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How Do You Love A Friend When It’s Hard?

02.07.2017 by Tracy Stella //

This month FACETS of Faith dives deep into the topic: How do you love a friend when it’s hard? Good things don’t always come without difficulty. Valuable friendships are worth the fight.

I (Tracy) couldn’t wait for the big event: Valentine’s Day. Our classroom celebration set amongst a stage of scarlet and pink. The scarred blonde surface of my 3rd grade desk proudly displayed my crepe paper masterpiece: a Valentine’s Day mailbox ready to receive love.

Long before the days of Pinterest and the internet, teachers and students relied on good ole fashioned imagination to design and capture creative vision.  Shoe box saved up specifically for that purpose, all we needed was a bit of glue, construction paper, glitter, and markers. Supplies mixed with a vision for a mailbox masterpiece made receiving friend’s store-bought messages of encouragement such fun!

Excitement hovered thick like a cloud as I anticipated the love that would soon fill my little-girl heart.

“Have a Berry Happy Valentine’s Day!”    

“Valentine, you are tutu cute!”

 “You’re awesome sauce, Valentine!”

I labored with much thought. Which friends would receive my favorites? I guarantee my besties would have received the “tutu cute” message (after all what girl doesn’t want to hear she’s cute?). The frilly pink tutu would have nothing to do with my vote for aforementioned favorite valentine. I do NOT have an issue with fashion. None-whatsoever. (Clears throat – Let’s continue before one of my friends calls me on that one and conducts a fashion intervention.)

Oh, if only loving our friends well were as easy as sending a grade school valentine message. Being a grown-up grade schooler doesn’t always allow life to look and feel that simple. As much of a blessing as friendship can be, sometimes it can also be stinking hard. Throw sin and spiritual attack in the mix, and it can get as sticky as Elmer’s glue when the lid falls off and all we’re left with is a glob of milky white mess.

Certainly, the enemy doesn’t want us to be in relationship with others.  The slippery serpent will try to stir up strife wherever he can. As grown-up grade schoolers, we can’t let him. We need to be friends who see through a spiritual attack and make a conscious choice to love ─even when it’s hard.

We need to recognize strife for exactly what it is: an attempt from the enemy to separate us from those whom God desires us to have connection.

That is often enough. See the spiritual attack. Say what it is aloud (even if it’s only to myself). Then keep stepping into the discomfort with the purpose of unity and reconciliation.

Just before Christmas an incident happened with a group of friends. What took place wasn’t so much about them as it was the slippery serpent trying to pierce me with his dagger. He used those up close and personal to unintentionally hurt my heart.

You see, I know them. I know they didn’t mean to hurt me. I know they love Jesus, and I know they love me. I know they have their own hurts and hang-ups (because we all do, right?). They just forgot how the words and the topic of discussion so closely connected to me and to those I love most.

I removed myself from the discussion to protect my heart from hearing too much. I can forgive, but I knew the more words I heard, the harder that would become. I knew God wanted me to look past what I felt were hurtful words and recall who these people really were─and are─my friends who just forgot. They forgot about what feels like my biggest situation…the kind we wrestle with God about and wonder why, until we remember to have faith.

Perhaps, they don’t know how hard I fight not to cower in a corner afraid. How could they, really? They’re not God. They’re not me. They don’t know.

Grace. Because I’ll need it from them sometime too.

I’ll say something I shouldn’t. Not thinking. Not knowing. Unintentional. It happens. It hurts, but it happens.

Remember. Remember why you’re friends in the first place. That helps too. Remember deposits they made in your relational account. My group of friends have made numerous deposits over time. We’ve done life together and accounts have earned interest. Time together will do that. Remember that one incident, even when it feels like a big violation, doesn’t have to mean a friendship has been fatally wounded. Seek God about that.

For me, there was not fatality, although there could have been. I could have stormed out of that house and never come back, but that would have been my inner child winning – the one who wants her way and wishes everyone would understand her woundedness, the one who wishes those close to her would always remember, “oh, yeah, that might sting”. Honestly, I still want that. I want that from my friends and I want to be able to give that to my friends. I know it won’t always happen. I know I won’t always do it. But I can desire it. Sometimes, we’ll remember to be sensitive and gentle in spirit. Sometimes, we’ll stumble along, muddling through and doing the best we can.

Remembering why we became friends with someone in the first place helps us love a friend even when it’s hard. What is at least one thing about her that makes you smile or laugh? How has she blessed your life in the past? How might she bless you in the future if you can move forward? Hold onto those thoughts if you need to make a conscious choice to love a friend who has hurt you. The reward on the other side of the relational hard work? A restored friendship.

Do you want to know what I did? That night, I made a conscious choice to forgive those involved. RIGHT AWAY. I couldn’t hold a grudge. I couldn’t seek justice on my own. I sought solace in my Lord and Savior, because I needed Him to soothe my wounds from words that did hurt. I didn’t deny the hurt. I gave my pain to God, because I’ve learned that on the other side of pain undealt with (for me, anyhow) is anger. I have to nip that one in the bud right away. Instant forgiveness is easier than overcoming a bitter, angry heart.

Forgive fast. The future of your friendship may depend on that very thing. If you don’t need this knowledge for now, store it up for the future: forgive fast and keep those friendships intact, sisters.

As grown up grade schoolers perhaps we can send a few valentines of our own.

“I extend grace, because it’s what good friends do. Be Mine, Valentine!”

“Thanks for deposits made. Your friendship is something I can count on, Valentine!”

“Valentine, I forgive you because our friendship is worth it.”

What valentine is God calling you to send your friends? Love them well, even when it’s hard. Remember, they might have to do the same one day with you.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Love well. Love well. Love well.

Join the conversation here or on our Facebook page.

Categories // Friendship, How to Love When It's Hard, Tracy Stella's Perspective Tags // Conflict, forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Love, Spiritual Warfare, Strife, Valentine's Day

Freedom and a Picture of God’s Grace

09.27.2016 by Kim Findlay //

It’s guest week here at Facets of Faith and I’m excited to introduce my dear friend, Cheryl Fiorelli to you. Today she’s sharing a tender and personal experience she had as she pursues a life following Jesus.

4

Pondering the question—what would you give up to maintain your freedom, took me back to a time when the Lord gave me a vision, a dream. Four years ago this vision was a gift from Him as I was worked through the “Surrendering the Secret” ministry at my church. The Lord had delivered me from the greatest sorrow and sin of my life: an abortion I had at 17. His grace led me back into the light I had left behind long before. How like God it is that as I complete this writing, it was 41 years ago today that the abortion occurred!

God knows me, and that I’m a visual learner. Pictures help me understand things more thoroughly so I can refer back to it when I get lost again. So He gave me a picture of His grace.

Because sometimes I forget, like the Israelites did.

They had witnessed the parting of the Red Sea and were beginning to feel the first pangs of hunger. I remember harshly judging the Israelites as they grumbled and complained to Moses in the wilderness of sin. They forgot the miracles they had just witnessed, even as the Song of Moses still rang in their ears.

If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.” Exodus 16:3, NLT

Talk about selective memory! What about being slaves, the beatings, the agonizing days of forced labor? Yet today, when I live in the freedom that the grace of Jesus has bought for me, at times I find myself longing for and returning to the “comfort zone” He has taken me out of, as painful and awful as it was!

I no longer judge the Israelites, because sometimes my fear and lack of trust in the Lord, or not staying close to Him, lead me back down that road to my very own Wilderness of Sin. Yet like that wandering sheep in the parable in Luke 15:3-7, the Good Shepherd comes to find me, picks me up and puts me on His shoulders, and carries me and my wounded spirit back to the sheepfold where I belong.

And gives me visions such as this:


I saw a wide wall or trellis, a grotto of sorts. It wasn’t stone or wood but had a slight overarching roof with soft morning sunlight dappling from behind. Huge bunches of grapes hung from this trellis, gorgeous and abundant. There was an outflow of leaves and lovely pale flowers in yellow, pink and blue with deep green leaves and another huge overflowing of grapes beyond that. They hung all the way to the ground in deepest purple and soft green leaves. I saw more flowers and overflowing bunches of grapes, champagne grapes with smoky gray leaves. Then came daisies and graceful bunches of roses in vibrant reds and oranges, yellows…the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in a dream or in waking life.

The “trellis” was a natural sort of formation that blossomed out of nowhere, yet totally belonged in all its glory and beauty. It wasn’t outlandish nor overtly beautiful, yet soft and alive with light and wonder, like the very symbol of abundance and grace-life renewing and growing.

I heard soft sounds. a birdsong, flowing water nearby yet out of sight. Soft sounds that seemed to belong there yet were new at the same time, glowing with a heavenly radiance absolutely real.

I sensed this was the embodiment of the grace of God. Grapes to quench the thirst. Gentleness and beauty to surround and bathe your heart with relief so profound you can’t begin to understand it and yet you grasp it, the reality, the truth of it, deep within your heart and your mind.

There was profound peace. The answer to burning desires. The answer to unspoken questions that needed answers and needed them so desperately.

Oh God! Here, here it is at last, at last! Oh, I didn’t know but now I see it: the exact shape of the emptiness inside me. Oh it was so clear, so soothing to my lonely seeking spirit and it was all there: the abundance, the absolute rightness of God’s grace. It’s been here all along, right where it’s always been. I just couldn’t see it because I wasn’t ready for it, or perhaps I just didn’t know to ask.

I sensed God tell me this was the answer to everything, the Wellspring, the rightness, the certainty of it flowed toward me from the soft dappled sunlight. There can be no beauty akin to it because it’s the heart of God from which came the celebration of the birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.

It’s here, I sensed God tell me, every answer you’ve ever looked for.

Drink it in, breathe it in, let it sink into your soul, into your pores. Eat of it, let it quench that burning thirst, that deep abiding hunger, that there was no way to satisfy.

But Lord, there is a way! It’s you! It’s you! It’s always been you! It’s your grace! It can allay your fears, put them to rest. God’s grace in all its beauty and abundance, forgiveness flows out of it. Forgiveness that was for me! It pierced my heart, and drove out all the old bitterness and fear.

Then I see them, the hearts of all of those people toward whom I was holding resentment and anger. I saw them as Jesus sees them, as He sees the broken and beaten down, the discouraged and afraid, wrecked by the pain, rejection and abandonment that they too have known.

And in my heart, I know, with absolute clarity that I can take this grace of God, of which I have partaken, and pass it on to all those whom I need to forgive…so that they too can find what I have found…God’s grace!


His grace is what I give up every time I willingly stray off the path that actually leads to more and more freedom! So what am I willing to give up to keep my freedom? My own will so I can live for His will in my life. I am willing to move forward, to take up my cross daily and follow Him. Every step I take in that journey leads me further into the joy and purpose of being in relationship with Jesus.

When I give up my will for his, I also leave behind living in the shadow and all that goes with it: pain, isolation, purposelessness, loneliness, feeling trapped, deep depression, great anxiety and fear, and the unrelenting grief of feeling far from my Savior.

For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.” Psalm 84:11,NLT

Lord Jesus, please help me keep my feet on the path you have set before me, the path that leads to deeper and deeper love and relationship with you. Forgive me for sometimes being afraid, not trusting you, and longing to return to my wilderness of sin. Thank you for always coming to get me when I stray, my Lord and Shepherd. And thank you for your Grace that quenches my thirst and fills my emptiness. How lovely, how very beautiful it is. In your Strong and Powerful Name I pray. Amen.

by Cheryl Fiorelli

Categories // Freedom, Guest Perspectives Tags // Freedom, God, Grace, hope

Freedom: What I Wouldn’t Give…

09.13.2016 by Jennifer Howe //

2Freedom. Is it a heavy chain around my (Jennifer’s) wrists loosening and falling away? Maybe it’s the prison door rattling just before it swings wide and I step out with a sigh of relief. Or, in my mind’s eye, I see a fiery autumn scene, the ground blanketed in red-gold—a dark-haired girl twirls and leaps in smooth rhythm near a shimmering stream, captivated by the joy in her reflection.

In real life, it may look completely different. Freedom can be moving through my daily relational obstacle course differently. A stressful time or sensitive trigger is changed. I experience the hard moment, but peacefully and infused with a breath of fresh air. One thing I know—when I feel free, there is often an internal joy, lightness, and peace, or sometimes a thrill. That internal freedom becomes transparent if I feel safe to be authentically me. You probably know the feeling. I’m sure I’m not unique.

The precious experience of freedom can only mean one thing: there are times when I’m not free. I’m held captive by a painful wound, a habit of thought or behavior, or some past experience. These things come from what I or others have chosen. Some are in the moment. Others seem frozen in time.

I want freedom!

What I wouldn’t give for freedom!

The question is—what will I have to give? My bull-in-a-China-shop way of life. There is a cost to remain free. I’ll have to place my heart’s desires, busy mind, and strong will in God’s hands. The One who created me and loved me to the point of giving everything for me, including his life, deserves nothing less than a humble, grateful response.

So, if I’m willing to surrender the old way of life, what would my new lifestyle look like?

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.  But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  Galatians 5:13 CSB

Authentic freedom comes from God. In our culture, there’s license to do whatever we want, and then there’s genuine liberty. What really counts is freedom from the things that separate us from our Father God eternally.

The struggle to be free will be unique to each of us. I battle my pride. Sometimes I don’t embrace the heart, mind, or ways of God. I mistakenly believe I know better or I’ve got things under control. (You, too?) I have to make the hard choices every day. Some days I don’t make the right ones. But, I want to be free.

King David wrote in Psalm 119

How I long for your precepts! In your righteousness preserve my life. May your unfailing love come to me, LORD, your salvation, according to your promise; then I can answer anyone who taunts me, for I trust in your word. Never take your word of truth from my mouth, for I have put my hope in your laws. I will always obey your law, for ever and ever. I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.  I will speak of your statutes before kings and will not be put to shame, for I delight in your commands because I love them.  I reach out for your commands, which I love, that I may meditate on your decrees. Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope.  My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.  vv.40-50

David was wise. He knew his life was only preserved by wholeheartedly embracing the ways of God in response to the heart of God. The way we should live is clearly expressed in Scripture (laws, precepts, commands, and promises that flow from a heart of love). If I take the time to read, I know the heart and mind of God in a beautiful, consistent Old and New Testament blend. I have the law and prophecy, and the fulfillment of both in the birth, life, and death of Jesus.

God loved us through the gift of Jesus and the covenant made at Calvary.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:1

The sacrifice at the cross was our purchase price. Jesus set us free by addressing the entire list of offenses against Holy God, and how should we respond (Colossians 2:14)? Should we choose a haphazard, self-consumed lifestyle?

We have to take a gut-level honest look at ourselves: thoughts, words, and actions. Thoughts are private. Words and actions will tell on us. If we are willing to take a close look, we might be surprised at the inconsistencies. Our words and actions show what we really believe or embrace. This sort of self-examination reveals the real condition of our heart and the evidence of genuine transformation.

When it comes to life transformation, we’re not left to our own devices (often, the root of pride). For each one of us, the relationship to God is sealed through the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this world we wait for our Father’s promises to be fulfilled. We will be made perfect one day, and temptation will be completely removed—but not in this life. Some righteousness will be evident this side of eternity in our victories, but we’re only perfected at the face-to-face meeting yet to come.

Right now, I count on the goodness of God, “by grace through faith in Jesus,” for the good choices I can make that will keep me free. When I remember Jesus’ love for me—and because the Holy Spirit has given me the strength to do it—I consciously choose to love God and people by embracing and acting according the ways of God. I know I won’t get it all right all the time (friends and family would agree). And I know this:

the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17

The amazing God of the universe, my Daddy-God, has lavished love on me (and all of us!). My freedom was bought and paid for on a hill outside Jerusalem. On the daily journey toward eternity, my freedom is guarded by the presence of God in me. I’m thankful, so I want to make choices that honor the sacrifice at the cross and keep me from getting all bound up in chains again.

What do you think about that? Have you experienced a measure of freedom? Did it come with a cost?

Thanks for reading along. Share your thoughts on freedom in the comments below or on our Facebook page. Let’s get a conversation started!

Signature, Jennifer Howe

Categories // Faith, Freedom, Jennifer Howe's Perspective Tags // 2 Corinthians 3:17, Faith, Freedom, God's love, Grace, Righteousness

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