Brenda Rodgers

Author: Brenda Rodgers

  • The Making of a Life Verse

    I opened up the drawer to the small wooden end table that sits next to John’s favorite recliner in the family room.  I took out a whole bunch of past sermon notes, books, and other random papers.  As I flipped through them with the intention of finally getting organized, they stared at me.
    Last summer I printed cards with scripture verses on them to hang in John’s hospital room.

    Now, they no longer hang in a hospital room, but they sit in a drawer, all together, like a deck of cards, forgotten.  I read through them slowly.  Each one evoking a different feeling, a different mental image of those days that still seem like yesterday.

    And then I came to the last card.  It stared at me like the others, but this one caused me to stare back.  I looked at it.  I read it over and over. And I stared some more.

    The Holy Spirit began to tell me why this one is different – why this one is special.  This one tells my story.  This is my life verse.
    Several months ago I heard the idea of a “life verse” for the first time.  It was a new concept to me to distinguish one verse from all of the others that mostly encompasses your life’s journey and purpose, but I was obviously behind the times on this one.  Talking to other people the idea has been around a long time.
    It was a neat idea, but I couldn’t imagine choosing one verse of the Bible to be a life verse.  Except for the law books in the beginning of the Old Testament, I think probably every other verse needs to be my life verse. I never thought about it again.
    That is until I opened the drawer of the small wooden end table next to John’s favorite recliner.
    I flashbacked to the ten years after college that I lived as a single woman desperate for a husband and refusing to trust God. Then I thought about my testimony to all the single women I meet today and the story I have to tell.
    I flashbacked to how I felt when God finally brought my husband to me and only two years later we were told he would have to have a heart transplant.  Then I thought of my words to Satan, “You may take my husband through this process, but God will be glorified, and lives will be changed through our experience.”
    I flashbacked to sitting in the waiting room as John was being hooked up to life support.  Once again I had to lay down my desire for a husband, look God in the face, and say, “Your will be done.”  Then I thought of all the people who talked to God, maybe for the first time or for the first time in a long time, on behalf of John and the countless emails I received about how people were moved to God through John’s story.
    The enemy does intend to harm me.  He intends to kill, steal, and destroy. 
    Sitting in that hospital last summer, I would imagine in hopeful prayer meeting in Heaven the people who my heartache connected to God.
    God uses it all for good.
    Do you have a life verse?  How did you decide upon it?
    

  • The Third Braid

    Only wrapped around the third braid is my heart at rest. I tried it with two, and sometimes still do, but I always go back to that third braid.

    See, with only two the grip is loose. Where is the other braid? I can’t feel it at all. There is room for movement. There is room for me to get away.

    Wrapped around the third I am held tight. I feel the other two braids around me – overlapped – criss-cross, criss-cross – to a place of no separation.

    The grip on my soul – I cannot break away! By His mercy and grace He keeps holding me, choosing me. I start to get scared! I start to push back – both braids – so that only I am left!

    But He pulls even tighter holding me close to Him and the others.

    He chooses me once more. Has mercy on me once more. Shows me the Cross once more.

    Peace. Comfort. Security. Acceptance. Love.

    Wrapped around the third braid – that’s where I find it.

  • She Looked Perfect . . .

    She caught my eye as I turned the corner of the 40% off rectangular rack of pants – size 0, size 2, size 4, size 6, size 8 – on and on they wrapped around as I followed trying to get another glimpse between the hanging rows without her seeing me.

    She was petite and short – like me.  She had dark brown hair – like me.  She was wearing a baseball cap – like me.

    But envy still rolled over my body starting at the top of my head, going down over my shoulders, through my arms, into my stomach, and throughout my legs.

    The urge to turn and stare was overwhelming.  I could barely help myself.  I turned one more time just to get one last glimpse, one last mental snapshot to etch in my mind – one last chance to compare.

    My mind started racing, “That’s what I want to look like! Look at her arms! Look at her legs!  She is so cute!  She is so little!  Why can’t I be as skinny as she is?  Why can’t I look like that?”

    She looked perfect . . .

    Then it came – the gentle prick to my heart.  It was His prick.  The prick I know all too often.

    Brenda, do you not know how perfect you are to me?  I created you.  I designed you.  I gave you legs that are healthy and arms that help me.  I do not want you to envy others.  That is a sin.  Envy will rot your body, and create confusion and evil.  And you are a new creation in Me.  So turn from envy and be thankful in all things I have given you including your body.  
    I walked slowly out the door, no bags in my hands, but aware of the legs that were carrying me. Whatever the purposes God has for me, He needs this body to accomplish them.  And only this body can do the job.
    How does envy affect you and how does God teach you through it?

  • Head Knowing vs. Heart Feeling

    I sat across from our pastoral counselor giving all the right answers. I knew the depth of God’s love for me. I knew that I was formed in a fearful and wonderful way. I knew that God never will leave me nor forsake me. I knew that God has a divine plan for my life. I knew that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I knew that I was forgiven.

    I could regurgitate Christian truth like I was regurgitating what I did yesterday. I sounded like an emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthy Christian.

    Except there was a gap. I knew all of these things, but I did not feel them.

    I sat there with this battle going on inside of me. I know all the answers, so why can’t I feel them? Why can’t I live them? Why aren’t they a part of me?

     “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

    Where is the abundant life? Am I spiritually healthy?

    This is when I realized that my relationship with Jesus is a head relationship more than it is a heart relationship.

    My spiritual health cannot be measured by what I know. It can only be measured by taking what I know and through the pathway of my heart looking at my production of Godly fruit.
    I began to break down the process of taking what I know about God’s Word and making it a part of who I am – my core being – so that my life reflects it. The more I read, reread, study, and meditate on God’s Word, the more I know about it. But how does the comprehension – becoming part of the text and the text becoming part of me – take place? I know from being a reading teacher that one key component of comprehending text is the ability to make a connection to it based on previous knowledge or experiences. This is true for comprehending scripture as well.

    Over time what I learn in the Bible and what I experience in life begin to reflect each other. No longer are my knowledge and my experiences isolated. I begin to look for God’s Word in my daily life, and I begin to look for my daily life when reading God’s Word. They are one in the same impacting each other and affecting each other so that I am one with the Word of God and the Word of God is one with me. (Hebrews 4:12)

    That is when I feel the abundant life.

    The abundant life becomes heart feeling and not just head knowing when I allow the Word of God to infiltrate every aspect of my being, working together to create the fruit God has purposed for me.

    What about your relationship with God? Is it more of a head relationship or a heart relationship?

  • Hearts Against Hunger: A Virtual Food Drive

    Last night, as I was cleaning up the kitchen from our overabundant steak dinner complete with vegetables, potatoes, rolls, and watermelon, I was listening to 60 Minutes and a story about the number of homeless, and hungry, children in the United States. You can watch that report here: Hard Times Generation: homeless kids. 
    I was able to make a more personal  connection as I thought about the homeless child that went to the school I taught at last year.  It is a school in a middle-class neighborhood, and even though I did not have any homeless students in my class, I was told of at least one homeless child in another teacher’s class.  There may have been more, but I only heard about the one. 
    I also thought about our school district offering free lunches to students during the summer – students whose most hearty meal is most likely at school everyday – and with school not being in session that meal being absent.  I had not heard of a school district offering meals during the summer before now.  That is not to say school districts have not done this in the past or that it is not typical for some districts, but I just had not heard about it until now. 
    This is obviously more of a problem than I ever thought.  As I listened to that 60 Minutes report I felt convicted about how much I whine about the food we have that I don’t like or don’t want to eat or how many times we have plenty of food in the house but go out to eat anyway just because we’re not “craving” anything we have in the refrigerator. I thought about how I had just devoured my dinner without even really reflecting on it as a blessing. 
    But despite my conviction I was still asking myself, “Well, what now?  What can I do about it?”  I was very eager to just put it out of my mind to make myself feel better.  There’s of course not anything I could possible do to help such a massive problem.
    Oh, how God works . . .
    This morning as a read through my Twitter feed I saw a link to another faithful, Christian blog entitled Hearts Against Hunger.  I love it when God points me directly to the place where He wants me!
    So now I want to ask you . . .
    If I was hungry, would you donate only $1 for me and provide meals for my whole week? Would you give today and help children in need?
    Please join this virtual food drive to help children who are hungry right here in The United States!  Just click on over to Only a Breath to watch a blog video about this effort.
    Our challenge is to raise $1500 which will provide 10,500 meals!
    Here are a few things I like about this virtual food drive:
    • It helps children right here in the United States!
    • You donate directly to either Feeding America or Compassion International!
    • $1 provides 7 meals, so my $4 Starbucks drink can provide 28 meals!  Any amount is usable!
    Please pray and ask God if He is leading you to help in this way.

  • My Husband Rocks!

    Last year John said to me,”I will fight for you!”

    These words alone make my husband a rock star!  A rock star of perseverance. 

    He spoke these words to me last summer days before going into the hospital to wait for and receive his heart transplant.  Through forty-three days of a staph infection, life support, heart transplant, not waking up, and finally coming home to finish recuperating, he definitely fought for me.

    This year John is saying to me, “I will lay down my life for you!”

    These words continue to make my husband a rock star!  This time a rock star of selflessness! 

    My whole life God has given me a vision of being a wife, homemaker, and mother.  However, for reasons only fully known by God, John and I did not meet until later in my life than I had hoped and dreamed.  Since college I have primarily been a teacher, leaving the career at one point to be a consultant, and even though I enjoy the “act of teaching”, for many reasons have always felt a deep struggle, tension, and uneasiness in the career as a whole.  Despite trying to ignore it, this tension has only deepened throughout the years.

    Since we have been married, John has experienced this struggle within me.  He has watched me come home from work every day as if I was coming home from a place that is contrary to everything I am, everything I believe in, and everything I see to be true, feeling depleted and worthless. 

    Even though we do not have children yet, John is supporting me and encouraging me to pursue what I believe God has created me to be.  He has agreed for me to move away from my full-time career as a public school teacher to begin a tutoring business and ultimately have a more flexible schedule to serve him, care for our home, and be involved in ministry.

    In many ways this is a sacrifice.  It is scary.  It is an act of faith.  “For we live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)  However, John is displaying the courage of a true man of God.

    My husband is selflessly laying down his life for the vision of the eternal – each other, our family, our friends, our community who we have the opportunity to influence.

    The events that surrounded John’s life last summer were not his choice.  He chose not to give up. He chose to fight. He chose to look beyond the present. He chose faith instead of fear. But he did not choose the circumstances.  They were out of his control.

    This year John is choosing to lay down his life – not literally – but the life he possesses, he controls –  so that together he and I can lay down our marriage and our family for the complete will of our Heavenly Father. This is a choice out of pure love, putting my happiness and well-being before his own.

    My husband rocks because he trusts God with our future.  Even though there are a lot of unknowns about the coming year, he is completely surrendering to God’s call for him as a husband.  “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18

    My husband is focusing on our future while trusting God with our present.