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Daily Courage Devotional
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Stay alert! Watch out for your
great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion,
looking for someone to devour.
1 PETER 5:8 NLT
A lot of the
off-handed comments made to me as a child about how typical a boy I
was or was not absolutely gave the enemy a foothold early. Long
before I had accepted Christ these doubts were given a chance to
take root. During my teenage years I attempted suicide more than
once (I have mentioned this here before) and I distinctly
remember my mother expressing fear that I may have tried to take my
life because maybe I was gay. I was not. Nor did I ever think that
I was but I will tell you that again because I
doubted myself and in many ways did not know who I was or where I
fit in as a male, this statement made me believe if only for a
moment that maybe others knew more about me than I did. It
"confirmed" that I was unlike other boys my age. It 'confirmed"
that I was soft/that I was weak. My reaction was again to
withdraw/ to again see myself as unfixable/forever
broken.
Of course this was
not a real "confirmation" of anything, which is why I have
placed the word between quotation marks.......
Truth of the
matter is over the years God has used even these deep-seated doubts
to shape me and at times to encourage others. On more than one
occasion I have had men confess to me that they have no one that
they feel close enough to talk to when they are in great emotional
pain. Because of my experiences I am able to identify with the
belief that taking one's life, when one is very isolated, can seem
like a very logical "solution" to end significant emotional pain. I
know that God has used me to show men that this belief is a
lie, that it will bring no true relief. If I had not had these
experiences I would not be able to show men the traps that one
can so easily fall into. Doubt can and is used by the enemy to
distance us from God. I know now that God made me as I am and who I
am for a reason. We cannot and should not be all alike. There is
much that God can use to reach others through our life
experiences. Revealing your past (or current) pain to a
brother you trust may ultimately convince him of the love
of Jesus. We have no idea how God can and will use our willingness
to be transparent.
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Daily Courage Devotional
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And, ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord.
EPHESIANS 6:4
KJV
In the course of writing these
encouragements over the last few days the Holy Spirit has brought
me back to my son, Eric. Eric will be eleven in April. Hard to
believe. It has been such a pleasure to watch him grow/to
watch his personality develop. As most fathers know, there are
times when our children do something/say something and it
seems like an echo. An echo of what we did/ how we behaved at
that age. Sometimes the echo that comes back can worry us,
particularly if we have not fully accepted who we are/where we
have been. If there are doubts or worries or regrets about our
childhood that have led to doubts about whether or not we are good
or worthy we may shudder when we hear our past echo in our
children.
Eric at times shows much of the
sensitivity that first showed itself in me when I was a child. That
sensitivity made me different/ made me feel different from my peers
but I was unable to see it as a strength. I viewed it as a
weakness/ as a disability and believed that the world felt the same
way about this part of me. So sometimes my
traits echo at me through Eric. At these times my
first instinct (not born out of prayer but my first
instinct) is often to immediately protect him/ to shield
him from the ridicule that I received as a child by encouraging him
to not be who he is.
This is a trap. In an attempt to
keep him safe/ protect him from the indifference or cruelty of
others I could be causing him to do the same thing that
the off-handed comments of my childhood did. I could be
causing Eric to doubt who he is/ to doubt that how God
made Him was and is a part of a plan that he may never fully
understand and ultimately does not need to understand.
As I glance back at the scripture
above I am drawn to the word " provoke". Do not get me wrong.
Provoking our children is not in and of itself a bad thing.
Provoking them to think and analyze and grow closer to God? Yes.
Provoking our children to wrath? Look this word up and then
see if this is even remotely something you are drawn to do to
your children. I know I often mention the necessity of
transparency/ of being transparent in our interactions with our
Christian brothers. How and when are we transparent with our
children? Transparent about what we have and do struggle
with?
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Daily Courage Devotional
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And, ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord.
EPHESIANS 6:4
KJV
In the course of writing these
encouragements over the last few days the Holy Spirit has brought
me back to my son, Eric. Eric will be eleven in April. Hard to
believe. It has been such a pleasure to watch him grow/to
watch his personality develop. As most fathers know, there are
times when our children do something/say something and it
seems like an echo. An echo of what we did/ how we behaved at
that age. Sometimes the echo that comes back can worry us,
particularly if we have not fully accepted who we are/where we
have been. If there are doubts or worries or regrets about our
childhood that have led to doubts about whether or not we are good
or worthy we may shudder when we hear our past echo in our
children.
Eric at times shows much of the
sensitivity that first showed itself in me when I was a child. That
sensitivity made me different/ made me feel different from my peers
but I was unable to see it as a strength. I viewed it as a
weakness/ as a disability and believed that the world felt the same
way about this part of me. So sometimes my
traits echo at me through Eric. At these times my
first instinct (not born out of prayer but my first
instinct) is often to immediately protect him/ to shield
him from the ridicule that I received as a child by encouraging him
to not be who he is.
This is a trap. In an attempt to
keep him safe/ protect him from the indifference or cruelty of
others I could be causing him to do the same thing that
the off-handed comments of my childhood did. I could be
causing Eric to doubt who he is/ to doubt that how God
made Him was and is a part of a plan that he may never fully
understand and ultimately does not need to understand.
As I glance back at the scripture
above I am drawn to the word " provoke". Do not get me wrong.
Provoking our children is not in and of itself a bad thing.
Provoking them to think and analyze and grow closer to God? Yes.
Provoking our children to wrath? Look this word up and then
see if this is even remotely something you are drawn to do to
your children. I know I often mention the necessity of
transparency/ of being transparent in our interactions with our
Christian brothers. How and when are we transparent with our
children? Transparent about what we have and do struggle
with?
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Daily Courage Devotional
|
Stay alert! Watch out for your
great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion,
looking for someone to devour.
1 PETER 5:8 NLT
A lot of the
off-handed comments made to me as a child about how typical a boy I
was or was not absolutely gave the enemy a foothold early. Long
before I had accepted Christ these doubts were given a chance to
take root. During my teenage years I attempted suicide more than
once (I have mentioned this here before) and I distinctly
remember my mother expressing fear that I may have tried to take my
life because maybe I was gay. I was not. Nor did I ever think that
I was but I will tell you that again because I
doubted myself and in many ways did not know who I was or where I
fit in as a male, this statement made me believe if only for a
moment that maybe others knew more about me than I did. It
"confirmed" that I was unlike other boys my age. It 'confirmed"
that I was soft/that I was weak. My reaction was again to
withdraw/ to again see myself as unfixable/forever
broken.
Of course this was
not a real "confirmation" of anything, which is why I have
placed the word between quotation marks.......
Truth of the
matter is over the years God has used even these deep-seated doubts
to shape me and at times to encourage others. On more than one
occasion I have had men confess to me that they have no one that
they feel close enough to talk to when they are in great emotional
pain. Because of my experiences I am able to identify with the
belief that taking one's life, when one is very isolated, can seem
like a very logical "solution" to end significant emotional pain. I
know that God has used me to show men that this belief is a
lie, that it will bring no true relief. If I had not had these
experiences I would not be able to show men the traps that one
can so easily fall into. Doubt can and is used by the enemy to
distance us from God. I know now that God made me as I am and who I
am for a reason. We cannot and should not be all alike. There is
much that God can use to reach others through our life
experiences. Revealing your past (or current) pain to a
brother you trust may ultimately convince him of the love
of Jesus. We have no idea how God can and will use our willingness
to be transparent.
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Daily Courage Devotional
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A cheerful
heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's
strength.
PROVERBS
17:22
So, I am
continuing from yesterday. After Web said what he said, I felt
defeated and humiliated and I went to my bedroom. There may have
been tears but ultimately what I did was retreat. I hid. My
friends wondered where I was. I heard the doorbell ring. I
heard my mom open the front door and say, " Sorry
guys... Kenny can't come out now. He might be out later." I was in
there for a while and eventually my grandmother came in and sat on
the edge of the bed. I have talked about my grandmother before
here. I had a special bond with her. We could talk about
things (even when I was seven) that I could not talk to anyone else
about. My mother loved me and took good care of me to be sure but
my grandmother was in many ways my protector as well as a
no-nonsense voice of reason.
So she was sitting
on the edge of the bed, and I may or may not have been crying (I
probably was). She sat there for a little bit and then eventually
said, " Web drank too much today. When he drinks too much
he acts like an a%%ho*e. Don't listen to a%%ho*es."
This shocked and made me laugh. Not only did my grandmother curse
but she stuck up for me and put me, for that moment, in front of
her husband.
I have spoken here
at times about how people have come up alongside of me throughout
my life at just the right time. God most certainly sends people our
way. I truly believe this. I needed someone to tell me not to
listen to Web. I needed someone I loved to show me that we don't
immediately become what others say about us. This is something that
is certainly difficult to fully comprehend when you are seven years
old but also eludes some of us in our forties, fifties and
beyond.
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Daily Courage Devotional
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A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a broken spirit saps a person's strength.
PROVERBS 17:22
Earlier this week I started
to write about my childhood here in DC I received a lot of
feedback from those around me, some direct and some not so direct,
when I was a child, that I did not fit in. Specifically that I
was not the typical boy. I was too sensitive, too thoughtful, too
soft. I tried to excel at sports, I
wanted to excel at sports but mostly because I
thought it might help me fit in/ be more of a
typical boy.
When I was around
seven or eight years old I really liked baseball. I
was a Pittsburgh Pirates fan and followed the team very closely. I
was forever writing down and spouting off statistics and would
also wait for the TV ads for televised Philadelphia Phillies games.
We lived in Southern New Jersey near Philly. I would wait to find
out who the Phillies were playing, hoping it would be the Pirates.
I had a first baseman's glove and a bunch of hardballs and an
aluminum bat. For my eighth birthday I asked for a catcher's mitt.
One of my Pirate idols was Manny Sanguillen, the Pirates starting
catcher. As she did for many years my Mom asked me what I wanted
for my birthday and encouraged me to write out a wish list.
Catcher's mitt was on the very top. For a week or so I would try
to get her to tell me whether or not she had purchased the
catcher's mitt and for as many days as I asked she looked me
in the eye and said, "Sorry Kenny. We just didn't have enough
money this year for it. Maybe next time." I believed her and on my
birthday, after opening all of my boring (aka not
a catcher's mitt) gifts. I figured that was it. She sent me into
the bathroom to get something for her and there was one last
present sitting on the toilet tank. It was clearly shaped like a
catcher's mitt and it was. I was very excited and ran immediately
outside to throw the ball to myself. Some friends from next door
came over eventually and we threw the ball to each other. I
remember feeling great and really happy. I felt like an athlete. I
felt normal. I came back into the house after throwing the ball
around for a while. Web, my grandmother's husband, my grandfather
had died when I was five, turned to me and as plain as day asked,"
Do you like your new mitt, Kenny?" I answered yes and he added, "
Too bad you throw like a girl." He had been watching me from the
window and shared this assessment of my throwing skills. All the
joy of the day drained out. I decided that everyone was laughing at
me/ that everyone thought my attempt to play baseball was a joke. I
was eight years old and I let my spirit be broken.
I share this because I know it
shaped me, unfortunately. It was one of many tapes that played in
my head through my childhood and my teenage years all the way to
adulthood. Web was not my father but he was one of the few men who
were around in my early years and he hurt me. Be aware of what you
say to your children, to other people's children. You could be
planting a weed that will get watered and choke out all the real
plants. It took the love of Jesus to help me understand that God
made me and made me how I am for a reason/ for His glory.
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Daily Courage Devotional
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Be strong and
courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God
is with you wherever you go.
JOSHUA
1:9
My parents
divorced when I was about five years old. They had three children,
including me, together. When my mother was pregnant with Sandi, my
baby sister, it became clear that father had been cheating
on her with another woman, a woman he married and had two
children with. My contact with my father was sporadic after the
divorce and my memories of time with him before the divorce are
foggy at best. I was raised by my mother and grandparents, mostly
my grandmother, as Grandpop Williamson died from complications of a
stroke at the beginning of 1970. He was born in January of 1900 so
it was always easy to know when his birthday was. My contact and
moreso real relationships with male adults was very limited.
After my parents' divorce was final, Ricky (my brother) and Sandi
and I would visit my father and his new wife two weekends a month.
I always saw myself as not completely a boy/ not a typical boy,
even as young as seven years old. This was "confirmed" by how the
men in my life were not sticking around to help teach me how to be
a man. God was not part of the equation. Though it is clear to me
that he carried me through all of this strife. Some of what I am
getting at here (and will continue to discuss in upcoming
encouragements) is the "bad seeds" that took root early in my life.
The doubt that was planted and was given room to root. Years of
believing off-handed comments from adults who noticed that I was
not athletic enough/ boy enough.
Satan was given
the opportunity for a foothold. I am amazed at how my relationship
with the Lord erased these scribbles on the blackboard which was
the first 35 some odd years of my life. As I continue to tell my
story, reflect and pray about how you were discouraged as a
child/continue to be discouraged as an adult. What did it take/what
does it take for you to remember that "the Lord your
God is with you wherever you go" ?
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