The Waiting Room … In the Hospital of Life March's WOW

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.: Phil. 1:6
It’s great to be with you and share from my heart to yours this month’s WOW (Words of Wisdom and Weapons of Warfare). Grab your coffee, your journal, and don’t forget your Red Strand of Faith as I am sure He will give us some reasons to tie some more knots!
So we left off with the exam room at the hospital … in a spiritual sense, of course. :) But one of the most important things we need to understand about this room is we don’t have to wait until something is wrong to be examined! And His love letters to us even give us an exam time, a daily exam time: In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly (Psalm 5:3 NIV.)
What do we do in the exam room? Psalm 139:23 tells us how easy the exam can be. It begins like this: Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Oh, but that means we must take off the mask! Hmm, that reminds me of a conversation I was having with a new friend in a leadership class I’m taking; she described it as a “church face.” What if we were to look to Him as the ultimate physician, and allow Him in to treat all – emphasis on all – our wounds?
Do you have a hard time actually making the time to go to the doctor? Do you like your doctor? Are you intimidated by your doctor? I actually have a great relationship with my earthly doctor, and he has an amazing bedside manner, never talking above me or down to me, but always, always he takes the time to explain the reason for symptoms, whether they be immune-systematic, or sinus-related, or even orthopedic-related. But he has to have the information first before he can give me a diagnosis!
Well, our Heavenly Physician is even better than our earthly doctors! Why? Because He knows all our symptoms, the diagnosis and He has the cure for whatever ails us. However – yes, there is a “however” -- He does like for us to share our burdens, speak to Him, with Him. When I think of real people talking with/to God from the Bible, I have to say one of the greatest role models in this area is David for he was real before God. He never put a mask on or hid what was in his heart when talking with God! I mean talk about a guy who had a lot to talk about with God! He was on the run for several years of his life for his life, an outcast, lost his BFF; he was betrayed time after time after time from someone who was like a father to him.
His visits to the exam room were consistent, and I would bet they were more than once a day.
And then when he became a sender instead of a leader – if he had gone to the exam room then, he may not have walked right into temptation. But he didn’t; instead, he continued on in his temptation, deeper and then had that affair. He stayed out of the exam room and that led to his next sin, the murdering of the husband whose wife he had the affair with! Talk about an incredible drama! Wow.
I can almost see him running from God, and the exam room! I’m not sure how long he stays away, but he does come back to this room and in Psalm 51, we are able to witness the most beautiful prayer of repentance because he returned to the Great Physician and allowed Him to do an in-depth examination!
Oh, Coffee Hour Friend, how long has it been since you’ve allowed yourself to enter the exam room?
The great Physician is waiting … for He who begins His work in the exam room will be faithful to complete it … until the time of Christ!
Love,

 Evinda

WHAT is GODLY SORROW?

Happy Tuesday! It’s a new day, a new chance to not let adversity take our focus off of our Father whose love never changes no matter what is going on! That truth right there is enough to stir up a good amount of joy! Oh that we would think on the things that are true. Grab your coffee and join me for these discoveries we are making about the recipe of joy!
We discovered that Joy follows Godly sorrow, but what is Godly sorrow? Let’s look at 2^nd Corinthians 7:9-10 where Paul, in his letter to the Church of Corinth is addressing this very subject: “Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a Godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”
Whew, what a mouthful. Let me see if I can share an example; it shouldn’t be too hard for I have actually experienced Godly sorrow more times than I care to admit – well, wait a minute! As I wrote that last sentence, I realized that I have misunderstood Godly sorrow for many of my Christian years. See, Godly sorrow does not produce condemnation; nor is it filled with regret, guilt, shame; no, that's worldly sorrow.
This is the kind of worldly sorrow that Paul is talking about. See, that kind of sorrow keeps you doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So let me start over and say I have experienced Godly sorrow in many areas of my life that have led to repentance, a turning away from that which grieved my Abba Daddy and ripped me off in some way or another!
Let me share one of my first experiences of Godly sorrow that definitely ushered the presence of joy into the situation. I was not quite two years into my marriage and still suffering from bouts of looking back instead of up, truly wondering if God had made a mistake because I was absolutely miserable more than I was joyful! And marriage, for the third time, was still so new! I had gone to a women’s retreat and I don’t even remember what they were talking about as I share this with you, but something stirred up some strong conviction about the way I was loving my husband. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say the ways I was not loving him! There were a whole host of reasons, all of which circled around the many adjustments and ways I was having to stretch to fit into my new skin He was/is trying to dress me in by the use of this marriage!
Anyway, to make that incredibly long story short and to get to the happy ending, I came home from that retreat with a soft and repentant heart. I apologized to my husband for not being the kind of wife I now knew God was calling me, and continues to call me, to be, for not loving him in the ways that marriage requires. I was truly sorry, and because I had that Godly sorrow, immediately, or maybe it was simultaneously, there was a desire to do it differently, a determination to get it right.
I remember the apology as if it were yesterday – it’s been almost eight years ago! He was lying down and I went and sat on the bed, bracing myself in such a way that I could look right at him. I began to share the highlights of the retreat. Their effects were still fresh in my heart, so fresh that the closer I got to the apology my lips began to tremble and my eyes filled up. Suddenly he looked so blurry, but not so blurry that I missed the expression of utter surprise, a sort of stupefied look came over his face as I uttered the unpracticed words of apology.
He brought me down to him and took me into his arms, whispering his unconditional love for me, confirming that God had brought us together and my past would not tear us apart.
Oh the joy that follows Godly sorrow! How about you; do you remember a time that you experienced that type of sorrow that beckoned change? I’d love to hear about it!
Joyfully,

Evinda