It Ain't Easy Being Me....

One of my favorite things to say to people is: "It ain't easy being me, but it's definitely never boring!" Looking back over my life, I realize that's been true for most of it, though there were times the trials and tribulations I was going through made me wish my life were boring. Recently, however, I've come to understand how God can use what I went through as a child and how I've had to learn to hand it over to Him in my adulthood.

My childhood was definitely not an easy one. It also wasn't the worst childhood ever lived through. But since I've been saved, I've asked that God would allow me to use what I experienced to help others. That somehow, at some point, some good could come from the pain and suffering I endured. I tend to not tell people what I lived with and through, and even those I do tell, it tends to take some time of knowing them before I feel comfortable to reveal some of it. There are few people whom I've told everything to; those being my closest friends. Even they don't get the whole story all at once, and I don't think I've shared every detail with anyone other than God. Even my brothers and sisters don't know it all.

But, just yesterday my neighbor was telling me about something that's going on in his family. He's troubled and very confused about how to move on from this point. He's a younger man than I, and he wasn't telling me for any other purpose than asking me to pray for him and his family as they go through this ordeal. My advice to him was to pray and to forgive the person who has brought this turmoil and hurt to his family. I also told him to not cut this young man out of his life. Exactly the opposite advice he's been given by others, he told me. I then explained a little, without giving details, about my childhood and what it took for me to work through it as an adult. I told him about the process I went through forgiving those in my life who had been responsible for what I survived. I didn't FEEL forgiveness for them when I would speak the words, daily, "I forgive them." And I prayed each and every day that God would give me the DESIRE to forgive them. It was several years later I realized one morning when I said, "I forgive X" that I had. There was no longer any feelings of hurt, anger, bitterness.

The forgiveness was not for those who did what they did. It was for me. Bitterness is a cancer in your body that will bring about all types of sickness, even death. God knew that if we held on to unforgiveness that it would harm not only our spirit, but our body, so He told us to forgive. But, if we hold unforgiveness in our heart, how can we expect forgiveness from God, or anyone that we've hurt?

I love how God is now using my experiences to help others. I'm not saying they were worthwhile, but since I went through them, at least they can accomplish something good, now. And, looking back, I wouldn't change a thing! I am who I am today because of those things. I'm more compassionate, more caring, more sensitive and more helpful to others because of my childhood. And I praise God it can be used to help others. Even if just a small bit.

"Unanswered" Prayers

I've long heard people talking about not receiving an answer to their prayers. They talk about how they've prayed the same prayer time after time and meditated, waiting to hear an answer from God but have received nothing. The truth is there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer. God always answers, and His answers can range from "yes" to "not now" to "no", but we tend to declare our prayers unanswered unless we hear "yes".

Many times we get something other than what we asked for in prayer, but we consider the prayer unanswered because we didn't receive what WE thought we should. We pray for the healing of a family member or friend and when they pass away we declare that God didn't answer our prayer; truth be told, He gave our loved one the ultimate healing: they will never know sickness or death again. He answered our prayer with His wisdom and His will rather than ours but we can't see it because He didn't give us our loved one back in perfect health.

I've been standing on God's promise for something for more than 10 years on one thing and more than 20 years on another. Both of these issues line up with God's Word, but I haven't received what I've requested, yet. Does that mean He hasn't answered? No! I have received His answer. On the first thing He's provided an alternative, but since what I'm asking is a sincere desire of my heart, I continue to ask Him to grant me my request, in specific. On the other, His answer has been, and continues to be, "not now". In the meantime, He's provided relief, though it's not the total relief or complete fulfilling of my request. But He has answered!

We need to learn to listen to God and hear Him when His answer is "no" or "not right now". Our lives would be much better if we would.

Does God Really Know Every Move of Our Lives?

There's a growing movement among the church that says God knows the outcome and content of each day of our lives, and the final decisions of our life even before we're born. That He knows who will be saved and who will be lost, and has done since before time began. I have to question that line of thinking, however, because God gave us free will. Free will means we have the choice to make. If God knew before the foundations of the world what my decision would be, then how could I truly have free will?

I know there are seeming "inconsistencies" in Christianity; for example, in order to be strong, we must be weak. To live in Christ we must die to self. The meek will be exalted. The master must be servant. And so it goes throughout the New Testament. But, seriously, if God knew before I was born the choices and decisions I would make on the 256th day of my 31st year at 1347 hours, then could I ever have truly made the decision myself via free will, or was it preordained of God that I would choose to do what I did at that exact moment?

It also would negate the argument that some folks have that God only gives someone so many chances before He turns them over to be lost for all eternity with no further call from Him. If He knows that they will ultimately reject all His calls to them, then why would He bother to call them at all? Knowing they're going to reject Him, why waste the energy? (Let me be clear, I don't think God turns His back on anyone until the moment they take their last breath!)

The reason we are so precious to God is because we have free will to make the choice to serve and worship Him or not. When we make the choice to worship and serve the Almighty, the Word says there is a celebration in Heaven! Why would there be such if God already knew we would make that decision and exactly when we would do so? There would be nothing to celebrate because He already knew we'd make that decision. And why would the Bible tell us that God is holding off on bringing the world and time to an end hoping that none would be lost, giving every single person the chance to make the decision for Him?

I know there are many things we cannot understand about God's workings. His ways are so far above ours and our feeble minds can never comprehend His awesome power and majesty. But, when He created man and gave us free will, I believe He chose to not know what our ultimate decision would be, even though He could if He wanted. After all, He did create the entire universe and everything in it just by speaking the Word! Well everything, that is, except man. For the creation of man He didn't speak us into existence, He formed us with His own hand and blew His breath into man; to create woman He took the rib of man to create his helpmate. The only creation He created that He used His own hand to form and make. That tells us how wonderfully and awesomely we were made, and how great His love and esteem for us is.

Signs Of The Times

On the Mount of Olives, Jesus told the disciples the signs of His returning:

1. Many will come in His name and will deceive many.
2. Wars and rumors of wars.
3. Nations rise against nations.
4. Famines.
5. Pestilences (a contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating).
6. Earthquakes in various places.

One through six are the "beginning of sorrows".

7. Delivered up to tribunals and killed.
8. Hated because of Christ.
9. Many will be offended by Christ.
10. False prophets arise to deceive many.
11. Love will grow cold.
12. The Gospel preached in all the world.

Then the end will come.

Let's look at these, one by one. Numbers 1 and 10 are very similar. Many will come and say they are Christ and false prophets will deceive many. While there have always been false prophets and those who claim to be Christ, the sheer number of those who are teaching falsehoods, and being followed by many, has increased dramatically. This is one more reason we should heed the warning to be careful what we listen to.

Wars and rumors of wars. Other than World Wars 1 and 2, there have never been so many conflicts in the world. The US, alone, is involved in 3 different wars, at the present time.

Nations rise against nations. Look at the magnitude of nations that are in non-military conflict with other nations. One prime example is the US and North Korea.

Famines. Wow, there are massive famines in Africa, but even in the US we're beginning to see huge losses in crops creating shortages.

Pestilences. How many epidemics have we seen in the past couple years? Strange occurrences of contagious illness that have spread like wildfire across the globe.

Earthquakes. I know many people discount this one by saying there have always been earthquakes, but in the past 5 to 7 years we're not only seeing more earthquakes in more places, but they're larger earthquakes which are causing much more damage.

Delivered up to tribunals and killed. We're beginning to hear more and more stories of Christians who are being charged in courts for being Christian. Iran, China, North Korea and other nations, especially nations that are controlled by conservative Muslim governments.

Hated because of Christ and many offended by Christ. Look at the escalation of lawsuits to prevent the name of Christ in our schools, governments or even in our own front yards.

Love will grow cold. Anyone who knows me knows one of my biggest concerns has been the loss of love amongst the church. But it's not just the church that is seeing love grow cold. The incidence of divorce has increased. Families no longer speaking because they don't love one another anymore.

The Gospel preached in all the world. Despite the threat of death, God's Word is being preached in every nation on this planet, often at great risk to those who are sharing the Word and the Bible with those behind the curtains of communism and radical Islam.

I know there are those who will say that these things have always gone on, and while I agree they have, there are two things that prove to me we are living in the final hours: the sheer escalation of each and every one of these "signs" and the fulfillment of the first timeline of Daniel's prophecy: from the time of the call to restore Israel as a nation, the first "time" is given as 63 weeks, which we interpret to be years. That 63 years from the call to restore Israel brings us to the year 2011.

We must make certain our lamps are filled with oil and our wicks are trimmed because the Bridegroom is approaching!

Words

For the past couple weeks, my heart has repeatedly returned to thoughts about the words we use. Before I surrendered my life to Christ, I used very vulgar language; today, even though I used those words, I cringe when I hear them. My heart literally aches to hear those words because I am reminded of the number of times I used them. Many Christians don't think too much about the words they use, but God's Word says we will be judged on every idle word we speak. Why is that? Why should a few words be so important?

Let me first state that when I was a young Christian, I knew several men who were deacons, ushers and elders at the church I was attending. I also had an opportunity to be around these men outside of church while they were doing their jobs. These men cursed like sailors, and it truly bothered me. I kept thinking that if they spoke that way around non-Christians or people outside our church, those people would wonder about the purity of their salvation or the integrity of our church. To this day, I think of those men using that language and it causes my heart to break.

We are reminded in the writings of Paul and Peter to be careful what we speak; we're reminded that the power of life and death is in the tongue. Think about it: God created the entire universe and almost everything in it simply by SPEAKING the word! Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead by SPEAKING the word. So powerful are words that Jesus had to be certain to call Lazarus by name or every single corpse in that cemetery would have risen from the dead and walked out of their tombs. Go back and read about the many miracles Jesus performed: the raising of the dead, the healing of the sick, etc.: in almost every single instance Jesus SPOKE the miracle into existence. The Bible tells us, in several places, all we need to do is SAY THE WORD and it will be done as we have said. What we say has eternal consequences!

But, even beyond that, what we say in front of non-believers can have other consequences. If a non-believer hears us profess our salvation and in the next breath hears us cursing, what will they think of our Christianity? Although I don't truly believe in a hierarchy for the "badness" of words, for the sake of argument let's classify some as minor and some as major. The main 2 "major" words would be the F word and the GD phrase. Even using the so-called "minor" curse words will bring negative perceptions, but to use the other two in front of non-believers will most definitely cause them to rethink our commitment to Christ.

Paul told us to beware of causing a new Christian to stumble. Using this type of language will most definitely cause not only the unbeliever to question but will cause baby Christians to stumble. We must all be careful what we say, and not just in church or around other believers, but most especially when we're out in the world. Let's represent Jesus in the best possible light!

Music

Music is such an amazingly large part of my life; which is probably why I'm a singer/songwriter! Music has always been a part of my life: my Mother was a member of a trio in High School; Dad was a honky tonk guitar player and Mama was a piano player, vocalist and choir member. Our house was always filled with music. As a youngster I remember Becky Varnado, Sister Varnado with David and Barbara in our living room gathered around the piano. Then there were the Gilbert girls with their Dad and mine on guitar with both Mama and Cynde on the piano.When there weren't people from church at the house, there were Dad's honky tonk musicians there.

And there was always music coming from the radio, record player or tape deck. I grew up on The Rambo's, The Chuck Wagon Gang, The Happy Goodman Family, Hank Williams, Lanny Wolfe Trio, Bill Gaither Trio and many more. Is it any wonder I began piano lessons at age 5?

I wrote my first song at age 4. I "borrowed" the music from "The Old Rugged Cross" and wrote new lyrics for it. I made Mama play it while I sang it. Then my brother and I began singing at church and I appeared with Dad on the stage of The Louisiana Hayride, all at the tender age of 5.

Music is more to me than just entertainment: a song is a 3 minute message. I've loved Rock and Roll, Pop, Disco, Country, Gospel and Contemporary Christian genres. Several years ago I made the decision to listen, pretty much exclusively, to only Gospel/Christian music. The message of music that enters your ears also enters your soul. And I want to concentrate on that which is uplifting and edifying. I don't judge others who listen to something else, but for me, I know that because I take music so intimately, it's better to limit my listening to Christian music.

Music is an emotion. It reflects the mood we're in or it can influence our mood. I can be feeling down and listening to uplifting praise music will pull me up to where my mood changes to one of joy, praise and excitement. Very few things in this life can influence how we feel, what we express and how we project the way music can. The Bible tells us that whenever King Saul was troubled, David would play his harp and soothe Saul, altering his mood.

When I write a song, I try to write what will be edifying or instructive to whomever may listen. I have just 3 minutes or so to deliver a message to the listener that will bring about a change in their mood, cause them to rethink a position or give them hope. It's an awesome responsibility!

I am anxious to get my debut CD recorded. We have some great songs for this project. Most have been written by myself and my producer, but there's a couple I wrote with others. Then there's the songs written by others. Every song has a special meaning to me, and I hope they will mean as much to those who buy the album. That this project will change lives and hearts.

Keep the music flowing!

Friendship

Friendship is an odd creature. I have very close friends whom I often find myself disagreeing with their opinions and views; and we don't enjoy doing the same things or like the same types of music, movies, television or books. Yet, they are very near and dear to my heart, even during those times we disagree or they're being disagreeable. Then I have friends who are very much like me: we enjoy the same quirky taste in movies and books, have the same goofy sense of humor and can talk on the phone for hours at a time. Sometimes, when we're together, we don't even utter a word, we just sit and watch a program or read our separate books, yet we're content just knowing the other is right there.

I also have cousins who are friends. Closer friends than many of my other friends. And I have friends of all ages - from their early 20's to their 70's. I've always seemed to have friends who were older than me. Even in my teens, I had many friends in their 30's and 40's. I often found I had more in common with them than I did the friends of my own age. I also have cousins and brothers and sisters who aren't as close as my friends.

Friendships are very important in our lives. Our friends tell us when we're missing the mark, when we're being impertinent or they support us when we're hurting over a stupid mistake or decision. Friends stick by you no matter what you're going through: good or bad. But there's one friendship that's above all others.

Jesus said He'd be our friend, one that sticks closer than a brother. He's there beside us even when we deliberately walk outside His will; always there to guide us back to the right path, to hold us when we weep, to encourage us when we're uncertain and to cheer for us when we've won. During the times in our lives when we are the most down, He carries us through the valleys. He fights our battles for us, but allows us to enjoy the victories.

Just as I don't always understand why my friends on Earth love me, and stand by me, I always marvel at why Jesus, the Son of the Living God would love me so much He would die for me; take my place on Calvary and suffer the most inhumane suffering imaginable, just so I could be His friend. That's love, and that is friendship!