Making a Deposit

Every two weeks or at least once a month, most of us make a deposit in the bank. We trust that institution to use our money to help our communities, to grow our investments and to make a difference.

Psalm 31:5 repeats the words of Jesus on the cross, “Into Thy hand I commit my spirit.” Although we think of Jesus when we read these words, they were written here by King David. What did the Shepherd King mean when he penned this verse?

A notation in one translation reads that “commit” can be transcribed as “to deposit.” What a great idea!

To deposit our lives with God means to trust Him to make an investment with what we have given Him. He can use our gifts – our deposit – to make a difference in our community and our world, to grow what we have given Him, to use it for the benefit of others.

At GateWay of Hope, we have women who regularly deposit their traumas and crises into the loving hands of God. Then He does a miracle and makes something good come out of their trust. He multiplies their investments in a creative endeavor that makes a difference for eternity. Although they may not immediately see what God is doing, He works to get the most out of their commitments, because He knows the value of these women and He appreciates their trust in Him.

As we commit our spirits to God, He takes that deposit and turns it into something good – which increases our trust and builds hope.

125 Women

As we close the calendar on 2011, we evaluate what has happened this year at GateWay of Hope. Between the three ministries of counseling, prayer and groups, we have served 125 women.

Some of these women have found hope and encouragement through a new viewpoint of themselves. They’ve learned more about nutrition and the various ways their bodies react to food. They’ve encouraged each other through the dark clouds of depression and found kindred spirits in the struggle to cope with daily life.

Some of these 125 women are fighting against the ravages of their husbands’ sexual addictions. These women have been reminded that their opinions count and they aren’t going crazy just because their husbands have a problem. They know how to live in freedom and how to set the important boundaries. Some of these marriages are being saved while these strong women learn the importance of confrontation and their own significance.

Another group of women are letting Christ peel back the layers of memory and meet them at their places of deepest pain. These women experience emotional healing prayer and learn how much they are loved by Almighty God. Release, freedom and relief are some of the benefits.

Our counselors have listened and commented, leading women to face their struggles and find workable solutions to move forward in life. We have seen incredible healing and transformation as women find the safety of GateWay as a catalyst for their deepest secrets.

Women who are Unemployed have found a support group that encourages them, helps them network and shares valuable job tips. They meet to pray together and to strengthen each other in their resolve to find that special job where God wants them to serve.

Another group of women encourage each other as they pray for their adult children. They’ve seen some miracles happen, and they’ve been able to commit their children once again to the Father who holds them in the palm of his hand.

125 women – an incredible representation of what God is doing at GateWay. Through counseling, prayer and groups; women are finding the impetus to enter a new year with hope.

Have You Been Identified?

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be called children of God (1 John 3:1). It’s been intriguing to think about how our identity changes when we come to associate ourselves with Jesus. My devotional this morning opened with Ephesians 2:8-10. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Listen to what the author, Dennis Kinlaw says about “a moment of divine touch” in his devotional book This Day with the Master.

There is a great difference between what we can do and what God can do. Our work has finite character to it, but his is eternal. That is why one moment of divine activity is worth more than a lifetime of human effort and achievement. Between his work and ours lies the difference between religion and grace, and religion without  grace is sterile and ultimately destructive.

Religion without grace inevitably leads to pride and arrogance. There is an illusion within it all. Religion makes one feel superior to the irreligious. Where God is at work, there is an inevitable humility because God is humble. Just look at Jesus. When God comes, our pride and our arrogance are always broken. We do not feel superior. We know we are obligated. Meekness replaces self-sufficiency because our confidence, our trust, is no longer in what we have done or are doing. When we live in grace, our confidence is in what has been done and is being done for us. We know we are recipients more than we are givers.

The result of grace is a freedom that the merely religious never know. Ours in the freedom of the child. Theirs is the bondage of the servant or slave. Religious people, in spite of all they do, will never be spiritual children. No human can ever achieve that by working, children of the Father enjoy the freedom that comes with that relationship.

God wants us all to be his children, daughters and sons. We can’t make ourselves that. He can, and he can do it in one divine moment if we will let him.

I’m not sure why, but even when I know that I am a child of God, I sometime slip away from grace and into religion. I was encouraged today to remember that my identity is in who He says that I am and not in what I think I can do!

May your day be blessed know who and whose you are!

~Kiersten

When all you have is hope

I learned last night that several of our friends are suffering with a faimly in their church who lost a very young child in an accident yesterday. There is nothing quite like the death of a child, especially a tragic, unexpected death, to back us into a corner and bring out the question of “why” in our hearts!

This morning I was lead to Phillip Yancy’s book, Disappointment With God. It’s an honest look at the reality of my own accusatory questions. This kind of unfairness certainly brings it out in me. This kind of suffering makes me think that somehow God could do a better job of running His world. While there are no easy answers, there is some good perspective. Yancy quotes a hurting individual who had gained this perspective saying, “I have learned to see beyond the physical reality in this world to the spiritual reality. We tend to think ‘Life should be fair because God is fair.’ But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life, then I set myself up for a crashing disappointment.” Yancy observes a statement by Dr. Paul Brand to the question, “Where is God when it hurts?” Dr. Brand replied, “He is in you, the hurting one, not in it, the thing that hurts.” It’s a reality check for me.

It’s true that we can all feel the pain of these who are basically strangers to us. It is the image of God in us that stirs our emotions and turns our hearts to those who’s lives are deeply affected by this loss. It is here that we bear a burden for the family that they cannot possibly bear on their own. In this moment, we lay our own life down for a friend, even a friend whom we never met. Yancy observes that we bear the grief with hope, knowing that the only remedy for the unfairness of life is the arrival of the new heaven and new earth. As a time bound creature, we can only exercise our faith to believe in advance what will only make sense in reverse. Trust God for His ultimate goodness, a goodness that exists outside of time, a goodness that time has not yet caught up with. It will be a day when the dust of this earth is completely washed away and all we see is the powerful radiance of all that is good.  As we share our heart and grief with Him, we trust that He’s already there! It is here that our heartfelt cry is indeed “better than a hallelujuh” and we connect with a hope that extends well beyond our understanding.

 

Steven Curtis Chapman give wings to our hearts cry:

We have this hope as an anchor
‘Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true, so …

So we can cry with hope
And say goodbye with hope

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope

 

~Kiersten

A Creed to Live By, by Nancy Sim

I’m in a bit of transition at my house right now, and I stumbled on a little article that had been neatly tucked away. Then I saw it later in the day on a bulletin board when I was visiting with some friends at another ministry. I felt prompted to share it with you all.

Don’t underestimate your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.

Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.

Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them life is meaningless.

Don’t let you life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you will live all the days of your life.

Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Don’t shut love out of your live by saying it’s impossible to find. The quickest way to receive love is to give love; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly, and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Don’t dismiss your dreams; to be without dreams is to be without hope; to be without hope is to be without purpose.

Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.

Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each and every step of the way.

~Kiersten

Taking Time Away

Life is busy and demands can crowd your calendar to the point of personal insanity. Even when the calendar isn’t full, it seems difficult to find places to sincerely connect with God and others. Some can carve out some time and place for personal quiet time, but that can become routine and familiar. Sometimes, we just have to get away to refocus! The one thing that keeps us from getting away is often coordinating it on the calendar. Our commitments often offer the biggest constraint to making time for simply being.

You may have a morning free, but don’t find the local coffeehouse all that inviting, or maybe you would like to sit and visit with a girlfriend to share news and encouragement for an hour in the afternoon while the kids are at school, but you find the bathroom calls our for cleaning if you meet at your house. GateWay of Hope Ministries understands and would like to help you take advantage of some quite niches you might find in your calendar.

We have created a space for you that we call The Gathering Place. It is designed with you in mind. Many have used the space and found it quite delightful. We would like to invite you to do the same. For more information about The Gathering Place, contact us: http://gatewayofhopeministries.org/gathering_place.html

We look forward to helping you take some time away!

THE MUM and ME

I purchased a mum for my friend. 

Since plant experts say that mums need extra water when putting on buds, I began a deluge.  The mum flourished.  To give it some extra sun, I rested it on the deck rail.  Suddenly, a gust of Kansas wind toppled the flower, breaking stalks, crushing leaves, and bending flowers.  So much for giving my friend a pretty mum.  When I finally saw her, I reluctantly gave her the tattered mum, but not before wrapping it in festive paper. 

As I muse about the mum, I conclude we’re alike.  Parts of me are blooming.  Other parts of me are like buds waiting to open.  And still other parts of me are broken, crushed, and bent, making me lopsided and altering my attractiveness. 

One of the reasons I wanted to give my friend a mum was so she could enjoy its beauty.  So when it became broken and flawed, I added colorful paper to the pot in an attempt to camouflage the damage.    And just as the paper on the flowerpot will eventually be discarded, I too am attempting to cast off my disguises.  My Lord doesn’t want wrappings that distract or hide.  Neither does He desire artificial flowers that appear radiant at a distance, but when examined closely are found to be fake.

I wonder if the purple mum will ever repair itself from the fall, if over time, new shoots will replace broken stems, or if it will always be leaning.  I wonder that about myself as well.  My broken stems can never be reattached, but new ones can thrive in their stead.  Even if like my friend’s flower I stay a little lopsided, I can produce genuine flowers and allow what is unbroken to once more bloom.  

– Deborah Simon