Hiking in Pearls

Tag: Christian

  • Three Word Story Challenge – Part 3

    Three Word Story Challenge – Part 3

    Kerfuffle – Run – Love

    Things like this can happen when you’re passionate. When each of us run toward our own victory. Even if it is absurdly in the wrong direction.

    We both saw the storm building. On the horizon and in the other’s eyes. The clouds continued to drape themselves with darkness until the day resembled night. Neither of us willing to buckle until a clear champion could be declared. That’s what brought us to this moment. Standing in the rain, in the middle of a kerfuffle.

    What was it that could draw out the depths of our soul to expose ourselves in such a way?

    Why, love of course.

    Over the ink and pad I can hear your sigh as I read the question in your mind.

    Isn’t love supposed to look different?

    Yes, but this reader is what love looks like when it is not in balance.

    Authentic love poured out is the clearest picture of splendor and beauty. It brings life, joy, and peace.

    However, love heaped upon oneself out of measure is putrid and rots. Quickly becoming a thick decay that devours everything it comes in contact with.

    Equally damaging is love not shared in balance between two. This will leave hearts wrung out. Like a dishcloth made void of water until there is nothing left to give. Dry threads begin to break form the continual twisting. A heart left rendered in two.

    In writing this, I hope that it may remind us to be diligent, and to remember that:

    Love does not strive to win; for it already has.

    Love can walk away from vain arguments.

    Love is secure and can listen intently.

    In the words of Paul,

    Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

    May we find ourselves working to avoid the kerfuffle’s and running towards the true love that flows from a pure heart.

    In grace and peace,

    Sharon Rose.

  • Forgiveness – Part 1

    Forgiveness – Part 1

    The Silence

    In the quiet hours of the morning, I sat in solitude. Before the house began to stir, I thought about past wrongs done to me. I had already made the decision to forgive these trespasses. Yet, it was in this moment, that it occurred to me, I don’t have to talk about it anymore.

    I realized that silence, is the final act of forgiveness.

    The more I thought on this new concept the more that it made sense. If I have truly forgiven a wrong done to me, why would I continue to talk about it? My eyes were now open.

    When I choose to think on, or talk about a wrong done to me, it stirs up fresh pain and anger. New life is breathed into past hurts. The offense becomes just as raw as when it first happened. Fresh tears stream down my cheeks while hurt and anger wrestle in my heart. I have opened a time portal and stepped aside to allow things from the past to creep in and rob my present. Any joy that I should be experiencing in this moment is forfeited and exchanged for a tromp in the mud and muck of the past instead.

    But oh, what freedom is found in full forgiveness! (more on that next week) No longer bound by the past, I can now live fully in the gift of today! I don’t have to give my time, thoughts, and conversations to those things that now lay behind me.

    It is the same when we come to a place of repentance and confess our sins to Jesus. When we accept His work of forgiveness, through His death, burial, and resurrection, He casts our sins as far as the east is from the west. Never to be remembered again (Psalm 103:12).

    That is Good News!

    Once we are forgiven, Jesus NEVER brings up our sins again.

    He doesn’t talk about it!

    So why do we?

    The name, “Christian” means belonging to Christ. It was first intended to be derogatory to the “mini-Christs” that were living out Jesus’ teachings. This stirs me to challenge all Christians.

    Let us live up to our name!

    Let us forgive in the fullness of Christs love. Let us stop talking about the terrible things that have been done to us. Instead let us now place our efforts in forgetting those things that are forgiven and fully live in the abundant life Jesus offers us now.

    As I close for today, I want to remind you that Final Victory Comes In The Silence! Stay strong in the faith my friend, spurring each other on in love and good works (Hebrews 10:24).

    Continue in the Good Fight of Faith (1 Timothy 6:12)

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