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It’s been crazy…

Sometimes, I just want to tell my husband what’s been going on in the world over the last eighteen months. Snippets of the conversation would go like this…things really started to go crazy when we had a global pandemic. We had over 32 million cases in the U.S. with over half a million deaths (my husband is a numbers kind of guy). We even had to shut down everything, work from home, homeschool, isolate, quarantine, wear masks, etc.

And if that wasn’t enough stress, during the summer, Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana and I lost power for eleven hours. It got up to 93 degrees in the house. But that wasn’t as bad as in February when it was nine degrees outside and we lost power and water for FOUR DAYS. I was thankful I held onto that down comforter we used to have because the house got down to 42 degrees inside. The cell towers were down in addition to the power so I couldn’t call anyone. I felt so alone.

Things have been getting better finally, but this week I’ve been reminded that danger is always around us. I saw a four ft. cottonmouth sunning on the dock where we always swim. And I read that there is an 8-10 ft alligator in our lake. Then yesterday when the kids went home after our Mother’s Day celebration, there was a tiger loose in the neighborhood near where they live. The world just seems so crazy and that something bad can happen at any moment.

I’m sure my husband would have some calm words to put me at ease, but for the life of me, I don’t know what they are.

Standing firm in your faith.

But I do know what God’s words to me are. He tells me through the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:8(NIV):

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

We are to think about those things that are true, noble, right pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. As a widow, I sometimes find this to be very challenging. It requires a deep-rooted faith, put into action every day, to think about these things:

• God is who He says He is.
• He is good.
• He is sovereign over everything.
• And God loves me more than I can imagine.

Faith gives us the desire to be obedient. And obedience is how we express our love back to God. When I think about who God is and how much He loves me, I naturally want to follow what He wants me to do. As I draw closer to Him by being obedient, my faith grows even stronger. Apostle Paul encourages us at the beginning of Philippians 4:

“Stand firm in the Lord in this way.”

We are a witness to the world.

Standing firm in our faith is needed now more than any other time in my life than I can remember. It is by standing firm in our faith that we become a witness to the world. As widows, I think others may pay special attention to our faith-in-action since they know we have faced very difficult times.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV):

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We must be careful to not cause arguments by joining the world in focusing on problems and voicing our opinions about those problems. Time after time, we must guard against this by taking our thoughts captive and thinking about whatever is trustworthy, noble, and true. We need to be wary of boiling down our faith to a simple phrase like “faith over fear” and using it as a mantra to convince people into our way of thinking. Faith over fear takes work! It only happens when we take every thought captive, focused on His truth so that our thoughts, feelings, and actions can become aligned with His will. There is simply too much at stake for us not to obey in this way. God relies on us to spread His Good News. We are His witness. What a privilege and incredible responsibility He has entrusted to us.

Living a life filled with peace.

Paul finishes his message in Philippians 4:9 with this:

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

As we step forward in obedience by faith, taking every thought captive, we do not do it alone. For the God of peace will be with us. Hallelujah and Amen!