The enemy knows our weaknesses

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve put my thoughts on paper. A lot has happened, it’s been hard. But God is faithful. On Friday, Feb.12 my grandpa passed away. When I first received the news I couldn’t believe it. I was at work when my mom called & told me. I couldn’t even cry, I was in shock & couldn’t accept it. I immediately texted my friends to get them to pray & started praying myself but hardly could. Not only was I in shock with what had happened, but also with myself. I realized I had missed my chance. I hadn’t told him how much Jesus loves him, how Jesus died to save him & give him life. I’m weeping now with much grief in my heart remembering that he is gone & that I can’t tell him, I can’t tell him how God loves him, & how much I love him. I may not ever know until I get to heaven if I’ll see him again. I’ve forgiven myself & I know it’s not my fault if he didn’t accept Jesus, but oh how my heart breaks over not knowing & never having been able to share the fellowship of the love of Christ with him. My sister & I left Friday afternoon to drive down to Florida & the whole week I was there I had to see my grandma looking sickly, sad, and weak, like the life had been sucked out of her. She is no longer the Nana I once knew, & it hurts so bad knowing I’m losing her too. I’m more assured that she believes in Jesus b/c I’ve talked to her about it but I ‘ve never heard her or seen her express her faith in a way that shows she has really experienced the love of God. And I don’t know what else to say to her, I don’t know if she can even process any longer most of what I say. I shared with my sister about Jesus the whole way in the car ride down, but she still has not come to a knowledge of the truth & salvation. The last night there my mom got upset with me for packing a prepared salad to take with me as a snack during Makenzie’s (my cousin) softball game since we weren’t going to have dinner until afterwards. She started bringing up all the things that I do that are selfish & how I act like its all about me & how I’m a hypocrite. She started bringing all these accusations against me again, tearing me down. I was offended & hurt not recognizing that she was rebuking me out of a wrong spirit, not by the Holy Spirit. My sister agreed with her & she said the whole family notices it & thinks that about me. I felt so helpless, unable to defend myself. I became angry & didn’t want to talk to anyone, b/c I couldn’t believe that was the way they saw me. After all I want to do is love them & be a witness to them, I felt despaired, like a complete failure, & that all my prayers & efforts, that it was all a waste, that it meant nothing if this is the way they see me. This was from the enemy b/c it did not bring conviction, which shows us our errors but gives us hope for change. My mom always brings up my past, which the enemy loves to continually throw back in our face to cause us negative feelings of shame, condemnation, despair, anger, hurt, etc. Love does not keep a record of wrongs. My mom uses this record to say that I’ve always been a certain way & make the same mistakes, which attacks me with the lie that I am failure & that I’m not enough, & never will be. This lie depresses the soul. That night, I felt awful & repented for the foolish way I acted in response to this confrontation by being offended, angry, sad & trying to ignore my mom & sister. I cried out to the Lord, expressing these feelings of hurt & hopelessness. I felt so misread, so overlooked, I just couldn’t get over what my mom had said, & had received that bad seed she spoke over me, which was then causing me to feel that way towards God & think that He thought that way about me too. If I was willing to give up everything & sacrifice & suffer for the hope of bringing salvation to the lost, to do whatever God tells me, go wherever he wants me to go, if this is truly my heart, then why are they seeing the opposite? My mom says, how are you ever going to live overseas & in bad conditions when you’re so particular about everything, your sleeping conditions, your diet, the bugs, etc. And I’m thinking, don’t you get it? That’s the whole point!! I want to get rid of these fears and problems by facing them, & I want to serve the Lord with my life & rid it of all selfish desires. But she makes me feel desperate, discouraged & frustrated, b/c I haven’t got there yet. But instead of offering me hope for getting there & knowing that God is able to bring all these changes to my life, she makes me feel like it all depends on me. And if it counts on me, I am sure to fail, over & over again. I am unable to change many of those things, like my allergy to gluten, sensitivity to noise with sleep, they are outside my control & influence. I believe the Lord gave me a dream that night to encourage me & show me that He sees what’s deep in my heart. I didn’t even have a conversation with my brother while we were down there. But the only interaction I remembered was him rudely yelling at me to turn off the worship music that I was playing on the computer in the Café Area as we were all about to eat dinner. In the dream, I remember that my brother had been treating me unkindly & putting me down, but my response was just to ignore it & continue to show him love. We were in the back seat of the car going somewhere with my family when he began to apologize for the way he had been treating me & the hate & anger he had shown towards me & began to express how much he loved me. He had realized how I truly loved him & love had broken through whatever bitterness was in his heart towards me. I saw in that moment that love had won & his heart had been softened & changed. With a glad heart to hear his words, I said to him, “Lance, I love you.” He hugged me & kept telling me how he loved me. It was so deep, so strong the emotion I felt and what he expressed in the dream. When we got out of the car & as were walking down the road, I remember I looked at my sister & we were glad together to finally have our brother understand. So it seemed in the dream my sister had already come to know the Lord, or at least maybe more about him. It seemed like we were in agreement in the dream, so something had changed between us. And I felt in the dream the way I long to feel as I pray for them, to have that fellowship of the love of Christ between us.