Gifts for Jesus
Dear Friends,
It has been quite some time since I last posted. For that, I am so very sorry. Two years ago, I walked away from writing for Jesus. I was faced with the devil using “The Thread of Life” to tear me apart. My heart in shambles and my life upended, I sought shelter from the pain. And although I turned to Jesus for solace, I closed myself off from publishing my writing for others to see. I did not want to risk being hurt or unintentionally hurting those I love. It is hard to admit that I absolutely knew that this was not what Jesus wanted for me—He wanted me to trust Him and to keep writing—but I wasn’t willing to take the risk. And being the loving father that He is, Jesus allowed me to lick my wounds and sulk. However, He continuously reminded me that I was not using the gifts He had bestowed upon me to His honor and glory. They were being wasted because of fear and doubt.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus did not let me down two years ago, I let myself down by trying to fix the heartache on my own. The going got tough and I walked away.
I am sharing all of this with you because there is a lesson to be learned from my actions; we can love Jesus yet keep pieces of ourselves from Him. As christians devoted to serving the Lord, we will face heartache, disappointment, grief and devastation. Belief in Jesus does not make us immune to pain; but as we face these hurdles, He will provide us with the resources, the strength and fortitude to endure them, overcome them, grow from them, while simultaneously showering us with everlasting joy and peace. As believers in Christ, we do not walk alone and many times, Jesus simply picks us up and carries us when we cannot walk at all. Dear friends, I love Jesus with all of my heart and soul and would never walk away from a life filled with Him. I cherish the love that faith in Jesus instills in me, but I now realize that a relationship with Jesus does not preclude us from holding pieces of ourselves from Him. I willingly chose to stop sharing my writing with the world. I chose to hide away one of the greatest treasures Jesus gave me because I was too scared to trust Him to walk with me through potential heartache. But why, I ask, would He give me a gift, if He were unwilling to stand beside me through all circumstances that occur because of it? Its baffling to me—even though I understood what I was doing, I was too stubborn to let go and to let God take control.
Today, however, I find myself standing at a crossroads. The urge to trust Jesus once again with my writing and to share it with you is so great I can no longer contain it. Perhaps no one will want to read it and it will simply exist in the vast world of cyberspace; perhaps individuals will judge me harshly for the words I write and will use it to laugh at me or hurt me; or perhaps, it will touch hearts and spread the love of Jesus to those who need to hear it. I pray for the latter and am doing my best to trust my heart and the consequences of writing for Jesus to Jesus, for “he who started a good work in me will be faithful to complete it”(Philippians 1:6).
Dear friends, are you holding your talents back from Jesus and not allowing Him to use them for His honor an glory because you are afraid, like me? If you are, I understand completely…but I pray for Christ to quiet your fears and to trust your gifts to Him, just as I am doing.
Your friend in Christ,
Heather