My Unanswered Prayer

Oh Holy Spirit!  Spirit!  I called. I called in my desperation.  I called in my need. I called in my fear. Spirit!  I called with belief, with the faith of a child. My heart cried out and believed. Believed in the power of God on my knees, my knees in prayer. 

Silence. 

The world cries “There is no God.”  Christians settle for less, ignoring their questions, tucking away their fears. God was called upon and He did not answer. 

God does not answer to anyone!  

The prayer to ease suffering. Not Biblical. Jesus promised, “In this world you WILL have suffering.”  This whole Christian thing, give it a second thought. God quite often, maybe even most often, on this world uses pain and suffering for our growth, for change in this world. The prayer to ease suffering went unanswered by Jesus Christ himself in the garden of Gethsemane. Do you believe your faith surpasses that of the Son?!

Fill me Holy Spirit!  You, I want!  I want to feel your presence. Take control of my heart and soul. Spirit of God, I long to love you!  

And there is silence. 

How do you argue with that?!  Because God is not a God of feelings!!!  He is not here to accomplish our own goals of feeling Him!  

The Holy Spirit moves in this world. He calls to dry bones “come alive.”  He calls to mountains, “move.”  He burns the wetted sacrifice with fire from Heaven. The Holy Spirit works to bring glory to God in Heaven. He moves to further the Gospel. He works in the church of His children. 

Do you have unanswered prayers?  Oh little child, your Father never promised you would get everything you asked for. 

The Holy Spirit longs for a relationship with you!  Do not grieve him!  Share the Good News!  Serve people in need!  And you will see him fill you!  His presence will work miracles. We will be in awe and we will feel what can not be put into words. But the whole point is that it is not about us. It is to bring praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

“No matter the cost, work in me to bring glory to You!”

Do you want that?

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I AM in me

In this world. There is a ticking time bomb in the center of my chest. The blood flows through my body, pumping this throbbing bomb, reminding me that my day will come. 

In this world. I am a blemished offering. Men determine my value and find me lacking. They pass me up and give me no notice. 

In this world. The tasks are endless. There is no relief from the monotony of stress. I can not hide from the burden of the suffering. War plagues the land. Contention and hate are the rulers of our time. 

In this world you will have trouble, but take heart!  I have overcome the world!  He does the impossible, he reaches out to me. Truth takes my hand and leads me to the cross. Perfection paid the price for the sinner that was me. 

Living with cancer, I am ridiculed for claiming the name of Jesus, but one thing I know, “I was blind but now I see.” 

I do not seek answers. I will not debate. I was a useless beggar on the street when Jesus found me. There is no offer in all this world that can compete with the I AM that lives in me. 

It is Personal

Sinking into that place of my very soul, his words caressed my heart. Her picture could not be made right in my world where I did not want people to hurt like this. I passed him in a quick stroll, yet the image of his obvious suffering is implanted in my brain. The stories where we connect, where our lives look upon someone and we stop and we do something:  we FEEL. 

This is my God. He is not a list of rules. He is not a scale that measures our good and our bad. He is a man, God in human flesh, come to place his hand on the leper that is outcast of society. He is the only religion that turns his eyes away from the rich man that follows the law to the broken sinner at his feet and declares, “I love you.”

I am the sick man!  I am the sinner! I need THAT GOD!  Religion of the Western world has become a debate, a contest, a free for all to decide your own way. 

As for me and my house, we will chose the Lord!  I do not chose myself, I fail!  I do not chose a God of rules, I can not. I can not do it on own, of my own effort, my own will, my own record. My past is too unforgiving!  I need a Savior!  I need the forgiver of sins and the healer of diseases and the giver of peace. 

His words speak to me. His story is mine. He chose me and I accept. This is my God, hear me proclaim. Let there be not doubt, no blurr in my words. No question on my face. So that when she, with her sin and her suffering quickly pass by, let her see and never forget something that can change her life forever:  my God!

Here is my story, my life. I share my details and my hopes here daily. What is your story?  Your thorn in your side and your hope of all the wrongs undone?  Please comment. 

Faith Doesn’t Matter

Pushing against the open wound of the nail stuck in his foot, his human body pressed against the shocking pain until his chest was able to gasp and then he released, feeling the choking pressure against his chest.  Beyond the worst day in history, his was the worst life.  No other suffering on earth could begin to even comprehend his bursting heart that bled water and blood at the rejection of his Father, the breaking of the Trinity, perfect holiness carrying the burden of complete sin.

Mary looked on, her mind overcome with what she beheld.  She is the only mother that, rightly, ascended her son to her personal God.  She remembered the miracle of the joy of a virgin birth announced by the Angel Gabriel.  Her marriage with Joseph had forever been bonded with the realization that they had been sent here to raise the God of the Universe.  Her life, her faith, her son, her everything hung in agonizing pain and she could do nothing to relieve him.  Everything was dying here.  Satan had won.

He, literally, stood in heaven in the very presence of God himself.  Lucifer was the director of the choir, spending his days in worship of God Almighty.  His voice, his body, his eternal life was beyond beauty, it was heaven.  He, literally, spent his days in the perfection of heaven.  Lucifer believed in God, as real as anything he had ever seen, touched, or experienced in any capacity.  If there was even this life that he lived, he knew it was created by God that sat upon his throne.  And yet Satan turned.  And he was flung into the fiery pit of Hell.  Even the demons believe, believe in the one true God of the Universe, and their belief does not save them.

My Western culture holds tight to few things, but remaining in the hearts of the vast majority of Western thinkers is the foundation of LIFE, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of HAPPINESS.  And I will take it!  I cling, with those that vary so much from me, to the belief that these ideals have made my home nation who we are today.  We are a people that stop whatever we are doing to fight for freedom, as well we should.  We believe that one life is important, we believe in holding debates and agreeing to disagree, we believe in differing opinions and a different perspective of personal happiness, and we believe in not taking away those rights from our neighbors.  But somewhere along the way, this belief was skewed into the belief of believing:

“Believe whatever you want to believe.”

“It does not matter what you believe, as long as you have enough faith.”

And this is why we see our culture beginning to crumble.  From inside the church, inside the educational system, inside government, and the very core of our foundation:  the family. We are falling apart because we no longer cling to right and wrong, we believe that as long as you believe in something, that is all that matters.  But what if BELIEF DOES NOT MATTER.  Faith is not what saves us.  Even the demons believe and shutter.

If you want a religion of faith, there is none greater than Islam.  Muslims believe so wholeheartedly in the afterlife that parents proudly offer up their children to jihad.  Wealthy husbands leave their life of comfort and their wives and children behind to strap bombs to their chests and die in the fight.  WHY?!  This blows our Western minds!  IT IS BECAUSE OF THEIR FAITH!  It is because they believe more boldly than the majority of Christian believers believe in their God that Allah is going to send them straight to a world of bliss where there will be more pretty girls waiting for them than they can comprehend.  According to the words of the Qua-ran, girls that will never have to blow their nose or menstrate, girls with beautiful dark eyes, girls that can not take their eyes off of their martyr hero.  And these men will have supernatural ability to have sex over and over again.  This is why they want to leave this world as quickly as they possibly can!  Because they have so very much FAITH!

So, why are Westerners running out of the church as soon as they are off to college?  Why are Christian marriages just as likely to end in divorce as any?  Why does our culture now criticize and despise Christians?  Why are followers labeled as hateful as soon as they mention their God?  IT IS BECAUSE FAITH HAS BECOME THE FOCAL POINT OF THE WESTERN CHURCH!

Now, Am I splitting hairs here?  Don’t I, myself, speak of my faith and praise faith?  Yes!  An extremely important side note is that FAITH IS IMPORTANT, FAITH PERFORMS MIRACLES, FAITH IS NECESSARY AND GREAT!  So, what am I complaining about?  And it is this:  Faith is not the most important, LOVE is!

Love is why Jesus nailed himself to the cross.  Love is why Mary will be in heaven even when she lost all faith at the foot of the cross.  The absence of love is why Satan was thrown out of heaven and into eternal damnation.  The absence of love is the leader of jihad.  And the absence of love is why the American church is falling apart.

Love restores marriages.  Love rescues families.  Love gathers people to church (not rules!). Love saves lives!  The only answer is love.

AND THESE THREE REMAIN:  FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE.  BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.

I Need What He has to Offer

I find myself lacking. I look at all I am and the complete of it is inadequate. I know all too well my faults and my failures. 

Who is this man that knows my name?  He calls me beloved.  It can not be, he is the King!  

But I mess up all too much. My mistakes are a burden, drowning me in guilt. He takes my hand and leads me to the cross.  “Do you want to be free?”

I clutch my chains and hold them tight, I cling to my guilt, my shame, and my pain. It is my pride. 

I am nothing. He is everything. He chose me. Now I must choose, freedom from my chains or the pain of my pride. 

Do I Believe?

Believe what you want to believe and I will believe what I want to. 

Find what is truth for you. 

Do I believe?  What do I believe? IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER!  In a culture that is so wrapped up in being PC and where the absolute worst offense imaginable is hurting someone’s feelings, we let children go without parents because we celebrate happiness more than responsibility, we let our educational system fall apart while costing more money than ever, and we let the whole church be damned. Literally damned. A whole bunch of the Western church is headed straight to Hell. But don’t worry, they will be comfortable on the way!

This life is not easy!  It is not meant to be!  We are supposed to search for Truth, not give way to the easy what we wish to believe, and we are supposed to value hard work!  We are made to do what is right, not what we want to do. 

Instead of teaching our children that their happiness is our priority, let’s teach them doing what is right is the most important thing. Instead of telling our neighbors and friends to find their own truth, let’s tell them there is Truth and there is wrong. And let’s learn to say, “I don’t really care if that hurts your feelings, I want to do what is right.”

Now, there is a whole riot occurring. If you are still reading this, half of you hate me by now. I AM NOT ADVOCATING A BUNCH OF JUDGMENTAL PHARISEES STRUTTING AROUND TELLING THE WORLD WHAT THEY ARE DOING WRONG!  I condemn that, and so did Jesus. Remember, I believe those people make up a good group of those dancing their way to Hell. 

It does not matter what the judgemental snobs believe, it does not matter what the free thinkers believe, it does not matter what I believe!  Truth is the only relevance. The only way to heal our land and our very souls is if we search for Truth, prioritized over the search for temporary happiness. 

My Cancer Survival Kit

Jesus. When I open my survival kit, there is one item:  Jesus. He completely fills and overflows my medical emergency survival kit. 

I was a teenage college student when I first began this book, literally when I began writing this book.  But its contents were real, they were raw, and it was relevant. It was relevant to a world that hurt and that needed my story. 

As a typical young college student, I was battling the discovery of who I was, who I wanted to be, and what was safe to share. Cancer. It was my little secret to keep hidden at all costs. Who could possibly understand that?  I sure didn’t!  

My release was found in writing. The story of a struggling young girl was scribbled through the pages of my Cancer journal. I, appropriately, titled it My Survival Kit. 

I shared my fears of others discovering my disease, my love of Jesus for bringing me to college, my uncertainty of the future, even my ignorance of what lived inside my body. 

Those pages were destroyed, burned for fear of being discovered. Dashed upon the rocks by an ignorant professor. I revealed to him my little secret that I was writing a book. That was all I had told him, it was the first time I had trusted anyone with that tiniest bit of information. 

His smirking ignorant comment sent my writing up in flames, “Write about something people will want to read. You can not write about yourself.”

I am a nineteen year survivor of a rare form of MEN2A Cancer. I am a rare condition within a rare condition. The specialists at Duke University Hospital study my case and the interns rub their hands together and giggle in excitement when they meet their living textbook, sitting in the doctor’s office with my family by my side. 

It took years and years and more years for me to begin to grasp that my weakness made me strong. Just now can I thank God that I am able to comfort someone terrified of their medical future because, I too, have been told those dreaded words:  Cancer. 

Only now, can I see that CANCER IS IRRELEVANT!  I am Caroline. I am a wife. A mom. A child of the King.

Wait. It is not just a comfort for the sick. It is a truth for the husband that walked out on his family, the highschool girl that longs for attention, the orphan baby with no mommy to make her dinner and no daddy to protect her, a real comfort to those that have screwed up big time and need the ultimate forgiveness, love for the unlovable, healing for the sick, LIFE FOR THE DEAD, we are loved by the King of all Kings. What else matters?!

Jesus knows my body inside and out. He knows my body needs extra salt and that I need to drink more water. He knows I love reading CS Lewis while drinking black coffee, that I love hitting the town and drinking a draft beer with my dreamy husband, it is no surprise to Jesus that I dream of a swimming pool in my backyard. He wants me to have all that!  BUT HE WANTS MORE!

More than being comfortable and enjoying a book, he wants me to serve. More than being healthy, he wants me to depend fully in him. More than a pool in my backyard, he wants me patient. And more than this life, he wants me for eternity. 

ETERNITY!  Cancer is irrelevant. 

Invitation to START OVER

Ever wish you had been born into a family of privilidge?  Wish you had more connections?  Is there a huge mistake you wish you hadn’t made?  The kind no one else can understand.  Do you regret your career choice?  Or the very personality that you live with every single day?

Only here. This is the only place you are offered a second chance. An offer to be born again. To chose a father that is a king, that decorates his streets with gold. He has the connections to chose the weather, to set the stars in motion, and to do….ANYTHING!  He knows everything you wish you knew, gives the best advice to be offered, has all the answers, offers protection and peace beyond comprehension. 

Do you feel too weak for change?  He is all powerful.  Are you much too poor?  Oh, he has that covered. Scared?  Yeah. It is scary. It is a give all, hold nothing back kind of choice. 

But give it. Surrender. Start over. Raise your white flag. Be born again. And receive it all. 

Get Impatient

We, as christians, as humans, should be extremely irritated with this world!  Even things that are not sin, are messed up. It has all been impacted by the curse. 

I can not stroke a lion’s man because that got messed up for me. My apple tree has no apples and has some fungal speckles all over the leaves. Picnics can get all together ruined by mosquitoes. 

And then it gets even more personal than my backyard. Cancer. No one sinned that I should have Cancer, but I live in a fallen world. A world that is not how it should be. And sometimes it is just quite irritating. And irritated, impatient, upset, even angry is as I should be. 

I used to struggle with the story about Jesus cursing the fig tree. Why couldn’t he be more patient?  Hmmm…let’s just skip over that story. 

And then I realize, Jesus never sinned. He always did what he was supposed to do. And we are supposed to be like him. He was supposed to be irritated. That fig tree was not as it should be. He made fig trees with figs and sin messed that up. 

Sin should make us impatient for heaven. We should hunger and thirst and be able to concentrate on nothing apart from Jesus. We should be angry at the bitter cold, we should cry out at the sight of death, we should hurl curses at the devil when we see his work on this earth. Because this is not the way it is supposed to be. 

And one day it won’t be. And there will be no more anger. And no more need to be patient because fig trees will have figs in heaven. 

The Worst Sin Ever Invented

We are saved by faith alone, it is none of me and all of him, so that no man can boast. But faith without works is dead. 

An obese man has a heart attack. He passes out and lays on the pavement unconscience. Quickly, he is rushed away by the ambulance. The paramedics revive him, return him to stability, and save his life. It was them that saved his life and not himself. All them. None of him. But if he thanks them and stops at McDonalds on the way home, walks in the door and heats up a pizza, and downs a whole package of Oreos while waiting on the pizza, he is as good as dead. He can not thank them and expect to be saved over and over. He must change. Faith without works is dead. 

This is my imperfect analogy, but I believe it applies to so very many today in my culture. I live fat on the hog with 911 programmed into my phone, but Christ calls us to CHANGE!  We post our articles on Facebook slamming sinners that are different than us, gossip about our neighbors and even our friends to shine our halos, quote our “I would never”s, and live our self righteous lives turning people away from Jesus faster than we can argue our point. 

“It would be dangerous to think of oneself as a person of high ideals…it might lead you to become a prick and think you were rather a special person who deserved to be congratulated on his idealism.”  CS Lewis

And here is my point, the prostitute is not claiming how good she is and pointing out Bible verses to all the druggies around her. The alcoholic, the homosexual, the drug dealer is not judging and condemning. Are they sinning in their lifestyle?  Yes!  The Bible says so, not me. HOWEVER, they are not turning people away from Jesus!

And THAT is why Jesus condemned the Pharisees and hung out with the outcast sinners!  Now, wooa Caroline!  Should we all sin to point others to Jesus?  Nope!  As stated earlier, faith without works (change) is dead, “Go and sin no more.”  

But there is a HUGE difference here!  A matter of LIFE and DEATH!  We are NEVER COMMANDED TO BE SELF RIGHTEOUS!  We are never commanded to point others to ourselves and how good we are, we are to point others to JESUS!

I also was a sinner, Jesus saved me!  I also was lost, Jesus found me!  We are to forgive because we were forgiven more, we are to love because we were first loved, we are to SHINE THE LIGHT OF JESUS, NOT THE LIGHT OF SELF!  The difference is a matter of eternal life and death.