Divine Ordinary

We find the sinful woman’s story in Luke 7:37-50. She is not named in the story, although sometimes she is mistaken for Mary of Bethany (Lazarus’s sister) who also broke a very costly alabaster vial of ointment but over Jesus’ head. Also this story refers to this woman as, “a woman of the city who was a sinner.” The word sinner in this case refers to someone in habitual sin. We are not sure what her habitual sin was, but whatever it was, the woman was keenly aware of her sinful state.

Jesus had been invited to dine at a Pharisee named Simon’s house. As a Pharisee, Simon’s invitation is somewhat suspicious, but it appears, by his questions, that, like Nicodemus he was curious about just who this Jesus was.

As the two men reclined at the table – according to custom, they would have been leaning on their left elbow, reclining on pillows around a low table – this woman comes in stands behind Jesus at His feet with a vial of perfume. She is so overcome at her own sinfulness and his perfectness that she starts to weep.

She isn’t just sniffling either. She is sobbing with enough tears that her tears are washing away the dust on Jesus’ feet. She tries to wipe the tears away with the only thing she has handy as a towel – her hair. As she is wiping Jesus’ feet, she is kissing them and anointing them with her alabaster container of oil.

Simon, who is looking at this display with disgust, thinks to himself that Jesus must not be a prophet after all or He would know what kind of woman was touching Him. The common thought was that Jesus was a prophet, and as Simon wanted to find out just who Jesus was, I don’t know if he was glad or disappointed to see what Simon considered proof that Jesus wasn’t.

However, Jesus knew what Simon was thinking, so He asked Simon who would love the the person who forgave their debt – a man who had been forgiven a very small debt or one that had been forgiven a very big debt. Simon, probably wondering why Jesus was asking him such an elementary question, says the man with the big debt. Jesus answers that Simon has judged the matter correctly.

Then Jesus pins Simon to the wall, saying he gave Jesus no water for His feet (a hospitality custom in a culture where people wore sandals and walked on dirt roads), nor had he greeted Jesus with a kiss or anointed His head with oil, yet this woman – whose sins were many – she had gone above and beyond the normal customs, and in so doing showed the depth of her love for Jesus.

The story ends with Jesus telling the woman that her sins are forgiven and that her faith had saved her and she could go in peace.

Once again, we see Jesus offering forgiveness, salvation and peace to a woman society had condemned. Every Pharisee would have recoiled from her touch because it would have made him unclean. But not Jesus.

While it is hard for me to imagine someone crying hard enough to wash someone’s feet and then wiping it with her hair, this story shows us the beauty of brokenness.

This woman believed Jesus could save her and her belief compelled her to seek Him out. She went where she was not welcome, in front of someone who held her disgust. This woman was so broken about her own sin that she couldn’t keep back her tears. They overflowed in a torrent. She was so grateful for Jesus’ presence that she worshiped Him in the only way she knew how – with tears, kisses and anointing oil.

This woman did not cling to her pride or even her dignity. Jesus was more important to her than what anyone thought of her. Worshiping and adoring Him was more important than the cultural etiquette. It was more important than the opinion of Simon, a religious leader. It was more important than her precious ointment which she poured out at Jesus’ feet.

This woman held nothing back from Jesus. Her posture of kissing His feet speaks of surrender and submission and humility.

Her willingness to lay her brokenness, her unworthiness at Jesus’ feet gave her something that I think we can all learn from. She didn’t come with peace, but she left with it.

Because of her brokenness, her submission, she left with something the self-righteous Pharisee at the table didn’t get. She left with the peace that true repentance and God’s forgiveness gives us.

Sometimes, I think we don’t want Jesus to see our brokenness because we are somehow afraid He’ll be repelled or think less of us. So, we come to our quiet time or our church service with our dignity drawn tightly about us, but Jesus wants us to be real with Him. Until we bring all that brokenness to Him, He can’t heal us and put us back together again.

Are you willing to trade your pride for peace?

Blessings, Rosanne

If the Samaritan woman could have had a theme song, it would have probably been, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.” To this point in her life, her search for love had not netted her much but a series of exes, a man who wouldn’t commit and such a bad reputation around town that it was easier to come draw her water from the well in the midday heat rather than brave the virtuous women in the morning.

We find the Samaritan woman’s story in John 4 when Jesus and His disciples pass through Samaria on their way from Judea to Galilee. It’s telling that in verse 4 it says, “And He had to pass through Samaria.”

The truth was, no self-respecting Jew wanted to be caught dead in Samaria. Samaritans were half Jewish and half Gentile. The Jews had absolutely no use for these half-breeds, and usually Jewish people went hours out of their way to go around Samaria by crossing the Jordan River and going through Perea. The Jews hated the Samaritans and the feeling was rather mutual.

Jesus not only went through Samaria, but he chose to sit down at the well and rest while his disciples went off to the city to buy food.

The Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water and Jesus does something extraordinary – he talked to her.

This was extraordinary for a couple of reasons. First, men did not just talk to strange women in those days, and second Jews did not talk to Samaritans, either.

Jesus overcame not just a gender barrier but an ethnic barrier, as well. Jesus starts the conversation with a simple request – Give me a drink of water.

I love that this woman doesn’t just draw up some water, but she asks how Jesus, a Jew, can ask her, a Samaritan woman, for anything. It starts a conversation between Jesus and this woman. He tells her if she knew who HE was, she would ask for Him to give her living water.

She looks at this dusty, Jewish man sitting there by the well. He has no bucket or vessal and again, she points out the obvious – How could you? You have nothing to draw water with.

Jesus answers that His water is living water and with it she would never thirst again. She still is not really getting it, and again gets excited about not having to come down to this well every day, a daily reminder of the stigma on her. It sounds blissful not to have to worry about getting water anymore.

So, Jesus asks her to get her husband. The woman gave a rather cagey response – I have no husband – which was technically true. But Jesus calls the half lie. He tells her she is being truthful – she has no husband now, but she’s had five husbands and is living with another man now.

It finally dawns on the woman that this is no ordinary Jew sitting before her. She thinks he is a prophet so decides to ask him a question that had been bothering her – her people worship on the mountain but the Jews say everyone needs to worship at Jerusalem, so who was right.

Jesus’s answer, that things were going to change and that those who worshiped God, would so in spirit and truth and the place wouldn’t matter.

It’s like a light comes on. She answers that she knows the Messiah is coming and He would tell them things they didn’t know. Jesus answers her – I am He.

The woman drops her water bucket and immediately runs off to tell all the men in the city who is sitting at the well – the Messiah! Her proof? “Here is a man who has told me everything I have done!”

The story of the woman at the well or the Samaritan woman is a pretty familiar one. I’ve heard numerous sermons on it in my life, so I was looking at what we can learn from her.

Certainly, we can learn about God’s grace and mercy. We can also learn that God can use anyone to share his Gospel, no matter what their background.

What I was struck by this time around though was that the woman was very focused on her immediate circumstances and problems. When Jesus offers her living water that would make her never thirst again, all she can think is that this is the answer to her immediate and biggest problem. She was sort of mired in the obvious, but Jesus was offering her so much more.

It reminds me of the verse in Ephesians 3:20, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

While the Samaritan woman IS a great reminder of God’s mercy, grace and love; it is also a good reminder that so many times what we ask God for is small and often unimportant in the bigness of God’s plans. We are worried about the mundane, while God is doing work in our lives that has a more divine purpose.

This verse in Ephesians reminds us that God is capable of doing far more abundantly beyond what we can even think to ask.

The Samaritan woman went to the well that day to meet a simple physical need – water. What she got was something she didn’t even realize she needed – for the thirst of her very soul to be quenched. Jesus met her at the well and He looked at her in all her brokenness and messiness and He offered to meet a need she probably had never even articulated even to herself – for someone to really SEE her and love her anyway.

Jesus is like that. He sees what we really need, in the midst of our prayers for needs that seem big in our small worlds, and He reaches down and He answers those prayers we haven’t even thought to pray yet, to meet those needs we can’t even admit we have. That’s the kind of God we serve – the kind that truly sees the local loose woman, heals her hurts, meets her needs and then sends her back as His messenger.

Blessings, Rosanne

I don’t believe in coincidences, so when I read about the woman with the hemorrhage in my Bible study and then read about her again in a totally unrelated book, I had to believe God had something to show me. What, though, I wasn’t so sure.

To be honest, I have never really thought a lot about that poor woman recorded in the Gospels as having an “issue of blood.” I mean, I’m familiar with the story, but it’s one of those stories I’ve skimmed over.

Because this unnamed woman kept popping up, I decided to take a closer look. If you are unfamiliar with the story, you can read it in any of three Gospels: Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; and Luke 8:43-48. Matthew only wrote three verses about this miracle, but both Mark and Luke went into more detail.

The story goes like this from Mark 5:25-34:

<i>A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse – after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak.

For she thought, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” Immediately, the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Immediately, Jesus perceiving in Himself that power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My garments?” And His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?'”

And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”
</i>
To begin to understand this story in all its context, we have to understand a little of Jewish law. This woman’s “hemorrhage” meant she had been bleeding for 12 years. The bleeding was most likely either menstrual or uterine and as such, made this woman unclean.

When a woman was unclean, anything or anyone she came in contact with became unclean as well. This woman’s physical ailment isolated her from social interaction. Her infirmity narrowed her life in ways that we, living in this modern world, probably have difficulty understanding. She had gone to various physicians and in Mark 4:26 it said that she had spent all that she had and was not been helped at all – in fact, she had grown worse.

While you and I do not live in the world of Jewish law nor do we probably have some kind of physical ailment that separates us from others, I don’t doubt we all have something in our lives that makes us feel isolated from others. We all tend to present a facade to other people of what we think they should see.

Church is often the worst place for this, unfortunately. When was the last time you asked someone how they were and instead of “fine,” they shared that their marriage was on the rocks or their kids were acting out and they didn’t know where they had gone wrong? When was the last time you said, “Hi, how are you?” and a fellow mom shared that she felt like her life was out of control and she wasn’t doing any of it well?

Yeah, I haven’t gotten too many of those either. We are afraid to show our real selves for fear of what other people will say – thinking that we must be the only one that struggles and somehow, everyone else has it all together.

Like this woman, we have something that makes us feel unclean or unworthy or ashamed. Satan likes for us to keep our shame in the dark and secret because then we become isolated. Like any wolf out to kill the sheep, it’s much easier to prey on the lone sheep than one in the middle of the herd.

In Angie Smith’s book, <i>What Women Fear,</i> a couple sentences leaped out at me. “We have a very real enemy who thrives on our silence. He doesn’t want us to be in fellowship, sharing our hearts and seeking wisdom on how to live lives that glorify God in spite of the darkness we feel.”

So, instead of being real with other believers, we try to fix it ourselves, in our own strength – without the accountability of other believers.

If you’ll notice, this woman had spent a lot of money to seek out physicians to fix the problem. She had spared no expense and not only sick, but broke, too. Not only did the physicians NOT helped her, but now she was worse than before.

How like us as we try to “fix” our problems ourselves. I guess that’s why Dr. Phil and Oprah are so popular. Instead, though, we end up depleted and exhausted and worse off than when we started.

At the end of her own resources, this woman took a chance – she went out into the crowd (even though she was unclean) and she touched the hem of Jesus’ robe. She didn’t directly approached Him – she just crept up and touched His hem with a desperate faith that finally, finally she would be healed.

The woman was immediately healed. In an instant, the problem that had plagued her and made her life so miserable and lonely was gone. I can’t imagine how she felt – to be healed after so long. She probably was going to slip away, not noticed, but quietly rejoicing.

So, really, Jesus could have kept going. He could have just let her be healed and not acknowledged her in any way, but He didn’t.

Instead, He stopped in the midst of the noisy, demanding, jostling crowd and asked, “Who touched me?” The disciples, quite naturally, looked at Him like He was a bit crazy – with all the people pressing in, how in the world could they know who touched Him?

But Jesus had a purpose – He wanted to connect with this woman, not just heal her physical body, but her heart as well.

At first glance, it seems almost cruel that Jesus would make the woman come forward, make her admit her shame and weakness in front of a crowd of curious onlookers.

Most likely, people in her village knew of her problem – maybe they talked about her in whispers and wondered what sin had brought this plague down on her, or shook their heads in pity.

So, now, He looks right at her. She knows she is found out. She knows now everyone will know about her problem and that she was out among people when she was unclean, and that by touching Jesus, she had made Him unclean, too. The verse said she was trembling, she was that afraid.

But she KNEW she had been healed and what Jesus had done for her, so she threw herself at Jesus’ feet and verse 33 says, “and told Him the whole truth.” She didn’t leave anything out -she just laid it all out at Jesus’ feet. The whole, ugly truth. And then she waited.

Did she think He would condemn her? Or maybe reverse her healing because she wasn’t worthy – because her touch had made Him unclean, too?

Instead, after she had publicly confessed her shame and told how Jesus was the only one who could heal her, Jesus gave her a new identity. He calls her daughter and tells everyone that it was HER faith that healed her.

Instead of condemning her, He praises her and sends her on her way with a blessing.

So many times, we think if everyone knew who we really were or what our lives are really like when nobody else is around, they would reject us or laugh or sneer. Worse, we think God feels this way about us when He is waiting for us to reach out to Him.

By calling this woman out, Jesus set her free from her prison of shame and secrecy. He can do the same for us. All we have to do is reach out and touch His hem and believe – believe that He is big enough, gracious enough, loving enough to clean us up and remove all of our shame.

“Now therefore there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

What are you hiding that Jesus is just waiting to heal?

~ Blessings, Rosanne

We are now leaving the Old Testament in our series and entering the New Testament. For the next couple days, we are going to look at four women in the Bible who have several things in common: none of them are named; all their stories take place in the Gospels; all of them lived on the fringes of society for one reason or another; and all of them had a life-altering encounter with Jesus.

The first of these women is the adulterous woman. You can read her story in John 8:2-11.

“Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in the adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him. He straightened up and said to them , “He who is without sin among you, let him bet he first to throw a stone at her.” Again, He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones and He was left alone, and the woman where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on, sin no more.”

As I started studying this story, I began wondering what it had been like to be her. It’s so easy to gloss over these stories because the people in them lived a long time ago, and we know the ending of the story.

This unnamed woman didn’t know the ending because she didn’t yet know Jesus. This is what I imagine it was like that morning.

Jesus was teaching that early morning when there was a commotion. People were turning and a buzz filled the courtyard as the Pharisees roughly dragged in a woman, her clothing hastily donned, her hair hanging down her back. The woman’s face was cast down, tears leaked down her cheeks, and she trembled visibly as they dragged her to the center of the court, a blood stained limestone wall behind her.

She knew she had broken the law. She also knew what her punishment was – death. Already, the crowd of hostile men (women weren’t allowed in this part of the temple courtyards) had gathered in a milling group, picking up stones – some still stained with blood from previous stonings.

The woman hugged herself as she stood alone, ringed by her accusers. “Stupid,” she thought to herself. Stupid to trust a man, a man who had used her and then turned her over to the Pharisees and collected his money for playing his part without a pang of regret. She was going to die because she had thought, well, it didn’t matter now what she thought, did it?

The Pharisees confronted Jesus, who was still seated, his teaching interrupted by  their loud entrance. The head Pharisee, a stout man with cold eyes, flung his arm back to point at the woman still standing alone. “We caught her – in the very act of adultery! You know Moses’ Law says she should be stoned. What do YOU say, Teacher?”

The word teacher was spoken with a sneer. The group behind him, his fellow conspirators, nod and murmur behind him. They press closer to the teacher. The Pharisee is almost panting in his glee at putting Jesus in an impossible position. This Pharisee knew that the Law of Moses said adulterers should be stoned, but he also knew that the Roman edict said that nobody but the Roman Governor could pass a death sentence.

If Jesus said not to stone her, He’d break the Jewish Law, but if He said she should be stoned, He’d break the Roman Law. The head Pharisee could not stop the smile that spread across his face. He finally had Him, this Jesus of Nazareth. This man with his disruptive teachings and his cool indifference to the Pharisees religious facade.

Wait. What was He doing? The Teacher stooped down and began writing with his finger in the dirt. The Pharisees asked again – several of them talking over each other, trying to get Him to answer. Why did He seem so calm? Why didn’t He answer or at least seem flustered. Instead, he continued to write.

The group of Pharisees’ voices got louder as they pressed him to answer. The crowd behind them seemed divided as to whether they should press closer to see what was going on with the Teacher or try to keep their place to be part of the stone throwers.

The head Pharisee closest to Jesus got a glimpse of a word that made him pale. His sins were written in the dirt. His face turned a dull red. Others in the group had started to really look at what Jesus had been writing. Some paled. Some became visibly angry.

Jesus looked into their faces. His eyes seemed to pierce each man’s soul. “Let the person who is without sin – let him throw the first stone.”

Several of the younger men started to heft their rocks, but the head Pharisee was the first to let his fall to the ground. Slowly, one by one, the older men let their rocks go. The younger men were confused at first, but eventually nobody was left in the ring around the young woman.

Nobody except Jesus. She had heard of the Teacher but had never seen Him or heard Him teach. He approached her and she began to tremble again. Who was this man who could cause all those men, the men who had been panting to hurt her, to kill her, to just walk away.

Jesus stopped in front of her. “Where are your accusers? Has nobody condemned you?” he asked. His voice, his eyes, his manner were gentle. There was none of the ugly derision or, worse, leering that had been in the faces of the men that had ringed her earlier.

The woman stared at Him for a long moment. Tears hovered in her eyes. “Nobody, my Lord,” she said, her voice was barely a whisper.

His smile was genuine. “Neither do I condemn you. Go on now and don’t sin anymore.”

The woman’s heart leaped. To not feel condemned. To not feel the guilt or shame anymore. She almost didn’t know what that felt like anymore – to live free. She nodded her head, and clutching her robes, she stumbled away, still in wonder and awe at what had happened and what happened.

She had a second chance. She was a live. She glanced over her shoulder at this man who was somehow more than a man. He was still watching her. It was like He could see into her very soul. She had heard He had called Himself God’s Son, and now she believed it. No other man she had ever met had even tried to set her free. This man had removed her shame. He was the very reason she was alive. As she hurried back to her home, she knew she was different. She knew she would not go back to the old ways. She would live in her freedom.

Jesus gave this woman a great gift that day – the gift of God’s grace. You’ll notice He never said she was innocent or didn’t deserve the punishment, but He still did not condemn her. He had given her freedom from bondage and as she left that day, she had a choice to continue in that freedom that grace had created or to go back to the bondage of sin. We never see this woman again, but I believe she went on to live a transformed life. Having an encounter with Jesus often had that affect.

God’s grace isn’t just for people in the Bible though. His grace is for you and for me. Jesus died for the world, but He also died for you. God says He lavishes His grace on us. There is not a certain amount of grace for each of us and when you use it up, it is gone. His grace never runs out. And that lavish, unending grace is available to you and to me, no matter what we’ve done or how many regrets we have.

Are you living in the freedom of God’s grace? Believe Jesus when He says – I don’t condemn you. Go and sin no more.

Blessings, Rosanne

Yesterday, we looked the villain Haman and today we are going to look at one of the most infamous women in the Bible – Jezebel. In fact, her name is synonymous with being a wicked, loose woman.

Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab, who was considered one of the most evil kings of Israel. He gave kings everywhere a bad name.

We find the story of Jezebel and Ahab in I Kings 16:28 – 19:3; 21 and 2 Kings 9. It covers a lot of territory that I can’t possibly fit into one blog post unless I make it so long your eyes cross! 🙂 So, we will just go over the basics of her story and then look at what we can learn from her life. Sometimes, a bad example can teach us a lot about what NOT to do.

Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal who was thought to be the high priest to Baal. She was from Sidonian, which just as a side note, was a group of people God had commanded the Israelites to drive out of Canaan. They neglected to do this which is a lesson to us that our disobedience can have some unforeseen consequences even much further down the road.

In order to understand Jezebel, who is thought to have been the high priestess to Asharah,  we have to understand who Baal and Asharah were and what their worship looked like. Baal was an ancient Canaanite/Mesopotamian deity associated with agriculture. He was believed to be the giver of life.

Asharah, who was considered to be the consort of Baal, was the goddess of love, sex and fertility.The worship of Baal and Asharah involved base sexual worship (think orgies) and temple prostitution was demanded. In worship to these false deities, human sacrifice was common with children being the most common victims.

Even though Ahab was an Israelite, when he married Jezebel he went right along with this worship and built temples to these gods and basically encouraged its spread throughout the land of Israel. It’s one of the reasons God described Ahab as having done evil more than anyone before him. With Israel’s history of wicked kings, that was saying something.

Jezebel was as evil, if not more so, than her husband. Throughout the verses that tell their story, she is always urging him on and planting evil suggestions in Ahab’s ear. Even though I’ve only met Jezebel through the pages of Scripture, I think it is a pretty safe bet that she had a strong personality. She wielded quite a lot of power for a woman in that day and age. She commanded the deaths of the Lord’s prophets; she brought in a false religious system; she also had 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asharah brought in to serve these gods.

There are three main stories in which Jezebel figures prominently and they cast a pretty strong light on her character. The first is when Jezebel and the prophet Elijah have a throw down to see whose god is greater. Jezebel has her prophets build a huge alter to call down fire but no matter what they do,including cutting themselves, nothing happens. (I personally get a chuckle of how Elijah makes fun of them, asking if their god is asleep or maybe going to the bathroom). Then it’s Elijah’s turn. He douses the whole alter with water and fills a moat around the alter with water. Then he prays simply and God consumes the alter and all the water.

Elijah becomes numero uno on Jezebel’s hit list.

The second time we see Jezebel, she is encouraging Ahab to falsely accuse and have killed someone whose vineyard he coveted.

The final time we see her is at her death when her own servants throw her over a balcony onto the hard stones far below.

One of the big things we need to realize is that Jezebel had numerous chances to repent and turn to a different path throughout her life, but she chose not to.

When I was younger, I kind of saw the God of the Old Testament as one of the Law and judgement, while He showed His grace and mercy in the New Testament. But the thing is, God’s character is consistent throughout the Bible and history.

There was never a king who wasn’t given a chance to repent – even Ahab, who actually did later in his life.

Jezebel missed a lot of the opportunities and wasted the gifts she was given. The first thing she wasted was the opportunity to repent and know the true God of Israel.

When all of her prophets were killed at Elijah’s hand after the big showdown. It was obvious that the gods she worshiped could not compare to Israel’s Jehovah, but instead of repenting and turning to Him, Jezebel was consumed with anger and hatred.

I guess this is another thing we learn from Jezebel. Anger at the messenger can often signal that we are clinging to a false god. We don’t want to hear the message, so we take it out on the messenger.

When criticism comes our way – even if it is wrapped in an unpleasant package or delivery – we need to sift it for the truth that God may want to share with us.

On the flip side of that, we need to realize that sometimes if we have a message from God or His Word, we may become a target of people’s anger. A lot of people – myself included – sometimes get really blindsided by the vitriol directed at them when all they are doing is serving God. It’s not you they are angry at – it’s God.

Jezebel also wasted her authority and influence. Unlike many women back then, Jezebel had a strong personality with the ability to influence others, including her husband. While Ahab wasn’t a push over, Jezebel held him in thrall. He listened to her and he certainly gave her a lot of authority.

Instead of using that influence and authority for good, though, Jezebel used it for evil. She used her authority to order all of God’s prophets killed. She used her influence with her husband to get him to set up a false religion and to kill a man over his land.

Jezebel was considered a very beautiful woman, but she wasted her beauty. Instead of something good, it became a way to manipulate and hurt people. The very day she died, Jezebel tried to seduce Jehu so she could win him to her cause before she was thrown off that balcony.

While Jezebel is an extreme example of what not to do, I think often we have some of the same issues – if on a lesser scale. How many times do we throw away opportunities God gives us? Or have we gotten angry at someone telling us a truth we didn’t want to hear and then bashed them to others or even just in our own thoughts? Have we used our influence for good?

Beth Moore has often said that wives don’t have power, but they have a very important place of influence with our husbands. Are you using that influence for God’s purposes or your own?

While none of us are probably out killing prophets or worshiping obviously false gods like Baal, the story of Jezebel makes me stop and take stock of what I AM doing with the opportunities and influence God has given me. It makes me stop and wonder if I am listening to the messages He sends through other people or if I am choosing to be angry about it because I don’t want to hear it.

Do you see any Jezebel in you?

Blessings, Rosanne

Today, we are going to look at the lone man in this series. I know – he’s not a woman, but I find him really fascinating. I just finished reading the book of <em>Esther</em> in one sitting. I’ve never done that before, even though I participated in the in-depth study of Esther with Beth Moore. That study was awesome and I got so much out of it. But as I read the story today, that is what it was like – a story. It just pulled me in and I kept thinking, “I’ll just finish this one chapter.” But I kept reading until the end.

Usually, the person who stands out to me in <em>Esther</em> is, well, Esther. I imagine how she felt and what it was like to walk into the throne room. How you’d feel hot and cold waiting for the king to lift his sceptor. But this time around, the person who stood out to me was Haman.

Haman is identified several times as “Haman, son of Hammadatha the Agagite.” From his actions, Haman appears very prideful and when Mordecai dares to not bow down, Haman is incensed. At first glance, this looks like someone overblown with confidence and pride.

In many ways, Haman was overly prideful, but I recently read a quote by G.K. Chesterton that said, “Only the secure are humble.” The need Haman had for everyone to bow and pay homage to him when he walked by was not because he was secure. It was because he NEEDED that to feel built up in importance.

Haman is the villain in the story that you love to hate. I mean, honestly, is there a more satisfying moment than when Haman gets his comeuppance? Here he comes striding into the the throne room to ask for Mordacai to be hung from the gallows, and before he can do that, the king asks Haman what he should do to honor someone. Immediately, Haman starts thinking about himself and gives all the things he wants.

And again, his wants are so eye-opening to his insecurity. He needs the adulation of the crowds. He needs the parade and the confetti to feel important and special. It is with great glee that we read on to see Haman realize that the king is talking not about HIM, but about MORDACAI. The gall of having to lead that horse with Mordacai on top to the crowds’ cheers, to have to call out how awesome Mordacai is when he just wants Mordacai dead. I mean, really? That is just the picture of poetic justice isn’t it?

But, when I read the story this time around, I felt sorry for Haman. He hates Mordacai so much because Mordacai is a reminder to him of all the things he isn’t and can never be. You can see Haman slipping over the edge and heading downhill long before he realizes that he is speeding to destruction – that his pride and insecurity, his need to have everyone around him give homage to him, will ultimately be his downfall.

It’s so easy for me to point my finger at Haman, to say how prideful he was, but am I any different? Well, obviously, I’m not running around trying to orchestrate the anihilation of an entire people, but how many times do I want to make sure people know I am right or smart or creative or (fill in the blank.) How many times am I afraid that people won’t realize my worth?

I am currently doing a study called the <em>Character Makeover</em>. The first character trait is Humility. All I can say is “ouch!!” As I prayerfully went through the study this week, I saw how truly me-centered I am. John the Baptist said about Christ – “I must decrease and He must increase.”

The truth is while I <em>want</em> Christ to increase, I’d really like it to be done so I don’t decrease. I mean, if I decrease will I still have worth and value? The truth is I can get so consumed with my own problems, my own thoughts, even my own walk with God, that I cease to see anything beyond the tip of my nose.

True humility is, at it’s core, trusting God with myself to the point where I don’t have to worry about me at all because my worth and value come not from how others see me but who God redeemed me to be.

I’ll close with this quote from Charles Swindoll, “Being totally committed to Christ’s increase… means letting our lives act as a frame that shows up the masterpiece – Jesus Christ. And a worthy frame isn’t tarnished or dull, plain or cheap. instead, with subtle loveliness, it draws the observer’s eyes to the beautiful work of art it displays.”

May I be a frame worthy of Christ – not trying to draw the glory from Christ to myself but pointing others to Him.
~ Blessings, Rosanne

What is a series on women with learning from the story of Esther, or her Jewish name (which I like better), Hadassah. If you have read the story of Esther, you know she was one of many young women chosen as a potential bride for the king. It was like the original Bachelor.

Esther was beautiful and God gave her favor, and she ended up becoming the new queen. However, she kept her Jewish heritage a secret. When Haman, a man in the king’s favor, tried to annihilate the Jews, Esther had a choice to make. She hadn’t been called into the king in many weeks, and if she just went in, if he didn’t hold out his scepter to her, she’d be killed on the spot.

I’m sure it was sort of a heart in your throat moment when she appeared before the king without being called, but the king held out the scepter. Esther asked he and Haman to come to several banquets before she revealed that Haman evil plan.

Essentially, Esther saved the day. The most memorable verse of the entire book is probably found in Esther 4:14 where it says, “And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” Mordecai is responding to Esther’s initial reluctance to appear before the king.

There are a lot of interesting lessons we can learn from Esther’s life and the book with her name on it.

Even when we can’t see God, it doesn’t mean He isn’t there. Interestingly, in the book of Esther, the name of God is never mentioned, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t all over the story.

Fear is never an excuse not to obey God. Esther had every right to fear going in to the king – she could literally lose her head. She was between a rock and a hard place – if she went before the king she could die, but if she didn’t, Esther would die anyway with her people. Thankfully, Esther got to the place where she surrendered and said, “If I perish, I perish.” The fear of death can rob you of the joy of life.

Our destiny is never about us. Our destiny or calling is not ultimately about me. If I live my destiny, people shouldn’t see me, they should see God.

We are most prone to attack after we have been set free from a stronghold in our lives but haven’t really yet arrived at God’s destination for us. Our minds are usually the most vulnerable to this kind of attack. Satan can’t touch us, unless God allows it, but he sure can whisper in your ear, and half the time we believe him! Beth Moore once said in one of her Bible studies, “Respond to temptation out of your mindset rather than your mood.” In other words, stop letting your emotions lead you around by the nose. Emotions are good things. God gave them to us, but they can be totally untrue. We have to set our minds on Christ and take every thought captive; otherwise, when our emotions come calling, we can easily be led down a rabbit trail that has nothing to do with reality.

Doing nothing out of fear of doing the wrong thing is still a decision, albeit a passive one. My boys play baseball. If the other team doesn’t show up, they forfeit the game. It’s the same way with us, if we simply don’t show up in our lives because we are trying to protect ourselves from whatever looms in the horizon, then there is no game. We have forfeited our option to play on God’s diamond, and we certainly have no chance of winning a game we refuse to show up for. If Esther had done nothing, that would have been a decision because not deciding IS a decision.

We can be in bondage to a person. I know in my own life, I can get so caught up in gaining certain people’s approval that I get tangled up in bondage to that person. The truth is, it isn’t the person but our thoughts that ensnare us. The only person who can handle my obsessions and insecurities is Christ. He’s the only one that will fulfill every need I have, so I can go into relationship with others without demanding that THEY fulfill me. No one person can really shoulder that burden for long, anyway.

We are meant to be warriors for God. We aren’t fragile blossoms, ready to be crushed by people, events or circumstances. The Bible tells us we are equipped for our calling. We have everything we need, even when things aren’t going the way we planned or we come up against the enemy. God gave us a whole set of armor to wear, and a sword (His Word) to fight the enemy with. God assures us that even when we are waiting for the battle – that’s what most soldiers hate the most, the wait!- if we are waiting on God, He will renew our strength. He’s got all the bases covered.

I love how God has so many things to teach us and show us. How many times have I heard the story of Esther? That is the awesome thing about God’s Word, we can read and reread it, and each time, there is something there for us to take with us that can change our lives!
~Blessings, Rosanne

We meet Naomi in the very first chapter of the book of Ruth. Naomi and her husband Elimalech, along with their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, left the land of Judah because there was a famine in the land. Elimalech took his little family to Moab.

There, they settled down. After some time, Elimalech died and Naomi’s two sons married Moab girls- Orpah and Ruth. Although marrying women who were not Israelites was strictly forbidden, it is obvious from the first chapter, that Naomi loved these young women and they had a good relationship.

About 10 years went by and then both of Naomi’s sons died, leaving Naomi, as the Scriptures says, bereft. Bereft has an interesting meaning – “to be left over.” Naomi certainly felt “left over.” In that time period, women could not own property, so Naomi, Orpah and Ruth had no way to support themselves or even, really, a place to live. Naomi, living in a foreign land, had no relatives to help her either.

At first, both Orpah and Ruth were going to go with her, but Naomi tries to send them back, saying that they really shouldn’t go with her because God had turned His hand against her. Neither woman would go back. She gives them a blessing as she tries to send them back home. Naomi probably knows that the women will not get a warm reception in Juday where Moabites were pretty much loathed.

So, Naomi tries a different tactic – she tells them she is too old to bear more sons for them to marry. This bit of information tells us that neither Orpah or Ruth had had children. In that culture, if a man died without producing any children, his brother could marry and have a child with his wife and that child would be like the dead man’s son.

Finally, Orpah, with many tears, goes back home. Ruth, however, refuses to leave her mother-in-law. This is the famous verse that many people use in their weddings. “But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.”

By declaring that the Israelites would be her people, Ruth was in essence declaring that God – Jehovah – would also be her God. Obviously, what she had seen in Naomi’s own faith had drawn her to this God of the Israelites.

So, Naomi and Ruth make the dangerous journey back to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem. I don’t know if Naomi was hoping she could slip back home without much notice, but that isn’t what happened. Her return was all the buzz around town.

When old friends say, Oh Naomi, is that you? Naomi answers for them to call her Mara, which means bitterness. She goes on to say, ““I went out full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

Naomi was somewhat bitter about her circumstances. She felt God had abandoned her, even perhaps felt she was being punished because they had gone to live in a pagan land and her sons had married pagan women.

However, despite her own bitterness and sorrow over her circumstances, Naomi immediately started trying to look out for Ruth’s interests. She knew Boaz was her husband’s relative and as such, he could be a kinsman redeemer. The kinsman-redeemer is a male relative who, according to various laws of the Pentateuch, had the privilege or responsibility to act on behalf of a relative who was in trouble, danger, or need. The Hebrew term (go el) for kinsman-redeemer designates one who delivers or rescues.

When Ruth goes out to glean (or pick up the left overs that people left for the poor when they harvested) in Boaz’s fields. Boaz noticed Ruth immediately and made sure she felt welcome.

When she returns home and tells Naomi whose field she gleaned in, Naomi feels hope for the first time in probably a while. She recognizes that Boaz is her husband’s relative and thus can be a kinsman redeemer. When it comes time to thresh the wheat, Naomi sends Ruth to the threshing floor and instructs her to lay at Boaz’s feet when he lays down to sleep. She even tells her exactly what to say.

It is a testament to the women’s relationship that Ruth does exactly what Naomi says. After all, a place where men are drinking is not the place for a lone young woman to lay down basically in one of those men’s beds!

In the end Ruth and Boaz are married and Naomi realizes that God hasn’t left her after all. After Ruth and Boaz marry they have a son, and Naomi is there at his birth which would have been the custom. You can feel the joy in the words as Naomi rejoices over her new grandson. Toward the end of the last chapter, the women in the town say to Naomi, “Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed is the LORD who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become faous in Israel.”

While the book of Ruth is about, well, Ruth, I find the story of Naomi very interesting. Here is a woman who feels she has lost everything – her husband and both her sons. She is financially destitute in a foreign land.

But she has a treasure she probably didn’t realize at the time. God had given her Ruth – a pagan woman from a completely different culture, yet who loved Naomi and was more loyal to her than her own family or culture. I think that says as much about who Naomi was as it does about the type of person Ruth was.

God knew Naomi needed Ruth. She needed someone to care for and to help – someone who needed her. Without Ruth, Naomi may very well have sunk into her bitterness, but because she had Ruth to look out for, she overcame her bitterness and her sorrow.

Naomi tried her best to push Ruth away – mainly, I think, for Ruth’s own good – but Ruth clung to Naomi and wouldn’t leave her. It reminds me that often older people can feel useless. In an effort not to be a “burden” they push away those that love them.

I think if we were more like Ruth, we would find that mostly those people need to feel needed. In the end, God rewarded Naomi for her kindness to Ruth.

Ruth is not the only one who got a happy ending – Naomi did too. It says she became her grandson’s nurse. Once again, she had someone to care for, someone who needed her and you can feel Naomi’s joy in that.

Blessings, Rosanne

The next few days, we’ll be leaving behind David’s wives and looking at some other women who appear in the Old Testament. Today, we’ll look at Deborah’s story.

Deborah was the only female judge of Israel. She’s really the only woman leader who was over ALL of Israel. There were women who led other women – like Miriam – but besides an ill-fated, short-reigning queen mentioned in the Kings, Deborah was it.

Before we are introduced to Deborah in Judges 4, God gives us a bit of background in verses 1-3. “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, after Ehud died. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. The sons of Israel cried to the Lord; for he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years.”

Just to give a little background to this story: Joshua had led Israel into the Promised Land, but after he died, the people had a hard time staying on the straight and narrow. They would start marrying their pagan neighbors and then get caught up in doing a little idol worship on the side. In the book of Judges a clear cycle can be seen as you read through the book (and you really should because Judges has some of the most bizarre stories in the Bible – seriously!).

First, the Israelites would fall away from God and start in with the idol worship. God would allow them to be oppressed by another nation. They would toil away under this oppression and finally repent and cry out to God. God would then raise up a judge to deliver them. Things would be fine for a while and then they’d get off track again and the whole cycle would be repeated.

This penchant Israel had for following after other gods is something you can see throughout the entire Old Testament from Judges on.

So, this time around, God had allowed Jabin the king of Canaan to oppress Israel. When Israel finally had enough and realized they couldn’t deliver themselves, they cried out to God and He raised up a judge to deliver them – Deborah.

In verses 5 and 6, we learn a bit about Deborah. “Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment.”

The chapter goes on to say that God gave Deborah a message to deliver to a man named Barak. The message was to gather the men of the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun and go up against Sisera. God promised Barak that He would deliver the army into Israel’s hands.

This was kind of on par with a force from a small city going up against the U.S. Army. It seemed rather impossible, but God promised victory.

Barak tells Deborah, I will only go if you come with me. It was rather unheard of for a woman to ride out into battle, but Deb doesn’t blink an eyelash. She just agrees to go, but she tells Barak that now, the glory of defeating Sisera will go to a woman.

So, Barak, Deborah and 10,000 men go up to Mount Tabor. Sisera gets wind of the rebel uprising and rides out to squash it with all his big, bad chariots. The Lord gives the signal to Deborah who tells Barak, and Israel charges down to confront them.

Verse 15 says, “The Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot.”

Sisera runs to the tent of a woman named Jael who welcomes him in. She pulls out all the hospitality stops – covering him with a warm blanket, giving him warm milk to drink and assuring him that he could rest in her tent without worry of discovery.

Of course, once he was good and asleep, Jael took a tent peg (wooden I might add) and drove it through his temple with a hammer, killing him. Sisera never woke up from his little nap.

So, a woman did defeat Sisera – in a rather gruesome way.

So, what do we learn from this story? (well, besides you might not want to take up a stranger’s offer of hospitality without checking where their tent pegs and hammers are hidden anyway!)

I think as women in the 21st century, we don’t fully get the impact of Deborah’s role and how truly unusual and unique it was.

Women in that day and age were under the authority of the men in their lives – whether fathers, brothers, husbands and or even grown sons. Their destiny was NOT in their own hands. In fact, they really didn’t get to make any of the crucial decisions that determined the course of their own lives.

As a judge, Deborah’s job included administrative tasks, making judgments and leading in military matters – these definitely did not normally come under the realm of a woman.

We don’t know Deborah’s age, if she had children, or if she did, how old they were. We don’t know how God brought her into this position to begin with.

But we do know it wasn’t something, culturally, that she, as a woman, was supposed to do. 

I wonder if at first the people were mocking or disrespectful. I wonder if other women criticized her to each other for being too bold or not staying to her prescribed role. I wonder if the men razzed her husband for not being man enough to control his woman or wondered out loud who wore the pants (or robes) in that family.

I wonder what it was like to be called by God to do something that other people didn’t think she should be doing.

From the verse that tells us that she sat under a palm and people came to her to judge things, we know the people did accept her, but I do wonder how long it took for that acceptance to happen.

From Deborah I think the thing that I learned was that I need to listen to who God says I am and what He wants me to be – not other people. Even well-meaning believers. 

What do the people around you tell you that you shouldn’t be doing? It’s really easy to listen to all the voices around us rather than to hear the small, quiet voice of God that may be calling us to the unusual or unexpected – calling us to do the thing everyone around us says we shouldn’t for whatever reason.

I read this sentence in a commentary as I was studying (can’t remember which one at the moment)and it stuck with me: “Deborah didn’t allow cultural norms to hinder her leadership, and thereby she enabled others to bring victory to God’s people.”

The Bible tells us we need to please and obey God rather than men. What expectations from those around you are you allowing to keep you from God’s calling on your life? Don’t let other shoulds become your shalls.

Blessings, Rosann

I’m a bit behind in my blogging but better late than never right? 🙂 Today, we are going to talk about Bathsheba. She is one woman in the Bible who gets a bad rap. Many Christians believe she was some kind of seductress. This is mostly because David saw her while she was taking her bath on her roof.

This idea is erroneous. It’s kind of like saying that some man decided to look in your bathroom window while you were taking a bath and seduced the guy staring through your window.

It was spring. All the men were supposed to be gone. David was supposed to be gone. In fact, kings were supposed to lead their armies – not stay behind spying down on the neighboring rooftops.

In this story, David sees Bathsheba. He had a choice at this point. He could have turned away, knowing that she thought she had privacy, but he continues to look and not just look, but lust. Yes, Bathsheba was beautiful, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be ogled.

Then David takes it a step further. He asks about the woman and finds out not only her name but some pretty significant details about her life. First of all, she was married. Not only was she married, but she was married to one of David’s most trusted generals. She was also the daughter of Eliam. Eliam had been one of David’s mighty men who had been with David while he ran from Saul all those years.

Again, David had a choice. He could have walked away then. Gone to see one of his multiple wives. But he didn’t.

Instead, he sent for her. Right about now, there are some of you who are probably saying, “Well, she could have said no!” The truth is – she couldn’t. In that time, if a king wanted a woman, he could have her. All the people were subject to the king’s will.

In 2 Samuel 11:4, it says that David “took” her. The word took is the Hebrew word laqchah and it means, “to seize, to acquire, to snatch, to take away, lay hold of, buy.”

None of the Sciptures that describe what happened give us a clue about Bathsheba’s thoughts or feelings, but the next verse says that Bathsheba then discovers she is pregnant. She sends word to David. It doesn’t say what the message said, but it takes very little imagination to read between the lines.

In David’s defense, he could have left Bathsheba out to dry. If she was discovered pregnant and her husband gone so the baby couldn’t be his, she would have probably been stoned for adultery. While there were people who knew what happened, nobody was going to squeal on the king.

But David did respond. In fact, he comes up with a sure fire plan to fix the situation. David sends for Uriah and tries everything possible to get him to go home to his wife and have sex with her. Uriah, however, is more honorable than David and he refuses. In fact, Uriah tells David in verse 11, “Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in shelters, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? By your life an the life of your soul, I will not do this thing.”

I’m not sure if Uriah was purposefully trying to guilt David or if he was just very passionate about right and wrong, but either way, I’m sure David couldn’t miss the implied criticism because David WAS eating and drinking and having sex – just not with his own wife.

Then David tried to get Uriah drunk and he still couldn’t get Uriah to go home. So, David sends word to Joab to put Uriah in the front of the battle and then withdraw. The plan works and Uriah dies in battle.

We get a hint of Bathsheba’s feelings in verse 26 because it says that when she heard of her husband’s death, she mourned him. Once her time of mourning was done, David married her.

Time passes and Bathsheba gives birth to a son. More time passes, but it’s been over a year since all this took place. God has had enough and sends the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan tells David a story about a man who had one lamb and a rich man that had herds of sheep and lambs. However, when someone comes over for dinner, he takes the poor man’s one lamb and kills it and eats it.

David is incensed. That’s when Nathan points his long, bony finger at David and says, “That man is you!”

At this point, David knows the jig is up. Who knows? Maybe he is relieved not to carry his guilty, shameful secret around anymore. He repents.

It’s interesting to note that the victim in the story is the lamb. God sets the sin squarely on David’s shoulders. Nowhere does it say that Bathsheba was at fault. Bathsheba suffers again because the son she conceived with David dies as a punishment for David’s sin. I can’t explain why God chose to do that, but He did.

The interesting thing about this story is that it has a twist at the end. Under the circumstances, you would think that Bathsheba would despise David. First, he forced himself on her and then he killed her husband to cover up his sin. Now her child dies as punishment for what David did.

Yet, if you look through the rest of the story, it’s clear that Bathsheba was one of David’s favorite wives, and they went on to have four sons together. One of those sons was Solomon.

Even though everyone would have been counting the number of months between Bathsheba and David’s hasty marriage and the birth of the baby and come up short, Bathsheba commanded respect.

In I Kings 1, the prophet Nathan goes to her to get her help in preventing an overthrow. David grants her request that Solomon succeed him on the throne. Her son Solomon held her in high regard. It is Jewish tradition that Bathsheba recited Proverbs 31 to Solomon at his first marriage. Bathsheba is also part of the lineage of Jesus.

Despite their very rough start, it seems David and Bathsheba had a relationship. It says after their first child died, he comforted her – a far cry to the way he treated her in the beginning as nothing more than an object to satisfy his lust.

The story of Bathsheba is kind of a hard one for me to wrap my mind around. I mean, obviously, there are some important lessons we can learn from David on what NOT to do. There were clearly several key points he could have changed his mind.

But what can we learn from Bathsheba? I mean, in the whole story, we don’t really hear her speak at all. In fact, we now little of her feelings, except that she mourned when her husband died and she was distraught when her child died. What happened to Bathsheba was not only unfair, but also tragic.

Did she curse being beautiful? Did she hate David at all? These questions and more whirl around in my mind whenever I read this story.

But there are a couple of things I can take away from this story. First, you don’t have to act like a victim even if you are one. Bathsheba in many ways was a victim to the people around her, but despite the circumstances, she didn’t stay a victim. It’s rather obvious as we see the rest of her story unfold, that she was not only beautiful but strong and smart, as well. Living with the other wives had to be tricky at best, yet she did it successfully. And she commanded the respect of those around her, including the prophet Nathan who didn’t strike me as easy to impress.

The other thing I think we can learn from this is that God can take something ugly like rape and murder and bring something good out of. I don’t mean that David was justified at all, but God transformed Bathsheba and David’s relationship into something good. It could have been very ugly but it wasn’t. Only God can do that, but I hope this story gives women hope that nobody’s story is so damaged or broken or ugly that God can’t transform it too.

Blessings, Rosanne