Lisa Cline's Blog, page 50

I woke up to this…

 

So I wake up with this song playing in my head, which in itself is not unusual as God often wakes me up with a song, and each time He does it means something.

The song is by Jason Gray, titled, “With every act of love” and has the lyrics (which are the ones I heard).

God put a million,

million doors in the world

For His love to walk through

One of those doors is you

Immediately I thought about England. How He has yet to open the door.

Then I thought of how we used to be a host family for Japanese students.

I always thought it was wonderful how we would meet people though the program that we would never have met otherwise. It was a wonderful experience, both for my family and for the student as well (as I gathered from their goodbye letters).

I know that God has called me to England for the same reason.

There are people I need to meet, and who need to meet me, so that I can be Gods hands and feet.

  If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.- 1 Peter 4:11

The “open door” for England has not opened, and yet I know that God will open it soon, as He did not lead me all this way for nothing.

Please join me in praying for me to receive an open door to England, and for the “ministry” that He has called me to will begin to take shape before me.

Please pray also the God will give me the courage and strength to walk through the door, once opened.

I covet all your prayers and will pray for you as well.

Send prayer requests here abbasyaldah@outlook.com or comment below.

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Forgiveness (part two) or how God worked a miracle to get my husband to forgive before he died

 

As I stated in part one (read it here) my daughter was attacked with a knife by an unknown assailant while she lay sleeping in her own bed, and yet decided to forgive her attacker. I did as well as I never wanted her attacker to take any more than he had already.

My husband Allan (her father) made it known that he would “never forgive” the person who had nearly took his daughters life.

I understood his angst about his daughter being hurt by a man who came in through a window after he left for work. He wanted to protect her.

Yet I also knew that Jesus said Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (NIV)

So I knew it was a big deal, though in the past had wondered how big a deal it was.

Not only had Allan decided to never forgive, but he had stopped going to church (when God just had him start).

Well one day, months later, my friend had me go to the woman’s Bible study at the church that my husband had been attending (not my own) and  then God led me to tell the pastor about what happened to my daughter (and we discussed forgiveness). When my husband got home told me that he was going to start going to church again.

Thank next Sunday he game home with tears in his eyes and stated “You told her about Megan didn’t you.” I asked “who?”

He then proceeded to tell me that the church he attends has two locations so each Sunday each one of the husband and wife pastor team will teach at one of the locations.

But this Sunday was different. One pastor was away so even though the Woman pastor was due to teach at the location that was not the one my husband went to, she ended up bring the sermon through a simulcast.

She taught about forgiveness and she used what happened to my daughter (and how I felt about it) as  an example.

I was floored.

Allan then said “I have to forgive don’t I?”

I answered, “Yes.”

Now I cannot remember if we prayed or he just nodded his head but I do know that 8 months after my daughter lay in the emergency room, my husband lay in the exact same emergency evaluation room that my daughter had been stitched up in.

The difference was that he never left that room to go home… four day later he was gone, cancer took his life.

Later as he lay there only hours from death, as we prayed over him, God very clearly spoke something to my spirit (when I wasn’t even thinking about it at all).

God said “Lisa you do not have to worry, Allan forgave so he has been forgiven.”

I never again doubted how seriously God took forgiveness…it is a huge deal to Him.

He did all that, manipulated all those circumstances, so that Allan would be able to forgive before his death and final judgment.

Do you hold unforgiveness against someone in your life? Give it to God, forgive and let it go. It is not as important as your soul!

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What trusting God looks like

Great (and small) Prayer

Oh Lord, help me to be everything I shall wish I had been when I stand in your presence, Amen! – John Edmund Haggai

How we get strength

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;they shall mount up with wings like eagles;they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” . – Isaiah 40:29-3

It is God who sustains us

Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.

J.I. Packer

Don’t be afraid!

How to get Gods Best

God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him. – Jim Elliot

When fear surrounds you, remember He does too

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed and You won’t start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

- Hilsong

part of “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)

 

 

 

Forgiveness (Part one) or how a 19 year-old attack victim did not stay one

Awhile ago I remember reading the following quote

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. 

- Lewis B. Smedes

I was struck by its truthfulness, and soon learned that he was right in more ways then I first realized.

~~~~~

After becoming a Christian, God led me out of my prison cell by teaching me the whys and how’s of forgiveness.

Looking back I see how closed off I was, how many days I spent obsessing over the wrongs that were done to me throughout my lifetime.

The process of learning to forgive quickly took me to some dark places, before I was free.

Yet, I soon realized that living a life of forgiveness is just a better way to live.

Then it happened.

The unthinkable.

An unknown intruder crept into my home through a window thought locked, crept past my sleeping sons camped out in the living room and went to the kitchen to grabbed a (unrecovered) knife before going into the bedroom my beautiful sleeping nineteen year old daughter.

My daughter woke to the sound of a hissing cat and the loud banging of a metal door as it smashed shut.

She then woke me, she was holding her neck…long story short, before the day would be done she would have 37 stitches in her neck. I ache as I write this and think about the events of that day.

The worst of it was pretty bad (a mother is never supposed to see her child’s neckbone), but the best of it was God. God is good. God is with us always.

God let me know the importance of making the decision right there, in the hospital room, in the midst of all the chaos and madness, to make the decision to forgive.

I remember standing by the emergency room bed and talking with her about forgiveness.

I remember saying that not only does God ask us to forgive others but we need to forgive so that her attacker cannot do any more damage than he has already done. I knew that ever second hating him was a second stolen, she did not deserve that.

She agreed and prayed with me, right there in the middle of the emergency room, as they were stitching her up. , who by God’s grace chose to forgive in that moment.

I believe that her choosing to forgive not only freed her from a life of pain and misery, it opened the door to a brighter future. She is now thriving and I could not be more pleased to call her my daughter.

One of the things to keep in mind about holding forgiveness towards someone is we are the ones who are affected. That even though we may spend hours and hours talking and thinking about how a person mistreated us, our doing so does not affect the person we are upset with….they are living their life in freedom while we are in a jail of our own making.

So while it was not fair that we were mistreated, it is even more unfair that we continue to mistreat ourselves.

When we let go and allow God to bring healing beautiful things happen.

One of the things that happened as a result of this situation is that as a direct result of my daughters attack someone who had been living in a place of hopelessness, homelessness, and despair, gave her life to God and in the years since has a wonderful home and church family and a restored relationship with her real family.

This was not an easy post to write, sometimes you have to choose to forgive on a daily or hourly basis. When I thought of the attacker as I wrote this I had to remember to forgive (she is my baby girl no matter how is she is). My instinct is to want to do serious harm to anyone who harms my child, I knew that path would lead to no good thing so I said allow “I forgive him.”

So why write it? Because I believe that God directed me to because someone who reads this needs to learn forgive.

Maybe there is one person that you need to forgive, or maybe there is a dozen, but hear this clearly, by holding unforgiveness you, in essence, are giving them more of your life to damage.

Also remember Satan is real and when we have unforgiveness towards someone he knows that all he has to do is to put a thought in our mind about that person and he will ruin or moment, day, or year.

Trust God enough to give to him everything that you feel about they way that you were mistreated, trust God by asking him to help you to want to forgive, to learn to forgive. He will help you do so as you call out to him. 

Remember He is an expert at forgiveness!

He forgave you and I.

That day as my daughter lay on that emergency room table we made our choice. But my husband did not. He said “You can forgive, that is fine but I will NEVER forgive that person who did this to her.”

If you are ever temped to think that unforgiveness is no big deal make sure to read part two of this post tomorrow, because the lengths that God went to get my husband to change his mind will astound you.

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