How to Keep Trusting When You Feel Forgotten by God

Youve examined your situation, weighed the odds and done the math in your head; life is tough and relief seems impossible. You
see it in the pitiful looks and pats on the back you get from well-meaning friends and now youve come to believe it; what youve
prayed and believed for just might never happen.
How often have you thought, this is it; this is what my life will beIll never have a baby, or, Ill never get that job, find love, get
healed or figure out what to do with my life?
It seems daunting and almost impossible to be positive in the midst of pain but these moments are the stuff of life. Hard as they
seem, these are the times when the 'impossible' happens; when Gods light pierces the darkness of our lives and our testimony
becomes sure as the dawn.
Jesus said, In this world you will have trouble Its a given. If youve lived long enough you most certainly have experienced
that. The part that gets difficult to believe and practice, however, is take heart (cheer up, be courageous) for I have overcome the
world. John 16:33
Jesus indeed has overcome the world, but we will only experience it for ourselves when we believe His words and laugh despite
the pain, keep trudging on in spite of opposition and praise Him in the midst of our fiercest storms.
The past few years of my life have been riddled with disappointments, dashed hopes and difficult moments. Everything that could
go wrong seemed to have gone wrong all at the same time and my life looked like the place where storms go to happen. The thing
is, like everyone else I have experienced difficult times before, but never like this. Truth be told, I got to the end of myself. I
reached the point where I knew my strength had failed and I had nowhere to go but to God; no other rumored solution to try but
to fully and totally turn to my father in heaven.
In my time of pain, I remembered the three Hebrew boys in Daniel Chapter 3. Taken from their homes and forced to serve a
foreign King, they had already experienced massive pain and loss. As if that was not enough, they wound up sentenced to death
for standing up for their faith in God and refusing to worship the Kings idol. Talk about extreme circumstances. But these boys
trusted and knew without a doubt that God would come to their rescue. This was more than an inkling, they were sure God had
their backs! What grounded faith they displayed.
But for how long must I continue to trust? What if it never happens? You may ask.
I have asked these questions too and even though their circumstances were worse than mine, I found my answer in the same
story.
But even if our God does not deliver us, the boys said, let it be known that we will not serve your idol! Amazing. These are
heavy words that can only be spoken when we are totally devoted to God and Him alone. These are words that will only carry
weight when we trust that He has great plans for us no matter what our circumstances look like. This is what we say when we
would rather be left with nothing but our relationship with God because that is what truly matters.
What if my life doesnt change? What if these issues that stare me in the face get worse and I find no relief at all? Will I ever see
an answer to my prayer? Will this pain go away? I do not know the answer to these questions but I know one thing: I will serve
God with all my heart! It was not an easy place to get to, trust me. I want what I want, but I want God even more and that makes
all the difference.
In my experience, I have come to believe that God either gives me what I desire or the grace to live without it by giving me
something better. Either way, all things work together for good to those who are called according to His purpose.
Be courageous. God has not forgotten you!

10 Things You Should Know about Shame

This is a guest post by Heather Davis Nelson, author of Unashamed: Healing Our Brokenness and Finding Freedom from Shame.
1. Shame is different from guilt.
Ed Welch, a professor and the author of Shame Interrupted, first alerted me to the difference between shame and guilt. Guilts
message is, I did something bad, and needs justification and forgiveness. Shames message is, I am bad, and needs an identity
shift and relational connection. Sin leaves both in its wake, and shame is what lingers even after forgiveness has been sought and
granted. Shame feels like its welded onto you, but guilt feels like something outside of you.
2. Shame can arise from others sin against us.
Shame is commonly found in victims of abuse. Shameful and sinful acts committed against a person leave one more vulnerable
to shame. Its not uncommon for the victim of sexual assault to feel more shame than the perpetrator.
A poignant biblical example is in the story of Tamar who was raped by her brother, Amnon, who then expelled her and said he
wanted nothing to do with her. She walks away mourning, cloaked in shame. 2 Samuel describes her exit: And she laid her hand
on her head and went away, crying aloud as she went (2 Sam. 13:19).
3. Shame can arise from a past sin that haunts us.
Do you believe that your worst sin has been separated from who you are as far as the east is from the west? For those who take
refuge in Christ, this is the truth about even your most shameful sinit is no longer a part of you. Other people may remember,
and you may remember, but to the one whose remembrance counts for eternity, your sin is nailed to the cross and no longer has
power over you.
SEE ALSO: How God Can Help You Overcome Shame
4. Shame can feel like a vague sense of unworthiness and insecurity that isnt immediately rooted in either past or present
sin.
Shame can be another term for unbelief in Gods love for you in Christ. Its one thing to believe that your sin has been removed
from you; its quite another to believe that there is a divine love that can never be removed from you.
Shame acts like a barrier that keeps love from getting througheither Gods love or anyone elses love. It sounds like the
recurring doubt, That may be true for others, but its not true for me.
5. We try to get rid of shame by passing it to others; instead, it multiplies.
The generational and cyclical nature of shame makes us want to pass our own sense of shame along to those around us as we
blame them and/or shame them. The mother who feels ashamed of her own body criticizes her daughters eating and clothing
choices, thus passing along a sense of body shame to her. The parent who feels shame for his childs behavior in public berates
his child for all to see, passing along his shame to his child. The husband who had a hard day at work under a shaming boss
comes home and repeats the same tactics with his wife and his children.
6. Shame hinders creativity.
If I am unsure of my ideas or am second-guessing my gifts and my work, it keeps me from being creative. Creativity requires a
freedom that shame squelches because shame requires that all we do should be perfect before being presented to others.
SEE ALSO: 3 Damaging Results of your Shame
Creativity is unleashed as we are freed from shame and as we take creative risks, offering our art to the world with its
imperfections. Shame wants to hinder us along each step of the creative process as it asks us, Who do you think you are? This
is the opposite of who we are created to bethe very image of God made to reflect his creativity in our varied pursuits.
7. Relational disconnection is often rooted in shame.
If I dont believe that I can be loved, I will find it impossible to be in authentic relationship with anyone. I will find ways to
distance myself from others, or to protect myself from being truly known. My core belief is that if you really knew me, you
wouldnt want to be in relationship with me. This is a prime indicator that shame is at play.
8. Shame disappears in community.
The most powerful way to combat shame is to be truly known and to know others truly. As we share our shame stories or the
ways that shame has threatened to silence usand these stories are met with compassionate empathyshame fades away. It
loses the fuel of isolation and fear.
9. Shame disappears in the path of Jesus, clearing the way for restored relationship with God and with others.
A relationship with Jesus Christ by faith heals us of shame, bringing freedom. Part of Jesuss mission on earth was to release
captives from their prisons, and what a prison shame can be!
Over and over again, we see Jesus touching those who were unclean (shamed by their community and excluded), healing them,
and welcoming them back into their communities. He heals lepers and sends them to be pronounced clean by the priests; he tells
a lame man to walk and asks him to proclaim who it was who healed him; the woman who anoints his feet with expensive
perfume to the chagrin of the self-righteous leaders is given restored dignity and honor by Jesus when he defends her actions to
them.
10. Shame is not discussed often enough in the church, which should be the place where we are healed and freed from
shame.
We talk a lot about guilt, which is necessary as we discuss forgiveness, but shame is its close cousin and also needs to be
addressed regularly. We allow shame to grow when we dont talk about it, for those who are most shame-laden assume their
experience of shame is unique and isolating.
Lets start bringing up the problem of shame in our small groups and Sunday school classes and sermons, so that the light of the
gospel can begin to free God's people from its dark grip.

Trusting God with Our Children

I squinted my groggy eyes in the direction of the digital clock perched strategically at the side of my
bed. The fluorescent digits told me it was 1:20 a.m.
I tried to take a deep breath, but my heart was pounding against my rib cage. I wished my anxiety
could be blamed on a bad dream, but I knew the text message I had received a few hours earlier was
reality:
She has gone into labour at 25 weeks. Need lots of prayer please.
The message had come from a friends husband in South Africa. His wife was pregnant with triplets,
and her contractions had started far too early.
I wish I could truthfully say that my first reaction was a godly one, but instead, the first three words in
my response were: Oh shucks. Okay. I did remember to include that Our God is in control, as the
lyrics to the song by Steven Curtis Chapman came to mind in that moment but Im pretty sure the
reminder was for me, not them.
As one might expect, my condition upon hearing this news was not one of peace, but of panic.
However, the Lord reminded me of a sermon I had heard just two weeks earlier, on Mothers Day. The
pastor had spoken that day on the topic of the fears that we have as mothers.
In the sermon, he said this:
The greatest tranquilizer for fear is found at the throne.
In this moment of crisis for my friends, I forced myself to think back on the essential truths that were
preached that day, surely for such a time as this. In his message, the preacher used the example of
Moses mother, Jochebed, deciding to leave her son on the riverside. Like my friend in labor with
triplets at 25 weeks, the situation that Jochebed faced was one of life or death.
The king at the time had declared an edict that all Hebrew baby boys be killed. Yet in faith, Jochebed
got a papyrus basket for [her son] and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and
put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile (Exodus 2:3).
Can you even begin to fathom what she must have endured during those moments?
Anything couldve happened.
As mothers, this is one of our innate abilities to imagine the worst possible scenario, or even a
myriad of potential tragedies. Yet as Elisabeth Elliot so wisely pointed out, There is no grace for your
imagination.
God has not promised to give grace for every possible situation we might conjure up in our
imaginations. He doesnt give grace for the what ifs or what could happen but He does promise
that His grace is sufficient for what is happening (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Moses mother could have been paralyzed by fear. Yet the book of Hebrews says that by faith she did
not fear the kings edict (Hebrews 11:23). As our pastor pointed out, She gave the gift back to the
giver of life.
In the Lords grace, all three of my friends babies were born alive. The new parents of triplets
demonstrated their faith in the living God as they wrote in an e-mail announcement: He is the creator
and sustainer of life, and we trust Him in His plan.
When their three precious babes weighed less than two pounds each, these Christ-followers laid each
gift on the banks of the Nile and waited to see the Lords plan unfold.
Later that same day, I learned of another friends young adult son serving in the military, who had just
survived a rocket attack at his base.
The testimonies of the parents, the wife of the soldier, and the man himself were remarkable. Clearly
the Lord Himself had enabled them to rest in His sovereignty, purely by His grace.
A quote was spoken that evening as we prayed for this soldier and his family. Stonewall Jackson once
said in battle, Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed
the time for my death.
If I really believed that, I would realize that my own three children might not wake
up tomorrow. Whether your children are tucked tightly into their cozy beds, or hooked up to ventilators
in ICU 15 weeks premature, or commanding troops on the front lines, none of us as parents has any
control whatsoever over our childrens wellbeing.
We have to trust God.
Every single stage of parenting comes bottled up with its own concoction of fears and reasons to worry.
The anxiety can be utterly crippling at times.
In fact, even as I typed this article, I received news that one of the triplets was in trouble. The text
message said, Pray for a miracle. Instead of following my own advice to put my trust in God, I burst
into tears as soon as I read the news. My hands were shaking, and for an hour, I couldnt pull it
together.

But thats exactly what Satan intends he wants us to allow the fear of the what ifs to paralyze us,
and to take our eyes off Jesus.
Instead, as our pastor urged during his sermon, we ought to focus our mothering eyes away from self
and rivet them on our Sovereign.
May we follow the example of Moses mother, and may God grant us all the grace to trust in His
sovereignty as we take the gifts He has granted us and lay them on the banks of the Nile.