Hard Things of Faith

I have a childhood friend who prayed his salvation prayer several years ago and today he has no more relationship with Christ than before he said his prayer.  I desperately want to believe that my friend knows Christ, but from his own lips, he does not.  He has been gracious in allowing me to share his story. He and I are part of a group of friends that have ebbed and flowed since we were kids.  A few years ago, our group of friends came back together and it quickly became evident that several of us had come to know Christ.  The natural thing was to share our faith with our friends. Our testimonies were well received. Our walk with Christ; well respected. After spending time with those of us walking with Christ this friend was hungry to know more of what we had found. He has known us for most of our lives and could see changes for the good and wanted to know more. We were happy to share all the Lord had done and was still doing in our lives.  We did all the things Christians do,

If you have read the recent posts, 19, Knocked up & no good  , Honor Thy Father , you have been given a small picture of me, my dad, and generational sin. The conclusion to this is about the Lord and his hand upon my life even before I knew him. It's about how he provided the way for me to find healing and forgiveness and love after abuse. I was 16 years old when my father almost drank himself to death. He had stripped the lining of his esophagus and was bleeding internally so severely that they weren't sure if they could save him. They told us that if he lived through the night, he would not live another five years. I went into that hospital chapel that Christmas night, and I prayed to God, whom I did not know, for my father to die. This was a result of all the verbal and emotional abuse that happened in my home. I thought life would be so much better without him. The Lord disagreed; my father made it through the night and lived another 25 years with a cirr

If you read last week’s blog,  19, Knocked up & No Good , you got a snapshot of what life was like at home for me with my verbally and emotionally abusive dad.  I wrote last week's blog as a stand-alone blog about ministering to post-abortive women but…  As I read it and reread it, what stood out to me most was my dad.  My father was so much more than the snapshot I have given you.  Even though our history was tainted by the ugliness of abuse, he and I are so much the same.  We both wanted to be good but didn't know how.  We both desired acceptance, but it had always been just out of reach.   After he died and I healed from the hurt, which you can read about here . The Lord opened my eyes to a whole other side of who my father was.  He had his own story of abuse. I would love to tell you that my dad and I found healing before he died, but we didn’t.  Our last interaction was full of hurt, anger, and self-righteousness. Let me show you a different side of the man who wa