Everyday Miracles
Lora Armendariz
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Miracles Happen Everyday

God daily shows us how special we are and how much He loves us.  Join me as I write about how my life and the lives of other people who have been touched by God's grace.

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Pain to Relate

9/27/2013

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A dear friend once unloaded on me, confessed his pain and his many problems.  He came to me for comfort and advice and my inadequacy to the situation was horribly upsetting.  He'd been involved in things that I'd only read about in books and watched on TV.  I offered words like, "You're going to be fine."  "God loves you."  "I care about you."  "You can get through this."  But I could tell by the look in his eyes that those words were like putting band-aids on a lethal wound. 

I prayed.  I asked God to show me what I could do, what I could say, and His answer hurt me.  He said I could do nothing.  I could only pray for my friend, and show him how God's love never gives up. 

What do we do when someone we care about has a problem that we cannot relate to?  Sometimes it feels like unless I've been there, unless I've felt the same pain, I cannot completely connect with the torment they go through.  I can feel sympathy, but I feel lacking in true empathy.  And, often my advice is not what they need and not what they are looking for.

Many months later that same friend came back to me.  He'd found God.  With God's strength the demons had been defeated and hope found.  And he told me something soul-wrenching.  He told me he'd decided to be at peace with everything he'd been through, all the bad choices he'd made, and all the evil he'd allowed into his life.  He said, that because he'd been through it all he could help others find their way out of their own horror.

It was a moment I will never forget.  This man had decided to be thankful for the years of hurt in his life, because it would help him relate to others in need.

I stopped and took stock of my own hurt, pain, hardships, and imperfections and realized that God in all His Goodness could use everything about me for the good of others, if I let Him.  Just like my friend, I need to let God have ALL OF ME.  I need to have peace with the past and realize that it can't be changed, but that God can use it to guide others to healing.


God, guide us.  I know there are things we go through that hurt, sometimes they hurt simply remembering them and we are burned by our shame and sadness.  Help us to find peace giving those things to You, letting You use them.  For we know that others are still struggling to find their way out of darkness and we dearly long to bring them into Your light. 

Photo by Garland Cannon

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We All Deserve True Love

9/8/2013

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God gave us all a time to be quiet and a time to speak.  Proportionally, I truly believe in listening more than talking and I love the old saying, "We have one mouth and two ears therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak." 

But, I have a hard time listening to stories of abuse and domestic violence.  It pains me to hear accounts of marriages torn by pain and suffering, families trying to endure beyond the fear.  I hate to hear these stories because the intense suffering of it hurts me, too.  These are people who have been injured intimately by the very people who should have loved them completely, unconditionally, and protected them and supported them in life.  To me, abuse and violence is one of the clearest examples of just how broken our world is. 

I have a daughter.  She is beautiful and precious to me.  My husband and I want a brilliant, love-filled present and future for her.  I just finished a young-adult novel that included a story of domestic violence.  This novel, Unclaimed Legacy by Deborah Heal, showed a home with an abused wife and as I read it I thought about some of my dear friends who have been in marriages and homes with this kind of pain.  The thought of my child ever enduring such hurt is troubling and I know I will fight to make sure she never does.  I prayed about it and realized I already have two powerful weapons to protect her--God's word and a happy marriage.  Making God's teaching part of our daily lives while my husband and I continue to love and support each other and care for our beautiful family will help guide our daughter to a happy future.

I believe we all deserve true love and thankfully we have it unconditionally through Christ. 


God, as my child grows, help me guide her towards that kind of love.

Deborah Heal is the author of the Time and Again young adult series.  I recommend reading her novels and reading her article about domestic abuse at http://deborahheal.com/staying-relevant-but-keeping-violence-in-ya-fiction-under-control/ 


Enter her giveaway below for a chance to win the complete Time and Again trilogy signed by the author plus a beautiful mug! 

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    Lora is a Christian writer, wife, and mother who travels the world with her husband, living and working on ranches.

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