Good Grief!

I remember hearing this saying often when I was a child. I'm not sure from where; maybe my mother, maybe t.v. I don't know but what truth is in this statement! Jesus tells us the truth in this statement in Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn.

Now if you've been reading my blog you'll notice I'm mentioned the sermon on the mount a couple of times now. I want you to know that I don't only read the sermon on the mount. I love it all. I like referring to the sermon because it is so incredibly black and white, clean cut, clear to read, strait to the point, and right from the mouth of our Saviour while he was here on earth. The whole bible is strait from his mouth mind you (John 1:1) but this part is spoken to us by God the son; man, human being; to us, people, human beings.

Back to my post; Blessed are those who mourn. What a contradictory statement. How can we be blessed in a time of mourning? How can we feel hope and freedom and grace and everything else that comes through the death of Christ when we lose someone we love? How do we loose a child or parent or sister or friend and say to ourselves "Well, God says I'm blessed so this is good." What a hard thing to even consider thinking about.

What if we lead lives that were great, all around. We had good jobs, we didn't loose anyone in our lives except perhaps through old age, you never experience tragedy, you've never been hurt to the inner most part of you, you have a great marriage because you and your spouse agree on everything, you have a nanny for your children so you don't even need to teach or train them and by the time you see them in the evenings they've been prepped to be obedient pleasant little children, you go on holidays, you have a disposable income for special times etc...Would you have lead the ideal life? Not really.

When our 3rd daughter, Ellie, died we were in total mourning. There were months of time off work, months of no cooking as our church, family and friends provided it to us, months of just stopped life. In the moment would I have traded that pain for anything? YES. Now would I? Absolutely not. If we hadn't gone through that raw state of grief we wouldn't know just how great great is. Everything would be on level ground. Happy would feel almost the same as sad. There was no concept of the plain of difference between the two. We would live in a state of grey instead of black and white.

In Romans 5:20 we read that the law in the old testament was put into place so that sin would increase. So that there was a line between black and white. So that when you did wrong you'd know damn well what you did was wrong. But the verse doesn't stop there. We know as Christians that we have died to sin. We have risen again through Christ. Sin's chains no longer hold us down no matter how much it feels that way sometimes. Christ came to break those chains apart. We don't live in the black anymore, we live in the white. The white is grace. Here's the second half of Romans 5:20: But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Here's the white. We live in God's grace. The black is there so that the white will abound even more than we could have imagined if there had been no black at all. Verse 21 says: So that as sin reigned in death (BLACK) grace might also reign through righteousness leading to [WHITE:] ETERNAL LIFE :) :) :) through Jesus Christ our Lord. We know good more because of bad. We know happiness more because of sadness, we know joy more because of grief, we know perseverance more because of trials in our live.

Jesus says Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted because you will know a comfort and happiness far surpassing all understanding if you go through hard times such as loosing a loved one; hard times with your spouse; trying times with a rebellious child.

Blessed are you readers, who go through hard times. Persevere through them and come out with a greater understanding and capability of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against these things there is no black [law]. (Gal 5:22-23)

Home Sweet Home

Our family has just moved into an old home. And I mean an old home. The ceilings are slanted; there are cracks in the walls; every window lets in a cold draught; there are leaks in the rough coming in. All this said and I look at them all and smile. I love this home. It's an old farm house built in 1865 and it has wonderful character but along with that comes the joyful "burden" of repairs. I'm sitting here on an old and almost antique blue couch our pastor gave us, soaking in the natural warmth of the wood stoves, admiring the thick wooden beams in the ceiling and floor with the spiral staircase in front of me. I feel like a queen. But the only reason I can feel like this is because I have an amazing family to keep me company. Without them, this would just be an old house with foundation problems and a leaking rough. It would be a constant thing of worry and upkeep. Without them there is no way I could stare at water dripping in with a smile on my face knowing that everything will be okay.

I've been think about a series of verses lately. They are all different; some long, some short but they come back to the same thing over and over again in Deuteronomy. About following God's commands to love the Lord our God.

Deut 11:18-20

18 ²⁷"You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and ²⁸you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 ²⁹You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,

It's funny how we are not bound by the law any longer, yet here is a beautiful promise made for His people to follow His law and yet the thing that is being stressed is the very thing Christ tells us to continue doing; Love the Lord your God. This is the great commandment and God is saying here, in the old testament, that "if you do this, you will prosper. I will give you riches and land."

I am not preaching the prosperity gospel right now...this is the promise he made to his people at this point in scripture. I do believe God can provide the money for us to get our roof fixed, foundation looked at, windows replaced, etc but that is not what he is promising me. He is promising me that if I 1 teach them to my children, talk of it when we are sitting in our house, and when we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise. 20 ^29and write them on the doorposts of our house and on our gates, then he will fulfill our needs. For me, being fulfilled means to be able to look at a leak coming into the house and smile. People think I'm crazy. There are 1000 things that people tell us need to be taken care of immediately but my "immediately" consists of 3 little girls; VERY soon to be 4 and a wonderful husband whom I adore more and more each day. This is the promise God has made to us. When we love him with all our hearts, souls, minds, strengths, he will bless our pants off...because he said so. He's a great Father and with him, we're home sweet home.