Does Anyone See My Grief and Pain?

Does Anyone See My Grief and Pain?

Dear one, it may seem like you are solitary in your grief and pain, but I can assure you that you are seen, and there is someone who has already felt your sorrow and carried the weight you bear.

Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed! We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us! Isaiah 53:4-6 (TLB)

That loss that led you to unimaginable grief – God sees and whispers, “I welcome you to come close. Let me comfort you. My son, Jesus, came and gave his life so you no longer have to grieve alone without hope.”

Those words that cut you to the core and left shame in their wake – Jesus heard them and defies them with, “I made you; you are mine. Come to me in your weariness and brokenness and I will give you rest. Let me reveal to you the love through which I view you, and you will discover the masterpiece I formed in your mother’s womb. You are not forgotten or garbage to me. Let me show you who you are through my eyes, for you are my beloved.”

The cutting that no longer dulls the pain as it once did but only deepens the scars that mark both your body and soul – Jesus cries out to you, “I let them whip and cut me so you no longer need to cut yourself. Let me bear your unbearable pain. Let me enter your darkest places with you and reveal my heart for you within that place, and show you my power to restore light and hope, for you are mine.”

The shame and guilt that becomes weightier the longer you hide what you’ve done, or what another has done against you. Jesus lived, died, and arose to restore the life and hope shame and guilt have stolen from you. You have born the pain far too long. Jesus paid the penalty for that which you have no ability to cleanse yourself from. He knows. He cares. He loves you more lavishly than you could ever imagine. He alone has the power to remove the stain of your sin and the sins others stained you with. He can cleanse you and make you whiter than snow.

Jesus meets me daily in my grief and pain

Over sixteen years ago I buried my husband of twenty-five years after two years battling lung cancer. He suffocated to death, basically. Pain still pulsates through me when I think about it. Six months before his death I began having panic attacks. What they were I didn’t know, but they were horrific. It took years to become free from them.

Since his death, my life is completely different, and nothing I ever would have imagined.

Before his illness and death, Norman and I were raising our special needs son with non-verbal autism and mood disorder. We adopted Rick* at five, and he really never accepted me as his third mom. He’d been around this adoption thing before and so figured at some point his life would eventually turn upside down again. Norman was the steady one, and accepting him seemed to come more naturally for Rick. Rick often enjoyed playing control games with me more than Norman, so Norman’s illness and death only led to escalations that I could no longer easily control. After Norman’s death, I couldn’t care for Rick alone as it wasn’t safe for either of us. In my wildest dreams I never imagined having to remove Rick from our home. Despite the challenges, he was our son and we loved him dearly. The process was horrific and the trauma to both of us was tremendous.

After sixteen years, Rick still lives in a group home. Our relationship is better than it has ever been as we’ve both healed and grown a lot through those years. However, the pain and grief still linger in spaces I can’t fix. We’ve grown but both walk with a limp.

I remarried twelve years ago to a wonderful man who also lost his wife after six years of severe, in-and-out of the hospital illnesses. Gary’s two boys were also adopted from traumatic circumstances. His youngest was only six when his adoptive mom became ill and almost died the first time. She died three days before his twelfth birthday. I became third mom once again. Rejection became “normal” because who in their right mind would readily accept a third mom they didn’t want in the first place. Gary’s boys are now grown and on their own and we have a much better relationship, but they too still show signs of the pain and loss. We all do. It has taken years for each of us to find a new normal, and some of us are able to do that more easily than others. Our sons find it the hardest as their lives have been in hard places too many times with too many broken relationships to fully trust again.

Gary and I have been in ministry for the last three of our twelve years together. He pastors a small multicultural  congregation of Jesus followers in the southwest. It’s a life I never dreamed of, but it’s exactly where I want to be. It’s very difficult at times as the cultural differences are still something we always must work through. We still have so much to learn. But what we’ve been through has been used by God more times than I can imagine to pour out his love on people who have experienced, sometimes, more brokenness than we have. I guess what I’ve learned as I’ve walked through all this is that Jesus understands and calls me to his embrace over and over. It’s hard to explain what his embrace and presence feel like, but it’s like smelling peonies and hearing lullabies, and walking into the homiest house I can imagine full of all things warm and welcoming. During the hardest and not so hard, I have also been amazed at how he can pull off a miracle in my life, circumstance, or in another life when I just let go and let him do his thing in and through me.

What is your story?

On what type of journeys have grief and pain taken you? I have so much to learn, and am very willing to learn from my readers. If you would like to begin a dialogue, so we can learn from one another, please leave a comment and tell me a bit of your story. Also, please subscribe to get these posts when they come out. Since I last wrote, I continue to change how I view this blog, and want you, my reader, to play a part in what happens here.

Please, may I pray for you before we say “goodbye” for today? Lord, this precious one who has read this far, meet them in their need. May they be willing to take the chance that if they cry out to you for help, and are willing to yield to your gentle care, you will answer. You’ve answered me a million times in ways I could never deny either your existence or your compassion. Reveal yourself to them in this moment. Please. In Jesus’ name, amen.

This song shares Jesus’ heart for you better than I can

The writer and singer has his own story of grief and pain. Look it up. It may encourage you as well as it has me.

 

Should you wish to read a bit more about my grief journey

A Church Girl’s Desire to Relate to Doubters, Skeptics, and Atheists, found only on Soul Cries

Jesus cares about your pain and has the power to do something about it

See my servant, whom I uphold; my Chosen One in whom I delight. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will reveal justice to the nations of the world. He will be gentle—he will not shout nor quarrel in the streets. He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame. He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged. He won’t be satisfied until truth and righteousness prevail throughout the earth, nor until even distant lands beyond the seas have put their trust in him. Isaiah 42:1-4

 

A Church Girl’s Desire to Relate with Doubters, Skeptics, and Atheists

A Church Girl’s Desire to Relate with Doubters, Skeptics, and Atheists

I’ve been reading a book entitled, “The Doubter’s Club” by Preston Ulmer, and it has made me do a lot of thinking about how I relate to doubters, atheists, and the deeply wounded. I realize that many of those wounds come from the church, making faith-based dialogue something you don’t want to get into. Yet, this book has given me hope that respectful, honest dialogue is possible and even beneficial even when parties disagree. This is an area where I greatly desire to grow and make an impact both in the church and community.

I HAVE A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT HOW TO RELATE WITH THE DEEPLY WOUNDED

My now deceased husband and I adopted our son with autism at five years old. Because of his trauma he has always struggled with his faith. I understand now, but when he was a child I was often clueless about how to relate with him in his pain. One particular conversation is seared into my memory. I read the Bible to him daily, and on one particular day read Psalm 139 and told him, teary-eyed with joy, that God fashioned and knew him intimately. I assumed he would be as comforted as I to hear he wasn’t “a mistake”. However, the revelation that God made him with autism on purpose only made him angry and began his descent from singing “Jesus loves me” to “O how I hate Jesus” much to my grief and dismay.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

I THOUGHT I’D COME A LONG WAY, BUT…

I had a conversation on IG over a year ago with an atheist. I was as nervous as all get out because I didn’t want to do something dumb. I was proud of the fact God would entrust me with such an “assignment”. (I told you I have a long way to go.) Our discourse over a few weeks was polite and respectful on both ends. Much to my shame, when he eventually asked, “Is your god powerful?” I assumed he figured I’d never seen God’s power. Delighted to be able to proclaim God’s power, I replied, “Yes, I have found him to be so.” I never heard from him again and took his lack of response to mean, “I didn’t expect that answer, and am dumbfounded.”

However, months later (sometimes I can be dense) I remembered that some of his posts recounted (if I remember correctly) he had been molested during childhood by a trusted church member. Had I been less quick to answer and more desirous to show compassion, I would have realized where he was coming from. “If your god is so powerful, why didn’t he stop this person who called themselves a Christian from doing what they did to me?” In my zeal to proclaim Jesus to an atheist, hoping to wow him with my answers, I failed to see his pain. Even today, my lack of compassion brings me deep sadness.

I don’t believe I won any brownie points. I now realize that my selfish, arrogant motives grieved God because I failed to recognize this man and share in his pain. I failed to respond as Jesus would have, in anger and grief that someone whom he and his family trusted destroyed him in Christ’s name.

I should have grieved with this man. Yet I left him reassured that Christians are jerks and God hates him.

HOW I WISH I HAD RELATED TO THE ATHEIST

So today if I were to have another opportunity to relate with this man, I would do things differently. I would grieve with him for all that was destroyed in those hideous, reckless, thoughtless, selfish acts. I would hope to be quicker toward compassion and slower to answer with statements that would only increase the pain. I would try to see him rather than “an assignment”, Were he reading, I would say, “I’m so sorry for how I treated you. It was shameful and so wrong. Please forgive me.

Were we sitting over coffee, I would weep and rage with him over what happened and grieve how poorly I treated him.

HOW MY SON AND I RELATE NOW

My son is now thirty. He has found some comfort in walking with Christ. Yet, he still understandably struggles with his faith.

He and I continue to have faith discussions, and I now recognize he’s been through so much more than I could ever imagine. He’s a strong young man, and although we continue at times to struggle in our relationship, I’ve learned so much from him. I’ve changed so much because he is in my life, and I’m grateful.

MY DESIRE IS TO RELATE WITH YOU

if you’ve read any posts on this website, you will realize I have a long way to go in relating well to doubters, skeptics, atheists, and those deeply wounded. I’ve written to the Christian audience for a very long time, yet because of my own deeply wounded family members, and needing to work through my own pain, I really want to learn. Reading “The Doubter’s Club” has helped. It’s a start.

My husband and I also made a total life change this past year, and it has offered me the opportunity to relate with many others who are very unlike me. It’s changing my life.

My hope is to have meaningful faith discussions with you, yet I I’m not looking for notches in my Christian belt. I want to build relationships that discuss faith-based topics without discarding people when they disagree. Jesus came for the broken, and unfortunately we in the church have often failed to live that well in the world. I’m sorry. I want to change that.

IN ORDER TO BETTER RELATE

Would you be willing to critique this and any other post you wish? Not to bash me to pieces, please, but to begin dialogue that matters.

What do you think?

Robin

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. Colossians 3:12-14 (MSG)

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Colossians 3:12-14 (MSG)

What Do You Mean, ‘God Loves You?’

What Do You Mean, ‘God Loves You?’

Blog post from the podcast transcript of episode 002

During the first episode of the podcast, I often referred to God’s love for you as one of our core beliefs. Yet it dawned on me that many of you may struggle with the idea that God loves you, much less wants a relationship with you. The pain of life and the traumas of existence have left you feeling both unloved and unheard.

WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GOD’S LOVE

When looking at God’s love, surprisingly we can go back to the very first pages of the Old Testament where we are given a glimpse of God’s thoughts and longings as he designed the first man and woman.

I understand some of you may hold to beliefs other than a literal creation. I respect you in your opinion, but please follow me a few moments as though listening to a story. I’m going somewhere you may not expect.

Yahweh-The-Lord-The-God-of-compassion-and-mercy-I-am-slow-to-anger-and-filled-with-unfailing-love-and-faithfulness.-Exodus-34_6-NLT.jpg

God’s love was portrayed in his choices toward humanity

Nothing was left out as God carefully took earth and sculpted the man’s body from the pattern of his own being, both in image and likeness. As he finished, he placed his mouth over man’s lifeless lips and exhaled God-life into his lungs, and man became a living soul. Later, so the man would have someone like himself, God formed the woman from Adam’s side, for his delight, their mutual enjoyment, and for procreating and ruling his new earth. God stepped back and for a moment viewed his new designs as though looking at a finished masterpiece. The Bible states that “God saw all that he had made and it was very good.”

Questions to ponder as you consider this scene from Genesis one and two:

  1. Are you an artist or designer? Maybe a baker or possibly a writer? Maybe a new mom or dad? If so, what did it feel like when that which was only in your imagination became real?
  2. Relate this to how God must have felt in that moment and those first days of Adam and Eve’s lives. Could there be similarities?
  3. How could the choices God made as he fashioned the man and woman show his love for them?

However, the Bible states that he only spoke the rest of creation into being, period. Only the man and woman were created in his image, and only they received God’s breathe of life making them living souls.

Further questions to ponder:

  1. Even if you believe otherwise if you were God why would you go to all the effort to make something so like you and so different from everything else you had made?
  2. Could it be that all humanity was made with a special place in God’s heart? Could it be that they were made for a different purpose and plan from the rest of creation?
  3. Could it be that God created humanity, including you, in a way to be able to relate and enjoy a relationship filled with his love?

God’s love chose to allow us to choose

With Adam and Eve in mind, God’s love created a garden, unlike anything we’ve ever seen, and placed them in it. He filled it with only good things.

For their protection, he gave them one rule and warning not to eat from the tree called “The Knowledge of Good and Evil.” My paraphrase: I’ve given you every good tree to eat and enjoy, and every flowering plant. But that tree – it’s bad and eating its fruit will kill you.

I imagine some of you are now asking, “If that tree was so bad, why would a loving God include it in his garden? Great question!

It would have been easier and less painful for God had he just programmed humanity like robots to return his love train them to obey his one command. God had every opportunity to do so.

Questions to consider:

  1. In wanting a healthy loving relationship, can you deny the other party the ability to choose or reject you? What is it called when relationships are forced?
  2. Could it be that God’s love provided the forbidden tree to offer the man and woman the freedom of choice?
  3. Could it be that God did so not to force them to love and obey him as God but to offer the man and woman (and therefore all of us) a chosen relationship with him?
  4. However, what is the possible result when offering someone the ability to choose? Have you ever been in the position of being the one rejected? Can you use this experience to relate to how God must have felt as he placed that tree in the garden, knowing what they would choose?

Their choice

Within a short time, the man and woman were shown the beauty and desirability of the forbidden tree by a talking snake and chose to eat from it because they came to believe that a proper choice required them to know all the options. They were told and chose to believe the tree they’d been forbidden to eat from offered things their good God had forgotten to provide.

Before they ate the fruit from this tree, all they’d experienced was God’s goodness. Yet as soon as they ate the forbidden fruit, their newfound knowledge of evil caused them to immediately begin to experience evil and everything that comes with it. Death. Destruction. Pain. Heartache. Brokenness.

Love covers a multitude of sins

Love means even God feels the pain of our choices

The tree was no threat to anyone if left alone. The talking snake was inconsequential as long as it was ignored and they followed God’s loving warning. However, as soon as they disregarded God’s warning and chose their own way, defiance against God caused evil to enter the world, and marred all of God’s creation through its natural consequences. Evil entered humanity’s core and destroyed their desire for God. Like an addict looking for a fix, feeding their passions became their goal as they died inside to all that was holy and good.

We make the same choices daily to disregard God’s warnings and do as we please, with the same effects.

Going our own way as Adam and Eve once did leads us down a road away from knowing, seeing, and being loved by the God who made us. And since all goodness still comes from God, the only way to experience goodness void of the effects of evil is to return to him. For apart from God there is no good thing.

Questions to ponder:

  1. How would you feel if you designed and created a magnificent piece of art, or built a building beyond anything made before, and someone came along and marred it beyond recognition? What would you want to do to them?
  2. Can you use your feelings to relate to how God had every right to feel when Adam and Eve’s choice brought pain and suffering into his pristine, spotless, pain and shame-free world?

Some of you may be asking, “Is that why God gave up on us?” No, friend. God never gave up.

God’s love chose to forgive and restore their relationship

Moments after their devastating choice, God stepped in and decreed that one day a champion would come and set all things right. And no matter how the world or God’s people treated him, throughout the rest of the Old Testament God continued to proclaim the champion was still coming to bring forgiveness and restoration of relationship with God.

And in the proper time, Jesus, God’s son, someone born like us but without rebellion came to fight on our behalf. He came to bring life and light into a very dark world. He lived as God’s representative full of love and faithfulness. He dwelled among his people as God had always wanted. He then gave his life for all who knew they needed rescuing so that we can experience what it’s like to be known, seen, and loved by the God who made us for this very purpose.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NLT)

God’s love longs for you to choose him by reaching out for his Son Jesus. He still offers each of us the choice to choose or reject him with all its consequences. Love must give us a choice.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted,

The Soul Cries Core Values

Love, Commitment, and Relationship bringing Hope. God loves you unconditionally and longs for you to experience the beauty of a committed relationship with him through his Son Jesus. The totality of his Word and the life of his Son is the fullest expression of his passionate love for you.

But he waits until you desire the same with him. Healthy, loving relationships always set boundaries. No one wants to share their intimacy with a third party, and so God won’t be used or taken for granted. Nor will he share you with the evil and rebellion that mar his world daily through our rebellious choices against him.

However, if you at some point wish to begin a loving relationship with God, your commitment to seek him above all else will unleash powerful lavish gifts for you to experience with him. And some of his greatest gifts will be to empower, strengthen, and give you hope as he walks with you through this world’s pain.

May I please pray for you?

Dear Lord, I come to you on behalf of this dear one. You see their pain and you care about every tear they’ve cried silently in the darkness of their own space. You see their hopelessness and longing to be embraced right where they are. I ask in Jesus’ name that you meet them where they stand, with whatever questions they have, and let them know that you are real and that you love them beyond compare. Please powerfully express your love to them right now in a way they will comprehend. Thank you, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Your next steps

Ready to take steps toward experiencing God’s love in a relationship with him?

Are you willing to look further into the matter? If so, then a simple conversation with God may go something like this, “God, if you’re real, give me a reason to live and I’ll serve you.” Many years ago my husband prayed such a prayer as he contemplated suicide. He later stated that instantly he was filled with peace and knew God was real and had heard his cry. It radically changed his life forever.

And so you know, one of our free resources, a very short Bible study about building healthy relationships with God and people (with short Bible passages and questions similar to the ones you found here) can be obtained for free through a subscription to the monthly newsletter. Head over to the home page to click the link entitled Resources.

You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. CS Lewis

Want to dialogue further about your questions and doubts?

If you aren’t yet ready to commit to anything with God but would like to discuss your questions and doubts, there are several ways in which we can dialogue. Throughout the website, there are ways to contact me through email. You also may leave a comment at the end of this post and I can get back to you. I’d love to begin a chat about any questions and doubts. It’s a safe place here. We will offer the truth, but we force no one. God gave us all the gift of choice, and we honor that.

You will always be respected and honored, because God’s love for you is as real today as it was when he made you.

 

What if You’ve Misjudged God?

What if You’ve Misjudged God?

So often people assume the pain and suffering in the world are the results of either an absent or uncaring Father (God). However, there are so many Bible verses that speak to God’s tender care over his children. Why the discrepancy between what we seem to see and what God states about himself?

Psalm 23 is one of the passages in the Bible that compares God’s tenderness and care of his people to a shepherd. It made me wonder, what this psalm (or poem) would look like if the sheep wanted to choose their own way rather than follow the shepherd? How would this psalm change and how could this help us possibly gain a different view of God?

This post takes a tongue-in-cheek look at what that might look like and then examines the promises God gives for those who follow the shepherd’s voice.

PSALM 23

God my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.

I don’t need a thing? What about all the stuff I want? God, why are you so legalistic?

You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.

But I wanna go where I wanna go. (I don’t understand why I feel so anxious.)

Even when the way goes through death valley, I am not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.

God, where are you now? Why have you allowed this pain? This says you go through it with your sheep, so why don’t I sense you anywhere? Why do I feel so unprotected and vulnerable?

You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing.

I like what the world offers better. It tastes better, feels better, looks better. But why do I always end up wanting more? When it gets quiet and I have time to think, why do I feel so empty?

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I’m back home in the house of my God for the rest of my life. (The Message Translation)

I have a lot of things chasing after me. Drugs, alcohol, sex, status, and possessions, but nothing ends up like what you say you offer me. What would it look like to have God’s beauty and love chase after me? Is it possible? Would he be willing to welcome me in his home?

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I am back home in the house of God. Psalm 23:6

WHAT IF YOU’VE MISJUDGED GOD’S HEART TOWARD YOU?

Isaiah 53:6 states, “All of us like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s path to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him [Jesus] the sins of us all.”

Could it be that:

  • What you are now experiencing isn’t the result of God’s neglect but your own choices to go your own way?
  • Could it be that your pain is compounded because others in your world have done the same, all focusing so much on their own way they hurt everyone around them?
  • Have your judgments about God come through your longings to go your own way rather than on the reality of who God is?

WHAT IF YOU’VE MISJUDGED GOD’S PATH FOR YOUR LIFE?

Psalm 23 depicts God’s intentions for you. But God’s intentions can only be realized if you follow his personal shepherd. Making a personal choice to refuse results in natural consequences even God may not have chosen for you because makes no promises if you follow another shepherd or venture out on your own. God’s appointed shepherd is Jesus Christ:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for hte money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.

I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.

John 10:11-19 (NLT)

Could your current pain be caused by misjudging God and going your own way? Could it also be your pain has been caused by others who have misjudged God and therefore misrepresented him to you? Not everyone who called themselves by Jesus’ name actually know him. You will know someone has met Jesus, the great shepherd, when they speak the totality of God’s Word in love and grace, and when they act like Jesus.

Peace be still...

GOD’S LONGINGS FOR THE LOST AND HURTING

In Psalm 23, God likens himself to a loving shepherd. In the New Testament, Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. He had a lot to say about those who considered themselves shepherds of God’s “flock” but don’t act as God would toward his children, causing others to misjudge him.

One day Jesus told a story to a bunch of religious people who thought they spoke for God, but didn’t, because they had no heart for lost sheep. Many misjudged God because of it. Jesus came to set the record straight:

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people – even eating with them!

So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to sarch for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Luke 15:1-7 (NLT)

Do you think maybe you’ve misjudged God? Do you feel like a lost sheep in need of being found? God’s good shepherd, Jesus, is right here. Right now, So simply tell Jesus that you are ready for a shepherd and you want to become part of his family. He’ll make certain your request is granted. He and his father love lost and hurting sheep.

Want to dialogue further, Comment below or contact me privately at soulcries@rlseaton.com.