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Get My Point??

One of Those Days

by Judy Ballentine

Have you ever had a day when everything seemed to go wrong, right from the time you opened your eyes in the morning till you went to sleep that night? Sure you have. I’m sure that anyone who has lived to be an adult has experienced days like that. Seems like this past week was like that for me.

It’s hard to explain all the separate little incidents that brought it all together from day to day and resulted in a “bad” week for me. But when I stopped and thought about all of those individual things, one at a time, I felt rather ashamed of myself. One reason I felt ashamed was that not one single thing I thought was really hard at the time really amounted to much from a later perspective. In reality, I think I am spoiled to things always going my way or at least in the end, everything is okay.

Then I thought about those who have really had a terrible day or week because they lost someone they loved or cared about. I thought about the families who are separated due to wars in other countries. Other scenes crossed my mind – those who were expecting babies but for any number of reasons, have lost that child. There are those who have lost homes and family members due to floods, earthquakes, fire. The women who have suffered rape or sexual abuse or any kind of abuse at the hands of those they thought loved them. Then there are men who suffer such things, also, and of course the precious children who are taken advantage of, kidnapped, murdered, and their families who grieve and suffer unknown agony over missing loved ones.

I could go on and on and on, but I won’t. We live in a world which is daily more and more filled with such sadness and evil deeds. We have witnessed such awful tragedy right here in our own area. No place is safe in this world we live in. We cannot hide from those who seek to share their twisted world with those of us who want to trust them. Even those we want to feel secure around can turn in a moment’s notice. There is no true safety and perfect peace except in one Person. His name is Jesus Christ.

Knowing Jesus as Savior does not deliver us from this world. Neither does it protect us from suffering like others in the world. But there is a huge difference when we have Christ as our Savior because then we never walk alone or face anything alone ever again. What a wonderful promise we have in Hebrews 13:5 where it reads, “…be content with such things as you have for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”

There are things in this life that we fear for our loved ones and ourselves at times. But knowing that the Holy Spirit lives in us, and then we know we can turn that fear over to the One who can handle it and set us free. We don’t walk through the fire alone and find Him waiting on the other side…He walks through the fire with us and brings us out on the other side, better for having gone through it with Him! We can trust Him. He is always faithful. He is dependable. He is reliable. He is our Comforter, our Teacher, and our Helper. He is the ONLY One who loves us more than we love ourselves!!

Anything and anyone, including family and friends, that we value more than we do being right with God is an idol. We are measured by what we treasure and what brings us pleasure. Nothing less than God brings us protection and safety, even in the midst of hard and terrible times. We cannot live in fear and be at peace. Therefore, even when we think we are having a bad day or week or whatever we may suffer, if we belong to Jesus then we can know that He is with us and will bring us through whatever it is.

So I guess what I’m saying is that my week wasn’t so bad after all…in comparison to what others might have gone through. And that’s my point!

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