Lazily Catching Up

I really get lazy with these online blogs. I have about four other hand written journals that I keep starting and jotting things down in but to keep one consistent journal, I've failed to be diligent. Even with the other scribed notebooks, I'm lazy and disorganized so for that, I apologize to those, in the future, who may be seeking answers of some sort through my randomness.

So, for today, there is one incident in particular that I'd like to document: about a week ago, my sister in law, Kelly, came to me with a plea of forgiveness through a facebook message. I read it and what she was seeking forgiveness for was that she had contacted Rick's ex-wife, Melissa and sought to be her 'friend' on the website. I'm not sure what her motives were but I had a hunch she was just trying to be a good person. Regardless, Melissa's response was predictable; she was cold, condescending and just a condemning, accusatory bound to be damned being. She is such a lost spirit that it's really quite sad to see her struggle with being so mean to people. I think it takes way too much energy to be as ugly a person as she is when there is so much love out there for us to enjoy through Christ's blessings, who has time to focus on such behavior.

Anyhow, in the end, the lesson was truly mine anyway. Initially, when Kelly showed me the correspondences between the two, I was hurt and felt betrayed by Kelly for initiating it in the first place but somewhat relieved that Melissa had responded the way she did. By the middle of my reading, I knew this was going to require much prayer on my part on how to respond and that I had better start 'now'. So I did.

By the end of the last line I was reading, Kelly had opened a live chat box with me to let me know she had just sent me a private message (similar to an email for those of you who aren't familiar with the system). I felt trapped! She saw that my status was 'online', so I couldn't ignore her, yet I had to say something! Pray, Carol, PRAY! I did, but all I could come up with was, 'I saw, thank you for being so honest.' In hindsight, it was God's response and answer to my prayer because what I truly wanted to say was, 'how dare you betray me, I thought I meant more to you than that, you deserved the way she treated you!' But God restrained me, thank you Lord!

Moving forward, without going through each line of our conversation, I must explain that before each word was typed to Kelly, prayer was used on how to respond.... EACH AND EVERY WORD was the answer to prayer! No joke, or exaggeration, I prayed before EACH word, I feel this is extremely important in this lesson because by the middle of our conversation, I felt myself taken totally by surprise that I had been comforting Kelly in a way I never would have if MY words were in that chat box. But they weren't, they were God's gift to me to be able to not only lift Kelly to the Lord, but to keep me from sinning in my anger. God was SO with me in that hour.

What a sneaky little worm He can be when He works through us huh? I even closed my eyes at one point, fully willing to type the words He had given me, but wanted Him to know just how angry I was with Him that He had made ME the one to console the very person who I felt had betrayed me! I believe my very words were, 'How dare you!' Making me the one to make her feel better when I was the one hurting and who was offended by what she did.

By the time we ended our conversation, she was thanking me up and down, telling me how blessed she was to have me in her life! Crazy huh? But as good as it felt to be told that I was a blessing, I made sure to remind her that it's God's grace that gives us forgiveness and nothing else. It was not I who wanted to forgive, but God's reminder of obedience and His guidance that led us to this point in our lives that we should have this conversation.

So, remember! Regardless of your situation, God hears you, He knows your pain, He is there for you and will NOT forsake you, but will assist you the entire way if you just listen to Him. I don't mean listen like remember what you've learned in Sunday school, but pray to Him every step of the way, He's speaking to you, just rest in Him and hear what He's telling you! Let God.

"Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Psalm 119:105

Praise You God!

Until next time, Carol