Tag Archives: restoration of relationships

Encouragement from Above

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A Facebook Friend, A Powerful Testimony, A New Brother in Christ

Recently, I have suffered some very hard blows.  These attacks really hit me where I live, and were difficult to take because they came from dear, trusted friends.  And they caused one of my closest friends to suffer, which is even harder to take than my own suffering.  Initially, I saw only the people involved.  I reacted as I usually do, with my Texas-style bluntness—speaking the truth without tact.  But after prayer, I began to discern the enemy who had used these friends against my friend and me.  Can those relationships be restored?

That was my question to God Tuesday morning.  Immediately, I got several encouraging messages through e-mail and on Facebook.  These friends and their messages so encouraged me that I began to believe that these relationships can, indeed, be restored.

One person who encouraged me greatly is Angelica, a missionary who lives very close to Milan.  I was so moved by her kind words that I felt an immediate and deep desire to meet her in person.  She was very enthusiastic about the prospect of meeting me, too.  So I started making plans to go visit Angelica immediately.

No sooner did I make that decision, than I heard from another friend, Casey, who lives in a small city in Tuscany.  Casey invited me to come hear Tony Anthony speak at a church in Modena that evening.  Since Angelica’s town is halfway to Modena, and since Casey told me that we had accommodations for the night, I said yes.

Tony’s testimony is powerful and very moving, and I encourage you to follow that link to his website.  On the train to Modena, Casey met an African man from Ivory Coast.  She talked to him about Jesus, and invited him to come hear Tony speak, too.  And he did.  He asked Jesus into his heart!  That’s what it’s all about: sharing the Gospel!

Between trains, I’d only had a moment to hug and greet Angelica on Tuesday, but Casey and I returned to Angelica’s home for a proper visit yesterday.  We had that immediate intimacy—a meeting of the hearts—that only comes from sisterhood in Christ.  We laughed, we cried, we prayed, we praised God.  We had a marvelous visit.  Now that I know how close she is, I can go visit her whenever I’m home in Milan.

Anyway, God used all of these things to encourage me after the difficulties and disappointments of recent events.  But more than encourage me, God has strengthened me to believe that the relationships can and will be restored—if I can let Him speak more tactfully through me.  Please pray for me to speak the truth in love, but also with delicacy and tact that can mend bruised relationships.  God is good!

The Nasty-Tasting Medicine of Truth

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Stop and discern.  Can you see that the enemy has released an attack to bring division among My people?  You, My faithful ones, must stand against this attack.  Do not entertain the temptation to be offended or to point the finger in accusation.  You must deal with your own heart and be righteous.  This is a time to refocus your attention away from yourself and look to Me, says the Lord.  For, I will extricate you from offense if you will allow it.

Proverbs 18:19 A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle.

The quote above was taken from today’s Spirit of Prophecy Bulletin (http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=yymmtrbab&v=001gZhKK2h2Be_D6yGxuKPSManqENpntnNJlJ2b6XiUDhnVJYpfDdKCpc92c-vJDRui5GH_DexOGdk7VBoAUQ5Ey2tvETSInK3oPxpu_KPRRw-b1LRmHF895LlJ8Wb2q6EC6wc3hl8gy8g%3D), which I subscribe to.   Frequently, these prophecies are not only right on target, but speak personally to my current situation.  Today’s prophecy is a perfect example.

Both me, personally and this ministry have been attacked by people I had thought were my friends.  And it is no surprise that these attacks were prompted by an offense that I didn’t even know that I had committed.  Instead of coming to me to find out the truth of things, these people took offense and talked about me behind my back.  Hidden in the dark, fed by supposition and goaded on by the enemy things fester and grow and rage is the result.

Over the course of this year I’ve seen other people, ministries, and churches attacked in similar manner.  Things that could easily have been resolved by honest and loving confrontation instead blew completely out of proportion and into all-out vindictive war.

The thing that shocked me most of all was to find myself being the offended person.  I thought that this person had damaged this ministry.  And so I launched all-out vindictive war on somebody who is flawed, but no more so than myself.  I tried to “save” this person from the worst of my anger by avoidance.  And in explaining my position to a mutual friend, I pointed out how much I have sacrificed to be here: “I sold my house and gave away virtually all of my belongings.  I have left behind my family—my grandson!—and friends.  This ministry has cost me a lot, and not just in terms of money.”  I continued to explain my all-consuming passion for seeing Europe come back to Christ.  Obviously, there was only one right way to look at this thing.  The person who had offended me knew that I was angry, so there was two-way avoidance going on, and my outrage grew.

Then, when I could no longer contain my anger, we finally had a confrontation yesterday.  I didn’t listen at the time, but this person’s words rang inside my head after we parted.  They got through to me, and suddenly I felt horrible about the way I had treated this person.  On top of that, God showed me that my problem was not this person, but my own pride.  Then my eyes were opened to see that I was calling it my ministry, and that I had promoted myself as being so righteous because of all the things I had sacrificed for the ministry.  I had taken my eyes off Jesus and was focused instead on the ministry and on myself.

I saw that this person had offended me, just as I had offended the others, without knowing it, and without meaning to do so.  I was finally seeing myself as the angry, unreasoning aggressor, and I didn’t like what I saw.  But I confessed my sin to God, and then to this person.  Both graciously forgave me without hesitation.

I want to reiterate: where I had gone wrong was in taking my eyes off Jesus.  So often we get caught up in Christian service that we forget that the point is not the service, but Who we serve.

And this enlightenment has helped me to have more understanding and compassion for those who I had unwittingly offended.  I forgive them and hope someday for the restoration of those relationships.  That’s not an empty hope because Jesus is all about restoration.  He is God of a Second Chance.  We all need a second chance!