Tag: fellowship

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Six Things God Uses to Encourage Part 5

This week we’re wrapping up my series based on the Six Things God Uses to Encourage in one of the sermons by Charles Stanley. We’ve talked about God’s Word, Music and Fellowship, Thankfulness, and Humor. This week, I’d like to talk about the last one, Prayer.

Prayer isn’t just a way to communicate with the Father, but it can be a way in which He encourages us. This is especially important when we are struggling in trial–particularly a trial that is chronic.

Not only can we pray to the Creator when we are in need, but we can pray to commune with the Lord to hear His voice that will guide us and encourage us not to give up and that He allows the things He does for a higher purpose. Knowing this can help us to accept things that we cannot change, keep strong for things we can change, and encourage us along the way no matter what is going on because our home is not of this earth but in Heaven.

It may be hard to feel the Lord near to you when you’re in the midst of a trial, but the more you look around and see all He has put here for you to encourage you, the more you will feel Him near and that is a HUGE encouragement!

For this reason, I encourage the Life Beyond Surviving Facebook group to share their prayer requests each Sunday (and at any time a member has a need). Sunday is already a day of rest and to commune with the Lord so Sundays are a day we pray for each other on the group.

If you are on Facebook and would like to join us, we’d love to fellowship and pray with you. I pray you have found some encouragement from this series.

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Six Things God Uses to Encourage Part 4

We’ve been exploring six ways in which the Lord encourages those of us with chronic illness/conditions. We’ve discussed the Word of God, Music, Fellowship, and Thankfulness. This week, I’d like to talk about Humor!

I have always loved humor. It’s become part of my personality. I even enjoy the dreaded pun and I adore making others laugh. What I discovered is that the more difficulties I face, the more important humor is to me. It has a way of disarming the anxiety and adding lightheartedness to an otherwise dreary day of fatigue and pain. Humor has gotten me through a ton of difficulties as I’ve found that God usually hides a little humor inside the struggle.

“A cheerful heart is a good medicine.”—Proverbs 17:22

I didn’t realize it until I started looking, but there is a lot of humor in the Bible. God invented humor as a release, a way of teaching, and a way of coping with the difficult things in our lives. I read a great article about how God uses humor in His Word.

Here’s are a couple of passages from that article:

“But I think Hebrews 11:12 is the funniest verse in the Bible: ‘Therefore there was born even of [Abraham], and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars in heaven …’ (emphasis mine, NASB).”

“Of course God’s humor is never cruel the way humans twist it to be at times. In fact, God is entirely pure and untainted, thus so is his humor. Such a God inspired the author of Proverbs to write, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful” (15:13), or seen from the opposite point of view in verse 30, “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.” Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Aren’t you glad?”

This is why I share humor and create funny memes to share here and on my Facebook group, Life Beyond Surviving.

Humor is a gift God gives us to help us through the difficult times. What humor have you found hidden inside your struggles?

Come back again next week when I’ll share about how prayer is another thing that God gives us to encourage us.

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Six Things God Uses to Encourage part 2

Last week, we talked about how the Lord uses scripture to encourage us and I shared a bunch of quotes from the Bible, but it was really just a small sampling compared with what the Lord says that encourages us in His Word. This week, I’d like to talk about two more things God uses to encourage His children.

1. Music is a powerful form of communication that can encourage us.
I’ve talked about this on my Art of Eloquence blog in years past. It’s powerful because it not only uses sight (words) but also uses sound which evokes powerful feelings. Music sets the tone for movies so that without it a scene may not have any impact at all.

“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” -Colossians 3:16

“But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” -Acts 16:25

It may seem a strange thing to do to sing songs when you’re in trial – when things seem dark. But it can actually help you express your sadness and then lift you up. Once we are ready, we can sing praises to the Lord assured that God loves us and will help us to get through whatever we are in the midst of. This is why I’ve chosen Wednesdays to share uplifting praise songs on the Life Beyond Surviving Facebook group.

Some songs make us sad as we remember a time gone by in which things were easier or happier or not as difficult. Other songs can give us a hope for the future by reminding us of what God has done, can do, and will do again.

2. Fellowship is another form of encouragement that God gives to us.
God uses fellowship to help us feel connected and to help each other.

” For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” -Matthew 18:20

Since the chronically ill often isolate either by default or by choice, the Life Beyond Surviving Facebook group is a powerful fellowship! This is why I have designated Social Saturday as a time to ask questions of the members of the group so that we can get to know each other better.

I have designated Mondays to share my blog posts in the group with the primary goal of letting members know that they are not alone in how they feel in dealing with their chronic issues.

Next week I’m going to share another thing that God uses to encourage us.

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One of the Worst Things to Say to a Believer Who is Hurting-Repost

I want to follow up on my two-part series on Polly Positive to bring you this article I wrote many years ago for my Art of Eloquence communication blog. I was talking about how we communicate with those who are struggling with chronic illness actually affects them, even if the person’s intentions are good. While Polly’s intentions are to bring the person back to Jesus, the timing isn’t right and the message that comes across is quite damaging and, in fact, not biblical:

“Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” -Proverbs 16:24

Sad

I’ve seen it so many times. A sister in the Lord opens up to share a struggle she is going through in the hopes that the fellowship will bring strength to a weary heart. Instead of support, sympathy or understanding, she receives condemnation by well-meaning and faith-filled believers. In place of words of peace and comfort, they rebuke the poor sinner for not having enough faith. They remind her of the mustard seed, how faith can move mountains and how big God is, but what does that do to her suffering? Does it relieve her suffering or does it, in fact, increase it and place the blame squarely on her?

This is actually one of the worst things you can communicate to a believer who is hurting. Why? Because what you’re saying is:

1. Your suffering is your fault

By telling a believer that she doesn’t have enough faith in God, you are telling her that she wouldn’t be suffering if she only had more faith. Since she either doesn’t believe she has little faith or doesn’t see how she can have more, she feels you are telling her that she is ONLY suffering because of her own lack of faith. Essentially, this belittles her suffering. After all, people don’t feel as sorry for those who cause their own suffering as we do for those who are suffering through no fault of their own.

2. You wouldn’t suffer if you only had more faith

After being told she has caused her own suffering through unbelief, the only option given her is more belief. This is sort of like telling someone “Be happy!” Have you ever been upset and been faced with a situation in which you had to go out and put on your happy face? It was difficult, wasn’t it? Magnify that tenfold and think how difficult it would be to put on your happy face after having lost a loved one to cancer or after being faced with financial ruin. Can they do it? I’m sure some could, but what does it require? It usually requires a time of mourning, a time of rebuilding after a period of support and strength that comes from fellowship. Telling someone to have faith after you just told them they didn’t have any, isn’t helpful and it can be a huge detriment to their ability to bounce back after a devastating event.

3. Your suffering is not going to stop until you have more faith

This poor hurting soul who was reaching out for comfort and strength is now frustrated because she is being told that, no matter how the struggle began, it is now her fault, the only cure is more belief and she cannot find an ounce more in her suffering so it’s never going to end. She is now convinced her suffering will go on indefinitely! Struggles are difficult enough when we believe they are somewhat temporary, but when we see no end in sight, struggles take on new depths of sorrow.

We can all build our faith. Even the most faith-filled Christian can become even stronger in the Lord, but this growing in faith usually comes after a period of mourning the loss at the root of the struggle and a period of gathering strength from family, friends and the Lord.

Telling someone their suffering comes from their unbelief is unbiblical. Here are just three examples from scripture:

1. If all suffering comes from not having enough faith, why was Paul suffering?

“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” -2 Corinthians 12:7

2. If all suffering can be reversed by having more faith, why wasn’t Paul healed?

“For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.” -2 Corinthians 12:8

3. If Christians are not supposed to discuss their feelings when they are suffering, how can you explain Job?

“Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.” –Job 23:2

“And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” –Job 42:10

Telling a person who is suffering, especially when the suffering is new, that they simply need more faith is not only unhelpful, but it can frustrate and depress the person even further. This is where more communication skill is needed. Be careful at this vulnerable time in this believer’s life that you are part of the solution and not part of the problem

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Ephesians 4:29

Please share your comments, thoughts, and experiences here.  I’d love to hear from you.

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Sometimes You Need a Pity Party

cry baby partyI don’t think you’d be human if you were sunshine and roses every day, especially in the face of chronic struggles and hardships.  However, some will tell you-you’re not a good Christian if you share that you are depressed or upset or frustrated.  It’s not like the Lord doesn’t know you feel this way. It hasn’t escaped His notice.  It’s not a sin to be angry or sad or frustrated with your situation.  It’s only destructive if you stay there.  It can actually be quite therapeutic to throw yourself a little pity party now and again.

I think the only people who don’t ever go down deep in the valley of despair are those who don’t have any problems. Know any people without any problems?  Me neither!

So when you are exhausted just after getting up in the morning, you go looking for your sandwich in the closet, your electric bill is past due and you have only two nickels to rub together…AGAIN, you will enter that valley.  What you do there and how long you stay will determine your quality of life and the joy you find in spite of it all.

The value of a pity party:

Allow yourself time to grieve and/or express your negative emotions so you can move on.  Without a pity party, some find it difficult to gather the strength to move on to life’s next chronic hurdle because they haven’t dealt with the previous one.  Making time to express your anger, sadness or frustration can help you get rid of those feelings.

What to do at your pity party:

Invite people to your pity party.  You don’t have to send out formal invitations or anything, but fellowship with one or two trusted, Christian friends or family members who understand what it feels like to deal with the issues you are struggling with.  They will not only understand and allow you to vent but lead you back out of the valley of despair and back to the Lord.  They can help by validating your feelings so you aren’t concentrating your energy on justifying why you feel the way you do.  You have a right to your feelings.  You don’t have to marry them, but you have a right to them as you come by them honestly.

Play Woe is Me.  Express how you feel and allow that trusted friend or family member to see the real you–even if it isn’t pretty right now.  It’s your party and you’ll cry if you want to so…cry if you want to!  You’ll feel better afterward.

Allow friends or family to lift you up.  I know.  It’s frustrating to make one single statement and have well-meaning Christians immediately jump all over you about not being positive and tell you just to cheer up.  But once you’ve had a good cry (or scream as the case may be), you need to be lifted up out of the valley or you’ll be tempted to stay there.  And trust me, pity parties are a nice place to visit, but you don’t want to live there!  Your friends want to help.  Let them.

What to do after your pity party:

Have some FUN!  Here are a few ideas.  Go for a walk, see the beauty God put on this earth.  See the humor in your situation and poke fun at yourself. Lift someone else’s spirits.  Make someone laugh.  Concentrate on someone else’s problems for a while and try to help.  It’s amazing how focusing on others will draw you out of the pit you’ve fallen into.  Write about it.  Sing about it.  Hug your blessings…better known as your children.  Hug someone else’s children.  LOL

Pray.  Pray that God would take this from you and, if God doesn’t take the struggle away, pray that He would use it, your experience and you to lift someone else up.

Lastly, thank God.  Thank the good Lord for the good things in your life.  Count your blessings.  You have some!  Even in the lowest pit of despair, you have some blessings you can count.  If your dishwasher broke and you can’t afford to fix it, you can thank God your water bill is paid this month and you can afford dish liquid.  If you are so tired you can’t get up out of bed, thank Him for the bed you have.  If your pain level is high, thank Him for the life you have and the chance you have today to perhaps find your answers. Maybe you’ll discover something that helps you.  Maybe you’ll discover a $20 bill in the couch that will pay for a few groceries.  I know, I’ve looked there a time or two as well!

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.  We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed”—  2 Corinthians 4:7-9

I pray this has been helpful and uplifting. Please leave me some feedback in a comment.  Share your story.  Tell me what you’d like to see in the coming weeks as I share.  And please pass this post along to others who may need to start planning their own pity party.  😀