In Pursuit of God’s Comfort, God’s Comfort Pursues Me

Look well at My handpicked Servant; I love Him so much, take such delight in Him. I've placed my Spirit on Him; He'll decree justice to the nations. But He won't yell, won't raise His voice; there will be no commotion in the streets. He won't walk over anyone's feelings, won't push you into a corner. Before you know it, His justice will triumph; The mere sound of His name will signal hope, even among far-off unbelievers. Matthew 12:18-20, Isaiah 42:1-2, The Message


When I’ve given my spiritual and professional best and in return my intentions, offerings and heart receive barbs and misjudgment, I find it interesting how God comforts me. One difficult aspect about being the only adult in your household is not having anyone to process thorny circumstances and difficult people with porcupine personalities.


I needed perspective and not my own. I called a successful professional who evaluates top management for a search firm to ask for input. My headhunter friend finds people with the right personality and communication skills for the right leadership position. 


All I asked? Could you read an email and give me feedback. After reviewing the opening paragraph of an email that shot my brain into a full-on migraine, this evaluator of interviewing successful candidates affirmed what my body told me was true.


A Headhunter's Impartial Evaluation
The tone of communication was not something that reflected maturity or respect. “This person is not open to anything you have to say. Decline the opportunity,” was the advice offered, reinforcing a thought cycling in my mind, “A dog returns to its vomit.”
The communiqué felt familiar. Far too often my loyalty and commitment to the Lord, ministry and serving others set me up to accept spiritual abuse by those in a leadership position of power.

But was God calling me to feel humiliated, demeaned, discouraged, and put down in order to serve man?

God calls us to communicate the heart of His message and who He is. We reflect Him by how we talk to and treat others, even to those who rub us wrong or irritate our temperaments. After all, God’s love never stops pursuing those whose actions irritate Him and those who outright reject Him.

Thousands attend my church, so attending a service is an exercise in extreme loneliness and disconnection. Yea, the praise and worship is musical perfection and I’m there to worship. The sermon? Professional. Theologically sound. Top notch. But sometimes concern from a loving community is what you really need and that’s not what a cast of thousands of strangers offers.

Yesterday a kind pastor greeted me with a side hug and “Glad you are here.” Tears issuing from my hurting heart flowed throughout praise and worship. I longed to be understood and comforted. My downtrodden heart listened to the lead pastor speak on Psalm 23 and how in the midst of the dark valley God is with us. A part of me thought, “Yea right. I’m not feeling that right now.” My strafed heart offered God a silent plea, “I need you to show up and be with me. I need to feel your comfort.” Minutes later, walking to the parking lot, I ran into a new ministry partner. Her warmth and our shared ministry passion lifted my down spirit.

That evening and many tears later, a friend sent a tear-stained devotional she wrote after the sudden, devastating loss of her sister. Her sister’s last words? “Don’t not be who you are.” How often had I been “not who I am” to please those who demand you earn grace they’re not equipped or willing to give?

Don't Not Be Who You Are

Today I received three emails. One that simply stated the Scriptures written above. Another  titled, “You can reframe anything.” Okay, I needed to reframe the upsetting experience. The other comforting and encouraging email was titled: “Why Higher Writing Can Hurt.”

Writers make many sacrifices for their art.

Does standing out set you up?

Time, family, money, activities, the life of writing does not guarantee much but deprivation.

Yet choosing the goal of higher writing may ensure some readers will be offended. We humans can't seem to help but resent what we can't control. Having the goal not of providing answers but providing an experience may be freeing and produce a certain glee in the writer, but it can also open you to being a scandal.

Those who stand out may be branded.

But my encouragement to you is this: be assured of the value of participating in the challenges for higher writing. The journey is worth it.

In the search for what's possible through words, what is pain but an opportunity for greater comfort? What is sorrow, but a chance to realize more joy on the other side? If a goal of your story is to show that all works out for good ultimately in the end, you may be called on to prove that conviction with your life. Seeking this way might set you apart, make you a target. A deeper awareness may be your stock and trade, but it could hurt too.

My challenge to you is to accept the sacrifice. When you are in love, is there really any choice? Leave the anxiety behind and seek out the mysteries, come what may. If you've been called to explore heights and valleys, you are never alone in either place. Ever-present help is always right there in the choice to hope, to believe, and to write despite the costs.

Standing with you in your essential difference as a writer of more real, more honest, more challenging words this week....Lovingly, Your Coach

After five days of tears and emotional conflict and pain, the coach’s email reminds me again: I am called by God, not man. I am handpicked by God’s servant to serve others through my giftings, passion, personality, and temperament. Deep within my God-designed spiritual DNA, God takes delight in how he created me and affirms, “Don’t not be who you are.”


To offer the sender of the wounding missive mercy, I deleted emails filling in details he lacked leading him to hurtful, false conclusions, and simply replied, “I’m not a fit for this role.”

Handcrafted by Jehovah Elohim

“Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. For You formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:12-14

I love items crafted by hand. Whether window shopping for objets d'art at a craft fair or art gallery, a jewelry or quilt show or at outdoor markets overseas or stores selling indigenous art, individual creativity amazes me. Their artistry and creativity? Truly gifts from God. Taking nondescript materials, artisans create items of distinction.  

Twice I attended the King Tut exhibition. Both times the amazing artistry of granite-hard stone smoothed into the Pharaohs’ statues and the finely detailed jewelry left me awed. How did ancient jewelers shape tiny semi-precious stone beads and drill holes for stringing without modern equipment? And the patience required? Amazing.

Most often I don’t know the creator whose artistic soul fashioned the objet d'art delighting my eyes and artistic sense. But I do know the Creator of my soul. Not only did God weave me together in my mother’s womb, he handcrafts the darkness of my circumstances into an objet d'art revealing the beauty of His miraculous workmanship in my heart.

At the same time the stresses and strains of single parenting to survive squeeze every bit of creativity out of me, I remain the object of God’s love. I want my faith to be more than a decorative object created for outward show. Will my faith reveal God’s creativity to shape the unformed, raw materials of the dark circumstances of my life into his work of heart art? 

Only when I admire and praise the beauty of God’s handiwork in my life in the midst of heartache and hardship.

Jehovah Elohim, my Creator, You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. (Nehemiah 9:6, NIV) I praise you for giving me life and turning my darkness into light and my chaos into beauty. You are, my life, the very life I breathe.

Rekindle the Spirit of Christmas

“Do not be afraid. The Lord is with you. No word from God will ever fail. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:28, 37.

Pain pillaged my first Christmases with my sons without their father. Haunted by the spirit of Christmases past, I mourned the loss of our family’s meaningful rituals making Christmas wondrous. I grieved that my two young sons would not experience the same emotional sensations my mom and dad lavished on me—stability, joy, faith and warm, love-filled holidays.

Celebrating the birth of baby Jesus provided the meaning of the season. However, in years past, emotional pleasure—excitement, anticipation and delight—energized my spirit of Christmas. Now something unfamiliar crowded out my holiday zeal—excruciating heartache. Financial turmoil extinguished any remaining fragments of seasonal cheer. I felt as helpless as that babe in a manger in a cold cave thrust into an inhospitable world.

What most influences your spirit of Christmas? Alcohol? Spending time with those you love? Enduring uneasy truces to avoid family issues and quarrels? Gift giving? The birth of Christ?

The First Christmas

On “the” first Christmas, Mary and Joseph experienced many circumstances single parents face. They confronted shame and a difficult moral situation—a pregnant bride-to-be. Wagging tongues surely gossiped about their state of affairs. Their social prestige factor? Near zero. The innkeeper rejected Mary and Joseph, forcing them to find shelter wherever they could. A child born into poverty.

What lone parent has not experienced Mary’s feelings? Astonished, perplexed, afraid, anxious, and incredulous.

The God of Disguise and Surprise

The God of disguise and surprise came to reside right where solo parents live. As the emptiness of the first of many lonely Christmases engulfed me in depression, words my mom read to me as a child every Christmas morning encouraged me, “Do not be afraid. The Lord is with you. No word from God will ever fail. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

The real God, the warm God engaged my cold heart right where I was—needy, helpless, weak, angry and unforgiving. Emmanuel—God with us—came unScroogelike to my young sons and me, extending tenderness for the past, courage for the present and hope for the future.

A Christmas Prayer

Like my Christmas wish list, I often wasted my prayers asking for inconsequential desires. When lost, abandoned and impoverished in spirit, I embraced the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Wrapped in God’s Amazing Gifts

Emmanuel—God with us—wraps us in his amazing gifts of new life, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, love and concern for others. Jesus, the first Christmas gift, summed up the true spirit of Christmas, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Live this season by the spirit of love and keep the spirit of Christmas glowing all year long.

Moving Forward, When You’d Rather Go in Reverse

“I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.” Philippians 3:12-14 (The Message)

I came to single parenting as an accomplished adult and professional. Rejection and abandonment slashed my personhood and confidence to negative digits. The daunting challenge that lay before me reduced me to feeling like a child—in need of guidance and support. Where would I obtain the knowledge to successfully navigate life and guide my children?

Just as everyone begins life as an infant, I lacked solo parenting experience during those first days on my own. From dealing with car troubles to finding a job and childcare to emotionally surviving the day without a major bawl fest, every day offered new challenges to overcome.

Like children who grow from helpless infants to mature adults, I learned how to survive, cope and grow—one step at a time. Every triumph over an obstacle boosted my confidence. There were times when I took two steps forward, then fell to my knees and crawled until I could regain my footing once again. Too often I was too hard on myself. I only looked at what I didn’t accomplish that day or where I failed. I lost sight of the skills I'd developed and how I’d grown more adept at overcoming frustrations.

A New Look At the Past
When discouraged I looked back, not upon my sorrows and disappointments, but upon the headway I’d gained. I stopped comparing my life to what I'd lost and started asking God give me the courage to face each day and hope for the future. Each time a new crisis reverses my forward momentum, I ask, “Am I better than a week ago, a month ago, a year ago?

Growing up is never easy. We hold on to the way things were, while fearing, “What’s to come?” Let go of the past. Live the best life you can today. Look ahead to what can be and trust God. Never forget—stress and trials mature us emotionally and spiritually.

How much progress have you already made from the first day you found yourself a single parent? Each day’s unperceived progress pays it forward towards our future. Faith, wisdom, and maturity start today. Ask God for wisdom to help you move forward—today. Right now.

What's in a Name?

This is what the Lord says: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I created you,  formed you. Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him. Jeremiah 31:3, Nahum 1:7, Isaiah 43:1 (NIV)


I’m not sure how long it took me to grow comfortable with the term “single parent”. It didn’t fit. It felt like someone else’s clothes. Certainly, not mine.
When stripped of the honor and title of “wife” and every other moniker associated with marriage and acceptance by polite society, I clung to the only descriptor left—single mom. That name made me at least feel somewhat human. “Single” and “mom” described my circumstances, my status, and my daunting responsibilities.
Even though who I was had not changed—how I was viewed and treated by others changed. Without knowing me, religious leaders

• judged me harshly
• called what was left of my shattered family uncomplimentary names
• predicted I’d fail at parenting
• pronounced curses upon any hope for my children to achieve any success in their futures
• and accused a terrified single mother and two innocent children of the downfall of society.

Their dire warnings, prejudices, and forecasts further stripped me of dignity and courage. Where’s the voice of encouragement when you need it most?
The only person who didn’t treat or view me harshly?
El ‘Echad, The One God. God’s care, affirmations, and support never wavered.
I was still his friend, his child, and his beloved. The father of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth cheered me on.
Nothing and no one could separate me from his love.

El Echad, I praise you for embracing my precious family. You didn’t slap a negative label on my precious sons or me. When terrified by those who branded my family with treacherous words, I turned to your Word that convinced me that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate me from your love.

An Encounter with Truth

“For I proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.” Deuteronomy 32:3-4 (NASB) 

“You’re in great financial shape.” 

I never thought I’d ever hear these words. But that’s what my financial planner said after looking at my budget, lack of debt and compensation in my new job. I’m in far better shape than most. Facing uphill challenges and a shaky budget as a single mom taught me practical and spiritual lessons.

In a financial crisis, don’t trust in man or credit cards.

Trust God.

After years of uncertainty, mistreatment, financial struggle, betrayal, and even individuals taking advantage of my vulnerability, El Emunah, The Faithful God, remained true to his character, his commandments and his compassion.

And all I want to do is praise El Emunah. He’s my rock. “Let us sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout joyfully to the rock of my salvation,” Psalm 95:1-3 (NASB).

El Emunah, you are my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my salvation, my strength, and my redeemer. I can count on your faithfulness. Thank you for being my refuge during my days of trouble. When my heart was faint and I called on you, you heard me and rescued me quickly. I’m amazed that I can continually come to you. Thank you for your abundance.

The Beginning and the End of Unemployment

“Behold, I am making all things new,” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.” Revelation 21:5-7 (NASB)

“Please don’t make me wait until my last penny is gone,” I begged God last week. A quick peek at my bank statement elicited my desperate plea. Although several agencies want my services, their bureaucratic processes moving forward to employment seem far too slow for my patience level. Would their employment date and first paycheck come after bills exhaust my bank account? Would my house head into foreclosure?

All I want is emotional and financial relief and all El ‘Aman, The Faithful God, wants is for me to trust him.

Each time a person offered a potential job possibility my encouragement soared. When man failed to come through, my hopes glided on a downward trajectory. Only God knows the alpha (beginning) and omega (end) of this time off without pay.

Behold, I Am Making All Things New

This financial downturn proved far different. As an independent contractor, I’m ineligible to receive unemployment benefits. I confess that in the past unemployment sent me into severe terror mode.

And now—no benefits? Just trust in God—not the government?

I desired a new attitude to overcome depression and fear. What would it cost me to drink from the refreshing, free flowing waters of life with God?

With no job or income, I decided to respond to my “time in-between jobs” in a way far different from my past reactions. I did not want to acquiesce to stress. With cash flowing out and no consistent income flowing in, I wanted to lean into God’s faithfulness to bust my fears.

A backwards look forward—hindsight revealing that God had always provided—made me realize God’s provision will sustain me during this financial famine.  

To blot out panic, I started a daily blessings journal to record how God provides for me each day. God littered my journal with his faithfulness. From a dime found while cleaning out my garage to a friend giving me twenty dollars to go out to eat with my singles group, I praised God for the dependability of his blessings.

Two days after begging Jehovah-Jireh, The Lord my Provider, “Please don’t make me wait until my last penny is gone,” I received:

• a tiny paycheck for a job performed
• another check from someone I helped
• a long-awaited refund from my credit card
• an unexpected check that arrived in my mailbox
• an email announcing a promising job possibility.

In one day, God reminded me of his amazing trustworthiness.

El ‘Aman, The Faithful God, you provide for me and keep your promises to those who love you. I’m amazed by your mercy to me. I love you and want to follow the wisdom of your commandments. As I look back on all these months of unemployment, thank you for covering my pared-down, budgeted expenses.