Having received the following question, I responded via my column in the His Favor Newsletter: Dear Ami, Do you have any insight on “knowing Jesus in His suffering”? Signed, Slightly Scared…. Well, the answer to this question could cause some waves! Are you ready for this one?
I relish meandering through hours of recorded decades of my littles growing and then having littles of their own. A more difficult time to relive was our granddaughter’s stay in the NICU after birth. We are grateful that our little Princess shows no signs of her early difficulties with her lungs, but it is painful to see the videos of her hooked up to IVs, breathing tubes and oxygen tents. Read about this journey and what it taught me about receiving healing from the Presence of the Lord!
What does it mean to prevail? Sometimes we think it is a big win over a big challenge. What if there’s more to prevailing? What if you could win your battle even when you don’t feel that you have strength to hang on? Read this blog to discover what it means to PREVAIL!
My Dad was working with me one evening when I was little to learn to ride a bike, holding onto the back of the seat as I tried to coordinate pedaling and steering. Suddenly, I noticed a football-sized boulder to the right of my path. It scared me though it wasn’t on my path, so I kept my eyes on it as we approached. But somehow, the more I stared at that rock, the more I diverged toward it! Finally, I hit the rock and fell. That’s when Dad said something that has always stayed with me...
I was a frilly little girl, and yet, I would stand for a whole match at my Grandpa’s elbow as he sat watching boxing on TV. The saddest thing to watch was a man up against the ropes, getting smacked relentlessly, his gloves at his face, bent, cringing from the blows. That image keeps coming to mind in this last couple of years. Many of you can relate. Read the full story at amiloper.com
My Dad was otherwise the picture of health when, at the age of 59, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. When he told us, it hit with a shockwave, a numbness cultivated by denial and ignorance. I was barely in my 30’s and had no inkling of the devastating ramifications he was facing. Dad’s ways of coping with the diagnosis were… unique. Come read how Dad coped, from the odd to the brilliant.
Everything in the process of developing and refining seems to take much more time and effort than I had bargained for. But my Abba Father, the Potter, knows what He is doing..... Read the full blog to learn about the essential journey of process and how we can trust the Potter in the midst of it.
Maybe you’re a flexible person. I’m not. I have gotten much better at rolling with it. But it has been a process. Relinquishing control is hard for some of us. Trusting is hard for some of us. I began learning of the destructiveness of control in my teen years. After all, if you want something done right, do it yourself, right? Wrong. My attempts at controlling life led to a life out of control.
What started as a common illness with the doctor’s admonition to rest for a few weeks has become a two-year battle against a fatigue that has tethered me to my home and drained me of energy. Yet in God's great redemptive power, He’s let my heart grow and learn, even while my physical body has been battered and weakened. Come read three of the things the Lord has taught me through ongoing illness and fatigue.
What is this Christmas going to look like? Will my people be able to get together? If you are a Believer in Jesus Christ, you know your joy is found only in Jesus. That beautiful truth doesn’t exactly stop the aching loneliness of being alone and bereft of your beloved traditions. We need more than the words of this sentiment. We need a way to access the felt truth behind the sentiment.
This year has kicked me in the teeth. It has ripped my heart out and stolen my breath away. It’s been hard to see the light of day. But, like a Divine appointment, a book with wisdom for the broken came into my life this year and has given me a tool that has helped to keep my head above water.
One cozy Fall day, I was snuggled in, watching “Persuasion,” a Jane Austen novel set to film. I was struck by a line in the movie that a young woman says to a young man. It goes something like this, “I’d rather be tossed in a ditch by the man I love than to go steadily along without him.” (Caveat: “tossed in a ditch,” was not referring to abuse, but rather living a thrillingly adventurous life alongside her husband.) It made me think of my own adventures with God.
As a recent situation in my life drove me to my knees – in pain and in prayer – I poured myself into prayer beyond the norm. I decreed and declared and renounced and repented. All of those things were good. However, I began to realize that a tweak, a reprogramming, of my brain desperately needed to happen when it came to how I did spiritual warfare.
Here I am, once again, mulling over a current pain until I’ve injured my heart. I may lay it at the Lord’s feet momentarily, but within the blink of an eye, there it is, its full weight in my hands as I preen the beast with a fine-toothed comb. What makes it continually come back to mind and heart? I’ve found two major barriers that keep my mind wandering back to handling the beast of pain.
Birth is so natural to us, clearly our expectation. But death? Death is different. Death is unnatural. We stand in the face of death with mouths agape, wondering what and why and how. No matter how expected, no matter how sweet the home-going, death’s finality and foreignness shakes us. Why? We can tell our intellect that death is as natural as birth, but why does it still grieve and bewilder?
A couple years ago the Hubs bought me a telescope. Calibrating the “finderscope” that came with it, we had to make sure that what was a close distance away was perfectly in focus. Only then could we look into the depths of space. Very interesting and profound. Read the blog to hear how the Lord showed me the knowable things in life that made the unknown things clearer.
Last year was an intense year of wandering in and out of brain fog for me. It’s better this year, as the Lord begins to heal and restore all that last year stole. But the lost feeling reminds me of another time I predictably feel a fog roll in: on the battlefield. I’m not speaking of a tangible battlefield, but the battlefield of my heart and mind when the enemy hurls his flaming arrows and the fog of war has me reeling.
All of us go through them; none of us enjoy them. Trials. We’re told to count them a joy (James 1:2). But we are also told that God, though He does not send them, will use them. He will turn them for our good (Romans 8:28). During my most recent trial, as I prayed and journaled with the Lord one morning, I made a list. I called it my, “Things I want to gain out of this trial” list.
