Living a Christlike Life Archives - An Ordinary Mom's Musings

Living a Christlike Life

An Ordinary Mom's Musings > Living a Christlike Life

My Peace I Leave With You

“My peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

John 14:27

Of all the verses of scripture, this is my favorite.

It centers me.

It pulls me forward reminding me I can do hard things.

Who doesn’t want peace? Who doesn’t need peace?

I grew up as the oldest in a very large family- 11 kids. While we ourselves weren’t a very loud family, with all those people it could get loud and chaotic. I was a teenager when I found this verse and it brought me great comfort.

A hand reaching toward the light — Image by Jackson David from Pixabay

As I have grabbed hold of my courage and pushed my way through the hard things, this verse has sustained me. As I have dealt with the things that make you fall to your knees in helpless surrender this verse has held me.

From One Person To Another, God Said

“I just want you to know you aren’t a bad mom. I’ve been listening to you, and I felt like you really need to hear that.”
Read more…

Judging A Right To Life or Death

“A couple of years ago, I took a college class entitled Death, Dying, and Bereavement. It was a fascinating class. We talked about different types of death, bereavement, and the act of dying. One of the topics covered was whether people should have the right to choose their death when they are terminally ill. I learned something really important from that class.”
Read more…

My Christian Friends Who Have Left Church

I have seen your heartache. I know the person you are. You are people I dearly love, who I know have hearts of gold.

My heart cries out for you because of what you have been through!

This one has a child who is transgender.

Another was sexually assaulted by a man in authority and then told she deserved it.

Yet another, questions the very existence of God because of the many trials that they have gone through because why would a loving God put her through that?

Another just never felt close to God and no matter what he does, he feels nothing.

Oh, how my heart bleeds for you all!

I see your pain and anguish.

I don’t purport to know all the answers. I wish I did. I’ve had my own path to walk with things I have had to plead for help and understanding.

My path hasn’t been yours.

But with everything I have been through, with the answers I have found, this is what I know:

God knows the answers.

And even more than that, he understands.

I think one day when we are able to have a conversation in person with him, he’s going to clear up a lot of confusion for all of us. He’s going to know that one person dealt with life long depression which made it extremely difficult to feel his presence. He’s going to take that into account.

He’s knows the horrific experiences you went through and the effect they had on you. That you were blamed and told you deserved it. That for your own health you had to separate yourself from the church. I believe he has compassion and love for you and he’s going to understand that you did the very best you could.

Sometimes we get so caught up as Christians on things we think we are supposed to do, that we forget the core principal of the gospel of Jesus Christ is love.

We forget that those who have made different choices than we have, deserve love and respect.

We want to grade someone else’s sins greater than our own, and regard them as less worthy. But we don’t get to make that call. Only God does.

So when all is said and done, and judgement is given, I think we’ll see a lot more of those people who left the church, unable to walk our traditional ways, with God. Even if I’m wrong, God says to love him and love others, so I’ll keep walking that path and keep reaching my hand out to you in friendship.

Just because you left the church doesn’t mean God, nor I have to leave you.

So we’ll be right here loving you.

Fast Sundays: Grandma to the Rescue

“In our religious faith, the first Sunday of every month is reserved for a special time of fasting and prayer we call Fast Sundays. Traditionally, the expectation is that we abstain from food and drink for 24 hours. Then the money that we would have spent on the food and drink would be donated to those less fortunate. We also spend that 24 hours, usually praying for a special purpose. The object is to help others while bringing us closer to God. At various times in my life, I have been better than others at following this. ”
Read more. . .

Leave Out The Politics And Ask, “What Would Jesus Do?”

“However, if we were to leave politics, government, terrorists, and everything else out of the equation and just ask, WWJD? What do you think he would say about the men, women, and children waiting at the borders of our land starving to come in? ”
Read more. . .

Can You Just Listen To Me?

“No matter what you personally have experienced, another person has lived a different life. They need to know that their own experiences are valid. Even if they are different from our own. Even if it has led them down a different path from us. People aren’t going to listen to our testimonies of Christ unless they know of our love for them.”
Read more. . .