As a child I never had a family life like I would see on TV. No happy ever after, fairy tale endings. Yet when I married, I felt the Lord leading me to a man who was raised in a whole family. He was raised to be honest, sincere, a man of integrity and honorable. So many of the values that I never learned were radiated in this man's temperament.
One of our children recently married. I had always hoped that I would be able to establish a good relationship with my children's spouses. When I first married, I never felt that I was fully accepted into my in laws circle, but in the long run, I think eventually my husbands parents learned to love me.
Today I was informed that there would be no informality in what we would be called as the parents of our child. I was told that the new in law did not know us well enough. They did not want to hurt us, but in a sense, it felt like another rejection. When I married into my hubbys family, it was a formal acknowledgment until one day I started calling them by their first name. It was not rejected, yet I knew that my own mother in law had called her own mother in law "Mom". That was not approved of in my situation.
Perhaps when we are accepted into God's family we should call Him Mr. God. No, He would never allow that. We are adopted as sons and daughters of the most High. He is to be my eternal heavenly Father, and I can call on Him anywhere and anytime. There are times when I would love to crawl up into his lap and cry like a baby. I know He hears my voice and sees my tears.
Perhaps I am expecting too much too soon. I am just thankful that MY Father in heaven has accepted me as I am. I am thankful that, even when everything else is taken away, I can always rely on Him.
"Strange as it may seem, one of the primary purposes of being shaken by suffering is to make our faith more unshakable.
Faith is like muscle tissue: if you stress it to the limit, it gets stronger, not weaker. That’s what James means here. When your faith is threatened and tested and stretched to the breaking point, the result is greater capacity to endure.
God loves faith so much that he will test it to the breaking point so as to keep it pure and strong. For example, he did this to Paul according to 2 Corinthians 1:8–9,
We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not in ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
The words “but that was to” show that there was a purpose in this extreme suffering: it was in order that Paul would not rely on himself and his resources, but on God — specifically the future grace of God in raising the dead.
God so values our wholehearted faith that he will, graciously, take away everything else in the world that we might be tempted to rely on — even life itself. His aim is that we grow deeper and stronger in our confidence that he himself will be all we need.
He wants us to be able to say with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26)." Quote by John Piper
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Time will likely change the quality and depth of this new relationship. I hope it will be a good and happy one. Meanwhile, sending warm thoughts your way...
Because of the trials I have been going through the thing that most spoke to me was:
We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not in ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
(I'm learning to rely on Him and not myself or others)
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