Our Pastor challenged us all to share our story of how Jesus changed our lives. So here’s my story.

As a child, I attended a mainline church. I always believed there was a God and desired to please Him. When I was 9 years old, I went to vacation Bible school with the neighbors. They were Southern Baptists. We made popsicle stick pencil cans, had a flannel board Bible lesson (now I’m dating myself) and then went to the sanctuary where we heard the most hair raising sermon about Hell you’d ever want to hear. Every child went to the altar that night, unless they had gone before I guess. I refer to it as being “scared into the Kingdom”. The next year I went back and insisted that they pray with me again because I just felt that I needed to do it. The altar worker argued with me but I told her I wasn’t leaving until she prayed again. After that I would often lay in my windowsill at night, looking at the stars and talking to God and I would sense that there was someone there with me, the same feeling I felt when I went to church with my grandmother who attended a Pentecostal church. There were periods of time through middle school and high school that I read the Bible and prayed but never had anyone to guide me in Christian growth. I remember that I put the golden rule in my locker at school and it strengthened me when I was being teased relentlessly because I had grown way too fast and went from being ultra athletic to barely being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. My growth spurt had taken all my coordination.  And because of my height my jeans were “flood” length instead of dragging on the ground, which was the style then. My Dad couldn’t yet afford to drive me 2 hours away and pay for the tall sizes. 

While in college, I broke up with my boyfriend and I was miserable. I came to the realization that I needed that Jesus I’d experienced as a child so I went to the campus ministry building and sat there for 6 hours, hoping that just one person coming in and out of Bible study would realize that I was new there and stop to chat, but no one did so I went on without Him, but attended church sporadically until I graduated. 

After college, I married my boyfriend of 3 ½ years and life got miserable real fast. I was definitely not ready for marriage. Between that and the stress of my job, I became ill and went to the doctor. As I lay on the table, I noticed a sign on the ceiling that said “Lord, please help me remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that you and I can’t handle together.” My diagnosis was that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and valium was prescribed. In that day, any kind of mental or emotional illness carried a negative stigma. They didn’t know then what they know now about it. As I sat in my living room the next day I became hopeless. My life was miserable and I was going crazy, or so I thought. I felt like such a failure. I thought about how nothing I ever did in life seemed to completely please anyone and about my poor husband having to live with a crazy person and decided to end my life. As I held the whole bottle of valium in my hand and put them to my mouth, that sign from the doctor’s office and my windowsill experiences played in my mind like a motion picture. I got up, flushed the pills down the toilet and started reading my Bible every time I felt sick. I started at Genesis 1. I didn’t understand half of what I read but I could tell that the words had a calming effect on my heart. Several months later, I sat in a church in State College, PA. I wasn’t particularly listening to the sermon, (Sorry, Pastor B). I was talking to the Lord in my head telling Him how unloved and unlovely I felt and in my head, I heard His voice. He told me that He loved me and invited me to have a love relationship with Him. It was so appealing to me because by then I was desperate for love and I found myself walking to the front of the church sobbing while the Pastor was still preaching. I don’t know if he intended to have an altar call or not, but I caused one. A sweet lady prayed with me and I literally felt what seemed like a 2 ton weight lift off my shoulders and I don’t think that my feet touched the floor the whole way to my car. I have never looked back or gone back to my old life. I have never been the same. I have never regretted letting Jesus love me.

A few weeks after I was saved, my husband was also saved and we stopped talking about divorce. The time came when we wanted children but I could not get pregnant. One day while reading my Bible I came across some verses that said that the Lord would make me a joyful mother of children, so I looked up to heaven and I said, Lord, it says right here that you can make me a joyful mother of children. I know you are very busy taking care of the missionaries and people in real trouble, but when you have time, could you please make it so that I can have children? Again, I felt that presence. It didn’t just descend this time.  It came in my driveway, around to my back door, through my kitchen and into the room where I was sitting and just rested real heavy for a minute or two and then went away. After that I had a peace where there had once been sadness when I thought of having children.  I was a new Christian and I didn’t understand that He had healed my body until a few weeks later when I found out that we were going to have a baby. I had told the Lord that I would like a blond haired, blue eyed girl with a sweet disposition and a passion for Him and the Lord gave me just what I asked for. As a result, I realized that I may belong to the largest family in the world-the family of God-but when I call my Father, it’s like I’m His only child and He gives His full attention to me and comes to visit me wherever I am. I’m that special to Him. And so are you.

Through the years, many things like this have happened. God miraculously saved the lives of two of my children after a doctor said they were unresponsive at the scene of a devastating car accident and I was told that they wouldn’t make it. He healed them up enough to go home in just 2 months instead of the six months the doctors had predicted. I was told time and time again that something miraculous was happening by the doctors, nurses and social workers at the hospital but I told them that they weren’t miracles for God, He was just doing what He does and being who He is. I can honestly say that in every situation where I have needed something, God has come through, whether it was food, money or any other type of provision, the need for a babysitter that I felt I could trust, times when I needed comfort or wisdom in a situation, times that I have needed great courage, or those times when I again felt unloved or unlovely. In fact, I am still learning how deeply and completely God loves me and that His love is perfect love. How many without God can say that they are loved with perfect love? I honestly don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want the kind of love I have found in God. 

I’ve seen Him work in the lives of others bringing them through abuse to joy, healing eating disorders, making Himself real to them no matter how far from Him they are, turning them from being evil doers to lovers of good, from being negative to being hopeful, from feeling fatherless to knowing a Father’s love, and from being addicted to complete freedom. He’s REAL and He’s REALLY GOOD!

That doesn’t mean that I am perfect or that my life is easy. Anyone who knows me knows how imperfect I truly am. It doesn’t mean that bad things never happen to me, they do. I have faced and currently am facing difficult hardships That’s called life. It doesn’t mean that I never fail or make mistakes.  But I have found that I can be in hard circumstances on the outside but  still have peace, hope and expectation of good on the inside as long as I remember that He is with me through it all and that He is the solution to every problem that I face. I navigate life knowing that He is there, guiding me and holding my hand. I’m never alone.  I can expect good to come because I know He sees the end from the beginning.  He’s ready to help 24/7 and knows what I need before I even ask and has an answer all ready when I call. I love that no matter where I am, I can create a windowsill moment and can feel His presence anytime that I need Him or just want to spend some time in His presence. I love that His words, found in the Bible, have life in them. When I read them, they change me, comfort me, and remind me of the hope I have in Him, both in this life and the next. I love that this life is not all we have. It’s just the precursor to an eternal life where there are no tears, no pain, no needs or wants, just peace and joy and total fulfillment. I love that this is available for anyone who truly wants it no matter how far from Him you may think that you are. He has opened love’s gate and He will hold onto you and never let you go. 

If anyone would like to talk with me further about my experience or if you have questions about how to know that God is there for you as He has been for me, please contact me. I would love to tell you about Him. #Jesuschangedmylife
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OOphIgGkjM&list=FLBA67jVBbzwjsnwjTYrmfsQ&index=6&t=0s

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Disclaimer: (This is LONG! The sermon was short. So you can just skip down to the link and listen for yourselves! The sermon starts at minute 23:13 but you don’t want to miss the baptismal testimonies that are before it)

~Sunday Takeaways~
Breakhrough Series: Sticks and Stones

Better late than never, they say. It’s Wednesday already and I am just now contemplating the sermon from Sunday. Part of that reason is that I’ve been experiencing some breakthrough in two weighty situations that are trying to run my life, of late. Now there’s nothing better than hearing the Word, believing the Word, and seeing the Word at work in your life in a tangible way. You know what I mean, right?  When the Word becomes more than a verse you learned at Vacation Bible School? When you actually see it working in your life in a way that is undeniably God honoring and keeping His Word? Where God convinces you that Hey!, He really is paying attention? Usually we hear a teaching, pray about it, and then see God do something as a result but for me, this week, I heard the teaching but really hadn’t spent that much time on it before the Lord just illustrated it for me in real time. Kind of backwards, which brings me to my takeaways from Pastor Stacy’s sermon..

He used Romans 8:32 as his text, a familiar verse to all, but he preached it backwards. I’m not saying he preached it wrongly. He just started at our destination (freedom)  and worked his way back through how we get there (knowing & truth). I’ve been praying Proverbs 30:8 over my life for the past couple of months. The psalmist asks the Lord to “keep lies and deception far from me.” .I’ve been thinking about how much lying is a part of society anymore. There are little white lies-um, there’s nothing little or white about them, by the way; exaggeration or better known in Christian circles as being Evangelastic-yes, people- that is lying; broken promises; lies meant to hide the truth; lies meant to fabricate pseudo-truth; and one that I am very careful not to commit-plagiarism or calling someone else’s work your own. I’m not only referring to lies that others tell. I’m also thinking of the lies that the devil tries to put in my head and the lies I tell myself.

Caroline Leaf, a renowned doctor of brain/mind research (she has an official string of letters behind her name but they escape me at this moment), warns that when we say we believe something that we don’t really believe, we lie to ourselves and it physiologically alters the structure in our brains, thus damaging them. That really hit me. How many times have I said a scripture, knowing in my head it’s true, but not really believing it is sharp and active in my own life, not really having the knowledge of the truth in my heart through the revealing power of the Holy Spirit, not really expecting God to do His Word just for me, thus not seeing it happen for me and then blaming or questioning Him when it doesn’t turn out the way the Bible says it should? I’m finding that there is a difference between speaking the Word, which is flat out truth, and speaking the truth in faith which is what Pastor Stacy calls “rightly applied truth.” We cannot use the Bible as some kind of mantra to escape or deny reality but we can believe that change can come to our situation  through the application of the Word. Prayer changes things when those prayers are prayed with the full revelation knowledge of the Word and faith in God’s ability AND willingness to perform His Word in our lives. I’m learning that if I need something from God, it’s more important to find out His will about that situation than it is to pray about it. Now I might pray and ask Him to show me what His will is, but I don’t immediately pray about something if I really don’t know what His will is. Kenneth Hagin once said something to the effect that we might spend hours finding God’s will and minutes praying about it, because the Bible does say that God responds to His Word when prayed in faith. So if we don’t know the will of God in a situation, how can we pray according to His will and in faith? I’m not really sure how effective prayers that include the words “if it be Thy will” really are, especially if we don’t know what His will is! This brings me to point #3 of the sermon-Knowing. 

Knowing implies intimacy, like in a marriage. It’s knowledge at the deepest level. This is the kind of knowing that leads us to freedom, that brings breakthough. It’s sometimes called revelation knowledge, the kind of knowledge that comes when the Holy Spirit reveals the deep truths of the superficial words on the pages of our Bibles. I can say that I believe that soap will make me clean but if I don’t apply the soap, I will be a stinikin’ mess! It is true that soap will make me clean but not until I know how to use it will it do me any good. How do I learn to use soap? By reading the directions or letting someone who already knows teach me. In Biblical terms, that is called discipleship. Discipleship is simply adhering to the doctrines found in the Bible. So to know how to apply God’s Word, we first need to know what it says, and more importantly what it means! I don’t have time to go into a bunch of Hermeneutical drib drab. That’s a whole sling of Sunday takeaways, but if we don’t know what God means by what He says, then we really can’t have faith that we know His will on any given subject. I don’t know about you but I’m not into religious activity. I want results. I want to know God’s Word in such a way that it works for me and for others. This brings me to point #2. Truth.

“If you want the right output, you have to start with the right input.”  Pastor Stacy used the illustration of baking a pie. (That made my stomach growl and I caught myself wondering what would be on the refreshment table after church. Just momentarily though.) You can bake a pumpkin pie and forget the sugar. It will look like a pumpkin pie when you pull it out of the oven but it sure won’t taste like one. If you want to live in truth, you must know what it is. Living a lie does not produce breakthrough. Without truth, you get the wrong results, which is why lying to yourself is so dangerous because you may start to believe that the lies are the truth. Sorry if this is making your head spin, but try to get it! At the very core of any successful Christian is the TRUTH of God’s Word. We’re sunk without it! 

Now onto the goal and point #1. Freedom! This is pretty much self explanatory, I think. I had to ask myself though, do I live in complete freedom? What does that really feel like? We’re not free from our circumstances. We all have stuff that we have to deal with and walk through. We all have situations that break our hearts, that scare the bigeebers out of us, and that completely take over our lives from time to time. But how are we dealing with it? How are we getting through it? What are we using as our guide in the midst of it? Are we listening to lies? Are we telling ourselves lies? Are we trying to ignore things that we need to pay attention to?

 I liken it to traveling. I can drive across the country in a car or I can fly across the country in a plane. In a car, I’m responsible for the safety of myself and others. I deal with obstacles and traffic jams. I have to determine what the best route is.  But, in a plane, I just sit back and relax and let the pilot do the work. I cover the same distance but he deals with turbulence and delays, not me. He finds the most direct route and determines if any detours are needed. I’d much rather fly with Jesus, just resting in His promises and peace and letting Him decide what route to take. A.W. Tozer wrote, “How completely satisfying it is to turn from our limitations to a God who has none.” If we truly know the truth, we are at rest and we are free! 

So if you’ve made it this far, I commend you!  Maybe you don’t really feel that you’re living in freedom. Maybe your circumstances are controlling your emotions and affecting the quality of life God has ordained for you to have. The solution is simple. Get into the truth! Read God’s Word. Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you. He’s good at it!.” Linger Longer! “ God rewards a hungry heart. “How much time do you need in God’s Word to stay connected to God?” Take the time, no matter how much time it takes. That will bring breakthrough!

Watch it for yourself! What are your takeaways?

http://cms-production-api.monkcms.com/Clients/embed_video_preview.php?moduleRecordId=7299598&CMSCODE=EKK

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My Dearest Pappa God, Lord and King, 

My heart feels as if it could explode with gratefulness. My eyes are filled with tears, not of sadness or despair but because of the miracle working power that I have seen You work in my life. When people ask me what I'm upset about, I just have to tell them that these are not tears of sadness but tears of joy, and wonder and amazement at what You have done for me, especially in the past 6 months. 

As we sang the lyrics this morning that say "Chains fall, fear bow, Here now, Jesus You change everything, Lives healed, hope found, Here now, Jesus You change everything" I could not contain the tears as the floodgates of my heart burst wide open at the thought of the miracle working power of Your Name. Truly, this was my statement of faith and now my anthem as I have watched you work in my life this past year. 

Where there was despair, You brought hope. Where there was incredible sadness that was trying to suck me down into the dark place of unbelief and hopelessness, You brought a joy deeper than the gravity of my circumstances and set my feet upon the firm foundation of Your unchanging, unaltered, ever powerful Word. Where there was anxiety that sat in my chest like a 2 ton boulder, You brought a peace that passes understanding and my heart lept with unfettered lightness as you filled me with the beautiful dream of what my future would be.  Where there was impossibililty, you proved that ALL things are possible with You, if I will only persevere in prayer, faith and belief. Where there were strongholds, you brought breakthrough, totally obliterating the walls that the enemy had built around what is my rightful possession. Where there was deception and darkness, You brought brilliant, purifying light. Where there was weakness, you brought the strength that is forever attached to Your Name that is greater than even the strongest strength on earth. Where there was blindess, you brought eye opening, truth revealing sight.

Each time that I thought I was at my very end, you did something so glorious that it got my full attention and filled my heart with hope and faith. When I was felt lost, your Word never failed to illuminate my path and showed me the next step. When I felt alone, You filled my heart with Your Word and Your presence, comforting me and letting me know that You will NEVER leave me nor forsake me. Where there was death, you brought resurrection and life because that is who You are and what You do. I can truly look to the future and smile because it is filled with the knowledge that You are the Alpha and Omege, the beginning and the end and everything in between. You are the one who makes everything new. Where there is death, you bring rebirth and a new creation. Where there is destruction, you rebuild with a new, stronger foundation. Everything You touch becomes new, fresh and beautiful. Hope saturates all that You do. Gratitude and thanksgiving have become the new air that I breathe and the song that my life sings everyday. 

When I cried to you in the night, and I said Pappa, I need you to take care of me, You wrapped Your loving arms around me and whispered Words of love and comfort and I feel asleep blanketed in the peaceful assurance of Your promise. When my mind was buffetted by the realities of my situation and despair was my constant companion, you filled my head with songs that illuminated Your providence and promise in my life and You led me to the place of hope, gratitude, and victory. I can say with the Psalmist, 2“Had it not been the LORD who was on our side
            When men rose up against us,
      3Then they would have swallowed us alive,
            When their anger was kindled against us;
      4Then the waters would have engulfed us,
            The stream would have swept over our soul;
      5Then the raging waters would have swept over our soul.”
      6Blessed be the LORD,
            Who has not given us to be torn by their teeth.
      7Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper;
            The snare is broken and we have escaped.
      8Our help is in the name of the LORD,
            Who made heaven and earth.

YOU, my Lord, have rescued my life. YOU were my only solution and YOU came through for me faithfully, powerfully and completely. YOU have restored my joy and my hope. YOU are EVERYTHING to me. Once again, You have proved yourself to be true to Your Word that says "For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His..." Lord, You have completely supported me when I could not even stand. You carried me when I had no strength. And somehow, You took the dust of my pulvarized heart and used the glue of Your love to put it back together, leaving it greater in its capacity to love, to forgive, to have empathy for others, to have hope, and to believe all that You have said about Yourself. Only You could accomplish what you have done. 

There is no power on earth or in Hell that can defeat You. When You speak, it is done, decisively and completely. You still breathe life into things that are dead. You heal, restore and bring reconciliation. You are the only solution to every problem. And You guard your children. You know when even one hair falls from their heads. Truly I live what the Psalmist also knew.


​1 Lord, I have so many enemies, so many who are against me.
2 Listen to how they whisper their slander against me, saying:
“Look! He’s hopeless! Even God can’t save him from this!”
Pause in his presence

The Help of God3 But in the depths of my heart I truly know
that you, Yahweh, have become my Shield;
You take me and surround me with yourself.
Your glory covers me continually.
You lift high my head when I bow low in shame.
4 I have cried out to you, Yahweh, from your holy presence.
You send me a Father’s help.
Pause in his presence

The Song of Safety5 So now I’ll lie down and sleep like a baby--
then I’ll awake in safety, for you surround me with your glory.
6 Even though dark powers prowl around me,
I won’t be afraid.

The Secret of Strength7 I simply cry out to you:
“Rise up and help me, Lord! Come and save me!”
And you will slap them in the face,
breaking the power of their words to harm me.
8 My true hero comes to my rescue,
for the Lord alone is my Savior.
What a feast of favor and bliss he gives his peop

Have you ever wrestled with God? Have you ever wanted so badly to give a situation to Him to handle but had a hard time letting go, even though you wanted to? Even though you knew you needed to? Even though you knew He wanted you to but you were afraid to totally let go knowing that you might end up miserable and in a vulnerable place...again? That's the best way I know to explain where I with a situation that forced itself into my life. I'm not usually so stubborn with God, but as things went along I realized that it wasn't that I didn't want God to have it, it was that I was afraid of what He might do with it after it was completely out of my hands. I was doubting the wisdom of God in my life because I was afraid that He would allow more pain and I couldn't imagine how I would ever make it through. 

The funny thing is that the situation has never really been under my control in any sense. The consequences of it just landed squarely in my lap like a meterorite the size of Texas falling from the sky and it left me crushed beneath the weight of it and as any normal human would do, I went into self-preservation mode in an attempt to salvage what part of my heart was still left and tried to put a strategy in place to guard my heart so it could heal and hopefully never be in that position again. It's human nature.

Unfortunately, in trying to understand what had happened, I questioned God, wondering why He had allowed something like this to happen and eventually questioning His goodness and the power of prayer. And you know what? God never left me, even when I was upset with Him. He gently pulled me back and entered into my everyday life in a new and wonderful way. As we walked the healing road together, He would reach over and say, "give that to me." I would let Him have it for a moment or two but then would grab it back while I questioned His intentions. Again, He would lovingly say, "give it to me please. Let me take this burden from you and use it to make something beautiful of your brokeness." 

Part of my hesitation in allowing God to do what He wanted was because I forgot the alphabet. Because I had never been in a situation quite like this one before, I did what everyone does, I Googled it and found that there was a myriad of opinions out there. What one said I should do, another said I shouldn't. One would predict one outcome, the other a completely opposite outcome. Both had years of experience, research and even Bible verses to back them. What was confusing was that none of them instructed me to do what had come to me initially in the first few moments of recognizing that I had a situation to deal with. I had just crumpled on the floor, looked up to heaven and said God, I don't know to do. I don't know what to say. Please help me! 

God did not give me the whole plan up front like Google did. He gave me one instruction and then the next day, He added a little to it. And so it went, day by day by day and it was the exact oppposite of what Google had laid out for me. In fact, God is still leading me day by day as we walk the healing road. Many times the devil would come and taunt me, telling me that this was all going to explode right in my face, that I was being a fool to think that God was going to intervene in my situation when He obviously hadn't for so many others. And so I vasillated between believing that I had really heard God and thinking that I was just refusing to see the writing on the wall and wasn't facing reality. 

Than God began to talk to me in prayer. One day, I sensed Him asking me to be quiet, in essence to just shut up already, and I realized that I had been going to God and telling Him what I so desperately needed, how things were supposed to look, what I was hoping the resolution would look like, how quickly I wanted it to happen, and reminding Him that I was asking according to His will and that it would glorify Him in the end. Prayers prayed in desperation must be accompanied by faith, not just hope, when asking and because I had already questioned God's intentions, they were mostly asked in desperate hope. When I finally did shut up He began to talk. He said, "I know what you need. I see your fragile heart, but it is stronger than you know because you see, I have taken the dust that was your heart before and I have made something new from it. Now, I want you to do what I told you in very beginning. I know it flies in the face of conventional Christian opinion. I know Google doesn't agree but don't forget, God comes before Google. I know it sounds crazy. I know it puts you in a position so vulnerable that it's terrifying to you, but that's okay. I just want you to entrust me with your life. Remember, I have instructed you to "not be anxious about your life." Even if the very worst scenario that you could imagine happens, you will be okay because you are not who you were when this all started. I want you to count the cost of following me in this situation and make a decision and once you have made the decision to let me have this, I don't want you to ever look back and question if you made the right decision. I have told you what is best. Follow me."

Then one Saturday night, I could not sleep. After trying everything I knew to go to sleep, it dawned on me that maybe the Lord had me awake for a reason so I asked Him and He said to me, "it's time. Tell it goodbye and give it to me. You've been able to make absolutely no headway as long as you've had it in your hands. Make the decision and believe that my grace is sufficient, my power knows no bounds, and I have only your good in mind in anything that might come in the future. As I have walked with you thus far, I will walk with you again. And so I did what the Lord asked of me. i gave it to him, with a little fear and trepidation, and promptly fell asleep. 

The next morning I drove to church. During the morning worship service, a message in tongues was given. The interpretation was everything that the Lord had spoken to me the night before and in the days leading up to my decisions to finally let go of it and let Him take control. God confirmed that He had heard me the very first time as I lay crumpled on the floor and I had heard Him correctly, even in the midst of my confusion and pain. He didn't scold me for wasting so much time. He didn't chide me for being stubborn. He didn't demean me for being caught up in the weakness of my human flesh and intellect. He just poured His peace and a new resolve into my Spirit that I have never had before. I know He's doing something good. He's making me grow up in Him a little bit more and believe me, growing pains have been involved. 

I learned a valuable lesson though. God is with us, even in the worst of times. God doesn't cause a lot of the bad things that happen to us, but He allows them for a righteous reason. He will still speak in a way that we can hear and understand. And He will help us with them IF we will trust Him enough to give them to Him. Surely He never leaves or forsakes us and He is help in times of trouble. Go to Him first. You won't be disappointed.

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Life is always changing. It's inevitable. For our family, it's as if the Lord took the elements of our lives in His hands and just threw them up into the air. So for now, we're just waiting to see where everything settles.

If we didn't know the Lord as well as we do, if we neglected to remember all the times that He came through in similar situations, if we didn't completely trust His ways and timing, we might be a mess right now. But we're not. We take solace in knowing that if all we know turns to dust and it means that we have to start over, it's okay because God uses dust to create new things.

He formed us from the dust of the earth. That word can mean dry earth, dust, ashes, or debris. So when life leaves you sitting a heap of ashes or the debris of unfortunate circumstances, take heart! God is about to create something new! 

When the potter wants to reuse the clay from a pot that cracked, he takes the broken pieces and grinds them into powder. Then water is added to rehydrate the clay. But that is not enough to ensure that the clay will not crack again during firing. So, sand or stone is added to "temper" the clay. Temper, or "grog" as it's more commonly called is stone or shell that has been ground down to a certain size mesh, like the size of sand sugar, or small pebbles. By adding the right amount of this gritty grog, the created piece is less likely to crack when under the intense heat of the firing oven because it lowers the plasticity of the clay and makes the pot more permeable. It helps the created piece remain truer to size and form and adds stability.

As with earthly clay, when we are humbled, God can create something new that is stronger, truer, and more stable-resistant to the enemy's fiery darts. In Ephesians 5, Paul admonishes us to walk as children of God and warns us of the evils that prevail on earth. He reminds us that we live in an evil world and that there is a battle to wage. 

This grit that has been ground out of the ashes of our failures, past experiences, and life lessons causes us to become stronger and unbreakable when the potter is finished re-fashioning our lives. The new permeability that it adds allows the Holy Spirit to flow more easily through us into the world. What a wonderful thought. A broken life is never wasted by the Lord. He takes our brokenness and remakes it into something more beautiful and useful.

So if you're life feels like a heap of ashes or a pile of dust right now, be of good cheer! Don't allow discouragement to leave you useless. It doesn't mean your life is over. God is going to take the pulverized areas of your life and re-create you into a useful vessel that He can use.  As Patsy Clairmont's book title says, "God Uses Cracked Pots."

Israel's life and existence seemed to be over but God said to them, "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth, shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Is 43:19

God remembers that we are dust. We need to remember that too. Dust in the hand of a Redeemer who is also creative can become a beautiful creation. To God-the potter, it's never over!