Sony - The Grand Canyon of Texas

A BEATITUDE MOMENT

In May when things were winding down with the Women’s Bible Studies (including CBS) I felt I was overdue for a break, a well needed one. 4 bible studies is a lot especially with me teaching 3 of them, but as Women’s Ministry Director at Hope Church I feel that is where God wants me. Needless to say I was going to take the summer off and rest in Him. But some of the Ladies from Tuesday night wanted me to continue with something, even if it was light. So I came up with a name for our Tuesday Night Summer study called devo-lite. Needless to say what transpired soon after was truly a God Thing and totally God inspired.

What I figured was that I needed to rest and work on 1 John and Habakkuk so for the summer study I was just going read a devotional from a devotional and we were going to discuss it. Then it happened, some how I was led by the Holy Spirit’s prompting to reading the Beatitudes. It is amazing what this adventure brought me to. So I began my journey searching out little devotionals about the Beatitude on all 8. After I found the ones that would lead into a nice discussion, I was going to stop. But Holy Spirit prompted me to define words in Greek and low in behold I found myself stuck on blessed is the poor in spirit. And I wanted to know really what that meant. And it led me to a trip on Brokenness. Recognizing that I am spiritually bankrupt with out Him. And it also led me to the discovery of brokenness and total dependence on God. It also led me to the discovery with out that total surrendering to God that all the other Beatitudes can't happen in our lives without this one. (for the purpose of what I want to share, Ill stop here on the 1st beatitude, but I could go on about what he taught me here.)……..

……..Then it was I believe the 4th Tuesday night of our light study over at Anne K. house and I was teaching on Matt 5:7. “Blessed is the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." And I was going to do both 5:7 and 5:8. I did my studying and Anne brought out her bible dictionary and we looked up mercy. And we got on the subject of forgiveness. And it was a great discussion. I spoke about how this mercy is talking about not feeling sorry for people or forgiving someone in general way. But to extend mercy to those who really have hurt me. Wow. It’s easy to forgive when it really doesn't directly affect you. And I was giving examples of how people in the Bible forgave and were forgiven such as Joseph, Peter and I had the group give other examples from the Bible. I shared the Corey Teneboom story about how she was able to extend her hand to a prison guard who treated her badly. Then it got more personal. I shared about a family situation and that my brother has been estranged from the family for a long time. Although he didn't really hurt me as much as my parents, there was a separation. I recalled that just in Dec. 2005 when my grandmother passed he had exchanged harsh words at me over the phone, when I broke the news to him. And I knew I was not at peace about our last encounter over the phone. My father on the other hand was bitter and angry still mad at my brother and I was sharing how it has not been healthy for our family……

Needless to say this is not the end. On the 3rd weekend in August Bill & I went to Texas to spend some time with some friends and then help my daughter Kristine move into her dorm. Needless to say the whole weekend was full of beatitude moments. Things like my friend Lisa telling me that she taught an adult SS class on the Beatitudes this year and we got into this discussion on brokenness. Then I went to a concert and the guy giving a concert talked about being poor in the spirit. And all weekend things like that happened.

Then we came back home on that Tuesday I went to get the mail and there was a letter addressed to me from my brother and I opened it and he wrote to me asking me for forgiveness. And if I could forgive him could I please call him. So I called him right away and then before I could even tell him I forgave him, he verbally asked me for forgiveness. And Yes I forgave him. What a relief what a healing moment. Then he asked me if I thought that daddy would forgive him and I said that I couldn't answer that, but you do your part in and let God do the rest. (This is just like God to say to me Lori, your teaching it, but do you believe it. And yes I can believe Him, Yesterday, today and Tomorrow)

On October 1st, a day in which I was very sick, my brother went to my fathers’ house and asked for my fathers’ forgiveness and my dad forgave him and said let’s put the past behind us. (In that gap, I was praying that God would soften my dads’ heart and he did)

So that’s the end of almost a 26 year saga with lots of drama. I wanted to share this with you because I felt led to, and this is such a God thing, but also I think it not only was lesson on mercy and forgiveness for me but it was a lesson on that I've read the word, I've studied it and taught and now what am I going to do with it. I believe it was God showing me a lot. What's really neat about the whole thing is He showed me in such a tangible way how much he really does care about relationships.