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Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ
Jars of Clay frontman, Dan Haseltine, shares how he is learning to let God not only defend their ministry, but also let him carry all of his burdens.
We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Singer/Songwriter Francesca Batistelli shares an experience that inspired a song she wrote and how His Word continues to inspire her.
I will never give up hope or stop praising you. All day long I will tell the wonderful things you do to save your people. But you have done much more than I could possibly know. I will praise you, LORD God, for your mighty deeds and your power to save.
Mia Nayeli writes:
It has been a long road for my husband and me. We have been married for 4 years and for 2 of those years we have been trying to have a baby. We love each other madly, but love God even more and have been desiring to be parents since the moment we knew we were made for one another.
Recently a few friends of mine (both who had been trying to get pregnant) got pregnant, one unfortunately lost her baby and it brought so many things into perspective. Not that she lost her child, but her reaction to this. She mourned her loss, but continued to give God all the glory. It baffled me a little bit. Even as a Christian and believer, I couldn’t fathom loosing a child and still remaining hopeful in the midst of it.
It brought His word to life… the stories of Sarah and Rebekah, Hannah and even Samson’s mother who is not named, but is known to not have had children until God said she would. I have come to realize that nothing that happens is just coincidence, nor are we put on Earth to try and decipher His will, but to follow it.
I know our time will come one day, and when it does we will be over the moon. But until that time no matter what comes I still must rejoice in Him. Doesn’t mean that we wont have moments of sadness or of hurt, but that we trust that He will see us through them.
Our LORD and our God, you are my mighty rock, my fortress, my protector.
Aggie writes:
I was adopted when I was six and raised in a Christian home. I started to stray from the Lord little by little.
I had a lot happen to me through out my life. I will be 28 in just a couple of months. I have been married now for the third time, been through all of abuse you could think of, recovered as an alcoholic, was raped. One lie led to another. I passed bad checks (and was caught after running for about one year), stole (and was caught after awhile), the list was endless.
I then re-married in September 2008. Then my husband was not brought up as a Christian; but was a Christian when I had met him. We started to go to Church the last Sunday in November 2008.
During that time I was asking why am I going to church, I have done so much wrong in my life and don’t deserve to be here. I kept asking myself this, but by the third time we had visited the church I had left all of my sins at the alter. I asked God, “please Lord if you are still there for me and forgive me prove it to me.” I needed comforting and reassuring.
I waited and waited. On January 22, 2009 around, my family and I came around a bin. The road was clear up to that point-but then snow covered with no warning of ice underneath. The front was fine at first but the back went spinning around like lighting. I tried to bring it out of the first spin; but then I heard a voice take hold of the wheel and hold tight.
I closed my eyes after seeing my three children. The kids and I had our seatbelts on, but my husband did not. There is a creek on one side with less trees and then the other side. Praise the Lord He protected us all. We should have all been dead in that wreck.
God put us in the deepest and widest part of the creek with less trees. We were upside down in a cold icey creek. We lost the back window and both the driver windows. The windshield my husband hit with his head.
I had not realized there was a guy out on the road ready to help. I shoved my husband out of the car, then I got the kids and handed them to him. We had a 2ton floor jack in the back, a gallon of milk, a 24 pack of soda, some food, bunch of tools–which all of this missed us.
When I had opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was my wedding band and knew right then all was ok. That night I began to hear the Lord. I fought with Satan up to March 29, 2009. That was the test the Lord gave me.
The Lord never left me, but got me through the time of being tested by Satan. On March 29, 2009 at church that part of the verse just glued to me and it is the first time in my life that I remember a verse!! I am now laid my life back at the alter that Sunday at Church and said Lord–take me and use me for I am ready for what ever comes my way.
I was terrified and thought, “They’ve chased me far away from you!” But you answered my prayer when I shouted for help.
Elizabeth writes:
In 2005 I went through a deliverance process that was life changing. I had been diagnosed BiPolar-schyzo affective rapid cycling 2, and I was on 17 to 22 medications at a time, for years.
My life had spiraled into the psych wards, street drugs, mental anguish, to suicide. I began to cry out to Jesus after trying all the different earthly avenues, such as crisis centers, counselors, medications, etc.
I was in the hospital for the 6th time in two weeks attempting to take my own life, I could not go on, and I could not feel God.
The next day was Easter. When I woke up that morning,everything was different, clearer, the veil was off. When I went to my Bible, I found this verse underlined, and I never remembered doing that. It spoke volumes to me from Father, that the night before was the darkest before the dawn, and that He was there, and that He DID hear me.
Praise God for his love.
To this day I take no medications, and have had a complete healing of my mind, body, soul and spirit, through the love of Jesus Christ, and in the washing of His word.
My relationship with Him is intimate, and I live only to serve my Savior, Healer and counselor. I live to share the truth with anyone who listens, or who the Spirit prompts me to. I strive to walk as Jesus did and in obedience to his call to help set the captives free.
I am a free woman in Christ, and “He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.” John 8:36
And so my life is safe, and I will live to tell what the LORD has done.
Katrena writes:
In March of 2008 I was diagnosed with terminal stage 4 Ovraian cancer, I was given less than a week to live as it had matastized onto my colon and flattened it.
God told me though the Holy Spirit that his word was true and that I was not going to die. Then if felt like he wrapped me into his arms and carried me though everything that followed.
He provided me with an amazing surgeon, only 2 in the state I live in that would even attempt this type of surgery. After the surgery, my lungs quit working properly and filled up with fluids, my husband laid hands on me and they started draining.
I was told later that they were within 24 hours of putting a permanent trach in me. My kidneys quit working and my pastor laid hands on me and they started again. After a month in the hospital I got out and another Oncologist told me I was still going to die from this.
God said all you have to do is believe my word is true and live. I am now cancer free and able to spread the word that Jesus died for us, we do not have to die for something that the devil is the creator of. I shall live and tell anyone who will listen and believe that you do not have to die from any illness.
Jesus paid the price for us.
” I have died, but Christ lives in me. And I now live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me. “
Victoria writes:
I wanted to share with you my story I was born again 19 years ago, you may use my story how you wish or just read and delete.
Adopted at 12 months old, to parents who were more dysfunctional then most. My father was a career drug addict and my mom would tell me how much she didn’t like me. My father did love me till I was about 7 then he delved more and more into his drug cocoon to escape the wife he did not love. There was a lot of emotional, mental and physical abuse. They adopted another child a boy and a year later she gave birth to a son. I ran away the first time when I was 11 years old.
At 12 I was taken away and put in a foster home, at 13 I ran away and lived on the streets of Oceanside California, where at 13 I was raped by 7 men, became a drug addict and drank whenever possible. At 16 I tried to commit suicide, at 17 I got married to get off the streets we moved to Maine. Unfortunately he was an abusive madman, so again I ran away. I joined a traveling carnival to escape certain death.
At 19 I was strangled and left for dead, at 20 I was locked up in the house of a drug dealer who striped me of any self esteem I ever had……I wanted to die………..at 22 I ran off with a man and found myself in Washington where again I was surrounded by drugs. The mother of my boyfriend at that time invited me to go to church with her, I agreed to go, I can’t tell you what the singers sang nor what the sermon was about but I remember as soon as the preacher started preaching I started uncontrollably crying and I didn’t know why. In my life I had tried everything from white Magic, Buddhism, and Jehovah Witness. In Washington I met a man named John, who like me was just as lost, but boy was he the most handsome man I ever met.
At the age of 23 I hated the life I was living and I knew there had to be more to this life then what I was living! So John and I set out with nothing but the clothes on our backs…We bid farewell to the lies, the drugs, the pit of emptiness that we lived in, and we had a plan we were going to hitch hike to California then to New York and start a new life…………Well we made our way to a lil town in Northern California by Redding, and while waiting for our next ride we noticed an elderly couple sitting in a car marked “Caution Wide Load” we thought nothing of it.
The old man got out of the car came over to us and asked us if we knew Jesus. I told him “I’m cool with Jesus” and John said “I’m mad at God for letting my father die in my arms.” He told us God loves us and cares about us, the old man introduced himself as Russell Mc Connell and his wife he told us was named Carol. We told him our story and our plans, he asked us to come to his house for a home cooked meal before we left town (John wanted to visit his Grandpa that lived not to far from where we were at) We told him we may do that. Russell gave us some money to eat so we went to the dinner near by ate then caught our next ride.
Things did not go well with John’s grandpa, so we left and slept under a bridge and the next day decided to call Russell and Carole, they took us in and fed us, they shared the gospel with us and that night we went to church with them. I was so into what I heard, like my heart was drinking in all that was said, but John was not comfortable he walked out and I noticed that 3 or 4 of the young men about our age followed John out of the church, later I found out they talked to John and prayed with him and ministered to him. The next thing I knew both John and I were kneeling and asking God to forgive us of our sins and to accept us as His own. I totally believed that Jesus was who they said He was.
Two days later John and I were married and then we were baptized. We were like little sponges soaking up Gods word. Three months later Johns’ bronchiolar tube clasped and he went into cardiac arrest, John was 23 years old. He was rushed to the hospital were he was D.O.A., but they revived him and he was on life support where he laid for 3 days. On the third day they stopped the machine and I watched him die for the last time, as he breathed his last breath, a peace flooded me and I knew he was in the arms of the Savior.
Later I spoke to Russell and as we looked back on everything we could see God’s hand everywhere, Russell told me that the day he met us he was called out for a job that’s why he was there, but the load never showed at the meeting area, and the night before he met us he was at church where he heard the Pastor preach on reaching out to strangers…….I am a child of the Living God washed and cleaned by the shed blood of Jesus and set apart. God is so amazing and He loved me before I ever knew Him. I am now part of a family that will never let me go or turn their back on me. I am so thankful to be part of God’s amazing saving grace.
” With all your heart you must trust the LORD and not your own judgment. Always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow. “
Get Their Story Contest Winner, Angel writes:
Proverbs 3:5-6 is my life verse. I love the Word and have many favorite scriptures: John chapter 1, 2Timothy 1:7, Jeremiah 29:11, Phil 4:6-8..I could go on and on! But Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds me of how I MUST trust the Lord in every situation and that as I do that He will guide me.
When I was 12 I lost one of my twin brothers and the one that lived had to get his leg amputated as an infant. My mom was very ill after the birth and handicapped too. I didn’t understand why my baby brother died or why my other brother lost his leg…I had to trust God. At 17 I lost my Grandma, she hadn’t even really been sick she was a young 63. I had to trust God. At 26 I lost my Mom. She had suffered for many years. I prayed, fasted, cried & she still died at a young 53…I had to trust God. And 1yr and a half ago I suddenly lost my very best friend at the age of 35. She wasn’t even sick. She just died in her sleep on her couch.
God never promised that we would understand why things happen. But He did send us His Spirit to comfort us and promised that He would direct us if we would trust that He IS in control with ALL our hearts. I’m still trusting Him today and know this verse is true because He has lead and continues to direct me through every trail, disaster, and tribulation that comes my way. He is worthy, He is God and I love Him sooooo MUCH and thank Him for His Word that provides counsel and guidance in every situation.
“I know everything you have done, and you are not cold or hot. I wish you were either one or the other. 16But since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Estelle writes:
I heard the voice of God when I was at a Women’s retreat in January of 2000. A friend that I attended the retreat and she showed me a Scripture. We were discussing giving our all to God, and that I needed to be in a Bible study. I told her that I loved God with my whole heart but I didn’t want to be part of a Bible study because I didn’t feel comfortable in group settings, and that I couldn’t change my basic personality.
She opened the Bible to Rev. 3:15-16 “I know your deeds, that your are neither hot nor cold! So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” After reading the Scripture I heard a voice that encompassed my whole being say, “Do not be afraid.” I felt a warmth and peace spread throughout me and I was awed. I just stared at the Bible. I felt like I was suspended in time.
It was a dilemma for me to serve God. I didn’t understand what it meant to give Him my All. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t feel wise enough, confident enough, committed enough, nor did I trust Him enough. But He had a plan.
“The LORD will lead you into the land. He will always be with you and help you, so don’t ever be afraid of your enemies. “
Mauri writes:
Some of my friends and I have started sending bible verses to each other everyday for encouragement, and this is one I sent one day. This has helped me so much lately.
I have a best friend that is going through depression (at 13 I might add). She also has lost all faith and belief in God. She says she’s mentally incapable of believing that God could fix all of this, and that it’s hard to trust in someone who she’s not sure even exists.
It scares me to death to wake up every morning and there being a possibility of her being gone. But it’s even scarier to think of where she’d going if that happens. I told my youth leader about her depression and the harm she does to herself, and he told her parents. She actually has a doctor’s appointment next week.
But anyway, his whole situation has definitely helped me in my walk with God. I’ve had to work extra hard to live my life as a Christian, because this situation brought me to the realization that the way you act does affect other people.
The other night, I almost gave up. I’ve been living the Christian life around her, I’ve brought God up around her almost everyday, I’ve shown love and care, everything I’m told to do..but it seemed like nothing was working. I felt like every effort I was putting forth to help her was pointless.
I started thinking more on this verse though, and it hit me. God’s leading everything for me, I just have to go along. He knows what will come out of the situation. Satan tried to discourage me, but I finally realized that I shouldn’t be discouraged if I’m doing something for the glory of God.
