Love and Care

 

Love and Care

For me, Mother’s Day is always a difficult subject to address. Not because I had a flawless childhood (or was flawless) but because I had a good mother. Having listened to many others’ experiences of a difficult childhood, neglect, and poor role-modeling, I know this can be a difficult and delicate topic for some whose mother was not pleasant. How I pray these mother wounds will meet care that heals.

All of us are born needing nurturant love and care - mothers and children alike. These needs go well beyond food, shelter, and clothing. They are provided for or withheld from us by friends, teachers, siblings, media, church, etc. Even the evil in this world tugs at our peace.  Putting all these influences together, healing is beyond ourselves and those we encounter in life.

So, moms and ‘good or bad’ homes cannot take all the blame or credit for our development and outcome as adults. Ultimately, we can choose to react to our past believing what we lived is who we are stuck with. Or we can choose change within by transformation through Jesus Christ and become more than we hoped (Roman 12:2).

Followers of Jesus Christ find perfect love and care in a live relationship with the True God. In Matthew 6:30 Jesus challenges us to have faith in God’s care when he says:

“And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?”

Perhaps your answer has been because it is hard to believe anyone could love you fully?

Then in Philippians 4:19, we are reminded of His care when Paul wrote:

“And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”

Hope is stirred by believing in the Lord, Jesus Christ and promises are extended to followers of Christ. Every need (not every want) He will supply by His miraculous power. When we choose to believe God according to I John 4:16: “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love'. This is an all-consuming love and care
that has no limits. Letting go of the past pain and embracing the newfound lover of the soul is so healing. This is where mother wounds are healed!

Philippians 3:13-14 (MSG) “Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.”

The only perfect caretaker is found in Christ. His resume:  

Compassionate, Advocates, Excellency referrals, Understands needs even before being told, Effective communicator through the Word of God and provides an interpreter who is the Holy Spirit, Fulfills His promises and meets all needs.

by Joy Pedersen

BOOK RELEASE: Loving With All Our Soul

 

Joy Pedersen's newest book release is available now! 
Loving With All Our Soul

Loving With All Our Soul

What is the soul, and what does it involve? Understanding how the soul fits into our spiritual makeup is important so we can love God with all of it. Enticements and choices made are often confusing and detrimental to maturity. It is important to look at the soul infected, influenced, inspired, and infiltrated. Are you hoping to increase your relationship with God and others? Committed time of introspection through these pages will help you examine your love life, wean out the things that hold you back, and lean into the One who loves you most.

Order through https://clearhope.org/

Brief Biography: Joy Pedersen founded Clear Hope Association in 2004 to equip and build the family of God. She has served over 25 years in ministry using the Word of God to teach, write, and counsel. As a dedicated and effective communicator, she walks alongside others encouraging a deeper, more personal, and effective relationship with Jesus Christ.

PEACE

PEACE

Philippians 4:8-9(ESV) “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Something that we each want and search for is peace. To get it, there is a price to pay. When there is war, the sacrifice of lives is devastating. The world tries to attain it through negotiations and compromise. But the personal war we are faced with through illnesses, divorce, abuse, aging, and oppression will rob us of peace if we don’t also manage our thinking and focus. In this case the cost is dying to self and absorbing the peace that only God can give. So, how do we gain peace? We learn from God’s Word, and fix our mind and heart on Jesus Christ.

Personally, Philippians has been a great teacher on the subject. Coming to the One (God) who knows and cares about our troubles is the only way I have found peace. Yes, it is necessary to face the valleys in life honestly with truth and reckon with our limitations. It is necessary to process the physical and emotional issues that seem debilitating at times. Having experienced an unwanted divorce and illnesses creating limitations, sacrificing self-pity and grumbling is my sacrifice to obtain peace. I have found it is impossible to experience peace unless I can refocus on those things that are honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, or excellent. For me, these are found enjoying a simple meal, writing, examining scripture, reading, playing a game, and especially being with loving people. Learning to be content wherever I find myself is the most peaceful place. Accepting the way things are, and allowing God to give me the  strength to handle my weaknesses brings internal peace even if external things don’t change.

Contentment and peace walk hand in hand. Reframing our thinking and rejoicing over the things that are true (His truth), honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praise worthy is the key. Practice turning the darkness off and the light of truth on – it has made all the difference for me – and it can for you as well. 

by Joy Pedersen

2022 – A Message From Joy

Entering 2021 our thoughts were filled with hope of returning to ‘normal’. There were visions of no more masks, vaccines that would fully remove concern over Covid, work back in full swing, and economics regained. However, at the end of 2021 we are less hopeful and inundated with government rules and limitations not imagined.

So, what now? The reality is that the only true hope we have rests in Jesus Christ (whom we just celebrated at Christmas). If we have been hoping our government would rescue us from the pandemic and give us confidence in our future, we realize it has not authored hope, but more likely frustration.

Proverbs 4:25 gives us wise instruction for times just like these: “Set your gaze on the path before you. With fixed purpose, looking straight ahead, ignore life’s distractions.(TPT)

Certainly, Covid has been a distraction stirring up fear, worry, isolation, loss of finances, distrust, disconnection from others, and so much more. Warring against these things with churches moving to you-tube and other media has caused much spiritual and emotional pain. So what is next? What were the instructions to early Christians that can help us?

Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us to look back at previous followers of the Faith and follow their example. “So, we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us.  We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this: Because his heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!” (TPT)

I pray that your 2022 will be blessed and that you run the race showering the love of God on those who are without hope. Look ahead with fixed purpose, igniting in others the hope you have found in Jesus. 

 

CHRISTMAS 2021

It was the week before Christmas!

All through the country, we people hurried, worried, and traveled preparing for the big celebration! Christmas! 

And what are we celebrating?  Is it Joy to the World the Lord has Come?  Is it Dreaming of a White Christmas? Is it a Blue Christmas? Is it Peace on Earth Good Will to Men?  Is it Santa Claus is Coming to Town? 

While making a mad rush to settle down for a long winter’s nap, take some time to rejoice and delight in the real reason Christmas became a season of celebrations.  “God sent His Son.”  

It is Jesus’ birthday that gives permission for us to even say Merry Christmas or have a blessed Christmas.  We sing carols, give gifts, join in parties, light lights, and perhaps attend candlelight services. There is an admission in all this activity that Jesus was born! His purpose is powerful, coming to earth out of a heart of love, with a deep desire to bring life to our dead spirits. The true celebration is accepting Jesus as personal Savior.  He was sent that the world might be saved. In life Christ lived fully, served humbly, died guiltlessly, rose from the dead miraculously, and returned to Heaven.  His completed life provides a life of eternity for all who truly believe and accept Him. 

Are you prepared to sing “Joy to the World the Lord is Come”?

 Take some time to quietly reflect and meditate on the Reason, the Hope, and the Christ who came to bring life as you celebrate Jesus. And have a Merry Christmas.

-  Joy Pedersen

 

Praise For His Plans

“Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.“ Luke 1:46-47,49

As the young virgin processed the miraculous plan God had for her life, as revealed to her by the angel Gabriel, scripture tells us she praised the Lord.

Praised Him in spite of her not knowing how it would happen.  In spite of how it would look to others. In spite of how her life would be irrevocably changed.

 

When the Lord reveals His plan for our own lives, let’s be sure to follow Mary’s example. Let’s put aside our doubts and fear, and respond with worship and praise!

- Janece Herrington