I Want To Be Nehemiah

Before you remind me I am a girl, let me clarify and say Nehemiah is a go-getter. God said jump. Nehemiah did it and added a round of push-ups on the end for good measure. And while he was doing them, he convinced hundreds of people to join him. It’s like he sent an invitation to crazy town, and people looked around and knew this goal, this dream, this desire was just what being a Christian looked like in action. This is exactly how I want to parent.

I want to be Nehemiah.

God spoke to him, and before he dared utter a word, he prayed to God for wisdom, guidance, clarity, words.

I want to be Nehemiah.

God called him to such an outlandish task, he had no hope of completing it without God’s absolute favor. So he asked for it. He believed in it. He walked in it. Scoffers be darned, he didn’t follow them anyway. He followed God. God be blessed and pass it along.

I want to be Nehemiah.

He managed to motivate men to volunteer their efforts, muscles, energy, and eventually their lives. He knew what they were fighting for, and he keyed into that purpose and spent his breath encouraging and committing to them. One writer says it this way, “He invited them to play a role in God’s story”. Whoa. What?

A role in God’s story? But I do that! It’s called parenting. It’s called mentoring. It’s called discipleship. It’s called following the prompting of the Holy Spirit. It’s called using my gifts to bring God glory. It’s called being a Missionary Mom.

Nehemiah did all of this and said, “yes,” to being part of God’s story. And he was granted favor.

His goal was not only God approved, but it was a part of God’s story. That wall was protection. That wall was God’s glory, and we see that repeatedly throughout this story.

Men built the wall with tools in one hand and a sword in their other. This is how we are called to parent our kids. As warriors. Like Nehemiah.

It feels too big when we look at what Nehemiah accomplished through hindsight. Even when we know God was with him every step of the way. But God isn’t asking us to build a wall around our city or fight three angry nations. He’s just asking us to take the next right step. Just like every biblical great who’s come before us. Just like Nehemiah.

Written for Strength & Song by Shontell Brewer: wife, mama of five, and author of Missionary Mom.

Read Your Bible to Fight Unbelief

Why do we stop reading our Bibles?

Really, think about it.

It is not because we lack the time to do it. If we are breathing we have time -and God knows we do have time! In reality, we stop reading our Bibles because we lack the faith to believe that God himself speaks to us through it.

We stop reading it when, in our unbelief, we start living as if we were autonomous and knew well how to do this thing called life without any direction from the Holy Spirit. We stop reading it when, in our unbelief, we decide to listen to our troubled heart heavy with anxieties instead of listening to what God has to say in the midst of our troubles and anxieties. We stop reading it when we sin, because, in our unbelief, we think it is not profiting us or that God cannot forgive us -again. From the beginning, since our fathers fell in the Garden, it has been unbelief who has kept us from honoring, believing, and obeying God’s Word.

So, dear Friend, be reminded of this: the only way to battle unbelief is by being in the Word. Keep coming, verse after verse, chapter after chapter, book after book, day after day. God will fulfill His purpose in you and will strengthen your faith as you take the Book and read it.

Be encouraged! Persevere!

Under His Sun and by Grace,

Becky

Written by Becky Pliego of Daily On My Way to Heaven. Used with permission.

God's Goodness in Miscarriage

Your promise still stands

Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness

I'm still in Your hands

This is my confidence, You've never failed me yet

I know the night won't last

Your Word will come to pass

My heart will sing Your praise again

Jesus, You're still enough

Keep me within Your love

My heart will sing Your praise again

The song started, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep it together. “You have never failed me yet…” I started to cry, I could barely believe the words that were being sung - let alone sing them myself.

I left the sanctuary, ran into the parents’ room, and found two tiny babies playing with their moms. I couldn’t stay there. I left the room and stood at the door. God wanted me to worship. Even if I wasn’t singing, I needed to hear these words.

Just two days prior to this Sunday service, I had been in the hospital for a Dilation and Curettage. I had miscarried at 16 weeks. We unexpectedly went to my OB earlier in the week to see the dark ultrasound, the spot where the baby’s heart was no longer beating.  

I felt failed by God. My womb that had been filled with joy and life was now empty, and so was I. Sadly, I had already been in this place before. In between the births of my two sons, I had also experienced a late-term miscarriage.

Loss is nearly impossible to understand. Feelings of shame, regret, fear, anger, and guilt are all normal. If you’re in the midst of this, let yourself feel these emotions. Rely on God to reveal Himself in the midst of it all.

Most verses of comfort I would seek also made me angry. Like James 1:17, which says, “Everything good comes from God.” How is this GOOD? It is really hard to process through verses like this, but that’s just it; it is a part of the process, and that is GOOD.

This verse popped up on my Instagram feed several days after my loss while working on this article. God clearly spoke to me, not something I have personally experienced too often.

He reminded me that losing a child is not good, but He is good. He does not promise me a life without struggles, but He promises me a life where He will see me through these trials, and that IS good. Glorifying him through this loss is GOOD. I will see my angel babies again, and that is GOOD.  

1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

For me, good looks like being open with my losses - speaking at moms’ groups, sharing my story in this article. Talking with a nursing friend who wants to support grieving moms in the hospital setting. Having compassion and understanding for loss, that I wouldn’t have without the experience of loss myself. This is GOOD. God is in this. He is GOOD.

Find the good, whatever that looks like for you, and give thanks to God for it.

The song continues:

My heart will sing Your praise again

Jesus, You’re still enough

Keep me within Your love

My heart will sing Your praise again

The day after that Sunday service, this song played on repeat for me. I sang God’s praises again. He loves me, He loves you, and He loves our children.

Written by Becca Bergman. Used with permission.

Song quoted is “Do It Again” by Elevation Worship.

When Our Hearts Need Someone to Count On

I am nine, sitting cross-legged on an elementary-school gym floor that smells vaguely like rubber soles and ketchup. My friends and I are lined up in a row waiting to go to recess or art class or the library. We’re likely wearing scrunchies in our side ponytails and neon shorts; children of the eighties. The girls nearest me lean in, grinning, and say, “We want to tell you something. We’re best friends.” I look back and forth between the two of them, confused, because just yesterday the one with the strawberry hair told me that I would always be her best friend.

I ride my bike home alone that day, forlorn, and sit at the kitchen table with a cookie in my hand and my mama across from me.These things happen, she explains gently. I nod, feeling very grown-up and wise, even in my disappointment. I will think of this again when my crush flirts with me one day and holds the hand of a long-legged athlete the next. I will feel it when the conversation with the editor at the conference seems to go so well and then the rejection letter comes in the mail. I will revisit it when the whirling crowd online is landing on my site today and taking off to another one the next like a flock of spring sparrows.

It is the nature of humans to be fickle. We put rings on each other’s fingers and then signatures on divorce papers. We are employee of the month and then find ourselves on the lay-off list. We are dear friends and then time and space and life make us drift until we’re looking back at old photos and thinking, I haven’t seen her in a while. Yet we keep searching, hoping, longing for that person who will stay. The constant who will never go away.

In these moments, it comforts me to know “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). He isn’t going to pick someone else on the playground. He isn’t going to bring us roses and then forget to call the next day. He won’t recruit us for the pet project and then neglect to invite us to the celebration party. He won’t use us up and throw us out, pull us close and then push us away, whisper in our ear and then lose our phone number. Because His love for us isn’t based on our charm; it’s rooted in His character. It doesn’t come from His emotions but instead from an eternal commitment. It isn’t dependent on what we do for Him, but what He’s already done for us.

It gets even better: Jesus also tells us,“I am making everything new!” (Rev. 21:5). Who He is doesn’t change, yet He moves and pursues in endlessly creative ways. It’s what our hearts long for, what we’re really looking for when we exchange the friendship bracelets or say the vows or sit down at the desk in a new office for the first time. We want to know we can trust, completely, the one with whom we have aligned ourselves. And yet we also want to know that doing so will lead to life and growth and adventure. We want stability and excitement, consistency and change, familiarity and novelty.

When we try to demand all of this from a human being, we always end up disappointed. But the answer isn’t to shut down our hearts, to tell ourselves we’re being unrealistic or irrational. Instead, it’s to take those desires to the One who put them there in the first place, the only One who can truly fulfill them. Jesus “is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8) yet He also says.“I am making everything new!” (Rev. 21:5). Both are what we need. Both are eternally true.

XOXO
Holley Gerth

Originally written and published by Holley Gerth. Used with permission.