His Light is Breaking Through

But I, through the abundance
of your steadfast love, will enter
Your house. I will bow down toward
Your holy temple in the fear of You. 

Psalm 5:7

Yesterday God demonstrated His "dunamis" power to me in a small but magnificent way. I've been staying with my mother for a few months now, caring for her since our Dad passed away. There have been times when I felt as if I wanted to run away, and it's easy to fall into a self pity trap.Yet I felt no burden of that when I arose from bed on Tuesday, only the peace of God.

Mom and I were going to Ladies Study, just a group of women from different areas of our city gathered together in Jesus' name to learn about respecting our husbands and loving our families, but really about letting God live through us, whether married, single, divorced or widowed.  This study only "opened up" recently, shortly after I arrived at Mom's. At times, "getting out the door" makes me anxious when Mom's sense of timing seems off. I dressed myself quickly and put on a dab of lipstick.When I went downstairs I saw that Mom already put on a pretty pink sweater and pants and was almost ready to go. There was no frown, but a smile on her face.

Without any cross words or impatience we both made it into the car early enough for a time cushion for our commute. So far, so good. But it was the message of the study that really got hold of both of our hearts.

Grace. Mercy. Forgiveness for people who don't deserve it. Because none of us deserve anything from God but He died on the cross to give us all things. Every day can be like Christmas with the free gift of God's salvation and the blessings He wants to shower us with.

All of this so that we don't have to continue on in the same old miserable rut we feel helpless to escape.

 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,

who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases ,

who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

          Psalm 103: 1-5

He comes along and releases us from the heavy burden of wanting to do whatt's right, but finding it utterly impossible when we try in our own strength to do it.

At study, we read  letters that talk about these life-changing principles. Judy Seligman wrote the letters nearly thirty years ago when she went through a severe testing. In this trial, God personally taught her that He would come inside her and love the unlovely through her, and demonstrate to men and angels the power of Christ'slife lived out in a weak and fragile vessel. Back then, the message was powerful, but now there is even more to receive from this godly woman who has continued in the grace of God and exhibits the joy of the Lord more than anyone I know.

Mom has  come with me for a few weeks now to study , but the first couple of weeks she could barely hear. Her face showed frustration, and I probably showed it too. I wanted her to feel a part of things, but she was having trouble processing it all. Judy knew it was hard for both of us, but this time, Mom seemed to be actively participating, smiling and laughing, and then she perked up enough to share something from her own heart to the group.

In her own lovely way, Judy told Mom it was a wonderful thing to contribute . A light flashed on, as it were, in Mom's soul. I love this verse, and feel it explains the mini-miracle I witnessed yesterday:

Psalm 34: 5-6  Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

Suddenly, I realized that Mom was not again saying she just wanted to die. She was brightened and encouraged by the word of God's grace. When we went home, she looked at her Bible even more and re-read some of our study material.

Then it occurred to me. God wants Mom to have this chance to hear the grace message, maybe in a new way. For many years she may have labored under wrong concepts, but God wants her to be free. None of this would have happened if God had not allowed the circumstances of the past year to happen in our lives.

Every day, it seems her spirit seens to lift a bit more. A hard yoke becomes easy for both of us when we take the burden of the One who gave everything to redeem us.

A Radiant Christian: Ernie Frederick

They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.   ~ Psalm 34: 5

The other day I was perusing the obituary listings online. It seems more and more I am finding more and more people I know or have known from my youth are on the lists these days. I happened upon a name and it didn't ring a bell-- at first, that is. I usually don't read them unless I think I might know them but I started reading this one, and it described the person's life as being one of total service to God. Then it mentioned he worked at an organization I used to volunteer with, Youth Guidance (YGI) in Pittsburgh.

All of a sudden, I recognized his name, Ernest Frederick:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postgazette/obituary.aspx?n=ernest-john-frederick&pid=181158048&fhid=9657

I  volunteered with YGI as a college woman, being a "big sister" to a little girl from another part of town. I took some trainings at their office and had a chance to meet Ernie, as he was called. At the time, I was struggling in my faith and having all sorts of questions. One day, I got a chance to sit down with him one on one, and he shared with me a little paper explaining how to cast my cares on God. It had a little stick figure of a man with his arms raised. He explained that we also praised and thanked God and then cast our cares and the result would be sweet peace, something the world cannot give us. As he shared, he wrote verses on it and drew little red lines going upwards to heaven from the stick figure man. All the while he radiated.

I tried with all my might to grasp what he was saying, but not just because of the paper. It was because I could clearly see Ernie lived this daily in his walk with the Lord. There was something about him that spoke louder than words of his close relationship with Jesus. How I envied his joy in the Lord, and found that I still have the paper, with its many Scripture verses. He titled it, "Overcoming Anxiety, Phillippians 4:4-9."

Years later, I visited a church nearby and in their foyer they had a booklet for the Pittsburgh Prayer Project. I saw his name on the booklet. It was for a month long prayer campaign for the city of Pittsburgh. I found it in his obituary that he went to Mount Washington (which overlooks the city) and prayed for our city for 19 years.

No one but the Lord knows the impact this man  had on our city after his faithful prayers. In Watchman Nee's book, Table in the Wilderness, Nee described a person similar to Ernie:

 His light may come to us in many ways. Some of us have known saints who really knew the Lord, and through praying with them or talking with them, in the light of God radiating from them, we have seen what we never saw before. I have met one such, who is now with the Lord, and I always think of her as a "lighted" Christian. If I did but walk in the room I was brought immediately to a sense of God.... A Table in the Wilderness,  for the date of August 24

I never talked with Ernie Frederick again after I left YGI over thirty years ago. But his impact, his radiance, I still remember clearly. It is my greatest hope that one day, people might say that by the grace of God I radiated too.

He is Able!

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:3-5

I awoke this morning overflowing with gratitude for how God has taken a nobody (that's me) and made them a somebody, all thanks to the kindness of Another. I thank Him for opening my eyes today to the beauty of the Scriptures of Truth and all the promises He gives us, due to the work of the Second Person of the Trinity.

His promises remain ever fresh, ever new each morning. No matter how bleak our circumstances, God is wanting to help us, if only we turn to Him. I thank Him for allowing difficulties in my life, because they have impelled me to seek His face. Our enemy is constantly working, trying to blind us to the fact of God's grace and goodness. He wants us to stay in the dark. But our Heavenly Father exists only in light, and there is no darkness in Him. (I John 1:5) He is ever in the background, cheering, rooting for us helpless creatures whenever we turn away from looking to ourselves and put our confidence in Him.

Last night I gave my first book talk at our local library covering how and why I wrote the book Sure Mercies:Hope for the Suffering(published by 4RV Publishing). The day before I got so nervous, I began to cry. That night, at our ladies Bible study, our teacher reminded us of the prayers of the saints. In Revelation 5:8 we see a picture of our prayers as the Lamb of God, Jesus unwraps the scroll to loose the seals in heaven, being found the only One that was worthy to do so.

"Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

In Revelation 8:3, we read, "Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne."

Our teacher reminded us that ALL of our prayers, past, present and future, are already in that bowl before God. Suddenly I realized that my prayers for my first book talk were in that bowl too, and that God knew exactly what my prayers would be before I even prayed them. That really lifted my soul, and as I sat at the Bible study, the Spirit brought another verse of comfort to mind from Psalm 34:5.

"They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces will never be ashamed."

That verse could almost be a life verse for me. For before I came to know of His overwhelming love and grace toward me, I was filled with shame. I was most definitely not radiant. But now, my heart burns within me, because He has put a new song in my mouth, one of praise to my God. I know that He loves us, He proved it by dying for us on the cross when we could not lift a finger to help ourselves.

"He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the LORD." Psalm 40:3

That's what my book is about, even if it only scratches the surface telling the goodness of our God. God came through for each and every person I wrote about in my 40 chapters, and He comes through daily for me. I want others to know, "How great is my God!"

If you happen to be reading this and seem to be facing an insurmountable problem, I beg you today to look to the Lord, for He is able to do beyond what we could ever ask or think,

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us..." Ephesians 3:20.

He is able!!

(Sure Mercies: Hope for the Suffering is available through 4RV http://www.4rvpublishingcatalog.com/megan-vance.php They are currently running a Christmas special. It is also available through Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com )