Dawn was walking towards a co-worker when she fell. From that day, it seemed that her body began to degenerate. She started falling for no reason and even started experiencing bladder incontinence. Her husband took her to the doctor and she was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal. Some symptoms include among others, back pain, weakness and numbness in the legs and incontinence. Unfortunately, she was told that there was no cure. All she could do was physical therapy and hope for the best. 
    As her condition deteriorated, she became depressed and found it difficult to depend on her faith in God. She reached the point where she did not even want to pray. She felt dark and unfortunately, in spite of treatment, her condition grew worse. 
    One day, she was watching Christian television when she received a word of knowledge. The announcer called out her condition. She was shocked. God told her that he was healing her. He was healing her from the pain and discomfort of the condition and fixing everything that needed to be fixed. She was encouraged to get up and dance and she did just that! No pain! She has not experienced any relapse of her spinal stenosis symptoms. She has been an encouragement to herself and those around her to believe God for their own miracles. 
    She says it was as if a bright light shone on her and that God was saying that He had heard her all along. He had just wanted to give her more. He wanted her faith to increase. She felt as if God was telling her that He knows her body and her mind; He knows when she is weak and when she is strong and He wanted her to know that He loves her.
    I am encouraged by Dawn’s candid admission of her emotions. She admits that she felt depressed because of her condition and that challenged her faith in God. Even as Christians, we may face times when our faith in God is challenged. It’s easy to believe God when things are working out the way we hope but when they don’t, we can begin to doubt God. We may even become angry at Him wondering why He is allowing bad things to happen to us. The reality is, challenging situations don’t always bring out the best attitudes and responses in us, yet, God is faithful. 
    I remember when, several years ago, I honestly told God how I felt about Him because of something I had experienced. I half expected God to strike me down for being so brutally honest, but He did not. I think that’s when I realised that God knows, He understands and He cares. He understood what I was feeling and did not condemn me for it. That’s how God is. He understands our emotions and fears during painful and difficult seasons. He does not expect us to experience positive emotions all of the time. In fact, He created those emotions that we feel. But, He is right there to help us process it all and to make it through that dark season.
    What is also interesting is that Dawn reached the point where she could not pray. I love the fact that although Dawn’s response to her situation was not the nice “christian” one we might expect, that did not and could not motivate God to stop loving her. He reached out to her when she did not even want to reach out to Him. He touched her when she least expected it. In fact, He admitted to her that He allowed her to go through that difficult time because He wanted to develop her, He wanted her to grow.
    God never allows anything bad without having a good reason for it. His Word says that He works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). It means that He will allow bad things to happen but for good reason - to make us stronger and more mature in Him. We may not like the negative things we go through, but because God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours, we can rest assured that He knows what He is doing. At the end of the day, He is doing more good for us than we can ever imagine.
    If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as your personal Lord and Saviour, I encourage you to do so today. God is not blind or insensitive to the challenges you face. He truly loves you and wants the best for you. Whatever He allows, whether good or bad, He will use to develop you and make you stronger, just because He loves you.​

    From a young age Cristina’s life was filled with pain. She turned to heavy drugs and even self harm in an attempt to numb that pain. It didn’t help that her parents got divorced and she found herself going down a very dark path.
    One day, she was pulled over by the police and they found a significant amount of drugs in her car. She was arrested. When her bail was posted, she returned to her job. For most of her life, she had battled with suicidal thoughts. It scared her now because this time, she planned to take her life on her return home from work that night. While sitting at her desk planning how to carry out her plan, a man tapped her on her shoulder. He told her that he had a word from the Lord for her. He shared with her Jeremiah 29:11 from his bible: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." He asked  if she wanted to accept Jesus into her life. She told Jesus that she didn’t know who He was but she invited Him to come into her heart and to save her and her nine month old baby. After praying, she admitted that she felt weights lifted and knew that chains were broken off of her life instantly. 
    However, she was scared because she knew that she was still facing jail time and the possibility of losing her son. She worried about the kind of life she was giving to him. When she asked to speak with the District Attorney, she confessed that Jesus Christ had saved her and that she was deeply sorry for what she had done. Twenty minutes later, she was released. She immediately praised and gave the glory to God. She was guilty, there was no doubt about it, but she knew that Jesus had wiped her slate clean. She was a free woman. She believes that God takes adversity and dark seasons and uses them for His glory and for our good.
    God knows exactly when to step into our situation. He may seem to be taking long to intervene, but God is never late. In fact, He has a way of being right on time. His timing may not be ours but it is always perfect. Cristina, had had enough and felt that she could not go on. Just when she reached the end of her rope, God stepped in. Sometimes, we may feel as if God is taking long to answer. Yet, God knows exactly when to step into our situation. His timing may not be our timing. He may not step in when we would like Him to, but He will  step in at the perfect time. 
    Sometimes, we just have to go through, so that the lessons to be learned along the way will be well learned. After all, we cannot encourage others if we have never been through difficult seasons. We cannot comfort someone, if we have not experienced sadness. God does not waste a single negative experience in our lives. He uses all of it for our good and even for the good of others. 
    I love the fact that Cristina knew that she was guilty. She does not deny it. So when Jesus wiped her slate clean, it must have been exhilarating for her. She was encountering a God who loved her enough to erase the negative in her life. God loves us enough to look beyond our faults and flaws and to see our need. To Him, that is what is important - our need for Him. Never think that you are too far gone that God cannot reach you. Never believe the lie that your problem is too big for God to handle. God is so much bigger than it all and He delights in stepping in and making each of those big challenges small.
    If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as your personal Lord and Saviour, I encourage you to do so today. No matter what you go through, God will always step in at the right time. He sees and knows exactly what you need when you need it. Nothing that you go through is wasted by Him. He will use all of it to bring about good in your life and in the lives of others. Be encouraged!

    Jessica grew up in a Christian home and had been exposed to going to church where she learned about Jesus. Even though she had been taught about God’s love, she struggled with who she was and used her physical appearance to gain people’s attention. Compliments about her small size encouraged her to make every effort to stay as thin as possible. Unfortunately, it soon became an obsession. She began to restrict her diet, even purging after meals until she became bulimic.
    Even though her weight went below one hundred pounds and she blacked out at times and her period stopped, she still had no desire to change her lifestyle. Family and friends finally intervened. Her mother insisted that she seek help at a faith-based treatment centre. Jessica reluctantly obeyed. There, she was ministered to by a Christian couple about God’s love. They prophetically told her that she would have her own children and her own womb. Ironically, the day before, she and another girl had shared concerns about being able to have children because of what they had done to their bodies. She knew the words spoken to her were from God because they personally and specifically spoke to her own fears and concerns. She realised that God saw her and cared about her. She gave her heart to Christ and as she prayed, read the Bible and grew in her relationship with God, she was delivered. 
    She is thankful to God for restoring her. She has been able to have children and she is healthy and strong. She finally believes that she is loved, she is accepted, she is delighted in, she is worthy and she is enough with Him. 
    I love this story of healing and restoration. It is also the story of a second chance, something that God specialises in. We may not always make the best choices and decisions but God does not give up on us and is able to turn any situation around. God loves us and I believe is always waiting for us to come to Him, especially after we have messed up. God healed and restored Jessica, going so far as to give her the children she desired. No matter what she felt she had done to her body, God fixed it all and even gave her what she may have been afraid to ask for. 
    I love what she says about herself at the end of her testimony. These aren’t just her words or her opinion about herself. She was finally able to see herself as God sees her - loved, accepted, delighted in, worthy, enough. This is how God sees us. He doesn’t need us to change and to be someone we are not for Him to love us. He loves us just as we are. And, if anything needs to change, He will help us where we need it.
    In Ephesians 1, as His children, we are described as: chosen (v.4), adopted (v.5), accepted (v.6), redeemed (v.7), forgiven (v.7). God does not look at us or see us through the lens of our or other people’s opinions. He doesn’t see us based on what we have done or have failed to do. God sees us through His eyes. Through His eyes of love, He sees our potential, He sees what He has called us to be in Him. That in itself is a comfort. 
    We don’t have to do this life on our own. We have the confidence that God is right there, ready and willing to help us when we need it. Like the prodigal son who was eagerly welcomed by his father on his return home (Luke 15:20), God is eagerly waiting for us to come to Him. He wants us to bring all of our baggage, all of our disappointments, all of our failures, all of our hopes and our dreams. He is still the only One who can fix, heal and restore.
    If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as your personal Lord and Saviour, I encourage you to do so today. God is not interested in a perfect you, He’s just interested in you. He loves you and has a beautiful plan and purpose for you life. When you choose to come to Him, with all that you are, He will transform you and make you into the person He has designed you to be.​

    Although I have shared on this story before, there is always something to be gleaned from God’s Word no matter how many times we read it.
    In Matthew 14:22-33, we read the story of Jesus walking on the water. Jesus had sent the disciples ahead of him by boat to the other side, while He went up to the mountainside to pray. He saw the disciples struggling to row the boat because of the contrary wind and waves. He decided to go to them walking on the water. 
    Interestingly, the disciples never asked Jesus for His help. He saw their need and chose to go to their aid. God doesn’t always wait for us to cry out to Him. He is there ready and waiting to assist when we need it. The reality is God sees us. We may feel at times as if He is both blind and deaf to our problem and cries for help but He is not. And, when we least expect it, He will show up.
    When the disciples see Him, they initially think that they are seeing a ghost. But He encourages them by letting them know who He is. What I find interesting is the entrance Jesus chooses to make. Let’s face it, it’s a dramatic entrance. No one had ever witnessed someone walking on water before. I believe that Jesus chose to be a distraction to the disciples when He walked on the water. And it worked! The disciples were so distracted by Him that they forgot the stormy weather and their struggle to row the boat. Sometimes, God just wants us to shift our focus to Him and take our eyes off the problem.
    The other thing is, Jesus did not calm the storm first then walk on the water. He wanted their attention while they were in their difficulty, not after it ended. He wanted them to see that He was what was important, not the problem.
    The story goes on to say that Peter told Him that if it was really Him, to let him to come to Him on the water. Peter began walking towards Him on the water. However, when he saw the wind, he began to sink and cried out to Jesus for help. Jesus grabbed him and when they both got into the boat the stormy wind ceased.
    Peter was doing fine until he shifted his focus back to the storm. While we wait, it can be easy to shift our focus back to the problem. Discouragement steps in and we start to sink as we become overwhelmed by the reality of what we are going through. Yet, God wants us to keep our eyes on Him because He is the One to help us successfully navigate what we are going through. 
    God wants to do so much more than just “calm the storms” in our lives. He wants to calm us and give us peace while we go through. He wants us to learn to walk on those rough waters - to strive, to prosper, to keep going, to even stand firm, in spite of how tough things are. That in itself is the real miracle - choosing not to crumble, when everything around us is falling apart. He wants us to be steadfast and immoveable as we stand on His Word, knowing that His Word over our lives will keep and sustain us even in the most turbulent weather.
    If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as your personal Lord and Saviour, I encourage you to do so today. God sees you and He sees what you are going through. He may not fix the problem right away, but He will change you in the midst of it and make you stronger and better equipped to handle whatever comes your way.