Fellowship with one another

March 23, 2025

Maria 1 John 1, Peace, Reconciliation, Sin , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7 ESV

God really does communicate personally if I stay open to hearing Him, when my Bible is shut.  Two days ago I texted something to a family member. I thought I was communicating empathy.  She took it a different way. With clear words, she let me know that I had “rubbed her the wrong way”. That with a specific question, I had intruded in an area quite personal to her. 

She was both direct and gracious as she communicated a boundary. I immediately thanked her for promptly letting me know and apologized, promising not to bring it up again. 

Did this encounter hurt? Yes, but I’m thankful she trusts me enough to be honest. She values our friendship.

This morning, as I was reading Oswald Chambers, (23 March My Utmost for His Highest) I knew Jesus was speaking to me about this incident.  Oswald wrote to the effect that if God pinpoints something in us, highlighting a sin, He isn’t asking us to change. “He only asks you to accept the light of truth, and then He will make it right”. 

The wrong response to any criticism would be to try to justify or explain ‘it’ away.  As is with our God, so it is in our human relationships.  Had I made excuses to this dear one like, “Well, I was only trying to reach out to you….” that would not have brought the two of us back into fellowship, removing the distance. On the contrary, it could have enlarged the discomfort she felt and created a chill in our relationship. 

Agreeing with how I had hurt her was moving ‘into the light’. Just as He promised, Jesus washed away the sin and restored our fellowship. My response and her acceptance of it, removed potential compostable material for Satan to take advantage of.

Definitely worth it.

Cesspool heart or forgiven heart? Maybe, both

March 28, 2024

Maria Confession, Forgiveness, Prayer, Psalm 27, Romans 8, Sin, Zechariah 9 , , , 4 Comments

When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Psalm 27:2 ESV

In Spanish, those underlined words read when ‘flesh-eaters’ assail me.  After hurting Mike with my words, attitude and body language the night before, God used that translation to convict me of the severity of my sin. The setting for that memorable event revolved around an argument while en route in the car to a dinner.

Prior to leaving the house, Mike had hurt my feelings with his words and tone. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was wanting to pay him back, to make him feel bad, to make him know that he was WRONG, about the navigation. Did he know what had hurt me, did I bring it up?  No, instead I chose to make a big deal over a missed exit.

Back to that Bible passage and how Jesus got my attention. I was appalled at what the Lord revealed as the sin beneath the sin. I had to confess my anger and my cruelty, using my journal to tell the truth about all the ugly heart yuk that I could now see. The scary part was the pattern I noted. This was not the first time I had cut away at Mike or others.

Little hurts that I think I maturely or piously overlook under the rubric of ‘love covers all’ apparently don’t go away unless really dealt with. I have a tendency to store them up until they boil over.

What happened this week was preceded by a similar event just two weeks prior.  I recognize that this has been and is a season of stripping away, of dying to self, of seeing myself for who I am. God has led me to books, to podcasts, to scripture, to conversations, coordinating all to focus a message of ‘It’s time we up your growth toward holiness, Maria. Beginning NOW!’

Knowing and acknowledging oneself as one truly is hurts.  And despite the fact that Mike and I talked through the car incident and the earlier hurt and reconciled, I will probably wound and belittle him again.  I don’t have confidence in my resolve to be loving or always act kindly. Nor, to change a practice of hiding the fact that sometimes his words or tone hurt my feelings. I’ve tried just to absorb little stings. I recognize now how harmful to me and others that can be.

About this week’s incidence, Mike and the Lord have forgiven me. That I know. Yet, I’m still left with a garbage dump of putrid rotten past issues that I thought I had forgotten, but my heart hasn’t. Moreover, I still have decades of practiced patterns of thinking and relating. Something has to change. And only God can do that.  

My husband is not the only one whom I’ve wanted to hurt, to get back at. No, it’s how I handle anyone who has deprived me of what I want or think I deserve.    

So, what do you do, when confronted with your sin? Do you hide away and try to cover it? Or, like David, do you agree and confess that not only have you terribly hurt or killed someone, but you’ve sinned against God Almighty?  If you do, God is ready to forgive you and cleanse you.

What practically has the Lord revealed that might help me? One new thought practice that I’m trying to adopt is to shift my view about each person whose value I have tarnished. I am practicing remembering how God sees them.  The fact is, they are all 100 % loved and valued by our Father. Someone once wrote something to the effect of: internally call each Christian brother and sister you meet, ‘this person, perfect in Christ’.  For that is what we all will be one day when we see Jesus face to face.

The other thought process that is rescuing me from beating myself up includes Romans 8:28. My version goes like this:  All that I didn’t receive from someone, was ‘deprived of’ has been and is working for my good, as managed by my wise and loving Father.

The fact is whether someone did or did not mean to hurt me, God has ordained that I should not have what I believed I wanted.  He has his reasons. He is the one that gets to define what is good for me. Not ‘good’ but useful for many reasons, to include my growth in holiness, in humility, and dying to sin. As well as encouraging others struggling just like me.

I’m now seeing that up until this week, I’ve been living as a prisoner of unmet desires coupled with unresolved and unconfessed resentments and hurts. That way of living offers no way out, no happy ending. Satan loves to stir THAT pot with his malevolent suggestions.  Listening to him and our flesh, it’s easy to feed on the self-pity that comes from thinking about how circumstances could have been other, had you gotten what you wanted, whether the respect, the attention, the recognition or the freedom of choice.

This morning I met with an older sister in Christ. One whose empathy and compassion have grown out of her own hurts, disappointments and a life of pain. I felt safe confessing to her my uglies and asked for her advice and prayers.  That felt like the right thing to do. She gave me some practical ways to pray and think.

I have a new calling. I am now claiming and declaring that I am a contented prisoner of Hope.  Won’t you join me in this place with its pleasant boundaries? The future is bright and beautiful.

Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. Zechariah 9:12 (ESV)

The Logic of Love

November 18, 2012

Maria Hebrews, Sanctification, Sin, Thankfulness, Thinking, Uncategorized , , , , , 2 Comments

Logic won out the other day in our household.

My husband sometimes puts me up on a pedestal by thinking that I am ‘the more Godly’ of the two of us. (imagine THAT kind of argument:  “ No, I’m worse than you!  Here let me prove it to you….”)

He sometimes indulges in a kind of self-pitying spiral of feeling bad about himself. One evening last week, I nailed him with an undeniable deductive argument that was both valid and true.  He had to smile in spite of himself.  I was truly Holy-Spirit inspired, because I don’t think I would have come up with the proof myself.

My reasoning was this:

God only gives good and perfect gifts.

God gave me my husband.

Therefore, my husband is a good and perfect gift.

Now I’m not saying my husband is without sin.  I’m using the term ‘perfect’ to mean 100 % suited for me in every way, sent to bless me, to aid me in my sanctification.  I know, ‘sanctification’ is a fancy Christian-ese word. What it means is the process that is meant to “rub off the rough areas of your personality….train you in humility….give you practice in self-less living…..strengthen your submission muscle to make you teachable to God”

You see, learning to love Michael is helping me grow in holiness for, “….. without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14b

So no matter how difficult it gets living with another person, knowing that my heavenly Father picked him out for me, from before the creation of the universe, helps me accept more easily all that happens between us as coming from the hand of God.  This reasoning softens my approach and keeps me praying in the midst of a disagreement,

“Thank you, Father, for this painful encounter.  You mean this for my good.  May I see this as ‘gift’ and respond in the way you want me to.  Guide me. And bless my husband.  Thank you for him.”

I don’t always reason through like that.  In the heat of emotions, I can feel sorry for myself and get a chip on my shoulder with the best of you.  Remembering that God is in control of ALL that comes to us keeps my conclusions from veering off into ‘untruth’.   It’s also humbling and painful to think that God may be allowing my hurtful, sharp and ‘irrational’ remarks to wound my dearest friend for his own good.

Thankfully I can report, that the Holy Spirit is causing both of us to see and regret more quickly the pain we cause one another.  We are learning to repent and ask each other’s forgiveness within the same segment of the day, often within 30 minutes or fewer.

And more broadly speaking, why does God allow such sin?  One reason that I can see, is that the reconciliation Mike and I experience after hardness of heart is the sweetest sensation we have ever felt.  I think we are meant to taste and see in those moments the wonder of reconciliation with the Creator of all things, our Father and Eternal Logos.

So on this start of Thanksgiving week 2012; I give thanks to God for His gift of Michael Francis Cochrane.  “Je t’aime fort, mon petit ours!”