Psalm 1: A Prescription for Godly Living

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Beulah Girl Feb 2016 (2)

When I was a high school English teacher, one of the activities I liked to do with students when reading poetry was an annotations, or close reading, activity.

Basically, I grouped students, assigned them a poem to read aloud together, and then gave them a short list of items they were to look for and write notes on in regards to the poem. They had to take notes on the speaker, tone, word choice (or words they didn’t know), figurative language, and so forth.

All of these notes that they took would be hand-written on the copy of the poem and would help lead them to a conclusion about the poem’s meaning. Slowing down and analyzing every word of the lines helped them to be able to grasp the meaning on a deeper level.

The same exercise can be applied to Scripture. When I take the time to examine a few lines, I am able to grasp the meaning in a deeper way than I have before.

Recently, I was inspired to slow down and look at Psalm 1. It is a psalm I am familiar with; however, I’ve never examined it with careful scrutiny before. Therefore, I wanted to do so and look at what it means for us:

Blessed is the one

who does not walk in step

with the wicked

or stand in the way that

sinners take

or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the

LORD,

and who meditates on his law day and night.

1. “Blessed is the one …”

Right away, the psalm presents us with a description of a godly person — and, at first, the description is negative in the sense that we are told what a godly person is not. The person is “blessed” who does not walk, stand, or sit with sinners.

In a devotion, author Dorothy Valcàrcel helps to illuminate my understanding of this word “blessed.” I often think of “blessed” as meaning blessed in terms of financial gains or material goods, but she rightly points out that in this context it means spiritually prosperous.

The NIV Application Commentary further highlights this, saying: “The word ‘blessed’ conveys the idea of happiness that flows from a sense of well-being and rightness.” The Pulpit Commentary asserts that this first line of the psalm can be read as “blessings are to the man.”

What we can note about this description is that the psalm isn’t telling us to avoid all contact with the world in a pharisaical sense. We are not told here never to speak to unbelievers or people that would be considered worldly. What it is telling us to do is to not participate in the behaviors described or allow ourselves to be unduly influenced by those who are ungodly.

Let’s note what actions the psalm cautions against: listening to the counsel of the wicked, walking (taking part in) the schemes of the wicked and mocking or showing disdain for Christianity and the Gospel. Again, I don’t believe that the psalm gives us these behaviors so that we can carry a checklist around and consider ourselves holy if these “requirements” are met.

However, it does make it clear that a godly man is one who does not allow the ways of the world or the wicked to influence his thinking or actions.

2. “Who does not walk … stand … sit”

What we should also observe here is that the behaviors described in the psalm that the godly person should avoid are those that the person may fall into quite unintentionally. This person may not have set out to be opposed to God or engage in wicked actions; however, this person allowed himself to be led away by a series of actions on his part that may not have started out looking so bad but ended up being quite wicked.

The psalm seems to indicate that these behaviors may lead one to another. The NIV Application Commentary asserts this very idea, saying: “The order of these verbs may indicate a gradual descent into evil, in which one first walks alongside, then stops, and ultimately takes up permanent residence in the company of the wicked.”

We have all had the experience of observing individuals who gradually fell away from righteous living and got involved in things they shouldn’t have been involved in. Perhaps we noticed at first that they began to hang around different friends and dress differently. Then we perhaps noticed that they began to talk differently and act in ways they hadn’t before. Pretty soon, we may have been saddened to hear that they were fully immersed in the lifestyle of their new friends and were perhaps even enticing others to join in their exploits.

I once heard of a Christian band who began to play in bars and clubs as a ministry outlet. While this in and of itself would have been perfectly acceptable — and a Christian witness is most needed in places where the church often can’t be found — the bar scene began to have an influence on this band. Pretty soon members were rumored to be smoking marijuana, drinking heavily at parties and using foul language.

The Christian music group members claimed that they were adopting these behaviors in order to be hip enough to be an influence in traditionally non-Christian environments. However, it was clear that the environments these youngsters were spending their time in were having more of an influence on them than they were having on their environments.

The Bible is very clear about how Christians should appear to non-Christians. It doesn’t say we are to blend in so that we can make others more comfortable. No! Not only here but other places in Scripture urge us to live differently and not allow ourselves to adopt the customs of the world we find ourselves in.

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the word, do you submit to its rules. ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch’? (Colossians 2:20, 21)

If we aren’t careful about the individuals and environments we allow to affect us, we may gradually fall into a lifestyle of living that we never set out to be part of to begin with. We should heed the warning in the psalm and know that this descent into evil may be very subtle — starting with simply taking some bad advice and ending with being fully immersed in a wrong lifestyle. We would do well to watch what we are allowing to infiltrate our thoughts and impact our actions.

3. “But whose delight is in the law of the Lord … ”

In this part of the psalm, the language shifts away from the negative description of the godly given earlier to a positive description of the godly person. We learn that the godly person is someone who not only avoids the unwise counsel and company of evil sinners, the godly person is someone who is fixed on something better: his “delight” is in the meditation and commands of the Lord.

Rather than allow the schemes and wisdom of the ungodly to flood his mind, the godly man fills His mind with the things of God so that He knows which direction to go and what plans to make.

And, as many commentators point out, the godly man is not one who never sins or makes a poor choice. The godly man, however, does not persist in poor choices. He corrects himself rather than continue in his downward spiral — and the antidote against poor decisions is constantly learning and meditating on the laws of God. He loves to learn God’s ways because God’s ways bring Him security, peace and joy.

That reality should be a comfort to us as we’re reading this because we’ve all done things we shouldn’t have as Christians — and there have been times that I can trace how one poor choice has led to more bad decisions in a season. However, I don’t believe the intent of this psalm is to present an unattainable standard of living.

Rather, it urges us to consider that we as individuals have a free will. We have a say in whom we allow to speak in our lives and what actions we engage in.

Therefore, if I were teaching once again and discussing with students a conclusion I might come up with in regards to these few lines of verse, I would say this: We all have a choice. Yes, God is grieved when I sin and has the laws He does because He has holy standards — but ultimately, as I heard one pastor say once, all of God’s laws are love.

Beulah Girl Feb 2016 (1)

He gives me the mandates in His Word not to simply wield His power over me, but so that I can experience peace and stability in my life by learning His Word and abiding by it.

As laid out in this psalm, the difference between the godly and ungodly is simple: godly people choose God and trust His ways over the world’s!

Subscribe for our blab chat on the topic of godly living or watch the replay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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The One Thing I Have Needed the Most in Ministry

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Beulah Girl Feb 2016 (1)Without even meaning to, I often let messages from our culture dictate my thought processes. And then I encounter a truth or story in God’s Word and discover I have been backward in my thinking about a certain idea or issue.

In particular, I have carried some very worldly ideas about ministry these past few years. God has continually shown me how His version of Christian service and calling is very different than mine. I have thought at certain points that ministry is about my efforts for God and that I have been responsible for creating some sort of stage for myself with which to declare His glory (and also look good myself!) — more of the latter if I am honest.

Recently, however, I encountered a story in the Bible of a woman who gives me a model to emulate concerning ministry. In Luke 2:36-38, we encounter Anna, a prophetess, who served as one of the first witnesses of Christ as the Messiah. One day in the temple, she saw Jesus as a child with his parents, spoke to them, and then went and shared with the community about what she had seen. This is her account:

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them [Jesus and his parents] at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

These few lines tell us so much about a woman who lived an effective life of Christian service. Though she didn’t seek out attention or applause, she still encountered Jesus and was used by Him in a big way.

A few lessons you and I can learn from Anna about ministry:

1. Jesus wants to use us.

One major worldly notion I held about ministry a few years ago was that it was about what I had to bring to the table. If the truth be told, although I left teaching four years ago to answer a call to go into music and women’s ministry, I was secretly afraid that I wasn’t qualified enough to serve God. My main concern had to do with poor choices I had made in my past.

Even though I knew God forgave people of their sins, I thought that maybe I had stepped too far over the line. After all, I rationalized, it was fine if you sinned in your life before Christianity and then got cleansed of those things upon salvation — but what if you were a big sinner even as a Christian? At the age of 18, I had been in a band and had begun writing music, but I left that to pursue a career in education. The longer that I served as a teacher, the more I began to think that I needed to forget about my dream to be used in music. I figured that I had messed things up too badly in my life for God to allow me to be used in worship again.

Therefore, when I felt Him telling me to go down a music path and create a ministry, my natural response was that I thought I needed to hide those ugly blots from my past and not bring them up. Surely, if people knew some of my deeds, they would never listen to anything I had to say. Therefore, it surprised me greatly when God began to prod into those very areas and encouraged me to begin sharing with others about my past and how He was healing me. It never occurred to me that He would be able to use such ugly things and use them as a platform on which to base my ministry.

And not only that, I worried that I wasn’t qualified enough in terms of abilities. Like Moses doubted he could be used because of a speech impediment (Exodus 4:10) and Jeremiah doubted he could be used because of his youth (Jeremiah 1:6), I worried that I wasn’t talented or capable enough to be a vocalist or spokesperson for God.

However, as we see with Anna in the story, service to God is more about making ourselves available than it is about our impressive skills or qualifications. Although Anna didn’t have a questionable past or insecurities about her ability to be used, she had little status or clout in her society. A woman in her time was not considered as reliable as a man to be a witness in a courtroom — and yet, God entrusted her with the task of serving as a witness to the Messiah to her community.

Clearly, we can see that God is not limited by what we think He is. Although He certainly works through our gifts, He is not limited by our individual or society-based perceptions of what we can or can’t offer. As the One who made us, He knows just what we were made for — and the person who can serve Him best is the person who totally relies on Him for His version of who He made him or her to be.

2. God gives us the message and the plan.

Another notion I had about ministry that strikes me as being a little funny now is not only did I think I had to be more amazing than I was to really be used, I also held the idea that I had to come up with what I would say and the vision. You see, I didn’t realize that ministry is more about God working through me than it is about what I do for Him.

When I first left teaching, I put a lot of pressure on myself to make something happen. I didn’t even know what God specifically wanted to me to do (in and through me) — and I tried to generate a plan before I really knew what His plans were. Yes, I had a vague sense that He wanted to use me in music and later got the memo that He wanted me to start a self-worth ministry, but I tried to get ahead of Him and create the logical steps to make this happen. However, I kept running into roadblocks, and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting anywhere.

When I prayed about what to do, God kept giving me odd answers. I felt nudges to contact people from my past. I felt I was to quit the worship team and serve in the nursery. All of the things He was telling me to do seemed to be leading me further and further away from the destiny I felt He had for me. However, it was in these small acts of obedience — these small areas of service that I began to get answers about what I was to do and where it began to dawn on me what God was even calling me to. And it was in these seemingly insignificant places where God revealed Himself to me in ways that astounded me and helped me to know what His purpose for me and the message He wanted me to share was.

Similarly, what we can see through Anna’s example is that just as she gave her life to God and didn’t argue with God about the ways He wanted to use her; she understood that God would come up with the plan. She did what she knew to do with quiet, faithful work — and it was in that seemingly insignificant place that she looked up and saw Jesus in bodily form with His parents one day in the temple! And she must have known in that moment what God wanted to accomplish through her.

We don’t have to generate the plan or the results. We just have to be faithful where God has placed us — in the thing that might feel so small and unimportant to us. If He has placed us there, and we do not have the green light to move on or see no other open door, we can be content that He has a purpose for us even if it feels to us like we are in the background or no one notices us. And we may look back at a later date and see how that place that felt pointless was the place God used us to bless others, to grow the traits in us that we needed, or to connect us with the individuals He desired us to learn from.

3. God has a specific audience in mind for our message.

Just as God has a specific objective He wants to accomplish through you and me in ministry, He also has a specific audience in mind that needs to hear our message. Yes, vast evangelization efforts in a more general sense are needed — the world is starving for what Christians can offer. However, there are specific people (possibly in our immediate realm) who can connect with our specific testimony — and God knows who those people are.

Beulah Girl Feb 2016

In our passage, after Anna encountered Jesus in the temple, she went around and told people that she had seen Jesus in the temple. It says that she shared with people “awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem” (v. 38). The WORD® Translation puts it like this: “She spoke about Jesus to all who were waiting for Jerusalem to be set free.” Although not much explanation is given here, just as Anna was most likely awaiting Jesus’ arrival long before He showed up in the temple, there were others also hungry and searching for Him — needing the hope and freedom He would bring.

Not only did God orchestrate a miraculous moment for Anna in the temple when she saw Jesus in person with His parents, He had people within her community that needed to hear about the experience that impacted her so greatly — and had apparently worked in the hearts of her audience before she even knew what her message would be! Anna’s encounter with Christ intersected at the perfect moment when others needed to know how they, too, could intersect with Him.

Similarly, God has had a particular group in mind for me to speak to. Just as I didn’t know really what God wanted from me originally when He nudged me to leave my career and didn’t know what my message would be, I haven’t known whom I was supposed to deliver this message to. I thought originally that I would work with high school age girls — perhaps start a ministry at this level because I had been a high school teacher and had experience with this age group.

But over and over, when I asked Him whom He wanted me to speak to or serve, I kept recalling the morning I had woken up and gotten the revelation I was to start a self-worth ministry — and God had used the word “women” in His message to me. And this thought terrified me!

As an instructor, I felt very comfortable speaking in front of adolescents, but not adults. Whenever I had to speak at a faculty meeting or give a presentation for an adult learning class, I got very nervous. But I’ve aimed my entire blog ministry towards women because God told me to.

Therefore, just as God has an objective for us concerning our message and mission when we answer His call — whether that be into an actual pastoral or care ministry or ministry in a different setting — He also will most likely burden us with a desire to reach out to a particular group of people. And as we walk in obedience in what He asks us to do, we will naturally get a revelation about who those people are or encounter them in our daily doings.

Does this mean that we won’t ever be prompted to speak to someone outside of our “target” group? No, I don’t believe so at all. Quite frankly, I believe Jesus will orchestrate events in such a way that we naturally encounter all kinds of people in our ordinary happenings that need to hear our story or need us to show Jesus’ love to them.

However, I believe that we will be amazed at how when we allow Him to have access to all of us, He will show us how our personal story can impact others not in a broad, impersonal sense but with individuals in a more focused sense — with individuals who have had certain experiences that parallel ours and who can benefit from hearing how God has healed us or is working in our lives.

God’s Idea of Ministry

As I survey the list, I realize that God has had to change my ideas of ministry completely and continues to do so. I have been worried at every turn about which way to go, what I will say, whom I will speak to, and how I will accomplish what He has asked of me. And my anxiety has been in vain. He has directed me in all of these areas. He knew these things before I even knew I was to leave teaching!

While I have believed that I needed certain qualifications, certain contacts, certain skill sets (and I am not diminishing the importance of any of those things), the thing I have needed most in my ministry venture is God. And the thing He has required of me hasn’t been all the impressive talent(s) I can offer but my surrender to let Him use me as He will.

While it has felt these past few years that I have been going nowhere, and that there has been no plan, I can see that God had (and does have) a way He was leading me all along. As pastor and author Charles Stanley notes in The Blessings of Brokenness:

God says the same thing to us anytime he calls us to supernatural ministry. He says, ‘I am the one who will do it. I will accomplish the task. You do what I tell you to do, and I will cause it to come to pass.’

Therefore, to best know the way, we need to put ourselves in a position of surrender. Like Anna, when we give ourselves over to a life of diligent devotion to Him, doing what we know to do now, we can trust that God will reveal His purpose for us when we put ourselves in a place of total trust and reliance on Him.

As Stanley notes, it is when we do “our part” that God does “the part that only God can do!”

In closing, consider these lyrics from “Here I Am” by Downhere:

And these broken parts you redeem

Become the song, that I can sing …

Somehow my story is a part of your plan

Here I am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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Letter to a Newlywed: 4 Things a New Bride Needs to Know About Marriage

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Beulah Girl Feb 2016 (1)

I barely weighed 115 pounds when I got married.

I know some of you reading this may have decided you don’t like me now, but I honestly tried to gain weight and couldn’t. (I assure you this is not a problem for me any longer.)

When I went shopping for wedding dresses, most of the dresses were in large stock sizes, so the sales clerk had to clip back the dresses with massive clips just to give me an idea of what each dress would look like. And then, in a stroke of genius, the sales lady offered to show me some dresses on the clearance rack — in smaller sizes. Back then, even a size 6 was a bit roomy for me, and I finally slid into a size 4 dress that actually fit me. No alterations needed.

I am convinced I bought that particular gown more because it actually fit than because it was my dream dress. I had envisioned myself in a mermaid style number and instead walked away with a sequined tulle ballet-skirted gown. However, it was still beautiful, and we bought it on the spot. I didn’t get to try it on again until right before I was to fly down for our destination wedding.

And then I noticed that my dress no longer fit like a glove. Either I had lost a few pounds sometime between when I had tried on the dress in the store or the underskirts they had given me with the dress did not fill it out as much as the sample slip I had used. Thus, I had a little extra room under the fabric in the back where the dress met my tailbone.

The sales clerk assured me that that the space was so slight, it could be remedied with a fuller petticoat. The wedding was looming up in just a few days, so I took the dress as-is with the different petticoat.

But, if the truth be told — even with the recommended skirts underneath, I still had too much room in the waist of the dress. There wasn’t anything I could do with the wedding upon me. I simply wore the dress, and probably no one other than me even noticed that it did not contour to every curve as it was designed to. But it still bothered me a little at the time.

In looking back at my wedding dress dilemma, I have found that marriage is kind of like that wedding dress I wore all those years ago. Some days it fits better than others. It has taken some adjusting, some altering to fit into a life with someone who lived independently of me for the majority of his life.

Now, 15 years later, here’s what I would say to any starry-eyed bride walking down the aisle:

1. Educate yourself on gender differences.

You may be reading this thinking, huh? What is there to know? I got this! Let me assure you, from one woman to another, men have very different needs, communication modes and behaviors. Period. Even knowing this going into marriage, I still didn’t really get how these differences would crop up immediately. Some of our earliest fights occurred because I had no idea how to handle this man, this utter alien from outer space.

I had grown up with three sisters and a fairly distant father. I had no reference point for how to interpret my husband’s actions. I found it helpful to read several books in my early marriage. A few that I really enjoyed were Staying Close: Stopping the Natural Drift Toward Isolation in Marriage, by Dennis and Barbara Rainey; Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus, by John Gray; and The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, by Gary Smalley. We also benefited from joining a life group at church focused on couples and attending several couples’ events at church.

I am still learning what makes my husband tick, but understanding that males generally have different things that motivate them and make them operate (including entirely different wiring in their brains) has helped me to understand Keith better and not expect him to have the same reactions to life events and conversations as me.

2. Get involved in a church community.

As tempting as it is to run off together and never leave each other’s sight, you will have to come up for air eventually, and you need Christian community to support your marriage and help bring accountability and community into your life.

I can think of several turning points in my early marriage — and two important ones I can think of are when we went to church for the first time together when we were first married, and when we found a home church once we got established in my husband’s home state. A Washington-born girl, I was extremely homesick when my then military husband was honorably discharged, and we made the decision to move permanently to Georgia. That homesickness began to fade once we got plugged into a good church.

We both benefited from being part of a faith community where we could learn more about God and connect with other individuals in similar life stages (and in even more advanced life stages). We could know that we weren’t alone in some of the struggles we were having, and we could get advice and knowledge from couples further along in their life journey.

3. Adjust unrealistic expectations.

Not only is it necessary to learn about gender-related relational differences, it is necessary to make sure your overall expectations are not creating an unrealistic standard for your spouse. The day before my wedding, my then future father-in-law gave me some sage advice regarding expectations: he told me to lower them! I thought at the time that the advice sounded a little odd. Why would I do that? And now that I have been married for some time, I have a better sense of what he meant.

Lowering expectations doesn’t mean that you don’t make your needs known. It also doesn’t mean you pretend like you don’t have any needs or wants or allow someone to de-value or disrespect you. However, what it does mean is that you don’t put the unrealistic expectation on the other person to know what to always do and say in the exact way you think they should — to make you happy.

Beulah Girl Feb 2016 (3)

I have long since discovered that my husband is good at a lot of things. We have many meaningful talks, and I tell him just about everything. But he often doesn’t have the reactions I think he should or always meet every emotional need I have. And I can’t expect him to.

I remember after having my first baby, I was overwhelmed with the recovery, hormones, decisions, fear. I was having a hard time learning how to breast-feed, and I felt like a total failure. Everyone in my family breast-fed — my mom, my sister, but I absolutely hated it. I thought it was awful. I liked feeding my baby from a bottle better, but I was afraid to stop breast-feeding because I feared I wouldn’t be a good mom if I didn’t adhere to more natural practices.

Enter in unrealistic expectations: I wanted my husband to understand my emotions, what I was going through. When I shared with him how I felt, he just shrugged and said, “Just use formula if you want.” End of discussion.

I wanted him to understand what a big deal this decision was for me. In retrospect, I realize my husband was just reacting out of his reference point. I really needed the soothing experience of talking with other women who had gone through similar experiences. I get it. If my husband were unloading on me about a problem unique to men, I might have a hard time relating to it.

The bottom line: Husbands can’t meet all our needs. We have a God for that. We can also benefit from other friendships that can help us in whatever life stage we are in.

 4. Apply Christian principles in the home.

In my first few years of marriage, I was in a bit of a backslidden state as a Christian. I was distrustful of certain Christian principles I had seen abused or misused in my own family or other families I observed. Although I knew about the biblical verses that instructed wives to submit to their husbands, I really didn’t feel that those passages applied to me.

Wounded in two dating relationships prior to meeting my husband, I had concluded that I needed to stop being so needy and clingy. In an effort to protect my heart, I became very independent. I would make what decisions I wanted to, come and go as I pleased, and not act like I needed anything from him. As you can imagine, there was some friction caused by this self-sufficient attitude of mine.

One Sunday, I went to church mad. I don’t remember if I had had an argument with Keith or what the problem was, but I had a list in my head of things Keith needed to do differently in our relationship. While I expected God to side with me — God ended up doing a work in me rather than my husband! During the course of the service, the Holy Spirit strongly convicted me and showed me a clear picture of what I was like to live with. And the picture wasn’t pretty. I felt I was to apologize to Keith for not letting him lead. It was difficult for me to humble myself and go to him and tell him that I had been wrong, but I felt a sense of peace and relief after that conversation.

I came to the revelation during that incident that God designed marriage with specific roles in mind, and for my marriage to work the best way possible, I needed to obey biblical mandates. When I allowed my husband to take the role of leadership, I honored not only him but I honored God. I had more tranquility in my home and more in my soul when I obeyed what Scripture said about my role as a wife.

Does submission mean I am a meek doormat who never gives an opinion or speaks up? No. I tell him what I think. I give him advice. I would never participate in a wrong action out of a false belief that that constitutes as submission, but from that moment I had in church where God made it clear that my attitude needed to change, I have made the effort to support him as the head of the family and let him determine what direction we will go in terms of our major decisions.

While there can be days where marriage feels just as ill-fitting as the waistline of the dress from my wedding day, the good thing about a marriage relationship is that it is flexible — it can grow as you grow.

There have been moments where I have been so angry at Keith only to have other moments where I am so happy with where we are in our relationship. God cares about your relationship and knows the things you need to help make you thrive in it.

Above all — seek Him, and you will find that the more you grow in your relationship with Him, the more you will know what things you can do to make your marriage “fit” better than it does now.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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Waiting on God When You Are Facing a Red Sea Problem in Your Life

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Beulah girl dec jan (7)

When you have grown up in church and heard certain Bible stories told multiple times, it’s easy to assume you know everything about familiar tales and view them in one particular context.

However, what I have found to be true the last few years is that the Word is truly active. Stories that I thought I knew in and out can have fresh meanings I never considered or understood until I walked through particular circumstances where that story suddenly became one I was living.

One such passage as of late that has become more alive to me has been Exodus 14, when the Israelites left Egypt to escape from Pharaoh and were led up against the Red Sea. The story is one that I have seen illustrated in hundreds of books and heard about in many different sermons. However, I used to see it only from the angle of the miracle-working power of God to deliver His people. And while that is certainly an important thrust of the story, I began to see it from a different perspective recently. I began to see it as a story that could show me what I should do when I encounter situations that look impossible.

A few of the treasures I can glean from this passage:

1. Our circumstances are never bigger than God.

Exodus tells us that the Israelites were led to the Red Sea and there they saw the vast water stretched in front of them, Pharaoh behind them — and they saw no escape.

God had done all sorts of miraculous signs in Egypt to deliver them from Pharaoh’s hand. He sent a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them away from Egypt. He even told Moses, their leader, that Pharaoh would pursue them and God would take care of it. Clearly, He was not going to abandon them at this point in the story. And yet, here, they grumbled and complained because they looked at their circumstances and took their eyes off of God.

I can relate. There are those situations where I can survey what God has done in the past and remember His faithfulness — and yet, I survey the current situation and say, “But God, where are you now? I need you to show up for me now!” And even though I know God has rescued me before and can do it again — I worry that He won’t.

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And perhaps most shocking of all, most offensive to human reason is that God may have brought us to the place we are right now. He may have put that obstacle in front of us. As commentator Matthew Henry notes, the Israelites were instructed by God to turn from their route and head towards the Red Sea. A position, mind you, that not only put the sea in front of them and the Egyptians behind him them, but further “penned” them in with Pi-hahiroth, a range of sharp rocks, on one side; and Migdol and Baalzephon, believed to be forts and garrisons, on the other side (Matthew Henry Commentary).

God had a reason for leading them this way. He led them away from Philistine country where He knew that they wouldn’t be ready to handle a battle. But He led them to a place that looked, from a human vantage point, like a dead-end.

However, as Henry notes, they still had somewhere to go and it was “upwards.” He continues, “We may be in the way of duty, following God and hastening towards heaven, and yet be in great straits, troubled on every side … If God himself brings his people into straits, he will himself discover a way to bring them out again.” And although faith translated into action is good and can move obstacles, sometimes God brings us to a place that appears hopeless and asks us to do nothing but wait for Him. We look around in vain for an escape, and we get desperate when we can’t find one.

But God is bigger than any circumstance. He is never thrown off guard or taken by surprise. He knows exactly where we are. If we look at Him rather than the scary obstacle(s) in front of us, we will be able to still ourselves enough to see how He plans to deliver us or hear what our next step is.

2. God can use even our enemies to further His plans.

The other element here that is entirely offensive to human reason is the fact that not only did God put the Israelites up against a Red Sea, He hardened the heart of Pharaoh so that Pharaoh would pursue them. On the surface, this doesn’t sound like the action of a compassionate and loving God.

However, if we look deeper, we see that God did it so that His glory might be displayed. And He used the opportunity to take out Pharaoh and his entire army. While the Israelites viewed their situation as dire, God knew the outcome and wasn’t worried. But the people, again, saw only the circumstances and fretted with great distrust! How many times have I done the same? God has told me something that is to pass but the moment that I find myself in peril, I stop believing! But by doing so I essentially tell God that He isn’t strong enough to save me.

Pharaoh certainly didn’t think God was powerful enough to stop him. While Moses depended on God for the plan, Pharaoh depended on himself and the might of his power and his armies. Even though God had clearly shown Himself to be an unconquerable foe when He brought the plagues on Egypt and even took Pharaoh’s firstborn, Pharaoh did not believe, even after all of that, that God could outmatch him. Hearing of the Israelites’ unfortunate position against the Red Sea, Pharaoh seized on what he thought would be the perfect opportunity to take back the Israelites.

However, he quickly learned the folly of going up against the Almighty. He led himself and his men straight to a humiliating death when God closed up the sea and swallowed up Pharaoh and his armies! And just to add insult to injury, so to speak, Pharaoh’s men even admitted the might of God right before their death. After following the Israelites onto the path into the Red Sea, God took off their chariot wheels, and they said, “Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians” (v. 25). Pharaoh must have been a bit irked to hear his men speaking against the wisdom of following the Israelites when Pharaoh was the one who had insisted on the pursuit.

Clearly, what I can see here between the steadfast devotion of Moses and the self-pride of Pharaoh is that trying to do things outside of the will of God is never a good idea.

I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27)

God can and will use your enemies to forward His own plans. So while our human tendency is to view certain people as blocking our path, making it impossible for us to reach our Promised Land, we can look at this story and realize that our enemies may be key characters in the ultimate story of our deliverance. God hardening their hearts against us may be an act of great tenderness that has to do with His glory.

And while God’s way may just not make any sense to us initially, we can look at Pharaoh and know that however bad things get, we should never attempt to create and lean on our own plans rather than God’s.

3. God may allow your circumstances to strengthen your trust in Him.

One last little nugget that we can find tucked away in the story is that not only did God display His greatness by delivering His people and extinguishing their enemies in one flourishing swoop, He used the circumstance to teach His people to trust Him. After the Israelites looked at all that had happened, verse 31 tells us that “the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”

I remember going through a particularly challenging circumstance a few years ago where nothing on the outside lined up with the vision God had given me for my life. I was so confused. As I was relating to one of my sisters about this particular season of my life (which is still ongoing in many ways), my sister said this: “Maybe God put you in that situation so you could trust him.”

I really didn’t like that answer but as I’ve thought about it, I’ve had to conclude that she was right. In that time where nothing made sense, and I felt like I was at a dead-end (and I was mad that God had brought me there), I did gain some great gifts from that circumstance. One such gift was that I learned how to better trust God.

So, while this story has everything to do with the unsurpassed power of God that I heard about so often in my Sunday school classes as a child — this story has many other layers as well. It has everything to do with the impossible scenario I find myself in right now. The one I am doubting God can deliver me from. The one that has me losing sleep at night. As Henry notes, in such situations, “Your strength is to sit still (Isa. 30:7), for the Egyptians shall … threaten to hurt in vain.”

You and I can be encouraged that God is at work. We may not see Him or hear Him right away, but He has a plan for bringing us where we are and a plan for bringing us out. We need only wait!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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5 Things Every Woman Should Know About Pregnancy Loss

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Shortly after I had a miscarriage last year, my father-in-law made this comment to me: “What you went through was a big deal, you know.”

His remark struck me as being of one of the kindest things anyone said to me after the incident. I could only nod. The loss of a child at any stage is a big deal, and it felt really good to have him acknowledge that and acknowledge me.

I had support from other people as well. A woman at church gave me a small gift on my first Sunday back. Another woman who had suffered a miscarriage earlier that year came up to me and asked me if I wanted to talk. We both shared our stories. Two friends brought me dinner and pretended not to be horrified by the fact that I hadn’t taken a shower in a few days or vacuumed my floor.

But there were other people who treated me like nothing happened. The people who couldn’t handle hearing any medical details. The people I needed help from that didn’t show up.

However, miscarriage is a big deal, and the worst part about it is that miscarriage sufferers usually suffer in silence. A woman who has had a pregnancy loss may feel ashamed. She may feel that her body is defective. She may feel like no one else understands. Miscarriage sufferers need support.

Even if you have never suffered a miscarriage, you probably know someone who has. And what they are going through or have gone through is monumental for them. Although their reactions may vary, they want to be acknowledged, noticed. Some may not be ready to talk about it, but my guess is that they still need to feel like people notice them and care.

Here are five things every woman should know about pregnancy loss (whether you are going through it or are helping someone who is):

1. Let yourself rest.

My first miscarriage occurred in my first pregnancy. It was an early miscarriage. I was probably around 7 or 8 weeks, but I still had excruciating cramping and pain and several weeks of “getting back to normal” after the miscarriage happened. Needless to say, I spent three solid days in bed. After being in bed for several days, all of the tissue passed, and the cramping stopped. However, the bleeding did not.

The recovery period was very similar to that which I experienced after my full-term pregnancies. I had light bleeding that occurred for several more weeks after the miscarriage, and then the bleeding stopped and normal monthly functions resumed another several weeks later. Even when I was able to resume my old activities and felt somewhat physically better, the grieving process was one that lasted for many more months.

I hadn’t told many people that I was pregnant, so I had the odd experience of returning back to church and work — and telling no one what had happened. While I pretended that everything was normal in my life, I felt very sad and depressed for some time. I eventually did tell some friends at work, and it felt really good to share what had happened. However, the recovery time, emotionally and physically, was more than I expected.

I have found this to be true of many women I have talked to: We as women are so used to being the caretakers of other people, we often don’t allow other people to take care of us. If we have always been in optimal health, we assume that miscarriage won’t take that much out of us.

I had a friend who began miscarrying at work on a Friday and continued throughout her day teaching. She kept popping Advil, left at her normal time to pick up her daughter — had the miscarriage that night — and then returned to work the following Monday. Suffice it to say, she was not able to make it through the day and was given stern orders by our department head to take some time off.

As she recounted this story to me, I was in utter shock! Her body and emotions needed time to heal, but we as women often don’t get the luxury of taking a break. When a miscarriage occurs, however, time is needed to let your body and soul recover.

2. Be your own health advocate.

As I mentioned before, I was extremely naïve about miscarriage. Had it not been for online forums and articles, I would not have known what to expect because no one had ever shared with me about miscarriage. I assumed it was something that would never happen to me.

While I was able to stay at home and pass everything on my own in my first miscarriage, I realize that it could have turned into a situation where I needed medical help. A nurse from my doctor’s office called to let me know that a miscarriage was inevitable based on my low hCG levels but did not really give me advice on what to do.

I never scheduled a follow-up visit or anything to see how I was doing health-wise after that miscarriage. However, in retrospect, I would advise anyone going through a miscarriage to view it as the big deal it is in terms of both your physical and emotional health. I would advise staying in contact with your doctor’s office — really watching and monitoring your symptoms — and throwing aside any qualms about going to the hospital if you are excessively bleeding or feel you need extra assistance.

With my second miscarriage, I was further along (11 1/2 weeks) and had so much bleeding immediately that I had no choice but to check into the hospital. I was a little embarrassed by what a mess I was when I checked in, and quite frankly, I didn’t really speak up for myself like I should have. I had one nurse check me in and then several more rotate through my room to care for me.

I was also scurried off to an ultrasound room and then another room for an examination. No one person was keeping tabs on how much blood loss I was experiencing. Although the doctor mentioned to me that I had an extremely low red blood cell count, I didn’t think to say how many trips I had made to the bathroom or how much tissue and blood I had lost.

At one point, I even had a nurse scold me for passing out, and I was too dumbfounded and weak to even counter.

Shortly after that, I was wheeled into an operating room for surgery, and I thought that my ordeal would be over. However, that was not the case. After the procedure, I was released even though I needed a blood transfusion. I did not realize this until I returned home and began to have problems with dizziness and a racing heartbeat.

Even at this point, I called my doctor’s office because I thought something felt wrong, but they assured me that I was most likely experiencing side effects from drugs they had given me in the operating room. I deferred to their judgment even though something didn’t feel right in my body.

I figured I would get better in a few days. However, when we went to pizza on my birthday, and I nearly collapsed walking across the parking lot, I knew something was up. I went to the follow-up at my doctor’s and laid out my symptoms. It was then that they did a blood test and discovered that my hemoglobin levels were at a 7.1 (a 7.0 is blood transfusion level).

Moral of the story: If something doesn’t feel right, speak up about it! With medical personnel all around us and professional doctors in crisp coats, we assume that they will just know what is going on.

However, I found out that while doctors can tell a lot from certain tests and procedures, you can greatly help them by letting them know about your symptoms, your health history, how much blood you are losing, etc., so that they can truly help you.

3. Ask for and accept help.

My second miscarriage was different than my first because I accepted help. I didn’t try to be the stoic survivor I was after my first miscarriage. I was very open with people that I had a pregnancy loss, and I gratefully accepted the assistance. I know the fear in telling people is that it will be worse to get over or they will act awkwardly around you, but I actually found that not to be the case at all.

Yes, there will be some who say the wrong things that hurt more than help (we will get to that in a minute), but overwhelmingly, there will also be those people who genuinely want to help and can if you let them.

At the start of my most recent miscarriage, I told my husband that morning I needed him not to go to work that day. At first, he just assumed I was experiencing a little spotting, and it was normal. He figured I could just drive myself to the doctor later that day. But I insisted that he stay with me because my mama intuition was telling me that this was bad — I did not want to be left alone with my young children in the state I was in.

Once we ascertained the situation was such that we needed to just go straight to the emergency room rather than the doctor’s office, my father-in-law came to pick up the kids and take care of them. My brother-in-law came to sit with my husband while I was in surgery. We needed help.

And when we came home and I realized that I was not doing well at all in the recovery process, I asked my husband to stay home from work for the next few days. The booster club of his team set up a meal train for us. In the weeks following, I arranged care a few mornings a week for my son (with family members and a babysitter). I was in no position to take care of my kids or my household until my health got better, and I gladly accepted the assistance.

I found people were really relieved to be able to do something for us. People generally want to assist you, but you just have to tell them how they can best be of help.

4. Know that anger is part of the grief process.

People expect to be sad after a traumatic event. They expect to cry and be depressed — but another part of the grief cycle is anger. After my second miscarriage, a good friend of mine gave me a pregnancy loss study to go through. The authors devoted an entire section of the study to dealing with anger after a miscarriage.

When I read it, a lightbulb went off in my head because I realized that I was carrying around some anger, and I needed to deal with it because my unresolved anger was making me act in wrong ways to some people. If the truth be told, the person I was angry at was God, and the other people were just getting the brunt of that.

I could not believe that God would let me go through pregnancy loss two times. I felt absolutely humiliated the second time because I had been so confident that my miscarriage tragedy was in the past. Anger in and of itself isn’t sin — but anger that isn’t dealt with can turn into bitterness and resentment.

I was able to get rid of the anger when I poured out my feelings to God. I also had some trusted friends that I talked with. I told them everything I was thinking and feeling. Being open about my anger and grief helped to get the negative emotions out.

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5. Expect that not everyone will understand.

If you choose to share your tragedy (which I recommend because I believe it leads to a speedier recovery), there will be some people who can’t handle it or won’t know how to comfort you. With my most recent miscarriage, some people did not even acknowledge that I had gone through anything when I re-emerged into the public.

The mistaken assumption people have is that they will hurt you by bringing it up, but I found that it was worse to be ignored. Then there were other situations where I thought I would get support from individuals, but I found them to be too busy or too horrified by my tragedy to help.

In those instances, do not dwell on those hurts. Think back to the times that you failed someone or avoided someone because it was awkward and you didn’t know what to say. For as many people who don’t acknowledge you, there will be those who do, so expect both and know that some people don’t know how to help a person in crisis (especially if they haven’t been through that particular crisis themselves).

You can make it easier for others by just bringing up the topic yourself and showing others that you are in a place to talk about it. And, if you are the supporting friend, a simple “How are you?” after a miscarriage will put your friend who has suffered the loss at ease and open up the conversation to go in the direction the person is most comfortable with.

We as women are used to being the nurturers of others. It is hard for us to accept assistance or allow others to take care of us. However, pregnancy loss is a time when you need to give yourself permission to slow down, ask for what you need from the people around you, and allow yourself to heal.

If you yourself have not gone through a pregnancy loss, I believe that you can still serve as a valuable support to a friend or another woman in your community who has. You can serve her best by checking up on her, listening to her, and being there for her when she most needs support.

As a survivor of two miscarriages, I don’t relish what I went through. However, I did survive — and survive well, with God’s help. He is the binder of all wounds, and He knows just how to take care of you, whatever your loss. You need only let Him. His help may come through the many hands of the people around you.

Is there anything else you would add to the list? Leave a comment below.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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Overcoming Anxiety With One Simple Question

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overcoming anxiety

At the beginning of the summer, we put our house on the market.

To get the house ready, we painted, scraped, re-grouted, and deep-cleaned. I was a little tense and snappy with my family during those weeks as I struggled to work on the house and care for my small children at the same time. I felt a little stressed at a few intervals; however, we finished the work to the best of our ability and got the house listed.

After that, I felt some of that tension go away. Of course, the pressure didn’t completely subside. My perfectionistic tendencies were tough to keep at bay as I worked to keep the house looking picture-perfect for the stream of would-be buyers coming through.

About two months into our house listing, we got the promise of an offer. Not only did we get news of one offer coming in, we found out shortly after that that we had a second more generous offer coming in. We were ecstatic. However, our feelings of elation soon tanked after the potential buyers retracted their offer after the inspection and our other interested buyer decided that he no longer wanted the house.

In the week following the broken contract, I started having difficulty sleeping at night. My heart was racing uncontrollably during the day, and I was struggling to control my runaway thoughts. Recognizing the symptoms that had plagued me at other key points of my life, I knew I was suffering from an anxiety attack.

I tried prayer. Quiet time meditating on Scripture. Calming thoughts. But the anxiety just seemed to worsen.

A History of Anxiety

Because I’ve experienced anxiety at other intervals of my life, I know anxiety tends to hit when I am faced with one of the following scenarios: I’m in a season of new when I am faced with a lot of change; I am given a task that I don’t feel adequate to meet; or I sense that someone else doesn’t like me and I perceive (rightly or wrongly) purposeful rejection.

What I learned a long time ago about my anxiety is that it is caused by fear. I generally get anxious when I feel ill-prepared, inadequate or unworthy. These feelings tap into my biggest fears as a person. Therefore, getting a handle on my anxiety in the past has meant being able to identify the underlying fear I am experiencing and asking Jesus to help me with that fear.

For instance, the first anxiety episode I can recall occurred in my college days. My anxiety affected not only my emotional well-being but my physical well-being. I was rail thin. I had digestive problems that had never been diagnosed, but I believe would have been diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome. I felt jumpy and nervous all the time — and, if you have ever had IBS, you know that it makes your stomach emit weird grumbling sounds at extremely inopportune times. I found this problem could be helped with exercise, but it still made it very awkward for me to sit in quiet lecture halls and classrooms.

In one pivotal spiritual moment one day at church, God told me why I was having the problems with anxiety that I was: I had a fear of failure. When I got this revelation, I knew at the core of me that I was really afraid that I wouldn’t pass my college courses. I didn’t think I was smart enough. I had a high grade point average, but that wasn’t enough to convince me that I wasn’t going to miserably fail at some point.

And I realized something else: I could trust Jesus with my college courses. I could stop worrying about failure and just do my best. And for whatever reason just knowing what fear I was dealing with and the cause of my anxiety in that scenario helped it go away. Once I addressed the anxiety, the digestive problems went away as well.

Anxiety cropped up in small ways again when I moved on into a career in teaching, but I could usually identify the fear behind my emotions and get calm again. And when I later left teaching and had a major episode of anxiety that included a panic attack on a stage — the answer explaining that became fairly clear right after the fact.

However, this particular time, in the case of my house sale, I didn’t know why I was anxious. I didn’t know why I couldn’t sleep and why it felt like I was running a marathon each day even though I wasn’t even jogging.

The Solution to My Problem

And, just like I have so many times before, because I didn’t know how to make the anxiety stop in this case, I took my question to Jesus, and I asked Him: “God, what am I afraid of?” (Oh, and by the way, Lord, can you make my anxiety stop?)

I didn’t get an answer after that prayer session or even the day after. In fact, a few days went by and then I did receive an answer in a way that I wasn’t really expecting.

My mom had been in frequent communication with me about the house since we had put it on the market. When we lost our buyers, and I told her I was having a tough time, she sent me a text a few days later with a Bible verse she had received from the Lord for me:

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. (Habbakuk 2:3 –KJV)

After she sent me the verse, I had to meditate on those words. I even went so far as to read some commentary on the verse to help me shed light on its meaning for my circumstance. And it wasn’t until a few days later that what had been an extremely fuzzy situation began to clarify, and I realized something: I did have an underlying fear, and here’s what it was: I was afraid that what God had told me about moving wasn’t going to come true.

And if it didn’t come true, that was very bad for me because I had announced to everyone that this move was God-orchestrated. I had written an entire blog post about how God had directed this move as a deliverance for me out of my situation.

You see, if you look at the Habbakuk verse in context, the verse is written by the prophet Habbakuk for the nation of Israel to trust that God would bring down the powerful Chaldeans and not allow them to destroy Israel. He instructed them not to give up just because it hadn’t happened yet and to wait for God’s appointed time (Matthew Henry Commentary). And not only that, the words indicate a waiting not only for deliverance but God’s counsel, God’s direction.

I was feeling a little like the nation of Israel. I had been given a word of what was to come, but the circumstances with my house not selling speedily were making me doubt that it was going to happen.

Over and over, the phrase from the Habakkuk verse “though it tarry, wait for it” just became one that I began repeating over and over because the truth was, I hadn’t heard a single thing from God since the botched offers. I was worrying that maybe I had missed something. Maybe there was something I hadn’t done right. Worry just consumed me.

This simple phrase from Scripture helped me to stop and reassure myself that God had told us to move. He would have to worry about our house selling and every other detail. And for that moment — I wasn’t to worry or to fear — only wait.

Getting Rid of Anxiety With One Question

Everyone is different. Not everyone suffers anxiety for the same reasons as me. I get that. It may seem a little silly to have a “formula” of sorts for beating anxiety. But I believe that anxiety will be a problem for certain people like me again and again. We may get through one bout but another will come. And, although every time is unique, this situation with my house reminded me of what I had done at other key points when I was experiencing anxiety — the solution I had turned to again this time.

The moment I feel anxiety coming on, I need to do the following: Ask one question of one Person.

The question I need to ask is “What am I afraid of?” and the Person I need to ask it of is Jesus. You see, I couldn’t detect the reason for my anxiety in this most current instance just by asking the question alone. I am not saying that we can’t ever identify our fears or seek help from another wise person or counselor, but for me, I needed to just ask the question of the One who already knew.

I didn’t know initially because I didn’t ask God right away. I was asking the question, but I didn’t ask Him the question until a few days went by. I tried to figure it out by myself.

One passage of Scripture that has taken on new meaning for me this year is the Samaritan woman at the well passage. She said of her encounter with Jesus: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did” (John 4:29).

I believe that not only did Jesus look into her soul and know her deeds without anyone telling him, I believe that He told her the why. That is why she got so excited. He gave Himself as her solution to her deepest soul problems.

The same is true for me and you. Christianity isn’t a dead, has-been religion with a god made by human hands. The Jesus of the Bible is as real and true today as He was for the Samaritan woman at the well. He is the only One who can look into me and see why I do the things I do.

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And that why may be the key to overcoming problems in my life I don’t know how to deal with on my own.

Yes, even those making sleep leave my eyes and a tremble invade my heart.

Do you struggle with anxiety? What are some ways that you have been able to cope with fear in your life? Share in the comments below.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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Encouragement When the Road Feels Broken

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Beulah girl dec jan

Our house has been for sale since the beginning of the summer.

After just a few weeks on the market, we received two offers. However, through a series of events, both offers fell through, and we’ve had a long stretch since then of realtors texting me at all hours of the day to see our property and the continued challenge of keeping it clean with two small children underfoot.

My husband’s new job (the one that necessitated our move) has been proving to be a stressful transition for my husband and our family. He has been commuting long hours and putting extra time into the basketball program where he is serving as a coach. As a result, I have had many long evenings and weekends alone with my small children.

To add to the mix, shortly after we lost the offers, I found out that I am pregnant.

While this is exciting news, at 36, everything in my body hurts — my knees, my legs, my stomach, everything! I’ve been fighting all-day nausea, so each day feels like an uphill battle. And to add to that, God keeps pruning away at character issues in me that has me feeling so worn out. All the cutting away God has been doing has left me feeling like I should just give up on myself. At certain intervals these past few weeks, I have wanted to back out on selling our house, on starting a ministry, on continuing to step out into the difficult territory God keeps calling me to.

However, just in the past two weeks, I’ve received texts from several old friends I haven’t spoken to in some time asking how I am doing, letting me know they were thinking of me. Another friend from years ago messaged me to ask me if she could pray for me. She said God had put me on her heart. Just her simple few lines brought me to tears because I felt so cherished and loved when I received her words.

I knew God had orchestrated these special contacts on my behalf. I knew that He was looking out for me and sending me much-needed comfort. I was reminded by my friends’ words of all the other times God had rejuvenated and motivated me to keep following Him down the path He had for me even when so many trials made me want to look for an easier way.

A Woman Who Walked a Difficult Road

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a woman who must have longed at times for a simpler course. We often think of the Christmas card pictures of Mary — a serene woman garbed in blue cradling an equally serene Jesus. But what that picture does not portray is the pain she had to go through in being the mother of the Messiah. Let’s take a quick peek at Mary’s early road as the mother of Jesus:

— She was impregnated by the Holy Spirit as a virgin and had a whole lot of explaining to do to her family and fiancé.

— She was pregnant out of wedlock in a time when it was not socially acceptable for women to be pregnant without being married.

— She endured a long expedition on a mule while pregnant.

— Once the trip to Bethlehem was complete, the inns were too crowded to house her, so she had to give birth to Jesus in a stable.

And this was just at the beginning of her role as Jesus’ mama! I don’t know about you, but at this juncture I might have been ready to throw in the towel and tell God that I wasn’t cut out for this job, you know?

However, at this point in her journey, after the birth of Jesus in the stable, shepherds saw angels in the sky proclaiming Jesus’ birth and came to see this new infant king. And then the shepherds left to tell everyone in the town what they had seen.

These shepherds were strangers to Mary. They just showed up after Jesus was born and spoke of her baby with awe and wonder because of the message they had been given through the angels. After the proclamation of the shepherds’ news, the Scriptures tell us that Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). To “ponder” means to “think about or consider something carefully” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

Most likely, the shepherds’ confirmation and joyous proclamation of her God-son was just the news Mary needed after a hard, long journey — a journey that was only beginning. Surely the shepherds’ visit validated Mary in a way that helped to lift her up after enduring tough circumstances.

Mary Examined the Other Moments in the Past

And perhaps Mary, in her pondering of the shepherds’ visit. was not only encouraged but was able to examine these newest developments in her story and her son’s story and gain further insight into the person she had birthed.

She could compare this newest spiritual occurrence with instances in the past: when the angel had visited her to tell her of the child she would bear; when she met with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s baby leaped for joy in her womb; and when Joseph was told by an angel in a dream that Mary had been impregnated by the Holy Spirit.

With each of these events, Mary could further be assured that God was with her and was indeed going to accomplish what He said.

Because so often God tells us a vision of what we will accomplish for Him but provides us with no other details, and those are not filled in until we are actually underway on the journey. Personally, I, too, have had a string of events that have gone beyond just the most recent messages from friends that have helped to not only comfort me but clarify a call that felt very fuzzy initially.

A few years ago when I was just starting to get a sense that God wanted me to start a ministry, I was visiting my parents in my home state of Washington and happened to attend a small church where no one knew me or my story. The first time that I visited, I received prayer from a woman who told me that God was going to use me in a big way in ministry. I gave her no details about myself, but she repeated and even expanded on what God had already told me.

The second time I visited, exactly one year later, the pastor himself approached me and gave me a prophetic word. He told me that God was going to use me to write curriculum for others and how God had given me administrative gifts that He was going to utilize in me to lead others. Just a few months after visiting his church, I knew what that “curriculum” was going to be. I felt God specifically tell me to write down the lessons He had taught me in a blog.

Even with these past occurrences where God has confirmed to me the direction I should go — I have felt distracted and pulled down by just how hard everything has felt the past few months. That big vision God gave me concerning how He wants to use me feels suffocated by the other things going on in my life.

His Comfort Keeps Me Going

But by receiving the comfort He is providing now and meditating on key times He has shown up for me in the last few years, as Mary did when she saw the shepherds, I have been able to find fresh inspiration and strength to continue on in my course.

Because the promise we have is this: whatever God has called us to as far as kingdom work is not work we do alone. He will refresh us in the process (Proverbs 11:25). Yes, there will be hardship and inconvenience and trials, but God is there to renew us at pivotal points.

And when I survey His faithfulness, I can rest knowing that the next stretch of the journey, whatever it is, however hard it is — is that which He has already charted.

I can know that those moments in the future, just when I am about to plunge into despair, when I am too weary to go on, is right where God will provide again — another pearl of encouragement to ponder.

Related Bible Verses:

“But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26).

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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When You’re Down to Your Last Loaf

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I’m an over-thinker.

This gets me into trouble in my writing because I often over-analyze the process, and I sometimes write two or three versions of a piece before I post it. And I have to decide which version to use.

And the over-thinking begins.

Over-exhausting! Let me tell you! I need an editor to end my madness.

My hyper-processing of information served me well when I was an English teacher because I could spin fresh meanings from the same tales year after year. But the downside is that it gives me decision paralysis where I can’t make a choice about what to keep in and what to exclude in some of the pieces I write.

A story that I considered expanding on in a previous post I wrote (about a sum of money God asked me to give away at a consignment sale) was one from 1 Kings of a widow in great need. However, something wasn’t flowing right with the piece, and so I simply listed the Scripture reference at the bottom.

And then I second-guessed myself.

Since then, the widow’s story has been one that I can’t get off my mind. Therefore, although I had planned a much different companion piece for my previous post, I had to scrap that in order to give voice to the one inside me wanting to be heard.

A Woman in Need

In 1 Kings 17, we see a story of a woman in a dire situation. Down to her last jar of flour and jug of oil — with no hope of obtaining more as the area is suffering in a drought — she goes out to gather sticks by the town gate when she is met by the prophet Elijah.

He has been told by God to go to Zarapheth where he finds her. Elijah asks her to make him a small loaf of bread and fetch him some water. She informs him that she has only enough flour and oil to make herself and her son one last meal — and then they will die (vs. 12).

Elijah assures her not to be afraid but to do as he says, and when she does her flour and oil will not be depleted. Verse 15 in the passage tells us: “She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.”

Several important things stand out to me about the passage.

1. God chose her.

As commentator Matthew Henry suggests, many other men or women could have been appointed to welcome Elijah into their home — richer or more distinguished persons. However, God chose an unassuming, poor, at-the-end-of-her-rope widow to provide food and lodging for Elijah. While the widow viewed her situation as bleak, God saw it as the perfect circumstance to reveal Himself and His glory. As Henry observes, she was “more in a condition to receive alms than give entertainment” — but God chose her to feed His prophet!

Too often we see our lack as just that, but it is in our weak and humble positions that we can encounter God. He looks to use us in those situations where we think we have no way out — and we don’t — until He steps into the midst of our mess. Out of all the people who could have met the prophet at the gate, God selects a most unlikely candidate.

Too often we see our lack as just that, but it is in our weak and humble positions that we can encounter God.

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2. She had come to the end of her resources.

The widow had reached the end of what she could do. Although it does not say it outright in the passage, we can imagine that she had scraped and pinched and worked to feed herself and her son, but all that remained was still not enough to sustain her family past that night. God can provide when we are in the position to acknowledge that we cannot make it on our own.

3. She obeyed even when it didn’t make sense.

Even though she was a Sidon woman and did not most likely believe in the God of Elijah, she still obeyed when the instructions made no earthly sense. She made preparations to give away her last meal — and trust — when nothing in her circumstances suggested that she would have provision past that night.

God could have supplied Elijah with food for the woman or orchestrated the scene at the gate to unfold differently, but He first asked for the woman’s action of faith before she received her blessing. So many times in my own life, He has asked me to take the impossible, hard-to-understand step. And it is only in my obedience that I reap the benefit.

4. She was rewarded for her faith.

Her sacrificial act did not go unnoticed, and God offers us the same opportunity for a miracle. Although we may not be down to our last meal or our last paycheck, we may be surrounded by insurmountable difficulty. Our way out may be to give up what we may be holding on to. This may not be a monetary item — but could be our reputation, a dream, a relationship, or a vice that we don’t want to relinquish.

5. Her trust exceeded her doubt.

Although this is a story about giving, we find it is really a story about trust. What God wants to get at in all of us is our faith level. When He asks us to let go of the job, the key ministry position, the money from the sale we had planned on using for ourselves — He essentially asks the question: Do you trust me?

He asked it of me at the consignment sale when I felt His whisper to give up some of my preciously guarded money away to a stranger. He asked it of me when He put it on my heart to quit my job and step out into a ministry that didn’t exist three years ago. He asked it of me when He told me give up serving on a worship team for a season though I dearly love music.

He asked it of the widow when Elijah requested the loaf of bread.

He doesn’t just ask for a side portion — He asks for everything — our trust. And sometimes, it feels like He asks for too much.

Too often, I take my eyes off Him and flounder. I look at the mounting bills, the unrepaired house, my unruly children, a dream that hasn’t been realized. And I doubt.

I tell Him that I won’t make that loaf of bread or give up my meal. Because it’s my last one.

But it’s only in the trusting, the letting go, the releasing, the yielding, that my empty flour jar and oil jug get filled again. Only in the steps of faith that I look and see another portion of flour for the next day — a little oil. Enough for another meal.

What is He asking of you? As Henry notes,”The meal and oil multiplied, not in the hoarding, but in the spending … When God blesses a little, it will go a great way, even beyond expectation; as, on the contrary, though there be abundance, if he blow upon it, it comes to little, Hag. 1:9; 2:16.”

Related Bible Verses:

Haggai 1:9: ” ‘You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.’ ”

Haggai 2:16: ” ‘When anyone came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When anyone went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty.’ ”

 *Re-published. Original publish date December 19, 2014.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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When God’s Plans for You Are Different Than You Thought They Would Be

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When God's Plans For you Don't Look Like You Thought They Would (2)

“Are you ever going to go back to teaching?”

The question comes from a neighbor of mine as I sit on the edge of the neighborhood pool, my legs dangling in the warm water. I am here with my kids soaking up one of the last days of summer before a new school year begins.

In hearing her question, I can feel myself tensing up. Of course she doesn’t know how much I dislike when people ask me that. People always have the best of intentions when posing the question, but I feel the implication: You know, are you ever going to get back to doing something?

Because the thing is, since leaving a career in education four years ago to follow a call into music and start a ministry, I’ve wrestled with the fact that I do things, but they just aren’t visible to everyone — and sometimes the results are not even visible to me. So yeah, on most days I feel like I do nothing at all. I take a deep breath. I can remark casually about how I am still needed at home and then change the subject. Or I can tell the truth.

I opt for the truth. Most of it, anyway.

“I am a writer,” I say. Even as the words tumble out of my mouth, I want to reel them back in. I feel ridiculous saying them. I quickly clarify. “Well, a blogger, actually. I am a singer, too.”

And that sounds equally ridiculous.

Sigh. Why is my life so complicated? I remember how easy it was to tell people what I did when I was a teacher. I brought it up myself in most conversations. The teacher title felt right because I had an official badge from the county, a classroom and 120 students on my roster every year who called me “Mrs. Whitaker.”

I felt the title must be true because others said it was. They validated what I believed I should do at the time by how they treated me and what they said.

But what if God is the only One who tells you do something? What if it feels like no one sees what you do? Does it make your calling any less true?

My Ministry Journey

As a child, I had the benefit of a huge community that supported me in singing — and whatever endeavors I set out on. I always had people asking me to perform solos at church and approaching me after the service to compliment me on my voice. Similarly, when I moved into my career as a high school English teacher, I received glowing praise and reviews from my department head and administrators, so it inspired confidence in me that I was right where I needed to be.

However, although I have had prophetic words to encourage me and people who have cheered me on in my journey into ministry, in my most current stage I have not had the supports I became so accustomed to in my earlier years. God has been clear to me on what I should do with certain gifts, particularly writing, but I feel a little ashamed to tell people what I do because I no longer have a badge or a contract with a company.

I’ve felt eyebrows raise and people give me polite smiles when I tell them what God has called me to. Because so much of what I do is unseen behind a computer screen and so much of my call has unfolded in a way that is unusual or hasn’t happened yet — it makes me not really want to explain.

He’s called me to use my writing to tell how He has freed me — but that requires me to share awkward parts of my story. I want to hide sometimes. I am a people-pleaser by nature. So much of my testimony goes against the grain of what people normally reveal about themselves, I feel like I might as well wear a sign that says, “Freak.”

He’s called me to music, but He asked me to give it up for some time and walk away from the worship team I wanted to be a part of. I have no musical prospects or contacts at the moment. Like Abraham waiting on a child — I am believing God to open a door in music again. But I feel that people must look at the reality of my situation and say, “Yeah right, that’s never going to happen.”

He tells me things and has given me a prophetic gift. But I am an extremely introverted person by nature — I am terrified of approaching people I don’t know. I have terrible anxiety when I do, and yet He often asks me to say very bold statements to people. And I think, Lord, why me?

Though I don’t argue with how He has gifted me, I’ve questioned the way He’s asked me to use these gifts. And I’ve questioned how His promises in allowing me to use these gifts have played out.

In Isaiah, we see a nation, like me, that was a bit stubborn in their thinking. Anticipating that they would resist God’s methods of deliverance from Babylon by the heathen King Cyrus, Isaiah warned them with these words:

“What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does the clay pot dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’ Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’ ” (Isaiah 45:9 – NLT).

Essentially, Isaiah challenged what right the nation of Israel had to question the plans of the Almighty. God, through his prophet, used some vivid imagery to remind them that they were but earthen pots in the hands of the ultimate Potter. While they might be able to contest with other people or “pots” on the same plane — who were they to question the Lord of the entire universe?

And truthfully, when we look at the Israelites’ possible arguments, they seem silly in light of the fact that God was bringing them the deliverance they wanted so badly. They seemed to forget that God had their best interests in mind — although His modes were nothing like what they expected.

The Root of My Fear in Using My Gifts

Abraham’s wife, Sarah, was another person in Scripture who struggled to accept God’s plans. She laughed in her old age when she heard that she was going to deliver a child within a year’s time (Genesis 18:10-15). And then she denied that she had laughed!

Like Israel, she found God’s methods to be different than she thought they would be. So different she found it difficult to believe He would do what He had said. But God wasn’t fooled when she tried to back-pedal and say that she hadn’t laughed. He said, “Yes, you did laugh” (v. 15). Or, in other words, “Yes, Sarah, you did doubt me.”

And so it is with me. The Lord showed me the other day why I was afraid to use my gifts. Not only do I contest the way He has chosen for me to use them — I don’t believe half the time what He has said will come true because my circumstances have been so challenging, so not conducive of the dreams He has put in my heart. Although fear is most definitely a struggle for me — the bigger struggle for me is unbelief.

I am afraid to write because I doubt He gave me the words. Did you really tell me to say that, Lord?

I am afraid to tell people my destiny in music because I doubt it will come true. Are you sure you told me this, Lord?

I am afraid to give people a prophetic word because I doubt I really heard God. Did you really speak to me, Lord?

It is not easy to tell people, like the woman at the pool, the truth when they ask what I do because my answer is an act of faith.

But what I can learn from Isaiah’s words and Sarah’s response is that not believing God is offensive to Him. He had a warning for the nation of Israel and a rebuke for Sarah over their unbelief and distrust of His methods. While I think He wants us to be honest with Him, He also wants us to trust Him.

And even though both displayed doubt in His ways — He still graciously came through for them.

The Key to Using My Gifts: Letting God Have His Way

While I want to blame other people or my circumstances and say that I would be able to have more confidence if I had the support I needed — what does it matter how many people I have rooting for me if I am convicted inside of what God has said? And what does it matter what way He accomplishes what He has said as long as it is accomplished?

A poem I never really understood in college but understand now is John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14. In it, the speaker struggles because he knows that God’s way is best, but his own human reason gets in the way. He records the struggle in these lines:

Batter my heart, three person’d God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.

I, like an usurped town, to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason your viceroy [appointed ruler] in me, me should defend,

But is captiv’d, and proves weak, or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,

But am bethroth’d unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish thee.

The speaker concludes that he will let God “batter” him until he is God’s prisoner — in order that he can be free of himself, free to do God’s work as God intended.

Sometimes, because God’s way is so counter-intuitive — so foreign to my thinking, I think, God this cannot be the way. And because His plans require me giving up my own preconceptions, I want to fight Him even though I know He knows what He is doing.

But it is only in letting Him have His way that He can make me into what He intended me to be. It is only in laying aside my ideas of how His work should be accomplished in me that I accomplish His work at all.

Related Resources:

For more inspiration on not being ashamed to follow your call, Pam Jenkins’ Pearls of Grace devotional provides some words from a martyred African pastor about giving up all to follow Jesus Christ where He leads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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Breaking Negative Soul Ties: Getting Rid of Emotional and Romantic Baggage

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My senior pastor once told a story of a third world country he knew of where families lived in and among mountainous piles of trash.

In preparing to write this post, I remembered his story as well as a mission trip I went on as a 16-year-old with my youth group. We went to Mexico City where we helped in a school and clinic on the outskirts of the city. I still remember crowding into vans and making the drive outside the city where pavement ended and rolling hills of dirt, trash, and cardboard boxes collided. Driving on the steep, muddy, pot-holed roads, I observed whole families living in slums.

These families did not appear particularly sad or disturbed. In fact, I wondered if they knew what it was like to have clean floors, running water, and plumbing. I wondered if they knew what they were missing.

When I first heard my senior pastor tell the story of the trash piles, he did so to illustrate the point that many of us in first world countries are living in garbage of our own. We may have sparkling kitchens, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing, but (sometimes unknowingly) we live in trash piles just the same.

Our trash piles exist in our own relationships and families.

I remember my insides churning during that particular service. I remember walking down with a trembling stomach and asking for prayer. My entire family had come out for a visit, and they watched me make that long, solitary walk from the balcony down to the altar. But I couldn’t do anything but walk away from my pew because of the tears I was sure they would see in my eyes.

Although I did feel some of the emotional burden lift from me that day at the altar, it was not until a few years later that I would receive a full healing from the emotional baggage in my past. Ironically, it was at a time when I wasn’t even thinking about getting healed or expecting it.

Since then, I have discovered that I had so much emotional baggage in my life because I had allowed myself to be connected to others with negative soul ties. When Jesus walked me through personal healing, He had me break the negative soul ties in my life and get free of the relationships I had never been able to let go of.

What is a Soul Tie?

A soul tie is a close emotional bond or a knitting together with another person’s spirit. According to the Great Bible Study site, the Bible does not use the term “soul tie” but does refer to being “knit together” with another person both in friendship and in marriage. A key example of a positive soul tie in the Bible is in the friendship of Jonathan and David. In 1 Samuel 18:1, it says that Jonathan became “one in spirit” with David and “loved him as himself.” Another time that the Bible speaks of a positive emotional tie with another person that exists on the soul level is in marriage. Ephesians 5:31 speaks of a “man leaving his father and mother” and becoming “one flesh” with his wife.

Negative soul ties are those that can form in many ways, but for the purposes of this article I will just be focusing on those that form through sex before marriage or through idolatry of a person. (Soul ties can also form through vows and commitments, rituals, accepting gifts from those involved in witchcraft, etc.)

Idolatry of a person means allowing a person to take almost a god-like status in your mind and constantly thinking of ways to meet his or her expectations — even if it means changing yourself or going against what you believe.

How I Formed Negative Soul Ties

I realize in looking back at my past that I did have some sexual sin, and I engaged in the idolatry of certain individuals. I had both friendships and romantic relationships where I idolized the other person and an unhealthy attachment formed, or I allowed myself to be idolized.

These relationships developed because of my own low self-esteem. I was constantly looking for love and validation from other people. I allowed relationships in my life to define me. I clung onto persons I felt elevated me by allowing me into their presence. I allowed myself to engage in both homosexual and heterosexual behavior because I wanted the acceptance and love. I made individuals in my life into Saviors.

And even when I tried to move on from these relationships, I still felt tied to certain persons. There was a brokenness on the inside that I couldn’t get rid of. Even after prayer and confession of my wrong in these relationships to God, I still felt defined by and connected to these unhealthy relationships.

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Although He didn’t tell me what He was doing at first, Jesus had me go back to these friends and relationships and break negative emotional ties. Here’s how He had me break them: The first thing I did is talk with a Hope minister at my church about my past, sharing it for the first time. Then I went back to some of the individuals and apologized for my part in the sexual sin and told them what Jesus was doing in me.

I also apologized for any bitterness I had held against them for the bad way the relationship had ended or the ways I had felt they had let me down. I also was honest with the person if he or she had hurt me and spoke about that to the person for the first time. In some cases, I wrote a letter or sent an email. In other cases, I talked directly with the person.

I realize that not everyone may agree with my action of returning to these individuals. Certainly, not everyone agreed with this action when I was doing it. I was seeing a Hope minister at my church prior to my decision to make the contact with these individuals. When our sessions were coming to a close, I began to get a few people in mind that I needed to go back to. She assured me this was completely unnecessary, but I felt Jesus telling me to do it.

What It Felt Like to Break Free of My Negative Soul Ties

The process of making contacts to a handful of people from my past was the most excruciating one I have ever undertaken. I was alone. I had no support for my endeavor, and I underestimated the emotional toll it would have on me. What no one told me beforehand is that going back to the past dredges up old feelings. I felt, in many of those cases, not like a mature 35-year-old woman. I felt like a 14-year-old again. A 16-year-old. All of the fears and insecurities I had experienced in those moments so long ago raced back as I was doing it.

However, I felt Jesus nudging me on. How could He be so mean? So pushy? How could He make me relive all the awful again? I know why now. I had never handled those relationships properly during the time or ended them properly, so I had been left with a great amount of baggage. Soul ties to people I didn’t want to be tied to anymore. He wanted me to do it so that I could get free.

Additionally, I believe that God had me go to these individuals to not only break the emotional ties but also to help me overcome my shame over my wrong choices. I didn’t realize that by hiding what I had done from others, I was being held in bondage by shame and guilt. But as embarrassing as it was for me to talk with these individuals and share with others about my past — I ended up feeling really clean and peaceful inside afterwards.

What Does This Mean for You?

If you are reading this and you know you have a lot of baggage from your past, start with God. One thing I was amazed to discover is that He did not condemn me for my wrong choices — He helped me get past them. The condemnation I felt for a long time was actually coming from Satan. Facing the people in my past that had hurt me or I had given too much power to for far too long was very freeing.

Ask God to reveal to you where you might have negative soul ties with another person (either in your past or now) because of sexual sin or idolatry. If you haven’t already, I would ask God to forgive you for your part in sexual sin with the other person. Or, if there was not a sexual relationship but you know that the relationship was unhealthy for other reasons, ask God to forgive you for idolizing that person or putting that relationship above your relationship with Him.

Then ask God if there is another step you need to take. I would also highly recommend sitting down with a Christian counselor or a pastor versed in counseling. With that being said, go with what God is telling you above all else. Like I mentioned, I had a difference of opinion with my Hope minister about whether it was necessary to revisit the past.

I sought God very carefully on the issue over a several month period and received several confirmations about what He wanted me to do.

If you feel that God is nudging you to contact a person, but that person was a controller or abuser in the past, or you are concerned that a physical or emotional attraction remains, keep contact minimal — a letter. An email. And tell someone else what you are doing so he or she can hold you accountable. If the person or the person’s family can’t be reached, write a letter to the person to get the negative emotions out and then trust that God has healed you because of your step of faith.

God doesn’t intend for us to have sexual relationships outside of marriage or have negative soul ties with other people. He created boundaries to protect us. However, He doesn’t condemn you if you have made unwise choices. He wants to help you get healed.

However, just like He asked the crippled man at the pool at Bethesda, He wants to know: Do you want to be healed?

He wants to help, but there may be a step you have to take to receive that healing.

Author’s note: I wrote about soul ties in regards to consensual relationships, but soul ties can also form in sexually abusive, non-consensual relationships. If you were a victim of rape or sexual abuse, I would urge you to seek out the help of a Christian professional. You do not need to apologize for the wrong another person did to you. Your path to healing may look different than mine. I would also urge you not to be in contact with anyone who has physically harmed you — or put yourself in danger in any way.

If you are reading through this and feel that you may have negative soul ties in a friendship or relationship, please feel free to leave a comment below, and I will pray for you. If you would like to keep your name confidential, or have more questions about my experience, you are welcome to write to me through the Contact page, and I would love to help you on your journey to freedom.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

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