Tag: hope

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Beautiful Mess: Seeing the upraise beauty in the mess before you

2022 has proven to be a challenging year and we’re not even through it. Jarrod and I as husband and wife have faced more discouragement and disappointments than we were prepared for. There’ve been nights where I cried myself to sleep in Jarrod’s embrace. There have been moments where we both just sat in disbelief and silence. There have been days where we prayed out of desperation and clung to the one thing we knew, hope. Despite the blows, I am proud that we choose not to fight with each other, but rather to stand with each other and fight on our knees. Don’t get me wrong, when things got chaotic, we did have our moments, however, we remembered who and what we were fighting against.

A lot of this year if not most of this year’s pits have been a result of external circumstances going south. You probably can relate. It’s fair to say we’ve all faced some type of mess in our life. Our minds and heart can often get muddy in these situations. We ponder our purpose. We ponder life and we ponder the goodness of God. These disappointments, both external and internal, can disrupt the pattern of a sustainable life. It affects both your mental and physical health. It did just that for us. 

Most recently we had some issues with our home water system that left us without water for a bit. For someone who enjoys her morning and nighttime showers, this was a big deal. I realize how pathetic I may sound, but for me, this was the last straw. In the pit, I sent Jarrod a text listing all the 12 things that went wrong this year. 

I was sitting in our living room curled up in a ball smelling like salt and a hint of snot. Not my proudest moment. When I read Jarrod’s response, I immediately was convicted by something the Lord impressed on my heart at the beginning of this year, “Remember..”

At the start of this year, many of my prayers consisted of “teach me to remember your goodness, Lord.” At the time, not much had gone wrong. But as each blow came one after the other, that prayer became less frequent. The crazy part is, had I made a list of all the incredible doors opened, answered prayers, and opportunities we had this year, it would double if not triple the list I had sent to my husband. 

In the moment, the mess we face may not appear all glamorous. For the most part, it probably isn’t, however, there is an uprise beauty in the messes we face. The beauty is the strength we gain. The beauty is character growth. The beauty is the grit we develop that prepares us for steeper and tougher climbs. The reality is, we get to choose to remain in the pit and mess. Our mindset and approach to life’s messes say a lot about our emotional and spiritual health. When we allow the mess to become our identity and rule how we approach life we shift authority from God. We take matters into our own hands and we indirection (and directly) tell God, He’s not sufficient. I did just that. I hit rock bottom and in hitting rock bottom I realized I lost sight of my source.

I will conclude with this. Remember God’s goodness. Remember the days He brought you through. Remember the doors He’s opened. Train yourself to see the good despite the circumstance. That is not denying your circumstance, rather it is acknowledging you trust a known God with an unknown and unpredictable future. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. 
Proverbs 3:5-6

Side note: I would even challenge you to dive into the entire chapter of Proverbs 3. There’s meat that’s worth chewing on. 

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Gratiude Attitude

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes, I know we’re technically “past” Thanksgiving Day by now, but I pray your Thanksgiving was great. In my family, we have a Thanksgiving tradition of food (lots of it) and then a member of the family will lead worship and a devotional along with everyone would go around and share their highs and lows for the year. Then we will close out the day with a prayer for everyone or any prayer request made. It’s one of my favorite things about thanksgiving. Besides the food of course. The past couple of years, my oldest brother has been leading these devotionals consecutively. Each year he’s shared what God placed on his heart, and if I am being honest, it’s pretty spot on what each of us needed to hear. I’d vote he keeps leading these devotionals every year. So, Zebedee, if you’re reading this, you’re leading these devotionals every year okay? It’s a part of your birthright.

With his permission, I wanted to share with you this year’s devotional. Unlike other years, this year Zebedee shared on the topic of Thanksgiving. If I am honest I thought it would be generic because that’s what everyone else tends to do. He was on a pretty good trend of awesome devotionals that I thought, “man is he going to mess it up now!” But seriously, the topic was quite fitting. In my family alone, many of us are going through seasons of transition. I am newly married, my little brother recently engaged, my eldest brother and wife just had their second child together, and my second oldest brother is launching his business while being a dad and husband. My parents too are in a season of transition with caring for my grandmother. That’s just the highlights of transitions we’ve each been going through. There’s way more that would pretty much fill an entire book. I am sure for you too who’s reading this, you’re going through transitions (good and bad) of your own. In transitional periods, however, especially the bad ones, it’s easy to forget to remain thankful. I fall short of this all too often.

One of my brothers points in his devotional was,

Gratitude changes the lens through which we see the circumstances in our little slice of time.

Zebedee Pitterson, Jr.

The idea here is that when we learn to be thankful for the little things and the big things hit us pretty good or especially bad, we will see that even in the midst of our circumstances, there’s still something to be grateful for. Gratitude changes our posture and it changes how we see God. Rather than only seeing God in the good, we can find God even in the not-so-good.

It’s funny how life can be. When Jarrod and I left our family thanksgiving, we didn’t know we would need to apply Zebedee’s devotional pretty immediately. As life would have it, we got home to a messed-up septic and sewer system. It was honestly pretty crappy (pun intended). So as we speak, we cannot shower or use or toilets until a plumber comes out to fix things. We did our best along with my in-laws to see if it’s something we could fix ourselves but unfortunately, we ended the day defeated by our septic and sewer system. One point for the septic and sewer system; zero for the Pisors. But you know what, after my little meltdown I was reminded of Zebedee’s message. I reflected on all the good God has done for us. We had lots to be thankful for. Aside from provision, health and strength, Jarrod’s parents lives two doors down from us which they gladly opened their doors for us to take warm showers and relax after a crappy (pun intended) day. We’re grateful for the little things and even the chaos.

Being thankful changes our perspective despite broken dreams, broken relationships, chaotic circumstances, and unfulfilled longings.

Zebedee Pitterson

As chaotic as today was for us dealing with a messed up septic system, we learned to be thankful. We saw God’s hands even in the chaos. Thankfulness doesn’t remove the existence of brokenness, chaos, hurt and pain. Rather, thankfulness sees hope and God despite the existence of brokenness, chaos, hurt and pain.

So my challenge to you is simple and rather challenging…what can you be thankful for? Are you going through brokenness, chaos, hurt and pain? How has God showed up for you despite what you’re going through?

If you learn to be thankful in the little, when the big things come their way, both good and bad, it will be a lot easier to have an attitude of gratitude. BE thankful.

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She died while reading her Bible to her 7 -month old daughter…

Heartbreaking. Odd, really. When we stumble across news reports like the one I read on Sunday it shakes us up a bit and stirs many questions. Melanie Yates died from a stray bullet shot in her neighborhood in Zion, Chicago. It is said that Melanie was reading the Bible to her 7-month old daughter. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was in her home. She was being a mom. She was loving on her child and loving her creator in the process. How can a good God allow this to happen? Is God really good?

After reading the news report I read people’s comments and thoughts on the situation. Many were extending condolences and others said they were praying. There were comments, however that struck my heart. Here are just a couple that burdened me:

  • let me guess.. that was in Gods plan.
  • this is why I quit believing in God.
  • so if God is all powerful and great, He really let this happen?
  • even when you’re doing the right thing God can’t save or help you!

I get the frustration. I get the anger. I get the why and questioning the nature of God. How can a good God allow this to happen? I’m sure you’ve thought that before. I’m sure there was a time that you questioned if God is really good. I know I have. It’s normal to question. I believe God isn’t offended by our questioning. He loves honesty. It is, however ultimately what we do with our honesty and what [or who] we choose to believe.

In times of suffering, we tend to pin God as our adversary. We blame Him when in actuality, He is our cure. There is not always a clear-cut response or answer to the why behind the what but many of the wrongs occurring in the world are suffering as a result of freedom.

Why did a stray bullet kill Melanie while she was reading her Bible to her child? Why did God not heal your mom or dad from cancer? Why did you lose your sister in that car accident? Why did you or someone you love fall victim to rape? And there are plenty more whys out there. Think about it. Do you have a why that causes you to ponder the goodness of God?

Whenever something bad happens after someone did bad, we justify that as a consequence. However, when it’s someone good or someone who we’ve deemed as innocent, we cannot seem to find an answer as to why the injustice occurred. And in not having a why we blame God hoping that will settle the wrestling in our hearts.

Can I share something with you? This is coming from someone who experienced one of those whys I mentioned above. God is in the midst of all we go through and are going through. He hasn’t abandoned us. The suffering we have or are facing is a result of misused freedom. God could have created the human race as robots. Do as He says and as He does. But that would not be love, right? Love doesn’t force or coerce. In love, there’s a choice. The responsibility lies in our hands to choose right from wrong. Sadly, we don’t always choose right and the consequence of that is many suffering from hurt and pain from someone else’s poor decision-making.

Dr. Greg Boyd says it well in his book, Letters from A Skeptic. He states the risk of freedom is exactly proportional to its potential for good. In other words, if we can love a little, we can hurt a little. If we can love a lot we can likewise hurt a lot. If we have freedom, we have risk in the possibility of failure and hurt. Melanie died as a result of misused freedom. While sickness isn’t entirely related to misused freedom it can when we misuse science, food, and our bodies. But a lot of the suffering from sickness comes from the Fall of Man (Satan bringing evil to roam rampant in the world).

My husband, Jarrod, is a cancer survivor along with a couple others in his family. I asked him that if knowing cancer is a part of his story if he’d prefer to have not existed. His response was firm that it shattered my heart. He said,

Vash, I would never blame God for me having cancer. I would never blame God for not saving those that had cancer or any type of terminal illness. While it was and is hard, God was and continues to be our cure. Cure of hope, cure of faith and cure of eternal life. We didn’t choose sickness, but we can choose how we walk through it and from it.

I will leave you with this, death, sickness, and hardship outside of our control do not translate to an absent God. In a world that promotes belief in everything but God, remember, 

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them [sickness, hardship, the unexplainable], for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you or forsake you - Deuteronomy 31:6

If there’s anything we can cling to it’s the hope of Christ’s return where sickness, hardship, and the unexplainable will exist no more. To those who have lost a loved one, I am deeply sorry. For those battling right now, I am deeply sorry. But more than anything I pray that you can cling to the hope of Christ. He will never leave you, nor forsake you. He is in your struggle. God is your cure, not your adversary.

_____________

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Disposable

The idea of being disposable is disheartening. Reality is, you and I are disposable. That’s quite the opposite of what I “preach” but hear me out for a couple minutes here. Disposable can be defined as, being designed for or capable of being thrown away after being used or used up — capable of being replaced. On this earth our time is very limited. We have a limited time to be the best version of ourselves we can possibly be. We don’t get do overs. We cannot identify our shelf-life, but what we do know is that while we do have life, we should live. Too often though, many of us are not living. We have either remained on the “life shelf” or we have allowed who we are to be consumed by our talents that we truly have not seen the big picture. So what version of yourself do you want history to remember? Do you want history to remember someone that didn’t do anything, someone that lived ingenuously consumed by their talent or someone who lived with purpose?

The day I realized I was disposable is when I switched jobs and I was no longer being asked questions about how to do things. I was no longer “important.” I was replaced and disposed of. This wasn’t done negatively, rather naturally those who took over my position were trained and understood the job and got it done. I realized here that I had placed an emphasis on my knowledge and talent in my job that I lost sight of the big picture.

Reflect for a minute. If you were to die today, what would happen in your workplace? Now you may not work in corporate. That’s understandable. Wherever you currently hold a position, what would happen? If you don’t know let me give you a little insight. You will be missed. You will be missed for the first couple days. You will be missed for a couple months. But guess what? While you are missed, you will be replaced with someone that can do your job just as capable as you or even greater. While you are missed and loved, someone is able to fill your position and get the job done. You and I are disposable

Too often, we place our identity in our talents, career and titles we’ve been assigned that we lose sight of the big picture. We take for granted the borrowed time we have thinking tomorrow we will change, tomorrow we will make an impact, tomorrow we will be. But tomorrow never comes when we wait to become better. Tomorrow really isn’t promised to any of us. While talents, a phenomenal career and glowing titles are great on our resume, what really matters is far more simple. The legacy we leave behind is far greater than these things.

Now there’s some of us who have simply remained on the shelf of earth and have done nothing. You live, but your day to day living is simply as a means to make ends meet. You stay in your cubicle, you do what you need to do, an do so lacking purpose and goal. Oddly enough, you and I who live like this are equally disposable. Unfortunately, the memory we leave behind will be one that hangs simply on you existing physically and nothing more. Pretty morbid isn’t it. Our existence here on should not be wasted. Your time, should not be wasted. Too often we allow our lives to be consumed by our talents and dreams that we neglect to live. Too often we are consumed by fear of failure and taking the plunge that we neglect to live. And in doing so, our life here on earth lacked true meaning and we are replaced the moment we take our last breath.

Where am I going with this? It’s simple. Being disposable is uncontrollable. That is simply the reality of the life cycle of man. What you do while you have breath in your lungs is on the other hand ultimately controlled by you. You can either decide to live self-centered, without purpose, or with purpose.

Defining “living with purpose” is awfully difficult. Simply put however, living with purpose is doing what matters that is in alignment with ones values and beliefs. If you’ve followed only on my blogs, you’ve probably caught on that I am Christ-follower. I am never shy to share my faith in hopes that through sharing someone might gain a new perspective and hope to live with purpose. Doing what matters is doing what is right. Doing what is right should align with our values and beliefs and our values and beliefs should challenge and motivate us outside of ourselves. In Christianity, I find that true purpose is obtained. I am challenged to the hard things but the right things. I am challenged with purpose outside of titles, status and talents. I am challenged with purpose that places myself second and placing others first. I am challenged to leave a legacy of hope.

Our departure from earth, will break hearts, stir grief and bring sorrow. Our departure from earth will hurt our loved ones and those we work with, but our departure from earth will be replaced by someone else who can get the job done. So my charge to you is, leave a legacy that targets peoples hearts. In living we purpose we shift our perception of life from self to others. We shift our awareness from what I can do for “me” to how can I help those around me? We should use our talents, gifts and opportunity not to advance self, rather to create opportunity for those in need, encourage those who have lost hope and to expand the hearts of those around me. We should do the hard things, takes risks, live life fully leaving a legacy of hope. Our time on earth is limited. We are disposable. We get to choose what we do. Either a lot of nothingness or a life worth living leaving a legacy of hope.

Are you living with purpose, living for self, or simply not living? How can you leave a legacy of hope?

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Restore

There are things we’ve learned to live with. There are things we’ve passed as normal. There are things that were once rare and now a commonality. We’ve made them apart of the mundane day to day living. We’ve passed these things as “just the way things are.” I’m not referring to things we cannot change. Rather things we have complete control over. We’ve become comfortable with the way of life that we are too afraid to restore what we’ve learned to live without. While there are many things we can talk about here, the three areas in life I’ve seen many become comfortable in is the lack of peace, lack of joy and lack of love.

Peace has been replaced with anxiety and fear. We’re consumed by the worlds unknowns, stressors and triggers that we live day by day without peace of heart and mind. Think back for a second. Can you remember the first time you lost peace? Can you remember the moment in life when peace was replaced with anxiety and fear? How is it that an instant in life shifted your entire posture? Granted, there are things we go through in life that stirs us. It makes us question the goodness of God. It could be a loss of a loved one or opportunity. It could be a near death experience. It could be someone violated you or your family that the anxiety and fear of history repeating itself haunts you each day. Peace is hard to restore once lost. It’s hard to regain when life scars us and ruins what once was. But can I share something with you? It sure isn’t impossible to restore.

Peace that passes all understanding is what most of us crave. If you’re honest with yourself, you’d probably say that while the hardship you went through cannot be reversed or erased, you do want to live anxiety and fear free. Maybe you’ve even attempted to restore peace but failed only for anxiety and fear to show its ugly face and intensify it’s terror even more. While I don’t claim to have all the answers, what I do know is that there is a source for peace. Just as you’d go to your local supermarket for food, there is a source for peace. You’ll find out later in this blog though. Keep on reading.

Joy and peace somewhat go hand in hand with each other. Without peace, you probably do not have joy. If you have joy, it’s probably very little. When we don’t have joy we live in misery and despair. Life is oftentimes meaningless. Many times, when we lack joy we are forced into depression or depressive episodes. Like peace, something triggered you into defeat. You’ve given up on your dreams, your goals, and maybe even so on life. Something happened to you or your family, that all hope is lost. There is neither triumph or victory, rather defeat and sadness. Someone did you wrong, and maybe that someone you are blaming or pointing fingers at is yourself. Maybe the person you are pointing fingers at is, God.

It’s hard to have joy when life did you wrong. We’ve dwelled on the wrong done to us that to find joy in the little things is quite a task. It’s hard to find good in each day because we’ve made the misfortune in life become our god. We worship the loss, the wrong done, and the pain and hurt we faced. The past repeats itself daily in our hearts and minds. We cannot shake it no matter how much we try. Pain has ruled your being. An emotion rules you rather than you having control over it. And we’ve become quite okay with that.

Lack of peace and joy often times makes it difficult for us to love others and love ourselves. Many times though, we dare not love because what presented itself as love has ruined us. We love not, because what was meant to be an example of love has scarred and ruined something meant to be wholesome and beautiful. In turn, we live life lacking peace and joy because love is nonexistent within us. We hate, speak in rage and walk in defeat. Love often times presents itself in hopeful speech and living. Love looks a-lot like faith, assurance and confidence. Love, is powerful when existing. When removed it is likewise powerful as it shakes the very core of who we are.

We all crave love. We all desire to know we are loved. We all desire the warmth of love. When we lose love or the concept of love is distorted, it damages how we love those around us. It damages the way we view life. Many times the reason why we lack peace and joy is because love is absent. It’s because we know not how to love and are consumed by anger and hurt. I’d say the best way to restore joy and peace, is to first tackle the restoration of love.

Restoring love. It’s not as easy as someone telling you they love you and all is fixed. It’s not as easy as telling yourself you are loved and all peace and joy is restored. Restoring love is more than action or word. It’s knitting together peaces of your heart making what was once broken, whole. Restoring love is not having the broken parts of your life glued back together, rather it is a healing of the heart where those broken pieces find life and restore it’s position and function in the heart. How do you go about that? How do you restore what you’ve learned to live without? Go to the source.

If you are a Christ follower, you know that the source for healing and restoration is our creator, God. If someone is the creator then naturally, they will be able to restore what’s broken or reestablish what’s gone missing. God is exactly that. He restores, heals, reestablishes and can even refurbish. There’s nothing too big or too small for Him. When all love, joy and peace is gone, He’s your stability. The issue is we refuse to seek the restoring. We’ve become comfortable in our filth that we’d rather live day to day in complaining in misery, downing in doubt and fear and living in hate and anger.

Don’t get me wrong. I am by no means trying to appear callused. I understand there are difficult things to walk through in life, but the matter of the fact is we choose whether to dwell on the past and lose an eye or fix our eyes on Jesus. Dwelling on the past produces an impaired vision. Fixing our eyes on Jesus shapes perspective and character. Bad things happen because we live in a world where people choose to do evil things. The good news is that God, our creator, can make good out of evil.

For what it’s worth, I suggest, give God a try. If you blame Him for your lack of joy, peace and love, take it to Him. Let him know how angry you are. That is perfectly okay. And then wait on Him to respond. He will. Whatever hurt you have held on to that has you okay with living without joy, peace and love, it’s time to say no more. It’s time to restore what you’ve learned to live without. And the source for restoration is, Jesus. Don’t believe me, see for yourself.

Have you learned to live without peace, joy and love? Do you want these restored? How are you going to seek the source today?