The Bigger Picture

“God will never leave you empty. He will replace everything you lost. If He asks you to put something down, it’s because He wants you to pick up something greater.” Unknown Author

Right after Christmas my best friend called to let me know that she and her family were accepting a four day old baby girl from the foster care system. Their intention had been to adopt but when this opportunity to foster was presented to her and her husband they knew it was what God wanted them to do. Over the last four months, we have all grown to adore this little doll. The bottom line is my friend and her family have fallen in love with this baby girl and cherish her as their own. Watching this story unfold has been a roller coaster of events. The birth mother is missing in action, and they have been waiting on pins and needles to see if they get to permanently keep this little girl who has already become a part of their hearts.

While praying for this situation the other day I felt clearly the Holy Spirit speak into my heart that we are to truly trust in Him. My mind began to play out the different scenarios as to what this could look like. Was God letting me know that we are to simply trust that this little girl will not be taken from the only family she knows and is perfectly happy and thriving with. Then the next thought that came pierced my heart. What if what seems to be obvious, logical, and the right thing to happen doesn’t happen? Jesus said do you really trust me and have you counted the cost that comes with following me? Luke 14:25-34.

As I pondered what He spoke to me, I had a revelation that trusting Him means we do not know the bigger picture. “ For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully as, I am fully known.” 1 Cor. 13:12. Throughout many times in our lives things sometimes just don’t seem to make since or they don’t end the way we think they should. Maybe we lose loved ones, jobs, or money, or maybe we were misunderstood, or sent away from the only life we know. Sometimes we lose things that are simply unbearable to comprehend. Maybe we have to lay down something we hold a little too tight. This is when we begin to question if we really know God or question if we really heard Him right. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” These verses reveal that God sees how all things work and sees what we can’t. We are not always given the details to the things that God calls us too. He asks for us to walk by faith and trust that He has it covered. God’s word is a lamp for our feet and a light on our paths. Psalm 119:105. I don’t know about you, but my feet take small steps as I walk, not big strides. I cannot take one step from my home and expect to step foot in the grocery store. It would take many steps to get to my destination. But each step gets me there. As I walk, I know the path that I’m on is leading me to the grocery store. It would be silly, if because I couldn’t see the store, that I stopped in the middle of the path and gave up hope to ever reaching my destination. Our walk with God is often like this. We get buried in the circumstances of our life and forget where we are going. In the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan, he writes, “ I am thankful for the unknowns in that I don’t have control, because it makes me run to God. If life were stable I would never need God’s help.” This is something to think about. How often do we respond to life with this kind of attitude? This kind of attitude can only come from the Holy Spirit living and working inside of us.

I love to read the story of Joseph when things do not seem to make sense in my life. Joseph was given a big dream from God. Joseph, however, did not exactly wake up the next day in circumstances anyone would want to be in. Don’t you think that he, like us, probably struggled with the why’s and what if’s? Why did God say my family would bow down to me but my brothers got away with selling me into slavery? Why am I in prison when I really did nothing wrong and was falsely accused? What if I had never been taken from my Father? But in the end came the dream. God’s perfect will shining through. I think this happens more often than not. Like Joseph, I think we are all given big dreams by God only to be thrown off track when it doesn’t come in the perfect package we think it should. It is in these circumstances, that to us look nothing like the dream, that we begin to let the enemy come in to steal, kill, and destroy. This tears away our trust if we are not careful. We must realize that it is here, in these circumstances that do not always seem to make sense to us, that we are actually entering the training ground to accomplish His will. God cares about our character, persistence, faithfulness, perseverance, obedience and endurance. He cares if we are trusting in Him. During a sermon Pastor Ross said, “It’s not how we start but how we finish that matters!”

Everything in heaven and on earth is from God. He knows all things. We have to settle deep down inside of us that He really does see and know the bigger picture. We have to be willing to lose who we are and what we have for His purposes. We have to settle that, although Satan will try to destroy God’s plans for each of us, God is the victor. God knows our hearts. God knows that what we go through will bring Him glory and make us more like Him. He sees the bigger picture. He is always at work. “ We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28.

As for this sweet baby girl, we still do not know the outcome, but God does. I know that God hears our prayers and is working according to His will in her life, as well as in the life of my best friend and her family. In the end, we may not fully understand the how and why of how it all turns out, but God does and only asks us to trust in Him. We are all His children and He has a plan and a purpose for each of us and we can trust in that.

 

Heather Bradley’s current interests include wholeheartedly loving her ONEchapel family, working alongside her husband of 17 years at their insurance agency, and keeping up with God’s biggest blessings of 3 precious children! Heather heads up the Women’s Outreach Efforts. Contact her by phone (512-217-4625) or email if you have questions or would simply like more information.

 

The Blessing of Bruised Knees

A resurrection story by Susan Brown

One of the hardest things about being a believing mom is knowing when to back up and allow our children’s journey to be their own. We want to fix things and “make it all better”, especially when it comes to their spiritual walk. We just want them to believe and bypass the hurt we went through. The danger comes when we want them to believe so badly that we hinder the very relationship we want them to realize.

As a young boy, my son Adam loved the Lord. He loved church, loved bible stories and loved talking about Jesus to whoever would listen. I remember marveling at the constant spiritual perspective of my little boy. It was truly amazing at times. But the rest of life held big challenges for Adam. School was very hard and circumstances inside the classroom made making friends difficult. By the end of elementary school, he convinced himself that he didn’t want friends anyway. As Mom, I felt like I was supposed to be able to fix what was hurting my child but ultimately, I was powerless. All I could do was pray so I did.

When he started middle school, Adam met Kyle. Kyle was the answer to my prayer: a good kid who was not just a friend but a best friend. He and Adam quickly became inseparable. Kyle became as much a fixture in our home as my own children and the same was true of Adam at Kyle’s house. They played sports, obsessed over and dreamed about cars and even built their own go-cart. God was faithful. Adam was happy, doing well in school and once again involved with life. All was right with the world … but not for long.

During basketball tryouts in 8th grade Kyle collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital with what everyone assumed was appendicitis. He was 13. Within 24 hours we learned that Kyle did not have appendicitis but a brain tumor. Over the next three years, there were surgeries, times of improvement and eventual relapses, each one worse than the last. Adam didn’t understand and, frankly, neither did I. “Why did this happen, Mom?” “Why won’t God heal him, Mom?” “What if he dies, Mom?” Sometimes there are no good answers. Sometimes scripture repeated just sounds like platitudes. My best answer, the only one I had, was “I don’t know.” My heart screamed to ease my son’s fears, but again, I was powerless to fix it. Again, all I could do was pray. This time the answer was that still, soft voice spoken directly to my heart. “Adam is mine. Trust me.”

Early one morning in October of their junior year in high school, I sat down at my computer and saw an email from Kyle’s mom. The subject line read “our angel rests in heaven now.” I let out a gasp that brought my children to me. I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. All I could do was look at Adam. He saw in my eyes what I had to tell him and at that moment, in that instant, I lost my son. His spirit left and his eyes changed before my very own. He turned and left the room. I went after him but he wouldn’t let me near. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t let me hug him or console him or even touch him. Three days later I watched as my 17-year old son carried his best friend across a cemetery to his grave like a robot. No tears, no emotion. Again, helpless. Again, powerless. Confused and angry at God myself, once again, I was on my knees. His faithful answer, “Adam is mine. Trust me.” My frustrated response, “I don’t want to trust you. He’s been through enough. He’s hurt enough. I want you to fix this!”

In short order, Adam alienated all of his friends and started surrounding himself with some pretty self-destructive kids. He started experimenting with ways to prevent himself from feeling and withdrew from everything he knew was good, including God. Throwing it all away meant he wouldn’t have to lose it. Getting through the last two years of high school almost didn’t happen. He didn’t see the point, couldn’t understand why he was here and Kyle wasn’t.
At 19, a year after graduation, he moved to Houston for school and became even more disconnected. He wouldn’t come home except for holidays and made the visits as short as possible, sometimes driving to Austin and back in the same day. If we texted him a yes or no question, he would respond but otherwise avoided talking at all. The few times that we did speak, I was so desperate to “talk sense” into him that I ended up yelling, he got frustrated and things went from bad to worse. Prayer became the only way to help my son. I was forced to become dependent on the Holy Spirit to intervene where I was no longer welcome.

I knew a lot of what Adam had become involved in, but with no communication I was able to convince myself I was jumping to conclusions. When he had been in Houston for just three months, his apartment was robbed and he needed our help to move to a safer area. While helping pack the apartment I found proof of the life I had feared. What I had suspected and more was real. I wish I could tell you that my heart broke for my son and I lovingly confronted him with what I found. That didn’t happen. Instead, I blew up. I totally went off the deep end. This was not how he grew up! It was not what was modeled for him! This was not what God wanted for him! I was angry and made sure he knew it.

Later, back in Austin, despite my husband’s best efforts to put things into perspective, I poured over the 19 years of Adam’s life and dissected every hint of every parental mistake I had ever made, because of course, I was Mom. It must be my fault, and if it wasn’t my fault, then I should be able to fix it.

Adam continued pulling away and, once again, I found myself helpless and powerless. But this time I was long-distance helpless and long-distance powerless. At this point, the one thing I knew how to do more than anything else was pray for Adam. I went to my knees again and again, God answered: “Adam is mine. This is his journey. Trust me.” Over and over again, when I prayed, the Lord would impress on me that Adam belonged to Him and He doesn’t abandon his children. The more I tried to help, the worse things got and I was finally left with the ultimate truth that this was Adam’s journey. Not mine. Not mine with him. His alone.

I was hit with the realization that I was standing in the way; between the Lord and my son. Our individual journeys with God are our most intimate blessings. In my desperation to change his circumstances, I was robbing Adam of what would be his most cherished interaction with the Lord. I began to pray very specifically. I asked the Lord to burden my heart for Adam’s walk, not Adam. Even without being able to talk to him, I needed to know exactly what Adam needed and I relied on the Holy Spirit for that communication. The first thing I prayed for was clarity. Left to my mother’s intuition, my emotions were getting in the way and I was doing more harm than good. I resolved that, if I didn’t know beyond doubt that it was from God, I wouldn’t act. During my conversations with Adam, I prayed that the Lord would take over my tongue (don’t ever think God never had a challenge). If it wasn’t going to be helpful, then it wouldn’t even come out of my mouth. (Job 6:24)

At one point, I was lead to Isaiah 65:23. “They will not…bear children destined for disaster…” I grabbed onto that verse and claimed it as my promise that my son would come back to the home and the God he once loved. It was tempting to pray for Adam to be surrounded by believers, but that’s not where the Spirit led me.

It had now been three and a half years since Kyle’s death and Adam needed another friend. Just one friend that would be able to do what I could not, come along side him and encourage him on his journey without trying to pull him off of his path. I started to pray daily for God to put a strong believer in his life that would have a heart for Adam’s struggle and the ability to speak truth into his life. I also prayed for his heart to begin to soften and walls to come down. As hard as it was going to be to watch and know full well what I was asking, I prayed for Adam to be brought to a point of complete brokenness.

Around this time, I realized I needed a prayer partner in all of this. My husband was a wonderful sounding board but he traveled most of the time and frankly, he was guy. He didn’t get the mommy side of the situation. Through the course of a conversation with a friend in upstate New York, I learned that her son had an eerily similar testimony to Adam’s. Almost overnight she became my strongest prayer warrior bringing my heart and my walk to the foot of the throne daily. She shared Adam’s story with her son and he wrote me a wonderful letter trying to give me a picture inside Adam’s mind and emotions. It was the trigger that let me fully release my anxiety over my son’s decisions and turn him completely over to God.

Eventually Adam started talking about a young man named Chris; someone he met at work. Chris was a believer and was talking to Adam about his life and how he got to where he was. He started encouraging Adam to go back to church, spend time at home and even challenging Adam’s thought process behind his choices. He invited him to church and opened up his own life. Adam would start heading into the familiar pit and Chris would give him scripture and point out the enemy. Then he would step back and allow Adam to see the choice. Chris was my answered prayer.

The more I removed myself from the one-to-one battle and went to my knees, the more Adam started coming home and slowly testing the waters. He was still very distant but he started staying long enough to go to church. We had started going to a new church and he thought it was a little too weird that they met in a movie theater so he didn’t come often. Eventually, he started talking about moving back to Austin. When he was laid off at work, he moved back to Austin that weekend.

Even though things seemed to be heading in the right direction, with Austin came old memories and familiar temptations. He moved into a house with an old friend and a couple other housemates. Now he was close to home but Chris was no longer a part of his daily life. Things started spiraling again. I went to my knees…again. That still, soft voice answered me again. “Adam is mine. I will not let him go. I am not finished with him and he will not be lost. This is his journey. Trust me.”

One day out of the blue, Adam called and wanted to know if he could start sleeping at the house on the weekends so he wouldn’t be tempted to party and be sure to go to church. Of course!!! He visited with us in the movie theater a couple times and decided that he liked what he was hearing. The place wasn’t as important. I prayed over both the music and the message every time he was in that “weird” theater.

In the fall of 2011, things started happening quickly. This housemate situation became unlivable and he moved back home. Adam was invited to Momentum. He went and found acceptance for who he was and where he was struggling. He found a whole group of people willing to come along side him just as Chris had done. Adam became engaged and was talking about God like he did when he was a child.

Then one Sunday morning over the holidays, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam stand to his feet and raise his hands in praise and worship. I could do nothing but stand in awe of the Lord’s faithfulness and guidance. I had no voice. I couldn’t talk and I couldn’t sing. All I had were tears. Seven years after I watched him walk away, my son was home. And again, I hit my knees.

Adam had his own journey during those years and it’s not over yet, but the Lord took me on a whole different journey. Mine was one of rediscovering the truth behind the power of prayer and scripture. During the times we find ourselves powerless and helpless in life, prayer is not a last resort. It is a lifeline. There is such incredible blessing in bruised knees.

Oh, yes, it’s Ladies’ Night…

♪ ♫  And the feeling’s right
Oh, yes, it’s Ladies’ Night
Oh, what a night   ♪ ♫

Now that we’ve got that song stuck in your head (You’re welcome!), let’s talk about the wonderful BeCome ladies night we have planned!

First, take out your calendar, smart phone, or date planner and save this date, time and place: Friday, May 18th – 7:00pm at the Monterey Oaks Campus – 5508 Hwy 290 W, Austin

Did you do it? Okay, good! Now here’s the plan.

We are going to enjoy some wonderful worship and a few testimonies from some of our own. We’ll also be talking a bit about the outreaches we support and small groups. It’s going to be so much fun! It always is when we all get together.

We’re asking everyone to bring their favorite, delicious side dish and a donation from the list below to help the outreaches we’ll discuss.

Please make every effort to be there. It’s a great chance to get to know each other better and form new friendships with those we haven’t yet met. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Christian Women’s Job Corps Needs -
Laundry soap, dish soap, bleach, mops, brooms
Personal hygiene items: deod, toothpaste/brush, feminine products
Diapers
Notebooks, paper, pens
Crayons, glues, kids scissors, markers
Children’s Bibles (100)  - Since they would like them to all be the same, please purchase Item # 956891 from Family Christian or familychristian.com ($10.99)

South Austin Pregnancy Resource Centers Needs -
Maternity Clothes (especially pants, shorts)
Baby Boy Clothes Sizes 18 months – 24 months
Postage Stamps

A Woman I Once Knew

Her’s is a story that began like many others. A baby girl born into a loving home, to parents who worked tirelessly to give her everything they didn’t have growing up.

Her mother, physically abused throughout her childhood, stayed home to protect her daughter from everything painful, even harsh words. Her father, who grew up poor, worked constantly to provide a more-than-comfortable life for her and her 6 siblings. Her parents did all that was humanly possible to give their children what they each so desperately yearned for when they were young.

She was 7, maybe 8, when the one thing they hadn’t considered or prepared for began but to this day they are still unaware. That was her decision; her way of protecting her parents. You see when a dearly loved, teenage relative takes physical advantage of a child it’s always the wrong people who accept the blame. And in her childish mind it was no one’s fault but her own.

When she grew older she reasoned with herself that it was just the price she had had to pay to spend time with him. And then others that would come after him. She allowed this hard-learned lesson to effect how she viewed herself until her death at age 33.

Everyone she met in her life seemed to extract another important piece of her very being. She came to accept it as normal, as the only way to feel wanted, important, smart, or pretty.

No relationship seemed to come without a price tag. Even though the cost seemed of less and less value to her, it was so much greater than she knew.

When she started drinking at age 13 it numbed some of the pain but never for long enough. The various drugs she began taking at age 14 seemed to be the answer, at least for a while.

Yet years later, no drug had fulfilled its promise of wiping the immense regret of unthought-through abortion from of her mind.

For years she searched, in all the wrong places, for something or someone to fill the emptiness and take away her pain. Even a husband, children, success, or money couldn’t fix her brokenness.

What confused her the most throughout those years was that no one, no matter how close they were to her, seemed to notice a problem. Her family saw a sweet, quick-witted young woman. Her friends saw a fun, party girl. Guys just seemed to see an object to use. No one ever saw her deep, immeasurable pain. Could it have been that no one ever really wanted to notice?

The answer no longer matters since that woman died years ago.

Her end was also a beginning, a new beginning in Christ!

You see, 16 years ago I met Jesus on the floor of my closet as I cried out to the God that I had heard so much about. I was begging Him, if He was real, to take my life. And He did and gave me new life, His life!

I was crucified with Christ. I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live in this body I now live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

I am now a new creation in Christ, the old me is gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Jesus saw my pain, He understood my weaknesses and regrets. He knew all my sin and shame and He forgave me.

Accepting the unfathomable love of Jesus changed my life forever. It pulled me from the muck and mire and set me on a firm foundation. Jesus removed the regret and filled me with joy, turning my mourning into dancing. He brought beauty from ashes.

He is the healer of my pain, the filler of my emptiness, and the very air I breathe. Apart from Him – I know this from experience – I have no good thing.

 

 

Lauren Stoenescu has been happily married for 22 years. In the final stages of raising three pretty wonderful adults, she loves: Jesus, life, laughter, chocolate, coffee, and family – which of course includes her amazing ONEchapel family. Lauren’s personal motto is: Life Is Rough, Wear a Helmet. “Put on salvation as your helmet…” Ephesians 6:17 NLT

Be Broken

For most daughters, hearing the words “You’re just like your mother” would not be considered a death sentence, especially if that mother was beautiful and incredibly creative. But when that mother, my mother, was also bipolar, borderline schizophrenic and addicted to drugs and alcohol, the words left much to be desired.

I knew from an early age that I was just like my mother. As my mother’s daughter, and living in a house ruled by her illnesses, our “normal” was anything but. By the age of 4, I knew there was something about me, and about my life, that was shameful, and I learned to hide inside myself to keep safe from what was happening to me and around me.

I was 14 when I had my first nervous breakdown. The years leading up to that point had been filled with pain, despair, fear, loneliness and shame. I felt my life – the pain of it – would just not stop, and swallowing a bottle of pills seemed to be the only “way out” that I knew. After all, I had been rescuing my mother from the very same acts for as long as I could remember. Watching her, waiting to see when her life’s burdens would become too great for her to bear once again and she reached for the bottle of pills, liquor, or razor blades, and “cried out” – through suicide attempts – that she couldn’t take it anymore. I knew, though, that what I had done with my attempt at 14 and subsequent hospitalization wasn’t going to change anything.  This was just my life, as my mother’s daughter.

Being raised in this environment was what started me down a really dreadful track, but it didn’t take me long to become what everyone said I was – to become just like my mother. No matter how much I tried to “act” better, tried to “be” better, it seemed inevitable that, after her death when I was 22, I would pick up where she left off  and allow myself to sink fully into the shame, sadness, addictions and mental illness that had plagued her in life, and in death.

I was 24 when I had my second nervous breakdown. My son was a toddler and my daughter wasn’t even a year old. My biggest fear, when I could find words to voice it, was that my children would have to suffer in the same ways that I had had to suffer as a child. My only thought, as I swallowed the bottle of pills and sliced open my arm, was that if I wasn’t in the picture, my children might have a chance; a chance for them to break free from this curse that seemed to be following me, that I had inherited from my mother. Oh God, I cried, please let my children be free from this.

Crying out to God was a familiar refrain from my life. I knew about God from an early age, knew about His son Jesus. John 3:16 had become my mantra – “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  Always crying out “I believe, God. I believe in Jesus”, and feeling nothing but a strange but sad relief that I believed, while quietly whispering in my heart “why believe if this is “as good as it gets”.

After my breakdown and hospitalization at 24, I lost custody of my children. I learned that I had to earn them back; that I had to be better, “act” better, in order to be part of their lives. It was hard – the hardest thing I had ever done, but finally proving, after years of trying, that I could be a good mother to my children, it seemed like I had survived enough to be okay.  But all I had really done was survive. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see success; I saw the same shame, fear and despair that I had always felt, just coated over with a hefty dose of “fake it till you make it”.

During my many years in therapy, I had been told I was a 10-year cycler. If you’re not familiar with bipolar symptoms, long periods of calm or even “normal” behavior is possible, but the brain is incredibly complex and sure enough, when my next 10-year cycle started again just before I turned 34, I didn’t see it coming, but God did (because He sees everything – every tear, every hurt, every pain we try and hide even from ourselves). It seemed, once again, that I would cycle out of control as I had done like clockwork in the previous two 10-year cycles. And but for the grace of God, and a dear neighbor, it might have been so.

This neighbor, herself a single mother, came over regularly and read the Bible to me, and encouraged me to come visit her church, and she was relentless. I finally gave in and visited, and heard truth for the first time – not just the lofty, from the pulpit “Jesus saves” spiel, but real, honest to goodness, “How do I live my life in relationship with God?” truth. Relationship? With God? And I was hooked.

It took six months of hearing the truth spoken and shared for me to break completely. Not “break” like all of those other times when my brain went to its familiar destructive cycle. No, this was a breaking that I didn’t know I could experience. So completely, so totally broken at the feet of my Savior that all I could do was beg Him to take my old, ugly worn-down and stained heart (and mind) and give me a new one. The most amazing thing about it all? He did just what I asked Him to do.

From that day forward, instead of spinning out of control like I had accepted as my tainted family legacy, He rescued me, broke the chains of addiction, mental illness and familial curses, and claimed me as His own – as His daughter. He set my feet on a path and laid a foundation set in stone – and has lovingly walked me through this new life, teaching me and loving me through it all. No longer do I have to identify just as my mother’s daughter because I KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS! I AM my Father’s daughter.

My friends, it’s not easy to tell my story – it’s filled with pain, shame and regret from a woman I used to know – me. But the beauty of this new life that I have is that it is not just my story – this is His story. You see, when Jesus went to the cross for my sake, He did it knowing full well the many sinful and selfish things that I would do in my life, acting under the misguided idea that it was just my lot in life to be wounded, broken and forgotten. He saw the life of a 4-year-old child crying in fear, the 14-year-old afraid to die (but afraid to keep feeling so much pain), the 24-year-old mother wanting to do better, to be better for her children, and every point in between, and welcomed me finally and mercifully into His family as a 34-year-old woman.

Friends, if you think that there are things that you can never be free from, please, please reconsider. Be merciless in your pursuit of healing for the broken parts of your life that you might be clinging to; the mindsets, the illnesses, the woundedness, the painful familial legacies. Seek Jesus – He died, and overcame, so that we could overcome too. It is His gift to us – and it is given without reservation. Be broken, friends, so that you can be made whole. Jesus is waiting…and willing…. to walk you through….

 

 

The Lord has given Tommie a passion for finding the “lost” and discarded things in life and giving them a new purpose. She lives her life about 95% non-retail, and loves teaching others how to live this way. Tommie enjoys spending time with her 2 teenagers and her ONEchapel family. She leads the connect group The Art of Thrift Store Shopping.

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