LOSS & GRIEF

The horrific experience of loosing a spouse, sister, brother, parent or child is something that no one ever wants to face, yet at times, we all do. In the loss of a child, it is one of the most unnatural experiences that a parent would ever have to face and while every parent may fear it, more than likely most of us may never have to experience it. While I have no personal experience with loosing a child, I do know firsthand the pain of loss and that pain has often times driven me to a place where I could find and experience hope enough, to bear what I must and endure the shock and loss of something or someone that I loved deeply. A person that has recently experienced the loss of a loved one is simply needing and searching for hope. A hope that assures them that things are going to be okay and will get better than they are at the moment. A hope that promises them that at some point the pain will get better and they can begin to make some sense of what has happened.
Rebuilding their lives around their loss will be most challenging, but it is very possible. It will be a daily effort for a while as they learn to move on. No one ever really recovers from a loved one’s passing….they simply "move on", and learn to live in the new world that they now find themselves to be in. Finding resolution as they walk through their personal grief, they will be forced to learn to invest in other parts of life, task, relationships, trying to forge new meaning and understanding to their loss as well as their future without that precious loved one. While life may not feel normal for a while, there can be a “New Normal" for them in time; as they settle into that new world that they now are left with. Whether loosing a loved one by cancer or by an accident, there are some core issues and specific circumstances that have different emotional attachments that the bereaved are left to deal with. Turning to others for help and encouragement can help to aid in reaching a turning point away from the pain of the situation, to possibly see the good that can be drawn for it. Hearing other peoples stories of personal pain and loss can even allow a little bit of anonymity to say and ask questions that one may not be able to discuss with someone who has not walked in their shoes; and may not truly understand their hurt, pain, sadness and even anger. We should never deny ourselves time to grieve, God’s word encourages us to walk through our grief’s. Yet we must not allow ourselves to live in a state of grief. Letting go of grief in no way equates forgetting about that precious one that we may have lost; even though we may find it difficult to do so. Raw emotions can seem to last a lifetime... so grieve well, and one day those tears can be replaced by laughter and joy, as time heals and removes the rough edges of the pain. Every parent or person will have their own quest for solace over a loss. They may handle it different than what we would expect. But the fact that they are handling it and not filing it away is enough; because they are at least trying to walk through it.

There are different stages of grief and healing always takes time, so remember to take the time you need, discuss your feelings in whatever environment allows you to express them best....and always remember that the One that seeks to give you Comfort is never far away....
 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." II CORINTHIANS 1:3-4

Shock & Denial - At first, losing someone seems unreal. You can't believe it's happened. You play and re-play all of the events that led up to finding out over and over in your head. You will analyze every word said, every action performed, every detail no matter how small will be examined. You are looking for anything that will make sense. In those early moments, nothing will make sense and you begin to deny it happened and try to convince yourself it was just a dream. You will insist that this can't be happening to you. Not today, not now, you're not ready. You will tell yourself that you cannot handle this.
Pain & Guilt - Next the pain sets in. Your stomach hurts or it can feel hollow and numb. You ache inside and nothing soothes it. You begin to blame yourself for their loss. You wonder what you could have done, even should have done, to have prevented it. Without thinking about it, you try accept responsibility and insist that you somehow let them down and if you had just done one thing differently, they'd still be here. You'll shed a lot of tears at this stage.
Anger & Bargaining - At this stage, you become angry and indignant. You insist on having answers. You want someone to explain it, you want someone to fix it. You want someone to take responsibility because it just isn't fair. You are willing to make deals with God, the devil, or anyone else if it will just bring them back. And you want it now.
Depression & Loneliness - The realization of what's happened begins to set in. You are beginning to accept that they're not coming back. You begin to think about life without them. You experience depression and a gloomy sadness weaves its way into your everyday routine. You reflect back on how things used to be and try to reconcile it to how things are going to be now without them.
Making a Turn
Rebuilding and Working Through It - At this point, you've decided it's time to move on with your life. You begin to create ways to find moments of happiness that still honor their memory. There is a certain respect that you have for the one who has died. You begin to see your work at getting better as something they would be proud of and you feel good about doing it. You know that there are others in your life that need you and want you to be whole. Keeping in mind that what you have been through will some day help someone else walk in their own pain and loss.
Acceptance & Hope - At this stage, you have accepted their death and you realize that blaming anyone (including yourself) doesn't bring them back. You realize that life does go on and you will be okay. You have hope for your future, even though your future no longer includes them. You honor their memory with loving thoughts of them. You are proud of yourself for being a survivor. You still miss them, you still wish they were here, but you understand that in order for you go on, you must accept that which you can not change and in doing so things will be okay just like they are.  

Loving on you today, and praying for your pain to pass quicky!
Bren

WHY I LOVE THE BIBLE

I love the Bible because it has proved itself real to me. It is alive and gives life and hope to those that desire it. It is the living Word of God, it is the very breath of God. It speaks on His behalf to the world. It represent Him; Who He is and what He has to say. The Bible lives because it is the Word of the living God. It is a living thing that reproduces  and multiples, it propagates, it gives birth and life to the one who seeks what it has to say, believes and ask something of it. A stone does not reproduce because, it is not alive. A car while it may run, is not alive because it cannot reproduce another car. Concerning God’s Word, Peter said in I Peter 1:23, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” A single seed under the right conditions can produce thousands of fruit. Why, because within that seed lies the genetic makeup of life. The word of God is a seed. It will grow wherever it is planted. Depending on the conditions of the heart of the one whose been confronted with it, God’s Word will either take root and produce a mighty spiritual fruit, or it will convict the heart that it has come into contact with, of it’s need for God….the result is left up to the individual’s choices and what they choose to do with the truth that is planted in every heart that the seed or word of God comes in contact with. But, it never returns void. It always accomplishes it’s goal to convict and change or simply to convict one of their spiritual need for God or truth.

It has a power that acts and reacts like a person towards me. Because it is alive, it gives me comfort when I seek it. The pages weep with me; in God’s understanding of where I may be sometimes in my deepest pain and suffering. It sings to me and causes me to run to it when my joy needs to be restored. It even wrestles with me, and smites me, when I need it. God’s Word will often times whisper my name, calling me to it, when there is something that I need to hear or be told. It never gets old, it never rejects me. When I make the effort to hide it in my heart, I cannot forget it. There have been so many times that I have picked it up, weary, stressed, distracted by so many things, my mind cloudy, my body tired and sleepy, and as I open it up, the strangest thing happens. The weariness drains from me, the distractions leave me and I find myself slap dab in the middle of something that I needed to hear or know. Nothing else does that for me like the Word of God does.

Throughout the ages men have tried to refute, disregard, discredit, deny, attack, restrict, contain and destroy the Word of God. Yet it continues to spring back greater each time, why? Because it is alive, God’s Word lives. It is sharper than any double edged sword. It cuts deeper than any cutting tool known to man, even into the soul of a man, woman, boy or girl. I read once where God’s word must be put to the throat of every sinful tendency, habit or thought, to reveal to man his nature and the nature of the living God. The sinful nature must be slayed, and the Word of God is the tool that can do it. It need only to come into contact with a heart to reveal and bring change. God’s Word cuts thoroughly, “It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow”

I love the Bible because through God’s revealed spoken word, it has given me new life, and the power to walk in it! There is much to say about the Bible….but it is the One that it reflects, that is the most important…and that is why I love “It” so!

Loving you today…

Bren

FINDING YOUR WAY BACK TO GOD

One of my most favorite pastimes is reminiscing of days gone by. I so often will catch myself in a haze of past nostalgia, longing for another time, another place. Sometimes oddly enough, it is a sort of longing or aching to go back, homesick for a time in my past or even as illogical as it may seem, a time that I never even lived in. Similarly, King David felt the same way at times. He too had his feelings and longings of earlier times as he wrote about them in Psalm 84. David longed and ached in his heart to return to the place where he used to meet with God. He understood that to do so, would be a pilgrimage or journey that would have obstacles and difficulties along the way. Choices that he would have to be willing to make to get there. Yet he was willing to do whatever it took to get him back to the place, his heart longed to be.

Like David, when we desire to return to the place where we once were, in our walk or relationship with God, it is our faith that will lead us and allow us to overcome those obstacles until we arrive back to that place and into His arms! You see, it is not the place, the situation or the location where God was real to us that is significant, but only a place… of significant because God was there. For Abraham, it was Bethel, for Moses, it was Mt. Sinai, for Zaccahaeus, it was the tree, for Mary it was the ground where she lay with her face down in the dirt ashamed, broken and needing God’s help. For Jesus it was the Garden of Gethsemane, for Peter, it was when he heard the rooster crow, for Paul, it was the road to Damascus. For King David it was the Temple. For in the Psalms he writes about where he use to meet with God. For whatever reason it was that he had been away from the Lord, he was now expressing his feelings in the language of a poem, longing to return. In David’s day, God’s dwelling place was a place, location, a building, a physical temple. Today, according to Romans 8:9-17, He dwells in the heart of every person that has received Him in their hearts, as Lord and Savior. In the Old Testament, God had a temple for His people. In the New Testament, He has a people for His temple.

Longing for God reflects an integrity of our intention, when we cry out for the living God to return to him and be restored. You see David was not really crying out for the house of God but the living God that dwelt in the house or temple. Ps. 84:2 and Ps. 42:1 express David’s heartfelt desire to go wherever God was and be with the true “Living God”. When a person goes to a courthouse they are not seeking a courthouse but the justice that they are hoping to find there. Same thing with a hospital, it is not the building that you want when you go there, but the healing that you believe you will get once you get there.

Longing for God reveals a desire for intimacy with Him. David’s level of desire for God is reflected in Psalm 84 as he says that his soul yearns and even faints for the courts of the Lord; his heart and flesh cried out…that even the sparrow and swallow had found a place of refuge near God’s altar...oh how he envied those birds, that they were where he once was…close to the lover of his soul.

 Do you long to come back to the Lord? Is that longing the most intense in your life? It should be, and it can be! James 4:8 promises that, if we will come near to God, He will come near to us! James 4:7-10 tells us how to come…by submitting ourselves to God resisting or turning away from the things that want to draw us away from Him…and as David often times would do (and this is why He was the apple of God’s eye), humble yourselves to God, change your attitude into brokenness over your situation seeing it as God sees it and be willing to do those things, whatever they may be…that will restore you…and God Himself will lift you up and give you His power to accomplish whatever it is you may need to do, to get to Him.  

Praying for you today, as you find your way back to God and go home….where you belong!

Love you, Bren

WHEN YOUR SITUATION SEEMS HOPELESS

In one of the Psalms the psalmist writes, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire”, can you relate to what David is saying? I recall reading an article once that was in the Readers Digest about a couple of guys who went Duck hunting in a rural area in the northeastern part of Anchorage Alaska called Duck Flat. As they both got out of their boat and begin to trudge through the thick mud, one of the men got his wader stuck and hollered out for his friend to help.  Upon returning back to his friend, they both realized that the one stuck in the mud had actually stepped into a patch of quick sand, caused by Alaskan glaciers that forms a loose, glacial silt like consistency of fine talcum powder. While it may appear to look like mud, it is far more deadly. The two friends had hunted those forest together for many years, and knew exactly what they were faced with and they also knew that they were working against time to get him out. Not only were the two men working against a spongy ground that was determined to sink the man that was stuck; they were also working against the Alaskan tide that was among the fasted, most dangerous tides in the world. After trying to retrieve his friend from the slimy pit to no avail, the man told his friend that he would have to go and get help from the Air Force Base and promised to be back. Upon reaching the Air Force Base a special rescue team was scrambled to the site of the sinking friend and they began his rescue. Every effort they made seemed only to worsen the situation. The helicopter pilot tried many different approaches in lifting the stranded man out of the mud and mire. But he grew discontented as each effort failed. Upon each attempt to hoist him up, the stranded man would signal franticly for release; his eyes wide with pain. You can only imagine as how helpless they all felt as they saw this young man, with his whole life ahead of him slowing vanishing into the slimy pit, never to see him again. By this time, the mud was up to his armpits. The tide could come in at any time, and all their efforts would have been in vain. The water was quickly rising at a rate of one foot every twelve minutes. As all hope seemed to be lost, the stranded man felt a sudden shift and when he did, his feet was released from the waders and he was pulled free at last. Wow! I don’t know about you, but that is a gripping story if ever I have heard one.

Like the man stranded in the slimy pit, David the man that wrote, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire” also understood the freedom of being released from a pit that was slowing taking him under. While David’s pit may not have been a true pit of quicksand; the feelings he had, were so strong that he felt that he could compare them to what it must be like to actually being in stuck in a pit, just about to sink. Whatever it was that David was feeling at the time, we know that his troubles seemed to be beyond even the greatest human effort that he had access to at that time. His own efforts proved only to be futile. Like the sinking man, David found that the more he struggled over his situation the worse it became and the more his situation drew him deeper into the pit.  

In his writing David was trying to create and convey his deep understanding of what it is like to plunge down into despair and what can appear to be, an impossible situation. The things that caused David to feel that way could have been from his own personal sin in his life, or from the effects of opposition from others be it friend or foe….it could have been from a military defeat or simply the effect of choices made during the course of battle or war.

Not really knowing the cause is actually to our advantage though. Because without knowing what it was that made David feel that way, it allows us a window of sympathy and compassion to know that while others have also gone thru trying times, we are encouraged that we too can come out on the other side freed, once the trouble passes.

Where is your place of absolute impossibility today? In a relationship, a habit, a wrong choice or a relapse of a past sin that you cannot seem to get over?  Is someone opposing you? You never meant it to become what it has become. At first it was harmless, nonthreatening, but now you are stuck in it and feel the mud and mire covering you with darkness and depression. You wish there was a way out!

If so, may I tell you that those are the very things that God is best at! Pulling us up and rescuing us when we cannot rescue ourselves. However, for Him to get to us, we must move out of His way and allow Him to work the way He wants to in our lives and not in accordance to how we want to instruct Him to do. The secret to receiving His help is found in Psalm 40:1 and says, “I waiting patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry”. You see the problem is that God knows that we need Him; we are the ones that need to learn that concept and learning comes so many times through trials and tribulations, pain and even heartbreak.

If God places you in an impossible situation, He has a divine plan for your rescue. But you must call on Him, and wait for Him to show up….for He is never too late for those that cry out to Him with the right heart attitude. So, remember, when you cannot see a way out…look to Him, He has the tools to get you to safety.

Loving you today,
Hold Fast,
Bren

THE SERMON OF THE ROOSTER

It was easy to follow Christ in the beginning.  For the three years that Jesus spent with His disciples in ministry, He was busy teaching and preparing them for the coming day, that He would leave them. During those years, He had been observed, studied, criticized and even harassed by the religious scholars and priests within His own race and religion, as well as the Romans who feared by what they saw, believed were political indicators of an upheaval. He was misunderstood by everyone at first, until they had a personal encounter with Him as Peter the fisherman did.  While Peter loved Jesus, He never really understood the full meaning of  the Lord’s life and purpose  until after Peter walked through the tribulation of public denial, of which had already been predicted by Jesus Himself. The brokenness over his denial is echoed by the bitter tears that he wept upon realizing what he had done and remembering, not only what Jesus had predicted that he would do, but by his own words that he had told Jesus, were now coming back to haunt him. Words of loyalty and promise, as He told Jesus, “…though everyone else forsake you, I never will!”.  Peter’s denial would progress from a simple denial of, “I do not know Him” to a denial plus an oath, that he did not know Him and to finally, cursing and swearing with a very determined denial, that he never knew Jesus. Then the moment came, the sound of the rooster’s crow that brought a shock wave to Peter, as he remembered Jesus’ prediction. God had used that rooster to bring a message to Peter that would not only rock his world, but forever change it! Nothing Christ could have ever done or said to Peter, would have had such an impact as that moment.

As Judas’ betrayal of Christ sets him apart, so Peter’s denial sets him apart from the other disciples of Christ by what they did. Peter was closely associated with Jesus from the time that the Lord called him to become a fisher of men, until he fell asleep in the garden, too tired to stay up and keep watch. From that point Peter’s level of commitment went down hill. Jesus had told all the disciples according to Matthew 26:31, that they would all fall away on account of Him. But Peter in verse 33 told Christ that no matter if everyone else fell away, that he himself would not. Jesus told Peter in verse 34 that, “…this very night you will disown me 3 times, before the rooster crows”. Peter responded back to Jesus declaring that even if he had to die with Him, that he would never disown him….and the other disciples said the same in verse 35.

Later that night, Jesus was arrested. They seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house. Peter followed at a distance and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated there by the fire. She looked at him and said, "This man was with him." But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," Peter said. The servant girl said again to those standing around, "This fellow is one of them."  and again Peter denied it. The third denial brought so much grief and strain to Peter, that he was emphatic about his denial as he cursed as he denied knowing Jesus, according to Matthew 26:73-75: After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away." Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, "I don't know the man!" Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken: "Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." And Peter went outside and wept bitterly.

The Gospel of Luke 22:61 describes the moment of the last denial as follows: The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times." That rooster preached the same message to Peter,  that the donkey did to Balaam in the Old Testament. A message of rebuke and chastisement.
Matthew 10:32-33 stresses the importance of our public witness as an essential element of our discipleship to Christ and Jesus Himself tells us that… "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." Peter's denial is in direct conflict with his human nature and that of the cost of being a discipleship of Christ. We know that Peter was forgiven for denying Christ, because he was broken and repented. Peter went on to become the rock upon who God would use to bring the gospel to a world in need of it. He would never again deny Christ again. He would however be beaten, thrown into jail, ridiculed, observed, studied, criticized and even harassed by the religious scholars and priests within His own race and religion, as well as the Romans who would ultimately kill him for his faith. After he received the sermon from the rooster, Peter began to see Christ for Who He really was and better understood the cost of being a true follower of the living God.
God uses many avenues of outreach to bring us to surrender to Him. If we do not hearken and yield to them, we are of no use to Him and our faith is in vain.  For Peter, the light bulb went off for him as he heard the rooster’s crow and realized the very thing that God was trying to tell him. What sermon has God been sending your way lately and by what means is He trying to get your attention? He tells us in His Word, that if we love Him, we will obey Him. Is there an area of your life that He is asking you to surrender. If so, do it today….drop all that you have been thinking, and run to Him!
Loving you today,
Bren

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LOOSE YOUR JOY

People oftentimes mistake joy for their happiness. While they do share some of the same characteristics, they are actually different. Your joy always comes through having inner peace. Happiness is an emotion that we experience when things seem to be working out and going our way. There is an aspect of fun and excitement to happiness; where with joy, in the Biblical context, is an attitude of the heart and only comes through self-surrender and self-sacrifice of the flesh, by accepting those things that we can not change and being content with the circumstances that we may be in for a time. Our joy is never dependent upon our happiness. Our happiness comes and goes, but our joy can be full at all times even in the difficult times, if we look to the Lord for our joy. Jesus told us over and over how to have joy and how to keep it. He said that “He came to do the Father’s will”. For the most part we think of that statement as meaning, to die for the sins of the world, and that is true, but there is way more than just His physical death. He also came to show us how to conquer the hard places that we pass through. He said that He delighted to do His Father’s will. That implies that He was making the choice to obey what was being ask of Him, no matter what it may be. You see Jesus had a unique understanding of what it really takes to live with joy in the midst of every kind of circumstance that life would dish out to Him. Jesus even prayed that our joy would be made full, just the same as His was.

Life is not about stuff…not about work….not about wisdom….not about people….not about circumstance, but about perfect communion with the Son of God. It’s about our faith in Him, it’s about our obedience to Him, and it’s about our relationship with Him. The first thing that will hinder our joy in a circumstance is when we begin to start thinking about and focus on the irritation of the situation. John 15:11 says that the reason that our joy does not stay full is because we are not allowing His joy to remain in us. We are trading His joy for disappointment. The cares of this world will always choke out the Word of God in our lives. We will only re-gain our joy when we are rightly related to Him. For the child of God, walking in joy is almost an unconscious effort as long as we are abiding in Him, not allowing anything to hinder that joy. But once our joy is hindered, we must refocus on truth and not what our flesh leads us to do or feel; which is the total opposite of truth.

How do you regain your joy? By embellishing what you already have, if you are in Christ. Romans 15:13a says, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy…”. you already know of His joy and it is a sweet resting place that we can run to when we need it. But the only way to get there is to let go of the current place and race back to what you know brings that peace and restores the joy that you are allowed in and through Him.

Joy is for the most part contentment, yet for the child of God it goes even deeper. Joy should  never depend upon our happiness; but our happiness should always be dependent upon our joy.  God’s joy is something that He deposits into us at our new birth through the Holy Spirit.  The devil will try everything within his power to steal that joy because he understands its importance in the life of a child of God.  If he can not rob us of our joy he will tempt us with things that can temporarily cause us to drift away from God, leaving us then with a feeling of “lacking”.  The scripture says that the joy of the Lord is our strength….Job had an understanding of that….he knew that the bottom line was, that his joy was all wrapped up in knowing, that the Lord was all he needed! While Job was not privy to the warfare that was going on around him concerning his time of testing from satan, (to break him down and rob him of God’s joy and blessing) he opted to walk through his tribulation and grief, knowing that no matter what, God was sufficient for him in everything that touched his life. While Job was not happy about his circumstance, his joy remained steadfast.

 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. James 1:2-8

Hold Fast,

Bren

POUTING MAY PAY OFF - BUT IT'S PAYOFF IS BITTER

As with all children, there were times when my daughters were young, that I can recall them pouting, when they did not get their way in a situation. Maybe because they wanted to go somewhere, purchase something or do something that they were not allowed to have or do. While they were not allowed to pout openly over those things, inside I am sure that they burned with frustration and even anger. I can recall a few times that they would go to their room, throw themselves on their beds and simply cry. While it hurt me to see them struggle and be disappointed by saying no to them, I knew that my decision not to give in to them was the best thing for them at the time. I understood their hurt and anger, because I myself had been disappointed many times by not getting something that I really wanted. To my disappointment, there were some times that I did give in; only to regret it’s bitterness as a result from it, later on.  Hind sight always reveals regrets as well as blessings.

Pouting over something may seem to pay off short term, but in the long haul, it can have a terrible, bitter bite! There is a story about a King in the Scriptures who acted like a spoiled child. When he didn’t get his way, he refused to eat, ran to his bedroom, threw himself on his bed, and began to pout. His name was King Ahab. Ahab had one of the wickedest wives throughout the scriptures, Jezebel. 1 Kings 21 talks about how King Ahab wanted a vineyard that belonged to Naboth who was a Jezreelite. Upon asking Naboth to sell him or trade his vineyard for another one, Naboth’s refusal to do so enraged Ahab and the King went home sullen and angry. The vineyard was an inheritance from Naboth’s ancestors and he did not want to part with it. The scripture says that while Ahab was laying on his bed sulking over the situation and refusing to even eat, Jezebel came in and asks him what his problem was. Upon hearing his discourse, Jezebel said to him, “Is this how a king over Israel acts? Get up and eat, and cheer up! I will get you what you want”! Then she arranged for the man who had disappointed the King to be killed so that Ahab could have what he wanted. While he may have gotten what he wanted at the time, he found out later, that the cost was much bitter than the desire to have what he wanted. God sent word and confronted Ahab and told him that because he had sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, that dogs would lick up his own blood in the same place where Nabot had been stoned to death. He was also told that God was going to consume his descendants by cutting them off. You see our sin not only effects us, but those around us are often times caught up in reaping as well. For Jezebel, she was devoured by dogs. Ahab  on the other hand did humble himself before God over his sin and was regretful, but he and his children still reaped from the evil that he and Jezebel had committed against God, others and Israel.

As with Ahab, we too may get what we want if we pout long enough, hard enough or loud enough; but in the end, the pays off is bitter, in one way or another!

It would do us good to remember as well as remind our children, that pouting may or may not get us what we want, but one thing for sure is that the consequences often times cost us more than we ever dreamed.

Hold Fast,

Bren