I can be the woman God desires me to be by honoring my father. A while back, Daddy and I were able to sit down and have a good long talk in which I found many areas in which we disagreed that I don’t think either of us knew about. But we were both able to come away from it agreeing to disagree agreeably on them.
So, to sum it all up, Jesus Christ has worked on me a lot since that post; concerning my pride, my judgmental spirit, my lack of submission, and my disregard for the structure he has created. While I have blamed men folk for so long of not being what they are supposed to be, I have been out of my place all along, in pride thinking that I’m going to be able to set them straight. Well, thanks to them, they’re helping set me straight!
I apologize for the way I have put men down. Men, as a personal offence against you; women, as giving you the wrong impression of men. Young ladies, I hope and pray that we can get our roles in place, and in the end I think it will all balance out. Few things do I esteem so highly as a man of God. I believe I can say in truth that other than my Savior, I deem a righteous man, set apart wholly and entirely to God, to deserve more honor than any other thing. (I Tim. 5:17).

It’s been a long journey, but it’s just begun!

liberty~little reb — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:04:36 +0000

I was seventeen years old. I had just graduated from highschool, and was determined to do something with my life. It didn’t matter so much as to what, I just wanted to “do” something. I didn’t want to sit around waiting for my gallant knight to come sweep me off my feet. No, I was going to be so busy and far away, he wouldn’t be able to find me!

Mission work seriously interested me, but I had no idea how to get there and where to start. For the next year I quietly worked with Daddy and helped teach my younger siblings. At eighteen, the Lord provided a job with which came money – a start. One of my co-workers and his wife attended a medical school in the Philippines soon there after and really encouraged me to go the next year. Mama had talked to me about considering nursing, but it really didn’t interest me and I didn’t see the practicality of getting medical training in the U.S. since I wanted to use it on the foreign field; quite frankly, it simply wouldn’t be applicable. However, this six week school in the Philippines, just seemed to float my boat. It was practical medical training in and for 3rd world conditions. So, I went for it.

Upon arrival home, I was ready to head to a foreign clinic and begin work, but Mama slowed me down. After a while of sitting around waiting for God to change my parent’s hearts, God began changing me. I realized that I was not adequately prepared to work at a clinic. Through this time I had a lot of urging from friends on the field, that I could do clinic work. But with time and God, I began looking down the road and also realized that I was still holding God in my box. Now was my time to gain knowledge if I wanted it; there just wouldn’t be a chance with a husband and brood. If the Lord didn’t end up sending me to the mission field I would be able to use the knowledge in any area in my own country, specifically in the way of herbs (something I would love to delve into)!

I knew my first step would be more medical training. I applied at our local community college for LPN and took the entrance exam. I had my counseling session and found out that pre-reqs would take me a year and then the actual program after that. I was already looking at two years of driving 50 miles everyday in a state where winter dominates a good 5 months of the year. Because I was not on campus I would have no help with my studies, either. I had heard that Pensacola Christian College was among the top ten in the nation when it came to Nursing programs so for the first time I considered this option.

After investigation I decided that when so many colleges cut their RN to two years and the LPN to 1 year, they cut out a lot of biology, chemistry, and other sciences, that underlie and make up medicine itself. I realized that what these have left out, happens to be the very thing that I am looking for. I could care less about the different methods, and how to understand a doctor’s orders, if I have the chance to understand medicine, and how it works. Since the day I was born I’ve wanted to know “why?”. You can tell me the facts, but if you don’t know why, pooh to you! Now that excludes the spiritual realm because God in His grace has given me faith enough to except Him and his ways whether I understand or not, but for the earthly sense, I believe He’s provided an answer to every question and I aim to understand that answer if the question arises. So I closed my eyes and dove in head first. I now wait to be swallowed by a whale and spend the remainder of my days in his stinking belly. But alas if my Lord finds fit, I shall be able to tolerate an endless eternity on a college campus (gag), and get the medical training I so desire so that He might find fit to use me in the furtherance of His Kingdom.

Only Thrice?

liberty~little reb — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:22:09 +0000

That morning I was going to take my test: nervous, in unfamiliar surroundings, and lost as to where exactly I needed to be. When I first saw him coming towards me I knew I should give a hearty good morning. But no, I didn’t feel like it so I dropped my eyes and went out of my way to keep within far enough distance that it wouldn’t count as too rude.

When she first walked in I knew I should say hello, maybe even use her name, but no, I didn’t know how she would respond.

When he complimented my smile, I knew I should give credit to God. But no I had already said thank you, before thinking.

When I saw him standing there, all hunched over, a look of homelessness to him, I knew I should share the gospel with him. But no, by the time I had gotten up there he was moving away.

When she was standing there alone, I knew I should say something, but no, I knew if I started a conversation my ear would be talked off none stop until I ended it.

When I passed him, I knew I should shake his hand, maybe even start talking, seeing how others ignored him; but no, I didn’t want others to think me out of my place.

When she asked me my opinion, I knew I should take her to the root of the problem, her lost soul, and tell her the truth; but no, I didn’t want to hurt or offend her, and she had heard the gospel before.

I told him I would not deny Him. I told Him to the death I would follow Him. I looked at Peter and thought, “Come on, man! Didn’t you just tell him you would die for Him? The relationship you’ve had with Him, you’re watching Him suffer. Is that the best you can do?”

I thought again.

When I recall any single day of my life, I shutter at how many times I have denied him. That’s not including the harsh words, rebelliousness, and frustration which would up the number from fingers to toes. I deny him with my actions; I deny Him with my words. I deny Him to strangers and I deny Him to friends. I deny Him to unbelievers, I deny Him to Christians. I deny Him. Multiple times. Daily.

I think again.

“Thou saintly Peter, only thrice?!”

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!

liberty~little reb — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:16:48 +0000

God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle’s flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so,

He called it … Dad

You Just Don’t Know

liberty~little reb — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:26:53 +0000

What’s in the depths of the heart you can never know. No word, no tool, no pain can bring it forth. You can dig, you can pry, you can chip away as though it were a stone, yet though they would make you think you were achieving something, you have done nothing. You will never know. Does he himself even know it’s depth? Does he know fully what all lies within? Does he understand the magnitude of the matter? Though he bare the fatigue, and feel the pain, is he naive, fooled, or deceived to the true degree of his innermost being? Is it when suddenly circumstance too much shows it’s face, or something within breaks forth, that he suddenly falls beneath it’s weight, never to rise again? Some things you will never know. You knew he was hurting, you knew he was bitter. You knew he was angry, and you knew he was depressed. You knew his problems and you knew of his stress.. But what you didn’t know, was how badly he was hurting, how deep was his bitterness. The degree of his anger or the weight of depression. You didn’t know the multitude of his problems and the intensity of his stress. You just didn’t know. You did what you could, be thankful you did it, because now it’s too late: you don’t have a second chance. Be thankful you did it when He told you to; be thankful, though with much hesitation, you acted upon that urge. Be thankful you went back and did what you knew should do, when first you had rebelled at the command. That may have been you last chance. You just don’t know.