He Listens: My Journey in the Loving Arms of Jesus

Thanks for that information Curtis. If ever there was a true Christian it was my uncle. I am very lucky to have such a loving family. The brothers are very good to me also. You learn to help one another out and are there for them. Monday is family day and will be going over to Sues to celebrate with all the Cobb kids and family. What you give usually comes back. My Mother died suddenly and unexpectedly 2 months ago. She was old, but not really. A power outage led her to fall in the dark and break her hip.

Healing had begun, but after a few weeks infections and complications overpowered her and she died. I hurried to her bedside and arrived one hour before she died. I sang Abide With Me as she lay dying. At her funeral the congregation sang it full out. I have grown close to this word through my experience. I hope God will meet me where I am, in my sorrow.

I was blessed today when in an Ash Wednesday service in Manchester, Vermont, the priest commended this Lenten program. Sally your are indeed in my prayers. Loosing ones Mother at any age is difficult. I was 49 when my Mother joined my Father and other relatives in Heaven. Abide with me has always been a hymn that evoked peace within my spirit. I pray that God will continue to wrap you in His loving arms and that your joy is restored. Thanks so much for this Lenten offering and the opportunity for prayer and reflection on meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John.

The first time I can remember God showed his love for me was when I visited a friends church at around eight years old and heard Psalm 23 for the first time. When in my 20s and living as a single parent of two young children I met a number of Christian families with young children. I wanted to know this God they spoke about and eventually heard and received the gospel. And then conversely, where do you find in yourself any resistance.

I know God love me unconditionally. I was fortunate to have parents that extended that unconditional love to me, but as I did with them, I try to earn it, nonetheless. As I have moved through life and the bumps and mountains one often climbs in their journey, I am increasingly aware of this tendency, so that even in the midst of it, I can take a moment and feel Gods love and protection surrounding and assuring me!

If only I could live in that moment! I do find myself releasing the concern and entrusting the situation to God, only later to resume the worry and anger and numbing. Who am I that The Lord should love me? It is by faith and faith alone. I deserve death and death alone because without Jesus I am nothing. God is there for me at all times and I count on that. It is when I turn to face him that the relationship becomes real for me. I meet him especially as I correct lessons for students of the Bible who are imprisoned. Their struggles help me to engage in a deep contact with their life, my life and all our lives in God.

I have been on the edge of giving up. And wanting to leave this life. God shows up each time e to let me know? I always encourage someone else. My heart is broken. I lost my daughter to AID,s in He sent the Holy spirit to let me know, that a storm was coming. To prepare me for what was about to come. In April ,she lost her battle.

I was mad, Everything , that I was taught. I lost my desire.

by Ellen G. White

I looked at church a different way. Church people disappointed me. I still hurt today.. But, I feel, he still listen, but in his time. My marriage failed My prayer has always been? It just hurt so bad.. I know He is love, he is the true meaning g of this life. And this to will pass. You are His precious child and you are His Bride, never forget that.

I am praying for your heart to be comforted and for peace to surround you completely. This bible verse and video really resonates with me. I think that in my life, I have fallen into the danger of trying to please God through good deeds that I have not remembered his unconditional love for me. Thank you for reminding us of the nature of his love.

I for one built my house and it was filled with faith, hope and love heavenly treasures I did not provide. I was an outsider looking in; I was a receiver and not a giver; I never felt like I belonged; an unwelcome guest in my own house, I owned a house and not a home. Because of my selfishness I ran away from responsibilities and did not use the gifts that were given to me for the benefit of others. But God is truly a loving being because in spite of all of this I never felt unloved by Him.

This fueled extreme guilt and fear of God in me and I became very depressed. This sparked me to pray for forgiveness and made me ask God to accept my offer of a specific sacrifice in order for me to feel penitent for my sins. But let me warn you; be careful of what you ask for because you just might get it and I did. And now that I have successfully made the sacrifice and suffered the consequences I feel overcome with a feeling of great peace and joy.

I now feel comfortable in the house I built and can call it a home. This all came to fruition because of the love of God and that is the true meaning of the word abide for me. It is so hard to not run but to turn and stand and wait. Show up, and you will be met. I see myself in so many of the comments that you all are sharing. I can relate to the feeling of unworthiness. How can God love someone like ME? Society has been telling me for years that I am different, unclean, sick, weird………. I reached my low point around I remembered the one place that always seemed loving to me and that was my childhood church.

May I always be reminded of His presence during good times or bad.

God Loves You

I would say when i became a father watching my children grow, learn , explore , love there innocence. I only heard or saw my dad cry twice. Then when i was I was building a landing on my house listening too a Christian music station the same on my dad listened too when i lived home.

God reminds me of these moments often. When I had given up on myself and others and trashed my life, there was his love. His love was made manifest through my family, Church, new relationships, and professional help. In those times I implement a phrase I learned in 12 step groups keep faking it until you make it in others words I will continue acting as God loves me until I believe it. My love for God and my maternal grandmother began simultaneously because she lived in the same block as the church. The words I would use to describe our pastor from my baptism almost to confirmation would be that of Joy and Discipline.

He sang for the processional and filled the space of that church! I loved it and wanted to be a pastor because of him. At a later time, after my first communion, I felt an immense, profound peace that I will never forget. God became very real for me.

Navigation menu

It was rather like the Velveteen rabbit becoming a real rabbit after receiving the love of the boy. The discipline part of my first pastor was scary and it took me a long time to translate that into obedience—obedience to God which meant that prayer, communication with God, was very important for the rest of my life. I have learned over the years that I need to be patient and wait for God, that things take time. Sometimes life is like an old wrinkled shirt with holes in it, filled with troubles and frustration and at other times it is perfectly whole and grand, as if every tomorrow will be filled with joy.

God is preparing you for great things

In , I experienced some strange health problems. I finally found my way to a medical doctor who did some tests and blood work. I was required to wait an entire month for the results.

• Week 1 Day 1: God is Love.
• Tyrsas Choice (The Jada-Drau Book 2)!
• The Blind Mother and The Last Confession.
• ForNevermore: Book 1;

I was told that I could have any of a number of illnesses, some easily treated and some incurable. Needless to say, I was upset. I spent a lot of time praying. Over and over, I prayed this prayer. I was expecting to be given requirements maybe do some good deeds, get rid of some bad habits… One day while breathing my prayer, a thought came to me without any fanfare or drama. Just a simple thought: It seemed to me that I had been given a reply.

At the end of the month, I was given a diagnosis and have lived with a long-term illness for over 20 years. My experience has not been as bad as what some people with this illness experience. Comparatively speaking, it has been manageable with lots of ups and downs. I was provided medication that I have been able to afford and tolerate without horrible side effects at least so far. Do I really believe that God loves me? I certainly do not act like it.

I am so full of anxiety. I do not trust easily or even at all.

The Last Temptation of Christ (film) - Wikiquote

My experience in was unique. Usually, when I pray, the answers come through the people in my life sometimes family and friends and at other times strangers. Maybe this Lenten Season is an opportunity to reflect on that experience years ago when I believed that God had replied to my prayer. How I am, an independent survivor who wants desperately to commune and work more closely with God is probably my most inhibiting feature that puts space between us.

And my Gratitude is growing. Yet the resistance is still there and very real. I am so thankful for my God. And for this Lenten offering of prayer and reflection tools. My Nana represented unconditional love to me as a child. She was a woman of faith. In her final years her physical health declined and as she suffered. As I passed by her room, I would hear her pray for God to take her. Thankfully, when she died, a Christian friend was there for me, and mediated — intervened — interceded, and re-introduced me to God. The vision that I would be re-united with my Nana was almost too good to be true.

That friend has been my spiritual advisor for the past 40 years. I had to suffer mightily myself for a year and a half, until an experimental treatment was offered. During my own suffering, I learned that God does not promise to rescue us from the predicament we are in, but he does promise to be with us in the midst of it. On realizing that, I felt disappointed at first. But I prayed that his presence would be enough for me. I searched the Bible for what God did promise. He promises eternal life.

I prayed to fully comprehend what that is. God answered my prayers then, and is still speaking. I am ever-so-grateful for every trial he has allowed in my life. Every single one has drawn me closer to Him. My resistance comes from a critical spirit. I feel I am never good enough, never worthy enough, never loving enough, never doing enough for God.

I am always falling short. Yet the times I have served God most successfully, have been out of deep love and gratitude for Him, not guilt. I hope and pray this Lenten experience helps me get back into a right relationship with God, and quiets the inner voices telling me I am unworthy and inferior. I was intrigued by the word abide: In the home where God is, not only is my shelter, but a home for those whom I encounter, a place for others to visit or to abide.

• Los pechos privilegiados (Spanish Edition)!
• Models for Mental Disorder.
• No Brainer (Darcy Walker Mystery Book 2).

This is a thought I will carry through the day! What a blessed way to begin this series. Each has been a really important part of my life. I never truly grasped what it meant by unconditional love. The love that crucified all my sin that set me free, that changed my life forever. I never felt loved or safe as a child, and now, through adversity i have found faith in God, and felt loved for the first time. I will keep trying, as i want to repent, and would like to get baptised this year. I was raised as a Christian going to Sunday school taught Sunday school sang in the choir being a lay reader present went on a cursillo weekend being there and church gives me strength courage love is such a powerful gift.

That God loves, is love, is a fact. Recognizing that it is no more than a firm grasp of the obvious. The problem for me, for us, is not in knowing that to be the case but rather in remembering that fact, trusting in it, and allowing it to abide in and with us. It is His love that has blessed me with 89 years and with those who have touched my life. We must always remember that we are always in His holy presence and enjoy that gift. So the idea that He loves me unconditionally is a bit hard to get my head around.

I also feel a sense of being guided very gently when I ask. I read Scripture every day and have repented and asked forgiveness for my past sins. My mother remarried so he allowed my stepfather to adopt me and my sister. I never felt loved by my new adopted father. I felt shame like something was wrong with me. So, the thought of God loving me unconditionally is a foreign thought.

I just struggle with the feeling of being loved unconditionally. I hear Him speak to me in sermons; to help show me the way. I feel His compassion when my heart aches for my children. The times that I seem to lose sight of God is when I take a bigger look at the world and I get lost. I get lost when I hear of people killed on the streets.

As a young person I felt God in the natural world. Yes, God was there very intensely when I was struggling with a bad marriage and the emotions that come with divorce, but for me, abiding in God means basking in his love in all the joyful moments that I feel in my life, and being grateful for that love.

I will not be making responses to this program on a regular basis but I do want to say how grateful I am for it. There is always more but I want to spend the time with that more in quietness. I hope that is an acceptable way to participate in this program. Thank you, Curtis, for the reminder of the invitation to abide in Jesus love as he abides in us. So grateful for your ministry and that of your brothers. I first experienced unconditional love from my grandmother. So for me the concept of God is love is a wise family matriarch.

Many decades later as my beloved dog was dying and my daily routine focused on keeping her comfortable, it dawned on me that as I loved her unconditionally that was how God loved me. Alcoholic father and enabler mother meant I had to raise myself — but not really. My earliest memories are not of my parents, but rather of being in relationship with God. I would hide behind a living room chair and pray that someone else would become my mother.

I thought my experiences were normal. Looking back, I can see all kinds of ways God loved me and took care of me. He sent other adults into my life who were loving to me, thus balancing out what I did not get at home. And I went to a very nurturing Quaker school where I felt safe; it was a haven for me.

I never knew until I was in my fifties that I was abused and, for that matter, could not even remember my childhood, until incidents started coming back to mind. Those were my years of despair but also healing. My biggest point of resistance continues to be trying to control my life and not turning my problems over to God.

Surrender is difficult for me, and it seems I have to get to a point of desperation for it to happen. I feel so blessed. I met Jesus at an Ivy League School where my biological parents sent me to have a nervous breakdown. The school was in NY State where the drinking age was A Notre Dame drop out whose father was in the FBI turned me on to the New Testament and then just enough pot to start my gargantuan alcoholism. I wanted to abandon politics read the classics in translation and write fiction.

I wanted to follow the New Testament and let go of academic and political success. The establishment, the school and my biological parents wanted to punish me the rest of my life. Soon after 4 years of studio at Mass Art. I fell in love with a man whose response was to propose marriage and to ask for an AIDS test I tested negative. I cried away the rest of my time of fertility. He saw me briefly and asked me ti be a Christian again. I want to go to heaven to see him again. I was baptized in less than a year. The congregation including the priest loved me unconditionally just because I arrived looking for spirituality.

I was blessed with this love for 72 years until she died at age This love continues to sustain me, for love never dies. How can I not believe in the love God has for me when I know deep in my heart that my mom was the first grace in my life. My challenge is keep abiding in this love and not take my blessings for granted. He advised spiritual direction. From that moment, I began to know Jesus as a loving, compassionate, understanding, non-judgmental shepherd to whom I could speak the truth.

I begin by answering a question with a question: To stay, to live, to dwell, to be. But those are fleeting moments, just enough to know God is, just enough to hunger for more. How does one abide? I have been a member of the Episcopal Church throughout my life. The death of my sister when I was 6 years old and she was 8 as we were walking back to school having been home for lunch was a significant moment in my young life.

How can I know? God wants you to know, and believe, and feel, and see that He loves you. First let me say that love is an action, not just emotional feelings and God demonstrates His love in all ways. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created. God assures you in Psalm God is faithful through all generations. Upon receiving His gift of love, we can have unexplainable peace, joy, and confidence in the worst of situations. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. And that is what we are! This is how God showed his love among us: What can man do to me?

Each address to the remaining six churches includes similar promises. Each church is called on to repent, therefore receiving the eternal blessings of our Loving God.