12/13/2018 0 Comments The Beauty of BetrayalDana Pritchard I know, the title is cheesy and cliche. But it’s true. Allow me to explain myself. If you’ve been on planet earth very long, chances are, you have experienced some form of “betrayal” from another human whom you thought was on your side. Betrayal is especially painful, more so than other kinds of “people” wounds, because it comes from someone you trusted, and most likely you never saw it coming. Perhaps thats why when David had been turned on by his own son, Absalom and betrayed by his trusted advisor and friend, Ahithophel, he poured his heart to God with these words in Psalm 55:12-14: It is not an enemy who taunts me--I could bear that. It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me--I could have hidden from them. Instead, it is you--my equal, my companion and close friend. What good fellowship we once enjoyed as we walked together to the house of God. Lets be honest, when someone you trust and care about does you dirty, it can be down right heartbreaking and hard to get over. If you’re not careful, bitterness can set in your heart and wreak all kinds of havoc on your life and in your emotions. So what do we do? How do we get over it? Let’s look at Hebrews 12:14-15 for a moment: Pursue peace with everyone,and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Purse peace with EVERYONE? Really? Yes, Really! I know. Who wants to pursue peace with someone who just stabbed you in the back? Not me. The truth is, you can’t afford not to pursue peace and forgive. When you refuse to forgive, you automatically open the door for bitterness to set in. Have you ever encountered someone who is bitter?. Chances are, you can trace the bitterness back to a past wound or a betrayal that wasn’t dealt with properly. Instead of working through it, they let it fester until it grew into a big ugly root of bitterness. Bitterness is a dangerous poison that can’t be contained in one little area no matter how much you try to control it. Bitterness will spread like a wildfire and consume everything in it’s path. If you don’t choose peace and forgiveness, bitterness will swallow up every part of your life. It will show up in your other relationships and blind you from seeing all the good that God has in store for your life. No matter how nasty the betrayal, or how deep the wound, forgiveness is the key to your healing. Pursuing peace and forgiveness towards your betrayer doesn’t mean that you have to allow that person the same access they once had to your life and your heart, it just means that you no longer spend time rehearsing and replaying what happened in your mind on a daily basis. It means that even though you don’t understand why they did what they did to you, you are ready to move forward and trust that God is for you and that he will restore everything that the enemy tried to destroy you with. If you’ve fought battles with betrayal and bitterness or you’ve felt blind-sided by people that you thought were “with” you only to find out that they weren’t, you’re not alone. I’ve been there too! There have been times when I’ve felt like helping people and investing in people only to be hurt in the end was a price that just wasn’t worth paying anymore. I’ve wanted to just detach from people and from ministry. At times, it seemed like the necessary option in order to protect myself and my family. Can you relate? Although all of those feelings may be valid, if we call ourselves christians, then loving people and walking in forgiveness is our only option. We will never see God’s hand of restoration at work if we stay in the place of bitterness. Bitterness is a form a pride. We’re essentially saying that we can right our wrongs with our bitterness better than God can right our wrongs with his justice and restoring power. If we choose to give up and quit loving people just because we’ve been burned, we will never get to see how He works it all out for our good. Rest assured, He WILL work it out for your good and He will give you double for your trouble because that’s how God rolls. He’s good like that. If you’ve been knocked down by betrayal, it’s time to get up, shake it off and be willing to put in the work it takes to be free of the hurt and bitterness. When you feel those UGLY feelings rising up, here’s some things you need to do: Keep your mouth shut, stop talking about your hurt feelings and what they did to you and PRAY. Pray for God to bless them and prosper them and for God to complete the good work that he started in them. Pray that your heart would not be bitter against them. That’s not what you wanted to hear, is it? I know that sounds hard. It is. But when you pray for THEM, God does something in YOU! God tells us to pray for our enemies for our own sake, not theirs. When you pray, God begins to bring healing and all that yuck that’s been built up in your heart and mind begins to be released so you can move forward into the future that God has promised you. If we stay in bitterness, the enemy wins. If we choose to keep loving in spite of the risk of being hurt again, then we rob betrayal of its power. Here’s some beautiful things that betrayal has taught me: Betrayal can push you into a place of intimacy with God that might not take place if everything was peachy. It’s in that place of intimacy that you start to learn things about God and about yourself and about other people. You gain insight, wisdom and discernment from your experiences. You’ll come out of the betrayal a much wiser person than you were before. Not every betrayal is a personal attack against you. It’s not always that they didn’t love you, it’s just that they love themselves more. The fact of the matter is that many times people are just out for themselves and when their opportunities change, so does their affection and loyalty. They often don’t even realize the hurt that they’ve caused you because they are so involved in pursuing their own desires. It’s just the way it is. It’s not about you as much as you think it is. Don’t take it personal. Just learn to love people without expectation of reciprocation. You see, we want to receive love in return for the love we give to someone. When that doesn’t happen, our expectations are not met and we feel betrayed. But that’s not how God has called us to love. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:33 Jesus said that to his disciples right after he finished washing the feet of the one that he knew was going to betray him. If you want to love like Jesus, then you have to learn to love and forgive your betrayer. No amount of betrayal can overthrow your destiny. All of the powers of hell cannot stop you from doing what God has anointed you to do and to being who God has Called to be. God has a way of taking the weapon that was wielded against you for your destruction and using it to advance you and help you win. Consider this: -Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit, sold to slaves, falsely accused and imprisoned. In the end, he was second in command to Pharaoh with all of the resources of Egypt at his disposal. The brothers who had betrayed him, were now begging for his mercy. “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for my good”. Genesis 50:20 -David was serving in a field when he was anointed to be the King of Israel. He was overlooked by his father and hated and hunted by the king he tried to serve. He was betrayed by his son and closest confidant and eventually many of those who once fought along side him in battle ended up fighting against him. Even through numerous conspiracies and attempts to overthrow David, no man had the power to remove him from his throne, because it wasn’t a man that put him there in the first place. In the end, his legacy was that he was a worshipper, a man after God’s own heart and the greatest king who ever lived. -Jesus was betrayed by his disciple-the one who he invested everything into, the one who daily walked beside him. That betrayal led to his death on the cross, which brought about the resurrection and redemption of the entire planet. Jesus is alive and well and he ever lives to make intercession for us. If you ask me, those are some beautiful endings to some nasty betrayals. If you keep your head up and your heart right, God will position you to prosper and use what your adversaries did to advance you! Don’t step back and retreat, step forward and advance into all that God has in store for you. Betrayal is not the end of your story, it’s just a chapter that leads to a better ending than you could ever imagine. Trust God for a new chapter, new season and new beginnings. That betrayal is going to bring about something beautiful. You just watch.
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5/25/2018 0 Comments Threes Villy Goat Gwuff.Written By Ava Palen, age 4. Once upon a time theres threes villy goats, all their names is gwuff at the same tiiiime. And then theres a bridge, under the bridge is an old gwumpy twoll. and on the other side there grass and flowers Aaaaannnnd there was he pushed him in the water. THE END! That's what I like. I miss you Auntie Beckah. That's what I love.
5/25/2018 0 Comments Shark Attack.Written by Benjamin Palen, age 5. Once upon a time, there needs to be a shark and then Garmadon would get a great plan about a hammerhead shark. Then he was GIANT! Then the ninjas maked him dead, but then Lloyd's vehicle was brokeden. Then there was a giant fish and them eat the vehicle dragon. Then one more page.. Then there was a cooker...okay thats all.
Then say FROMMMMMM Ben! 5/25/2018 0 Comments The Unicorn and I.A fictional story written by Mackenzie Palen, age 6. There was a little girl named Mackenzie. She had a pet unicorn named Uni. One day, Mackenzie went to school and she accidentally left the door open. Uni the unicorn got out. That morning, Uni had been dreaming of going on an adventure through the forest. He was so happy when Mackenzie left the door open because he knew that now he could go.
When he left the house, he headed to the forest for his adventure. When he got there, he was happy to start his journey. He saw animals of all kinds and lots of trees. When he saw an alligator, he told him "I am Uni the unicorn, aI am headed on an adventure through the forest, do you want to go with me"? The alligator told him "yes, I would love to". They headed deeper into the forest. Soon, they noticed they were getting very hungry, so they stopped to eat some apples. After they ate a couple of apples, they were thirsty so they went to the pond to get some water. After that, they kept walking until they got back to Uni's house. When they got there, Uni said bye to the alligator and the alligator said bye to Uni. When Kenzie came home, she saw that Ui was all dirty. She told Uni he needed to hop in the bath. Uni hooped in the bath right away. When she was done in the bath, she wanted to play card game with Kenzie. It was so much fun and Kenzie was happy to have Uni back again. The End. Hope you liked my short story! 5/25/2018 0 Comments Kitty Boy...Written by Hannah Palen, Age 9.5. Hi, my name is Hannah, I am the oldest of 4 children. I have a cat name Captain Hook. He is the most handsome cat I have ever seen in my life. He likes to sleep in my bed a lot and acts like a dog from 2a.m. to 7a.m. He spends most of his day sleeping. Now let me tell you the story of how we got him... One day I had spent the night at my grandparents' house, my grandma took us to the movies, and we saw Despicable Me 3. Afterwards, she took us back home. When I walked in the door, I thought it was going to be just a normal day. I said hi to my mom, and my sister Mackenzie was walking backwards up the stairs. All of the sudden she started freaking out because a grey cat started running down the stairs. I started crying and asked my parents if we got to keep him. They said yes, and that was the best day of my whole life. Now, every day when I come home from school, I snuggle him and play with him before homework. That is the story of how I got my Kitty Boy! Hannah and Captain Hook. |
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