The Other Side of Pain

Comfort & Joy by Marie McGaha

Available in Paperback, Kindle, and Audio

Forgiving those who have hurt us can be one of the most difficult things we ever have to do. In fact, it’s so difficult that there is a very popular saying, “I may forgive but I will never forget.” I’ve even heard this come from Christians, but nothing can be farther from the teachings of Christ.

1 John 1:9 tells us that, “He forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.” Not only are we forgiven for our sins, but they are no longer remembered by God. He takes our sins, throws them into a Hefty Bag, and then tosses it into a big dump that only God has the directions to.

          God is not a god who reminds us of our faults of yesterday but of our abilities through Him for all our tomorrows. God wants us to shine, to minister to others, to represent His Son, Jesus, wherever we go, and to win souls to the Kingdom of Heaven.

          One of the biggest things we will have to do in order to accomplish this is to forgive and forget our own past. Yes, I said to forget the past, not just forgive the past but forget it ever existed. That includes not only forgiving others but one’s self, which is a difficult task, I know.

          I am one of those people who bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. I think that I am responsible for everything everyone else does, and if I had just said or done one thing differently, the entire outcome of everyone else’s lives would be different. I ride on waves of guilt that seem to well up within me from nowhere at all. I allow the consequences of other people’s actions to land on me, and make me feel as if I am responsible for what they have done.

          What I had to come to terms with is I am not God. Imagine that—I am just one of several billion people who occupy earth and take up oxygen, living a very ordinary life. I cannot make anyone do or say anything they don’t want to, and beating myself up over what other’s do only drives me farther from the love and grace of God.

          I have laid in bed crying in anguish over my ex-husband who passed away. (Dancing With Bear: A Love Story) I was so distraught over his passing, and convinced that I could have done or said something to someone, somewhere, that would have prevented his death. I loved this man for more than half my life and his passing felt as if it would destroy me. It was just one more thing the devil had in his arsenal against me, and he used it well.

          The truth is, the devil is out to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10) your life on earth, and ultimately, your soul. He doesn’t want you to live happily with God’s blessings, no, he wants you to be miserable and unhappy, and he wants your soul in Hell with him.

There is a saying among Christians, “We know how the story ends and the devil loses.” Yes, he loses but, in the meantime, he is active in this world to make sure he takes down as many of us as he can in the time he has left.

          So, how does the devil work? Unbelief is his greatest ally. For those who don’t believe in God, the devil doesn’t really have to worry about them. He knows they have what they want—money, drugs, fame, or whatever it is—and that is their reward. But for those of us who believe in God, who believe Jesus is the Savior of the world, we can expect the devil to do his best to destroy our lives. The devil is a coward, he never just confronts us directly, no, he likes to use those things that make us most vulnerable. The biggest of those is our past.

          Don’t we all let our past get to us? Don’t we obsess on all the things we have done wrong in our lives? And don’t we dwell on the things others have done to us? These are the devil’s weapons. He knows where to jab, punch, and kick. He knows how to use our guilt and unhappiness against us.

The Bible describes the devil as “…your great adversary, the devil… prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) But verse nine says, “Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith…”

So, the only way to defeat the devil is to be strong in our faith in Jesus Christ and the Word of God, the Bible.

          I know sometimes that is so difficult, especially if you are new to Christianity and are just learning the Bible. When we are brand new, baby Christians, we still have our old non-Christian baggage that we drag around behind us. We haven’t figured out yet how to let it go, or what to do with it. And the devil knows this.

          What is inside your bag? Were you hurt as a child? Abused physically, sexually, emotionally? Have you been raped, lived with an abusive partner, or been a drug addict? Were you a prostitute? Do you have a sexually transmitted disease there is no cure for? Were you a criminal, served time in prison? Or perhaps nothing in your life has ever worked out for you, and everything you have tried to do has come to nothing?

          No matter what is in your bag, God can rid you of it, but the first step is allowing God to have full control of your life. And to allow God to do that means to forgive yourself and

those who have harmed you.

Are you cringing inside at the thought of forgiving the person who beat you, molested you, raped you, robbed you, or otherwise hurt you? That’s all right. God is big enough that He can handle whatever you are hiding inside of yourself, praying no one ever sees.

          God is the One who created the Heavens and the Earth, man and woman, all the animals, oceans and everything that lives there. He is the One who loved us so much, He sent His only begotten Son to die a horrible death on the cross so that you and I will not have to pay for our own sins. Jesus Christ became sin for us, and all we have to do is ask Him to forgive us and live our lives for Him, according to His word.

          Seem too good to be true? Have you heard someone tell you how they loved you, would care for you, and never let harm come to you, for them to only turn on you? Has the very one who should protect you been the one to hurt you and let you down? Are you afraid to trust, to love, to believe there can possibly be someone who will never leave or forsake you? Is forgiveness a concept so foreign that you can’t even think about it?

          We have all felt that way at one time or another. Not one of us has skated through life without anger, hurt feelings, or having someone we know take advantage of us. That is human nature, a sinful nature that we are all born with. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and through faith in Jesus Christ, it won’t continue to be that way.

Jesus Christ is the perfect Lamb of God, sacrificed for our sinful nature, and we can believe and trust in Him. We can trust in the Lord God and turn our lives, love, and trust over to Him, knowing He will handle us with loving care.

 ©2012 Marie McGaha

Comfort & Joy book one: forgiveness

Published by Dancing With Bear Publishing

Read Ezekiel 26-30

What Does God Require of You?

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,  and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong Heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set His heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.” 

~Deuteronomy 10:12-17

Sometimes I don’t think I do enough for God, or to prove I love Him, and I feel like a lazy Christian if I take time off from “doing.” But the above verses set me straight every time. God doesn’t love us because of what we do, or even because of who we are. God loves us because of who He is. He requires only that we respect Him and honor Him in all that we do. It is nothing less than how we should treat our spouses, our kids, parents, and other people. Everyone wants to be treated with respect, including God. Our lives are full of things that we must do every day—get up, go to work, do laundry, take care of kids, mow the lawn, take out the garbage, sweep the floors, wash the dishes, feed the dog—the list is endless, and it makes us weary. No matter how many times we wash something, it gets dirty again, no matter how many times we cook something, we have to do it again in a few hours, no matter how many times we sweep something, it’s going to need it again later. Our chores never end and sometimes I think that’s how we see our service to God, it’s one big, never-ending chore that if we don’t do it, we’ll get sent to hell. But that isn’t what God wants from us.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).”

God’s great love, grace and mercy is what saves us, not anything that we do. God doesn’t want us to prove our devotion through works, because we are human, and He knows that we’ll just get worn out trying to prove ourselves. It’s what we do every day. We work ourselves into frustration trying to prove how good we are, or how much we love our families, or trying to impress a boss but God isn’t impressed by what we do. God wants our love and devotion, and we give that by accepting Christ as our Savior and following Him. That’s what impresses God—the blood of Jesus Christ covering us. So, rest in the Lord, knowing  there is nothing more you can do to impress Him. If you are saved by grace, then know that the Lord is already so impressed with you and all He wants is for you to love Him with all your heart, mind, and being.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock (Isaiah 26:3-4).”

Read Ezekiel 17-25

© 2018 Marie McGaha

From Dust To Dust

“For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.”

~Ecclesiastes 3:19-20

I’ve always had an affinity for cemeteries. I always felt sorry for the people who were in them, and my cousins and I used to take flowers to the graves who had none. In the 8^th grade, my school was across the road from one, so on nights of school dances, my friends and I would sneak off to go ghost hunting. We told stories of the dead and scared the pants off one another so that eventually, we all ran back to the school, sure a ghost or one of the resurrected dead was chasing us. Even now, although I no longer believe in ghosts, or think if I find a tombstone with the date of death the same as my date of birth that it means I’m going to drop dead, I still like going to cemeteries, especially old ones. I find a certain peace there, but I am also brought to the certainty of the finality of life. We are all going to die and whether we end up six feet under, or in the kiln at 1800 degrees, it’s the road everything with breath will eventually follow.

“These all look to You, to give them their food in due season. When You give it to them, they gather it up; when You open Your hand, they are filled with good things. When You hide Your face, they are dismayed; when You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust (Psalm 104:27-29).”

I cannot stress enough the importance of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In the spectrum of time, our lives are but a moment before we lapse into eternity. And it is there that we will stand before the Maker of the universe and answer for our lives on earth. We have one life to get this right, and while we will make mistakes as fallible humans, there is only one thing that will separate us from the love of God and that’s to ignore who Jesus Christ is and what He did on the Cross for each of us. That is an eternal mistake that cannot be undone after we die. Even up to the moment of death, we have the choice to accept Christ and change our eternal place from one of devastation and separation to one of joyous revelation and union with our Lord. If you haven’t accepted Christ as your Savior, don’t wait another moment. You may have a hundred years left on earth, or you may have just minutes, only God knows for sure, so don’t trade your eternal soul for a few minutes of earthly pleasure.

“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts’ (Isaiah 55:6-9).”

Read Ezekiel 11-16

©2018 Marie McGaha

Kicking and Screaming

“Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God.’”

~1 Kings 18:38-39

In chapter 18 of 1 Kings, the prophet Elijah is alone with 450 people who worship Baal. They are convinced that their god is the “real” God and Elijah is given the task of proving otherwise. I always chuckle when I read this chapter because Elijah is kind of a smart aleck, and taunts and mocks these people. From the viewpoint of the others, Elijah is either very brave and sure of his God or has a death wish. Sometimes, we can be like that too when we feel must prove God is who He says He is. I remember when I was a very young Christian and felt it was my Christian duty to tell everyone who God is and inform them if they didn’t change their mind right then, they would go to hell. Funny thing, people don’t like hearing they’re wrong! No matter how much zeal we have, or how many Bible verses we can quote, until someone is drawn to the Lord, we are likely to turn people off from Christianity when we approach them that way.

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:44).”

For us to truly understand who Christ is and how He works in our lives, we have to be drawn to Him. In the above verse, the word translated as “draw” is helkuo – which means to “drag toward” both literally and figuratively. If you’re a parent, you’ve had to drag your child to bed, or away from something dangerous etc. and you understand helkuo is a one-sided affair. You must act in your child’s best interest, even if they are screaming and fighting you all the way. This is a type of picture of us coming to Christ. We may have had someone tell us about Christ, maybe more than once, but until we are drawn by the Holy Spirit, we will never come to Christ on our own. We are that child, kicking and screaming the whole way! So, we must remember when we are telling others about Christ that our words alone will never bring them to salvation, no matter how fervent we are to prove that Christ is the answer. We can plant the seed if we do it in a kind, non-threatening way so we don’t turn the person off from ever hearing about God again, but no matter what we say, until God calls someone to salvation, the most we can do is be a good example of what it means to live for Christ.

“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out. For I have come down from Heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me but raise it up on the last day.  For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day’ (John 6:35-40).”

Read Ezekiel 1-10

 © 2018 Marie McGaha

The Hand of the Living God

“After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, ‘Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads’ (Revelation 7:1-3).”

I had a dream last night about these verses and the ones that follow listing the 12 Tribes of Israel from which the 144,000 are taken. In the dream these verses were happening as I watched, and then I was in a church I had never been in before. A huge church with cathedral ceilings and lofts, and it was full of people. I stood up and told everyone that the 144,000 were in the process of being sealed and then the four angels who had been stopped from harming the earth, sea and trees would be allowed to continue their task and the time to be right with God was quickly coming to an end. Instead of people coming to the altar to repent, many walked out of the church, laughing at me. I awoke with praise on my lips and asking God to forgive me any sins I may have committed. But the dream continues to bother me, so I called my pastor Daddy to help me process it.

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh,  and since we have a great Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:19-21).”

Jesus Christ did all He could possibly do for us – He died for our sins and rose again, so we would also have everlasting life simply by accepting Him as our Lord and Savior. He was the final sacrifice that atoned for all of mankind’s sins, no matter what they are. There is nothing we can do that Christ didn’t already atone for, but it is up to us to make that confession of faith that brings us out of darkness and into His everlasting light. Without that confession, we are putting ourselves in hell for all of eternity. No matter how much time is left until Christ’s return, none of us know if we will be here when it happens. Our lives have a time stamp and when it’s up, there is nothing we can do to stop it. I’m going to die, you’re going to die, everyone you know and love is going to die. That’s life. We can’t change the fact that we are going to die but we can ensure what happens when we do. We can accept Christ with full belief that He is exactly who He says He is and have the assurance that when we leave this earth, we will spend eternity in Heaven with Him. Or not. But the choice is ours.

“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.  Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:26-31).”

Read Lamentations 1-5

©2018 Marie McGaha

Already Forgiven

“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.  So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

~1 John 4:15-16

Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, you’re never going to be good enough for Jesus? Or that you keep on doing things that make Jesus mad? Or that every time you promise to stop doing something like smoking, cussing, or getting angry and yelling, it’s the very thing you do five minutes later? When that happens, do you feel like you may as well give up on being a Christian because you just keep on doing the things you know you’re not supposed to? Do you think what’s the use, I’m a failure at this Christian thing, God is mad at me because I never do anything right? These are lies from satan, who wants us to fail so badly. But Christ paid for our sins, past, present and future and when we are covered by His precious blood, our sins, shame and regrets are already forgiven.

“This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:5-10).”

As fallible human beings, we are going to stumble in our walk with Christ, but He is always there to forgive, and no matter what we’ve done, His love for us is not conditional on the way we act. God’s love abides in us through our belief in His Son, Jesus Christ. He will never forsake us (Hebrews 13:5-6) because of how we feel, His love is based on who He is and not on who we are. Everything about God is the opposite of what we know to be true in this world. We can never be “good enough” to please God because we live in a fallen world and we are all sinners. What we can do is accept Christ and follow Him, because that is what God looks at. When God looks at us, everything about us is seen through the lens of Christ’s blood over us. And when we are covered in the blood of His Son, we are brand new creations in His eyes (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:22-26).”

Read Jeremiah 30-40; Weekend reading Jeremiah 41-52

©2018 Marie McGaha

The War Within

“And he said, ‘Take the arrows,’ and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, ‘Strike the ground with them.’ And he struck three times and stopped. Then the man of God was angry with him and said, ‘You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times’ (2 Kings 13:18-19).”

When I read the Old Testament, I am struck by how much of it is about the constant wars Israel fought, especially against Syria. They would gain ground and push Syria back, but no matter how long they raged against Syria, Israel never quite had complete victory. It reminded me of how each of us also struggle against our own enemies like addictions to drugs, alcohol, pornography, sex, or gambling. We battle in our own lives to have victory over the problems that plague us, and while we gain ground, we can’t seem to push through to the very end where we can walk away from those enemies and never look back. We might go to meetings, or to church, and we might say all the right things when others are around, but when we are alone, there’s that nagging feeling we aren’t really where we say we are. Like Joash in the verse above, we strike a few times and then we quit, when instead, we should listen to the Elisha’s in our lives and keep on hitting back as many times as it takes to overcome. True victory takes a lion’s effort and even if it’s a lifetime of striking back against our enemies, we have to find the strength to keep at it or whatever our personal demons are, will defeat us.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind (James 1:5-6).”

Part of the problem when fighting our own demons is that we try to do it on our own power. We might go to others for advice but those who attend the same meetings we do are probably in the same boat and have their own demons to vanquish. We are like boats with no anchors being tossed about on the sea without direction. It is only our faith in God that anchors us and gives us wisdom. The world wants us to remain at sea, going down for the third time, however, our victory is not found in the world but in Jesus Christ alone.

“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 1:4-5).”

Read Jeremiah 21-29

 © 2018 Marie McGaha