Author: Brenda Rodgers

Two years ago on this day I sat on this bench. It was across from the elevators on the fifth floor of Duke University Hospital.

We had been in the hospital for over two weeks already, but only in the past week had the circumstances become dire.

My husband laid down the hall, not far from where I sat, on life support. His sick heart had already stopped once. If he did not receive a heart transplant within a few days he would die.

After only two years of being married and after years and years of begging God for a husband, He was asking me to give my new husband back.

My heart was broken.

That morning, as I sat on the bench, his heart surgeon came to me with the news. John was matched with a heart. They were going to make the trip to take a look at it in just a few hours.

The transplant started at around 9:38 that night. Our family and several friends stayed up until it was finished at 5:30 the next morning.

The story is intense, filled with drama. Each tick of the minute hand of the clock was like jumping over a cliff. I never knew when they might come and tell me it was over.

I tell this story often. I write about it often. I can’t help it.

This is the story of my God and His majesty. With each of those minutes ticking God sustained me. I felt His supernatural peace for the first time in my life. I still don’t know how that can be except that it is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible explains to us more than once the importance of moving forward and not dwelling on things of the past.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19).

But at the same time God tells us the importance of remembering.

In Samuel 7 the Israelites call out to God to help them defeat the Philistines. God came through for them, and this is what is written:

“Samuel then took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer (which means “the stone of help”), for he said, ‘Up to this point the LORD has helped us!’ So the Philistines were subdued and didn’t invade Israel again for some time. And throughout Samuel’s lifetime, the LORD’s powerful hand was raised against the Philistines. (1 Samuel 7:12-13).

Samuel put that stone there between the two towns to help the Israelites remember that God had answered their prayers.

The Israelites are known for their forgetfulness. Over and over and over again in the Old Testament we see them pursuing God, forgetting God, turning away from God, and then begging God for forgiveness again. Reading their stories I often wonder how they could be so dense. Why couldn’t they remember God’s mercy from the previous dozen times and stop the same idolatrous behavior?

Over the past two years, though, I have forgotten often what God did for me during those days sitting on that bench outside of the elevators on the fifth floor of the hospital.

I forget that God heard my prayers. I forget that God gave me what I needed. I forget that God was in control. I forget how close to God I was during that time.

I simply forget.

You might think that these years since my husband’s heart transplant have been filled with love and roses everyday.

That’s not the case. The past two  years have been hard just like any other years.

Mainly because I forget. I forget the truths God taught me and the peace I felt during those days in the hospital, and I start trying to operate on my own again. Just like the Israelites did. For some reason I think that I have the small stuff – the everyday stuff – like expectations in marriage and dealing with family members and learning to be a mom for the first time.

On the scale of life, the everyday seems like the easy stuff. 

For me heart transplants are easy. Giving my life to God every. single. day. is what is hard. 

Today I don’t face a heart transplant, but I face other circumstances that seem so small I can take them on all by myself. Really God is asking me to remember Him and allow Him to take them for me.

“Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the Lord. (Psalm 107:43)”

How has remembering the past helped you? Please share your story in the comments!

Don’t forget to enter to win a free copy of the eBook Your Grocery Budget Toolbox! This eBook is jammed packed with great resources!

When I was a little girl my mom documented all of my school memories in a book called “My School Days”. There was a place for each year’s current picture, my likes and dislikes, activities and sports, and a pouch for school paraphernalia. But the most interesting to me now is the fill-in-the-blank sentence: When I grow up I want to be a(n) _____________.

For many years my mom wrote in that blank two words – mommy and homemaker.

Now at 36 years of age, as my dream of becoming a homemaker has become a reality, I am wondering how I missed the Bachelor’s degree in homemaking because it is so much harder than I thought.

One of my biggest struggles is meal budgeting, meal planning, and preparing healthy meals.

Thank goodness for smart women like Anne Simpson (writer at Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy) who wrote the phenomenal eBook Your Grocery Budget Toolbox!

And that’s exactly what this book is – a toolbox.

It is jammed pack of information for not just planning and buying groceries on a budget, but for doing so healthfully.

I have found myself saying several of the same comments Anne addresses in the book:

• I can’t use coupons because they’re only for packaged foods.
• I can’t prepare healthy meals because the food is too expensive.
• I can’t find the time to prepare healthy foods.

Not only does Your Grocery Budget Toolbox give you much needed information to overcome these obstacles, it does so without an “all or nothing” approach. Anne stresses the fact that this meal planning, meal budgeting, and healthy eating takes time to learn and adjust. You don’t have to incorporate all of the ideas in this book in order to “do it right”. Even using some of the ideas will be healthier and better for your family’s pocketbook.

Here are some other features that I love about Your Grocery Budget Toolbox:

 

• Challenges to help you start small
• Well-organized food lists of the most beneficial whole foods
• Practical ways to make food stretch and not go to waste
• Easy to understand and use budgeting tools
• Explanation of the use of coupons in healthy, whole eating
• Wonderful, easy recipes for homemade cooking and food preparation!!
• Ways to take your whole eating lifestyle to the next level
• Printables that you can use to get started!!!

I highly recommend Your Grocery Budget Toolbox to anyone who is struggling to incorporate healthy, whole eating into their lifestyle on a budget!

And right now you can click here to get this $4.99 eBook for 20% off!

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I cry watching the U.S Olympic gymnastics team.

I don’t just mean a few tears either. I mean full on sobbing. I just sit there and cry.

Then one of the gymnast’s parents are interviewed. They feature the young hopeful’s story, her road to the gold, how her parents sacrificed it all to get her there, and I cry some more.

When I was a little girl I wanted to be one of two people: Nadia Comaneci or Mary Lou Retton.

When my class took its weekly visit to the school library, I bypassed the card catalog and went straight to the 900’s. I knew their books would be waiting for me there.

I read the same two books again and again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to be just like them.

One of my favorable attributes was my short frame. Now I stand at a grand total of 4’11” tall (or 5’0”) depending on who’s doing the measuring. I don’t remember how tall I was then.

I am also built like a gymnast – with a few less muscles mind you, but I could have gotten there. Muscles stick on well when there’s not much room for them stretch out.

I even took gymnastics classes for a while.

There was only one problem.

I was afraid of the uneven bars. And probably the balance beam if I’m honest with myself.

When the tumbling practice was exhausted and it was time to move on to something requiring more fortitude, more risk, I bowed out gracefully.

I blamed it on my fear of heights.

Maybe that was true. Except that I never even got up onto the uneven bars. Not even once.

In that moment, fear won.

Maybe it was the fear of falling and getting hurt or falling and being embarrassed. Maybe it was the fear of not being good enough. Maybe it was the fear of others laughing at me or thinking, “What does she think she’s doing up there?” Maybe it was the fear of succeeding.

I don’t know the source of my fear.

All I know is that I quit gymnastics because of fear, and twenty-six years later I still remember it.

But it didn’t stop there.

Today I quit because of fear too.

Back in the summer of last year my church began planning a mission trip to Burkina Faso, West Africa. I sat there the Sunday it was announced, and my heart started beating fast. You know who’s speaking when your heart starts beating fast, right? Of course, the One I want so often to ignore. But He has a tendency to keep knocking, and he did.

Years earlier, as a teenager, I prayed a very specific prayer for God to not make me a missionary and send me to Africa. I was at a crossroads in my relationship with Jesus – at a place where I knew that I had to be all in or all out. If I was all in then He might just ask me to do scary things. I didn’t want to do scary things.

It took Him twenty years, but on that Sunday He asked me to go to Africa for a week on a short-term mission trip.

I cried. I bawled. I begged not to go. I came up with every excuse in the book – I’m married now. I have to take care of my husband. What if I get pregnant right before we go. What if I don’t raise all the money. What if something happens when I’m there. What if I’m changed. What if I come back changed. What if my life changes.

Through all of the tears and fretting and excuse-making, one truth continued to whisper in my mind:

Fear can’t be your reason.

There may be other valid reasons to not go to Africa on a mission trip, but fear can’t be one of them.

We are all afraid of something – quitting a job we hate, starting a new job we might just love, sacrificing money to be with our children more, moving to a new place, mending a broken relationship, speaking truth into someone’s life, pursuing a passion, a dream, a calling.

But fear cannot be the reason you stop. There may be other reasons worth quitting for, but it can’t be fear.

Why Can’t Fear Be Your Reason?

Because God does not give us a spirit of fear.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV).

So if you have a spirit of fear, then that spirit is not from God. God is not in your decision. God is not the One leading you stop moving forward.

Today ask yourself, is my decision based on fear? If it is, then either get a new reason or don’t stop doing what God is calling you to do. Because fear can’t be your reason. If it is, then He’s not there.

What decisions have you made out of fear? 

 

 

He began asking me to do it several years ago.

Surrender that is.

I was single at the time, though, and if surrendering meant that I wasn’t going to get married, then I wasn’t going to surrender.

I continued going to church, leading a small group, serving on a committee or two, and praying.

Praying for my will to be done.

I was surrendered in the Christian things. Surely that was surrendered enough.

I also kept working. Working to make my will a reality by dating guys who I knew were not God’s best. But after all, at least I’d be married. Right?

I never completely surrendered, but for some reason He brought me my husband. I don’t know exactly why really. I wish the story was written that I surrendered, then I was rewarded. But that’s not how it played out.

Instead surrender was slow. I would give up a lie or two that I had been believing for a while, trying hard to believe truth but not always wanting to. Later the belief came.

Slowly my thoughts began to surrender.

Then He asked me again. Will you surrender now?

But this time He was not only asking me to surrender my future. He was asking me to surrender flesh and blood.

My new husband of only two years laid down the hall of the hospital on life support. If he didn’t receive a heart donor within a few days he would die.

Will you surrender now?

I prayed and cried and prayed and cried. But in the end I finally said, “Your will be done”.

I left my husband, the one I had begged God to give me for years previous, there at the altar. The sacrifice of my will.

My reward? A peace that is so supernatural, so glorious I could never explain it to you in fonts and symbols. But I am here to tell you that it’s real.

When we got married we braided a cord of three strands as a part of our wedding ceremony. One cord represented myself. One cord represented my husband. And one cord represented God.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says that a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

For me, this is the surrendered life. A cord of three strands – not just one and not just two, but three.

Cords of three do not just apply in a context of marriage.

You are always there. You are always one of the cords. One of the other cords is anyone you do life with – your family members, your sisters in Christ, your children, your churches, your ministries.

And then there is His cord. God’s cord, the One who has to be invited in. When we invite Him and give Him His place there, our lives then can become surrendered.

After Jesus’s resurrection two disciples were traveling to Emmaus. They were discussing all that had happened the past week and seemed somewhat confused. Then Jesus appeared and began walking with them. He listened to them and answered their questions. As Jesus continued on with the disciples He joined them for dinner, broke bread, and suddenly their eyes were open. (Luke 24:13-35)

When Jesus joins our cord of two He creates an even stronger braid – on that is not easily broken – one that opens our eyes and makes a surrendered life possible.

And one that allows us to experience His peace.

What does a surrendered life mean to you? Does it make you nervous to surrender?