I will call on the Lord

I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

2 Samuel 22:4

 

The Lord liveth: and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.

2 Samuel 22:47

 

I love it when I find little nuggets. I found this years ago, right around when I had first became a Christian, that these two verses were in the same chapter and they are also the words to a song I sang growing up.

 

 

 

I will call upon the Lord.

 

 

 

What does that mean when you read that?

 

It doesn't say I might, I will think about it, I will have to see if I have time at the end of the day...

 

 

 

No, it says,

I will.

 

 

As a stay at home mom of three, I have little actual alone time. Recently, Jack came in my room and saw me praying by my bed for a moment and I was crying. I honestly feel like that is a good thing for a child to see. I want him to know his mom asks God for forgiveness and that I call on His name. I need God every single moment. I'm assuming you do too!

 

 

 

At my last 9-5 job, well, my hours were actually 8-6, the boss, who I am sure wouldn't mind me mentioning his name, Lonnie Bosley, allowed his employees who wanted to, to meet and pray before we started our day. I watched God bless his business because he called on the Lord. I loved listening to some of those shop guys pray! Straight from the heart.

 

 

 

I have written about this countless times I feel like, but when our only son, Jack, went through a very scary time of seizures and was delayed on several things, we had to see a neurologist who insisted he had many signs of cerebral palsy. On a brain test it showed a "slowing." He called me at nearly midnight to say this was either a tumor or a bleed on his little nine month old brain. Terrified, we scheduled the MRI. The church prayed and family fasted and we found out how truly loved Jack was. The day came for the MRI. They put him to sleep and sent him in the tube. The radiologist said "I don't even know what we are looking for, all I see is a completely healthy looking brain."
That following day was his last seizure EVER. And within a couple months he had totally caught up. God saved his life during my pregnancy with him as well. It was just as big of a miracle. God has amazing plans for my son, Jack Gannon.

 

 

 

As newly weds we had a good chunk to pay in property taxes for the first time. It took us down to less than $20 in our account. Grant payed it before we went into a revival church service. The Pastor, Adrian Condent, announced that the Lord put "Grant and Hannah on his heart," and he asked that they would all take up a special offering just for us! This was a first! The total was a few dollars more than what we just paid out in taxes a couple hours prior.

 

 

 

Depression. I had it for six months. I admitted what it was last January. My family prayed over me. I felt a warming sensation come in my chest and travel all the way down my body and out my feet. It LEFT and has NEVER returned.

 

 

 

Who is worthy to be praised.

 

 

 

I feel so unworthy even trying to explain how worthy He is.

I was at my lowest the day I was saved. I was on my way to a real, burning hell.

Jesus took on every sin you've ever committed when He was crucified.

Think about that.

Think for just a few seconds about your sins.

Those that nobody else knows about. Those that might ruin your good girl/boy reputation. Those that would maybe ruin some relationships you have.

God died for you even when He knew perhaps you would never accept His love. That is true love. That is real. That is something you won't find in a movie or in a friendship. It is unthinkable.

God is worthy of your praise. He is worthy of your worship.

 

 

He made me worthy. Not by anything I did or didn't do, but when I accepted Him and I saw my sin for what it really was, He made me into a new creation. I'm not the same Hannah anymore.

 

 

I praise the Lord for that.

 

 

So shall I be saved from mine enemies.

 

 

When you call on Him and you recognize He is worthy, He will save you.
 

God will protect you in times that your health insurance won't.
 

His Hand will protect you when your gun or nations army won't.
 

His Grace and Mercy will protect you when the devil says you've done way too much wrong!
 

His Love will protect you from feeling rejected by your parent when they walked out on you.
 

His Forgiveness will protect you from holding a grudge.
 

His Joy will protect you from staying in depression any longer.
 

His Peace will give you protection from bitterness and resentment.
 

He will save you from your enemies! BLESS THE LORD. I feel that as I write that!

 

 

 

The Lord liveth.

 

 

 

He was crucified and He did die. That's a fact.

 

 

But, just as much as that is true, so is the fact that He rose from the dead and He is ALIVE.

 

 

He lives!

 

 

Christ Jesus lives today, He walks with me and talks with me...

 

 

That is how I know He lives!

 

 

Someone asked me years ago how I could be so certain that there is a God. They were basically a genius so I was slightly nervous but the Lord filled my mouth. I told them nobody could change my desires and my heart other than God. And He did that in an instant. That is how I know He is REAL.

 

 

When others see me, I want them to see Him.

 

 

If you are a Christian, that should be your thought in every single situation.

 

 

When I do this, say that, react to this... will others see JESUS? Or will they see a flesh filled man or woman only caring for their own self.

 

 

God forgave me and so it is my reasonable service to forgive others! You can do it too through the Power of the Blood!

 

 

How else will the world know we are different? How else will the world be drawn to God?

 They must see it in our actions and reactions! They must see Him!



 

And blessed be my Rock.

 

 

He is not sand. He is not mud. He is not pebbles on a beach. He is not a sinkhole.

 

 

He is your Rock.

 

 

Stand on Him. When everything else fails you, He will not.

 

 

When your marriage seems to be falling apart, He will give you and your mate a solid place to stand.

 

 

When your child is sick, He will give you a dry, safe spot to rest.

 

 

When your dreams have fallen apart, He will lift your head and remind you that nothing has fallen apart... but everything is falling into place.



 

And exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.



 

Exalted. Lifted up. Worshipped.

 

Praise the God who IS the rock of your salvation!

 

Being a Christian isn't meant to be easy. It's worth it though. It'll be worth it when you stand before God Almighty and He speaks those words to you, that you have been FAITHFUL to Him. The only way to stay faithful and to remain in communion with Him is staying on that Rock. Sure, life may happen sometimes and you may find that the Rock is a few feet, or maybe miles away, but that is and never was God's fault. You are the one who moves away from Him. You are the one who wants to sew your wild oats and to be your own individual and forget the One who will offer you peace, forgiveness and redemption.

 

 

 

It isn't too late to come back to the Rock. After you breath your last breathe though- it is. And it says in the Bible life is a vapor. I have seen babies go to Heaven. I watched Grant's 92 year old grandmother go to Heaven. You don't know how much longer you have.

Call on the Lord.


 

He is there, waiting.

Waiting for a relationship with you. Waiting to give you peace and joy. Waiting to put a sweet healing on your life and soul. Waiting to restore all that the devil meant for evil.

 

 

 

 

Now, what are you going to do with that?

 

 

God bless each and every person reading this. I truly do pray you were blessed and have drawn a little closer to the Lord by reading and applying this today.



The Secret Place in the midst of Disapointments and Aches

 

 

 

 

We have had a wild schedule lately. Out of State for a solid three weeks. Finally home for a few days and I'm enjoying sleeping on my own pillow. So, this morning after making the kid's favorite, pancakes, I was listening to some music while I was loading the dishwasher.

 

 

 

As I listened to a song, I teared up. It was a song I had heard on the radio for years and one my cousin, Crosby, has sung for a while. But, the words just kind of settled with me. Do you know what I mean? When you hear the words to a song, and you think "I could have written that..."

 

 

 

 

I found peace as I listened to these words.

 

 

 

 

 

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I felt like each line connected to somewhere deep in my soul. In places where even my tried and true friendships wouldn't know of. They sank down and I felt the words. Really felt them. I looked back on my life in the few minutes the song played and I realized I have had a lot of disappointments and aching. Whether you are reading this and you're my tried and true friend, or someone on the other side of the planet... we can relate in that area. You have disappointments. You have aching.

 

 

 

 

Maybe you had hopes and dreams of becoming something certain, and those plans fell through the cracks.

 

 

Your engagement to your high school sweetheart was stopped weeks before the wedding.

 

 

 

Your child was diagnosed with a minor or major illness.

 

 

 

You had to bury your spouse.

 

 

 

You found out your spouse was living a double life.

 

 

 

Your child made some pretty bad choices.

 

 

 

Your friend betrayed you.

 

 

 

Your family rejected you once you became a Christian.

 

 

 

Your health is failing.

 

 

 

You had to experience a miscarriage. Or multiple.

 

 

 

You found out you couldn't have "your own children."

 

 

 

Your boss let you go. No reason.

 

 

 

Your closest friends chose comfort rather than defending you.

 

 

 

 

Your dream home was built. Then, you had to sell it because you were in way over your head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disappointments

 

 

 

 

Aching

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why do they happen? I've heard that question more than once. Why do bad things happen to good people? Maybe you've never asked those exact words, but there's a good chance you have asked it in a different form. I know I have. God, why has this had to happen??

 

 

 ----------------

 My writing was interrupted because I got a call from a dear friend who just left a sonogram and they weren't able to find the heartbeat of their sweet little child. I cried and prayed with her. That is an ache. God, comfort my friend...

----------------

 

 

 

 

 

A few years ago I felt betrayal from someone near to me. I asked God why He let this happen.

He showed me that EVERY SINGLE human alive that I will EVER come in contact with, will

let me down. And not only that, I will let THEM down. I think often times we play the victim card when in fact, we are not the victim at all. You think its your parents fault, your siblings fault, your spouses fault, your friends fault, your aunts fault, your uncles fault, your cousins fault, your kids fault, your pastors fault, your best friends' fault...

 

 

Sometimes, it is their fault, but I like to check out my own motives and actions first! I will answer to God for how I treated them. It says in the Bible that if we don't forgive others, God can't forgive us!
I think the hardest person to forgive is the one who doesn't say sorry own up to their wrong.



But...do you know how my relationship started with the Lord?


I said I was sorry.


And He forgave me.


 

 What if that is all that needs to happen with your spouse? What if you need to say you're sorry.


What if you need to tell your kid you're sorry for their childhood.


Tell your friend you're sorry you went MIA during a time they really needed you.


Tell your Pastor you're sorry for not respecting him and his family.


Tell your family member you're sorry you have pushed them away all these years. Own up to it. Be a man or woman. God will bless you for that.


Tell you're child you're sorry you yelled at them.


Tell your spouse you're sorry you haven't been the spiritual leader that God created you to be as the man of the house.


Tell your spouse you're sorry you haven't been a help meet, but rather a hinder meet.



Tell your boss you're sorry you were never on time and never did your job correctly.



Tell that old friend you're sorry for making them feel bad about their appearance.


Tell your doctor you are sorry that you got so upset with him when he told you the bad news.


Tell that person you've held a grudge against that you are sorry.


Go ahead, call them. It will change your life. Just those two words.






I'm sorry.









Tell God you are sorry.






 

 What if all those disappointments and aches are for a reason? I believe they are. I believe at the end of the day, if you are a Child of God, he will turn what Satan and even other people meant for evil and bad and turmoil in your life- God will turn it into good. It may not look that way right now, but He will. You have freewill though, and with that freewill, you have your own choices to make.








You have a choice to say you're sorry.


You have a choice to forgive someone even if they won't say they are sorry.


You have a choice to live in that Secret Place from Psalms 91 day and night.


Sheltered from the storms. Sheltered from the wind. Sheltered from the bullets.


You will be okay. You will. That is something I was told and something I will always tell others.








It'll be okay. You will be okay.






Trust God with your disappointments and aches. He will reveal to you that He is the answer and the refuge You long for.

Place your happiness and worth in Him, not situations, not people, but in the One Who died for you.



The One who meets you in the middle of the night.

The One who wipes your tears.


The One who loves you win you are on the top, and when you're on the bottom.






Find Him in that Secret Place today.



Wounded For Good

But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

Genesis 50:20

 

 

Have you ever been hurt? Betrayed? Rejected? Forgotten?

 

 

Maybe you are tougher than me, but those things are all hurtful, in my opinion. I have felt all of them, intensely over the course of the past year. I have always loved very deeply, therefore, I get hurt very deeply. It's not really a positive quality of mine, at least in my opinion, but nevertheless, it is one. As much as I have tried to become calloused to betrayal, rejection or being forgotten, I still am such a sensitive person. When somebody in my life hurts, I hurt. When a friend of mine is in pain, I can't just pray for them and go about my day. I feel their pain. I carry those burdens.

 

 

I have went through many seasons in my 29 years. I was lost the first 17 years and 4 months of my life. I had no idea what it was to really be a Christian. After being saved, I went through a season of guilt. I felt bad for any little thing I did wrong prior to being saved. Then I went through a season of depression. It lasted around 6 months. I was miraculously delivered from it one year ago. Then, I entered a season of wounds. Yes, you read that correctly. Wounds. I was bitter at first. I'm just being honest. I didn't understand why I would have to be wounded as a Christian. I always sang and loved the song "Through it all." It was my favorite song during the time we went through our miscarriage. I heard it again recently and the words resonated in my soul.

 

 

If I never had a problem, I wouldn't know God could solve them, wouldn't know what faith in His Word could do...

 

 

I went through betrayal in my teenage years, as I'm sure most people do. You think your "best friend" will be your best friend for then next 75 years and then you realize they are human before you guys graduate high school. But, once I became a Christian, I had no idea I would feel betrayal and rejection by other Christians.

 

 

I started reading about Joseph. If somebody was rejected and betrayed, it was him. If someone had a reason to be bitter, it was him. And if someone had a reason to get even, it was him! But, what amazes me to this very moment about Joseph is the fact that he never threw it up in his brothers faces that he was right all along. Instead, in the end, he wept over them. He showed Christ' love to them when he forgave them.

 

 

 

Has someone lied about you? Or perhaps they didn't lie. Maybe they just repeated a matter that was between only the two of you. You wander why they would take a chance on wounding your heart when you have been only true and loyal to them your entire friendship. No, you haven't been perfect, but you stood by their side and you always defended them. You cried with them. You laughed with them. You worshipped together. You prayed together.

I have always kept a thin sheet up between my fingertips and my keyboard, but I feel I can't help anyone unless I am totally transparent.

 I have spoken to God about how I have felt and He's done a mighty work in my life. I am a private person, so I don't like others to know information about me that isn't skin deep, but as I share a little bit of my heart, I pray someone relates and can get some help knowing I'm making it through the fire and so will they. Remember, when something is under heat, impurities will come to the top. 

 Speaking of talking to God, talk to Him. I have grown closer to God in the past year or two because I have made a point to go to HIM first- not my best friends here on earth.

I have been lied about.

 I have had words put in my mouth.

I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that someone did that to me, or the fact that somebody else really believed what they said. Regardless. I was wounded.

 

 

Have you been rejected? And the more you tried, the more you were pushed away?

I can relate.
 

 I felt that because they didn't want or need me in their life, that was a reflection of my worth. Wounded, again. This wound came at the same time as the betrayal wound. So, I had two wounds I was trying to heal and protect, all the while, the enemy was digging their dirty sharp claws deep into my open wounds, getting me while I was down. Pressing their foot hard into my throat. I truly felt I was suffocating some days.

 

 

I have written about how I have been a people pleaser before. I have also said how I have went through a time of feeling insecure, like I was never measuring up in life. The devil has tried just about any tactic possible to torment my mind. The antidote for ALL of these issues I have been through in the past 29 years have all been found in God's Word.

 

 

I don't have some big newfound explanation on how to get over feeling guilty, how to stop people pleasing and trying to have every single persons approval, how to stop feeling down in the dumps, how to lift your spirits when you're betrayed by a friend, rejected by a family member, forgotten or attacked by the devil...

 

 

No, what I have is the best words known to man. God's Word.

 

 

So, here's my testimony of how God got me through and how He still gets me through.

 

 

When I was feeling guilt...

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

When I was being a people pleaser...

There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. Proverbs 19:21

When I was depressed or anxious...

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27

When I was feeling betrayed...

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

When I was feeling rejected...

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. Psalms 147:3

When I am feeling forgotten...

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13&14

 

 

And the one verse that is my screensaver which I am currently trying to memorize which you can apply to any situation in life...

But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Genesis 50:20

 

 

If you are God's child, Satan thinks evil against you. That's a no brainer.

I know I have a lot more to learn in life but as I learn, I want to help share what God has done in my life, in hopes that it will encourage and strengthen someone else out there. Perhaps someone I have not and will never meet on this side.

I am truly sorry for every thing and every person who has ever hurt you. I am sorry for every person who never showed up for you. I am sorry for the racism you experienced. I am sorry for the sexual abuse. I am sorry for the verbal abuse. I am sorry they left. I am sorry they let you go. I am sorry they didn’t choose you. I am sorry they forgot you. I am sorry. 

 

Don't wait any longer for an apology. Sometimes- you just won't get the "I'm sorry," you've longed for, so you can move on. But God wants to heal you and allow you to move on even without an apology.

 

 

 

 

I want to genuinely say thank you for reading and I pray you are blessed by something I wrote. Remember that you ARE enough and that you DO matter and that you ARE needed and wanted.

 

 

 

 

Forgive those who have wounded you. To be forgiven by God, we must forgive others.

Give those around you margin for error. Give them allowance to not always be just perfect. Be quick to say you are sorry and to forgive them. Don't remind them of their faults. Don't expect a pat on the back for doing something good. Don't just pray because it's expected of you as a Christian. Pray because that's how you talk to God. That's how you draw closer to the Friend who will never leave or forsake you. Stop living in the past. Step into the future you were made to trail blaze. You were wounded for good. Just like me.

love, Hannah

 

 

I send this out in a group message on my phone to whoever I know likes to read it, so thanks for anyone who does. Several people have told me they want to share what I say on social media or through other avenues, which I welcome any new traffic and readers. :) Someone from Isle of Man was reading last night. WOW. SO cool.

 

 

 

p.s. even though those who hurt me as a teen or as an adult will never read this, I still want to say and want you to know... I forgive you. Whether you ever say you're sorry or not. I forgive you.

I love you. I mean that.