By Josie Siler

A few weeks ago, I made a confession and shared some thoughts on my personal Facebook page. That makes this Facebook official, but I want to share with you as well! Like Erin, I’ve been struggling with my health this fall. (If you missed her last devotion, you can read it here.) My body just can’t seem to behave itself.
 
I want to thank those of you who have been praying for me and encouraging me. You are such a blessing! During these difficult weeks, several people have made comments about my positive attitude. That’s what I want to talk about. You see, I’m a naturally positive person, that’s just how God made me. There is nothing inherently wrong with being positive, but here is my confession. Most of my life I held up positivity as a shield. I hid my pain behind a positive front and wielded my shield with skill. I saw myself as sick and I was miserable, but dagnabit, I was going to look on the bright side!
 
But it’s different now. I’m different now. These last few years I have been on a spiritual journey. I’m learning my true identity in Christ, and I’m learning what to do with emotions that I ignored and stuffed for years. It was the only way I could survive and it was necessary, but I’m done just surviving. I have a completely new perspective on life and it makes all the difference.
 
These last few months have been hard. Really hard. Honestly, they’ve been bad. I have experienced the most intense pain I’ve experienced in a very long time, maybe ever. I’ve experienced subtle and overt spiritual attacks. I have cried tears of fatigue, frustration, and pain. I’ve been sad, angry, hurt, afraid, disgusted, and ticked off. 

I’ve been reminded once again how important my words are and that what I speak over myself (or even think) is powerful. I’m intentionally speaking truth over my life. The truth of what God says about me and who I am in Christ.

The truth is that I’m in a relationship with the God of the Universe. I am His child, a daughter of the King. My flesh, this body that I live in, is not who I am. In fact, when I received God’s gift of Jesus, the old me died. God’s Word says that I died with Christ, was buried with Christ, and rose from the dead with Him. My spirit - who I really am - is seated with Christ at the right hand of God. I am a new creation in every way and I don’t have to live according to the flesh anymore. I died to the power of the flesh and now I can choose to live by the Spirit, out of my unity with Christ. What great joy!

One day my physical body will be no more, but my spirit will live on. What is true about me someday is true about me today. I am already whole and complete in Christ. I am already healthy. This is the key, friends. Let me say it again. I AM ALREADY HEALTHY.

My physical body may still be experiencing sickness, but I’m not sick. My spirit, who I really am, is healthy and well, whole and complete, united with Christ, seated at the right hand of God. Do you see how that makes all the difference? These aren’t just words, this is what I believe about myself and what I believe about myself will affect how I live and experience life here on earth.

So, what does this all mean? It means that instead of putting on a mask of positivity, I intentionally choose joy. I choose to be thankful for what God does in my life each day, things like allowing me a moment of laughter, the feel of a steady hand over my trembling one, or kind arms holding me tight after a hard treatment. I accept what God has done for me and I believe that He is causing everything - even the yuck - to work together for my good because I love Him and I’m called according to His purpose for me.

I lay down my shield of positivity and choose to be truly thankful in the midst of the pain, the mess, and the muck. I allow myself to feel and unpack those feelings with the Lord. And I rest. I rest in His deep love for me. I rest in His will, His plan, and His ways. I don’t have to understand everything because I trust my Lord who knows far more than I do and is working out everything and putting together beautiful things that I can’t even begin to see or comprehend from my earthly perspective.

Friends, I don’t feel “positive;” I feel peace. I sneak over to God’s throne, climb up in His lap, curl up tight, lay my head on His chest, and allow His strong arms to comfort me. He holds me tight and doesn’t rush me. I can stay as long as I want. I rest in His deep love for me and there is no place I’d rather be.

“And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.” ~Colossians 2:6-10

By Erin Elizabeth Austin

I love this time of year! The trees are filled with beautiful colors; yards are covered in leaves; the azalea and rose bushes are blooming…wait…what?? Yes, you read this correctly. My community is experiencing a strange phenomenon this fall. Not only are the leaves changing and falling off trees, but at the same time, the azalea and rose bushes are in full bloom. It’s mindboggling and beautiful all at once.
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I’m thirty-four years old and have never seen anything like this. Living in the south, I can understand the rose bushes blooming if the weather is warm enough, but not azaleas. For those who don’t know, azaleas are a gorgeous flowering bush known for blooming in the spring. It’s actually the flower people associate with The Masters (Golf Tournament) every April. Unless it’s a specialty breed, it only blooms once a year…in the spring! Azalea bushes blooming in November while leaves are falling is unheard of and has many people puzzled.

So, what’s causing this rare second blooming? Believe it or not, it’s storms. My community has been hit hard with not one but two hurricanes less than six weeks apart. On top of that, we’ve had an unusually high precipitation rate from passing showers and storms. We’re dealing with flooding again this week because it’s rained four days in a row. It’s been a season of storms, some big and some small, but the sheer number of the storms combined have created a great deal of stress on the plants. In response to this, the plants have one of two choices. They can cave under the pressure the storms have placed on them and die, or they can bloom.

I don’t know about you, but I find this comforting. I too have been experiencing a personal storm this fall. Doctors have discovered that my body has held onto all sorts of bacteria and viruses over the years. My body doesn’t know how to let them go, so the germ just burrows down deep into my cells, making me sick and weak. I’ve been undergoing treatments to help rid my body of all the bacteria, and it is working. However, there’s a cost to the treatments; they make me sick. Many days I feel like there’s a tug of war inside my body as it releases what it’s held onto for years. It’s painful and exhausting. Just this week, I was told to stop all treatments for two weeks to allow my body time to recover because the treatments have caused severe inflammation in my body. Not only are my lungs and digestive organs inflamed, but my bones are as well. I didn’t even realize bones could become inflamed until it happened to me, and admittedly, it’s something I hope to never again experience. It’s excruciating. I usually try to downplay my pain, but this has been one time I can’t ignore it. I constantly feel like I have 100-pound weights resting on my legs and arms. There have been days where just walking to the bathroom has been a challenge. As I’ve gone through this crazy, unexpected storm, I’m reminded as I watch the azaleas and roses bloom that I have a choice. I can focus on the pain and frustration of being in another time of sickness and allow myself to become bitter, or can I look to God and be filled with hope.

I wish my pain would suddenly vanish, and I am asking God to take it away, but I’m not destroyed on the hard days because my hope and prayer every day is to see God, and that’s a prayer He loves to answer. Do I wish I would instantly feel better? Absolutely! However, I can honestly say I’ve seen God in some wonderful, unexpected ways on the hard days.

Psalm 42:11 says, “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” If we’re hoping for a specific outcome to a situation, there’s a good chance we’re going to be disappointed, but if we put our hope, our expectation in God, we will see Him in ways we can’t begin to imagine.
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When storms come, we have a choice, just like the azaleas. Will we let the storm destroy us, or will we place our hope in God and bloom no matter what?

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” ~ Lamentations 3:24

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[1] Donna Thompson
[1] The Strongest NASB Exhaustive Concordance; page 1526. 

By Erin Elizabeth Austin

I’m glad I’m not God. This is a thought I’ve found myself having several times over the past two months. Twice in the past six weeks, my beloved community has been on the national news, something I desperately wish we couldn’t claim. Six weeks ago, Hurricane Florence slammed the Carolinas, and although we’re 200 miles inland, my county was one of the hardest hit in South Carolina. Over twenty inches of rain caused flooding, sinkholes, and washed out bridges and roads. For once, we were the county crying out for disaster relief instead of being the one doing the helping. And then, just a few weeks later, a town in the next county over was devastated with the ambush of its police officers. Eight officers were shot; two lost their lives. Once again, my community was overwhelmed by the pain of unexpected suffering. Then, just this week, the county north of us had a high school student take a gun to school and kill another student. In the midst of all the grief and anger, I’ve heard more than one person ask, “Where is God?”
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There’s not a simple answer, and certainly not one that can be completed in a short blog, but I’ve found myself responding with a question of my own. Could it be that we’re the ones who moved instead of God?

We know from Hebrews 13:5 that God promised He will never leave us or forsake us. We also know from Genesis that when God created the world, He gave humans the unique gift of freewill, meaning we can choose to worship God or deny His existence. We can govern our lives by His Word, or we can pick and choose what precepts we will follow and which ones we will say aren’t applicable to today’s culture.

Over the past twelve years, I’ve had the privilege of working with children from broken families. I cannot describe the joy it brings to help bring healing in a child’s life, who’s known countless heartaches and loss. Yet something I’ve had to learn is I can’t help everyone. Even when I can see the potential disaster ahead, if a child doesn’t want help, then there’s nothing I can do other than point the way and pray she turns to God. On more than one occasion I’ve had a young adult reach out to me after she hit rock bottom because she knew I was a safe person to whom she could turn. 

As I’ve watched a war of words between not only the political parties but Christians as well, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between our country and the rebelling teens with whom I’ve worked. I’ve seen Christian men and women I’ve admired and respected water down the authority of God’s Word because it was contrary to popular opinions. Others have told me that it doesn’t matter what movies and television shows we watch and what books we read because it’s not as if we’re actually participating in the sin. I’ve watched not only the country divide in their core beliefs, but the body of Christ as well. I’ve heard the same people who say, “It’s okay that we’re not allowed to talk about God at work or in schools because we can go to church on Sundays,” also ask when bad things happen, “Why isn’t God doing anything?!”
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Somewhere along the way, we’ve slowly changed from having a biblical worldview to a culturally-accepted worldview. Instead of God being the first One we turn to, He’s an afterthought when bad things happen. He’s our genie in a bottle we use when we want something or have a problem. Yet despite all of this, God still hasn’t given up on us.

If God were a person, He would have walked away a long time ago, but because of His great love, He still holds on, waiting for people to truly turn to Him. One of the Old Testament words for God’s love for His children means “to be attached to,”[i] and the imagery used is of a person grabbing ahold of the back of person’s shirt refusing to let go. God gives us opportunity after opportunity to turn to Him, but He never forces Himself on us. When we tell God we don’t want Him in our schools, jobs, entertainment, and government He says, “Okay. I’m not going to force myself on you. Just know that I love you, and I’ll still be here if you change your mind.”

God hasn’t moved. It’s us! And the world is getting darker because of it. So, where’s the hope? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself, and God has given me great comfort through the Old Testament. Even when Israel was at its worst and the people refused to worship God and repent no matter how obviously they needed Him, there were still individuals who loved God, and God used them to point others back to Him.

​Where we are right now matters! Each of us has been placed here for such a time as this. We might not be able to change the government, schools, or even the Church, but we can study and know God’s Word, so we will know what He says about a situation. We can ask God to give us a biblical worldview rather than a cultural worldview. We can love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves so that we can point others to Him. We can be a light in a world that desperately needs the light of Christ. We can make a difference, but the choice is up to you and me.

So, have you moved?

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” ~ James 4:8

*For further reading on where God is when bad things happen, read http://www.erinelizabethaustin.com/blog/where-is-god9602547 and http://www.erinelizabethaustin.com/blog/peace-in-the-storm


[i] The Strongest NASB Exhaustive Concordance, pg.1397