Forgiveness | Real Life on Rocky Top

One Year Later

Sep 09 2018

It was a year ago that Preacher and I stood on the stage of a mega church in front of thousands of people and said our good-byes as their Senior Pastor and his wife. It was a bittersweet day for me. Bitter because I truly loved being a senior pastor’s wife, and sweet because we were saying “Yes” to the Lord by choosing obedience to a new calling on our lives……..serving Him through Life Action Ministry.

This past year has been a roller coaster of emotions for me as God has both revealed things to me about myself and reminded me of truths through the lives of those serving Life Action.

Confession: Being the senior pastor’s wife caused me to become an addict – I have confessed these addictions before the Lord and He has graciously forgiven me. My addictions: Attention and Power. If my addictions have ever offended you, please forgive me. Years under the spotlight caused me to lose sight of the sixteen year old girl who humbly walked down an aisle, took a pastor’s hand and committed her life to serve the Lord. No human being should ever be placed on the throne that only has room for One – Christ.
Truth: Servanthood People working at Life Action are among God’s choice servants. Their lives are characterized by what Life Action calls our six responses to God: Humility, Honesty, Repentance, Forgiveness, Obedience, and Seeking God’s Kingdom First. Over and over I have witnessed these six responses demonstrated in their lives. Women who choose to raise a family in a RV nine months out of year as they serve churches across the USA. Communicators and musicians so gifted that they could serve the Lord from any stage, yet choose to serve churches of various sizes so that they may experience a reviving work of God’s presence.
Confession: When we walked away from the mega church, we also walked away from a very large salary. Although our church agreed to support us for a season, we were walking toward a “no salary” position. In other words, we had to raise our own support. We became full-time missionaries. The Lord used this as a reminder of the commitment I had made to him when I was sixteen – a commitment to serve Him as a missionary. He had been preparing me for this for forty years. I was in a completely new situation – sitting with someone and sharing with them about our new adventure and asking them to support us financially. This proved to be quite a challenge for me, but through it God taught me humility and reminded me that He was always my True Provision.
Truth: Faith People at Life Action are people of faith. This past year I have witnessed families who live on very limited budgets, yet do not hesitate to sacrificially to give to others in need. There are families who adopt children that the world would cast aside. Grumbling and complaining are rare while praying is a way of life.

Our mission at Life Action is “to inspire your next Yes to God.” When we say “yes” to something, it usually requires us saying “no” to something else. This past year I have said “Yes” by following Him in obedience and it did require me saying “no” to pride, control, selfishness and bitterness. God has begun a new work in my heart and I am so grateful to Him and to Life Action Ministry.

My prayer for you today is that you will choose to “Say YES to God.” Is He asking you to forgive someone? Is He asking you to be honest with yourself and admit you are addicted to something…power, attention, food, gossip, a negative attitude, or maybe social media?

This past weekend I hiked up to Grotto Falls in the Smoky Mountains. As I observed the rushing water flow over the rocks into the pool below, the Lord whispered into my heart “Refreshment comes when you confess your sin and turn to me.” Sin is choosing our way over God’s way. Are you choosing to do life your way and not God’s way?

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” Acts 3:19

If Life Action or I can serve you or your church in any way, it would bring us great joy. Preacher’s motto during this last year has been: “I am just His servant.” I just love that man! So excited to serve alongside him at Life Action as a servant to the Most High God!

www.lifeaction.org

A Single Match, A Small Fire and Destruction of the Smoky Mountains

Mar 09 2017

Today I welcome Betsie Hughes to the back porch up on Rocky Top. Betsie has been married to Dan for twenty-four years. Together they have a beautiful blended family of five adult children and five grandchildren. Whether it is being a mortgage consultant (her “real” job) or sharing practical truths from the Word of God with women, Betsie’s love for Jesus flows genuinely from her heart. I am thrilled to share her words of wisdom with you.

A casual glace at the TV. Smoke was billowing from The Chimney Tops; it was enough to catch my attention but honestly it just didn’t look that menacing. Over the next few hours we were about to see how wrong I was as conditions aligned to create the perfect environment for a devastating fire to change lives forever.

We know now that two boys were responsible for starting that devastating fire in our Great Smoky Mountains.

I imagine two scenarios. The first is that this boys were hiking down the mountain with no idea what was happening behind them. Maybe they were far enough ahead of the smoldering mountain top that they really didn’t know what they left in their wake.

The second is that they saw the flames dancing through the dry leaves devouring the underbrush and seeking to climb the beautiful, majestic trees of our beloved Smoky Mountains and ran. Sick to their stomach and terrified at what was happening with no way to turn back time or stop the devastation. Fear gripped them as they ran faster and faster away from the flames.

The morning after the fires in Gatlinburg, TN the Lord led me to this verse.

“So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell” James 3:5-6

The fire started at The Chimney Tops miles away from Gatlinburg by probably a single match…..a small fire. Conditions were such that the fire quickly spread. I am sure as the residents of that mountain community watched the news – they were not imagining that their homes and lives were in imminent danger. While I watched from afar, the magnitude of what was about to happen was nowhere in my consciousness. It was unfathomable. What happened that night was both a string of events and combination of circumstances that may happen only once in a lifetime. It was however, also a perfect image of the power of a small fire to spread and destroy when we least expect it.

Our words can have that same impact on our relationships and communities where we live. A moment or lifetime of moments where we don’t control the words that spill out and hurt those around us. Sometimes we see the hurt and other times we are completely unaware of how our words have wounded someone.

The anger, selfishness, and un-forgiveness that we allow to creep into our hearts and minds will always spill over in our words and actions. It may be a tiny spark – just a moment, a word or comment. We innocently share a secret or unfounded thought or belief about a situation or a person and then……a fire is raging, devouring everything in its path. We lash out at our spouse or children in a heated moment of suspicion or anger and the fire begins smoldering. We fan the flame with every angry, selfish thought and harsh word.

We are unaware of the impending danger but it is as deadly and devastating to us and those around us as those fires in Gatlinburg were to the homes and lives of the residents.

Our tongue can set the entire course of our lives on fire and it takes years to recover. I have been on both the giving and receiving end of the hurtful flames. There are times I would give anything to be able to take back the words I’ve said in anger or when I have allowed bitterness to creep in and take root in my heart. I also see in relationships all around me where the tongue has emotionally created such pain that we begin to do things that we could never have comprehended would happen. Broken relationships, divorce, wayward children, ruined business dealings…..all left in the wake of that small flame of words that quickly overtook the relationship. The entire course of a life changed and broken without understanding of how it happened so quickly.

I imagine those were some of the same thoughts that morning after the fires. Those fires unimaginably changed the lives of the residents of this beautiful mountain community. There were families who lost homes, loved ones and possessions that held beautiful memories. They stood looking at the utter ruins of their homes that were totally destroyed. The impact reached so much farther than just that one night. While the fire was extinguished, the devastation for many will last a lifetime. So it is in our lives.

His living Word is the only water that will quench the fire of the tongue. John 7:39 says “whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

It’s a spiritual battle. Apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, we can’t control our tongue. However, every day we can protect our heart by soaking in God’s Word and then out of our hearts can flow living water that nurtures and protects instead of flames that devastate and destroy. The Lord must capture and rule my heart. Every moment. Every day. His living water must soak the soil of my heart to protect me and those I love from the flames that destroy.

The FALL on Rocky Top: Death, Life, and a Prayer Tent

Oct 28 2016

It is Fall once again up on Rocky Top. The leaves are raining shades of yellow, orange and red as they fall from the trees. It’s a beautiful sight to behold as they float down on the wind. Ironically, the beauty comes from dying. The leaves are falling because they are dead.

Fall is a bittersweet time of year.

Today I listened to my beautiful, middle child spill her soul as she shared about her baby in heaven.

She told the story to a group of mommies. With gentle tears rolling down her face she remembered how she had put her hope in being a mommy only to find out that hope was no longer alive. I remember holding her after she got the news………..no heartbeat, no life. We all grieved. Someone had died and we had been robbed of ever knowing this tiny human.

Yet, there was my brave girl standing in front of those women sharing about how death had taught her to put her hope only in Jesus. My momma’s heart was proud of her courage. She told the story of death on the birthday of her now 3 year old daughter, Addison Faith. Death had occurred in the Fall. Life had also been born in the Fall.

Years ago driving down the road, I received a phone call about death on a fall day. Daddy had died in his bed, a massive heart attack. Daddy didn’t come to know the God of Hope until he was 58. His journey to Christ came at a price. He died to himself. Died to selfishness. Died to a never ending stream of bad marriages. From age 58 to 68, that man truly lived. He lived to bring his new Father glory. With his new heart, he loved big and well. When I arrived at his apartment after receiving that phone call, it was covered up with his new life: pictures of grandchildren, his Bible, and the book The Prayer of Jabez.

That was a very hard fall. Yet, there was HOPE. I knew my daddy had really died when he was 58 and he was now fully alive with His Savior.

True, real life requires death. Sometimes the death is more painful than others. Nonetheless, death is hard.

A lady tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you have a few minutes?” she asked. Me, I never have a few minutes. My schedule can be my never ending god if I let it. “Sure.” I said. Then death came.

“I really need to ask your forgiveness. God, told me to come talk to you. I have said bad things about you to others. I’m so very sorry. Will you forgive me?” Tears were welling up in her eyes. She was brave.

Time to die to myself. Time to make a choice of letting my pride and anger take over or die to myself and let Jesus live in me. I asked a few more questions to understand the situation.

I had hurt her unintentionally. I cried. I apologized. We prayed. Life came. I thanked her for being real and vulnerable. I wished I had thanked her for dying to herself.

Fall is also the time of year, that we, as a church focus on people around the world who do not know our Savior. Millions of men, women and children have never heard the name of Jesus. To be blunt, millions who will spend eternity in hell. We don’t like to talk about that. It is uncomfortable.

Our body of believers built a tent in the middle of our church building. The Prayer Tent. As I walked through the tent, His voice was clear: Die to yourself.

“Christ hasn’t called us to live for Him: He has called us to die, so that He might live through us.” Beth

“It’s not me trying but me dying.” Watchman Nee

Millions of people will never hear His precious name, know His intimate love, experience His mighty power, or spend eternity with Him unless WE die!

Die to our selfishness. Die to our comfort. Die to our greed. Die to our fear.

To live in His abundance. To live in His adventure. To live in His POWER. To live in His confident joy.

Lord, thank You for the Fall. It is a visible reminder that death brings true LIFE and HOPE! And if I choose to die to myself and live in You then one day I will stand with Jesus, my grandbaby, my daddy, a brave sister in Christ and millions of others whose faces I may never meet till I meet you, and there will be no more death, no more dying. Just You in all your beauty and HOPE!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” I Peter 1:3-4

Twenty Years

Mar 31 2016

It is a pleasure to welcome Kristi Nolan to Rocky Top’s back porch once again. She is a young woman who continues to bless me by allowing herself to be open, honest and just flat out real! Her story shouts of the grace and forgiveness we just celebrated on Easter.

It took more than 10 years for me to walk through a March 30^th without struggling with the date – and then, all of a sudden, I would find myself on April 1^st and it would hit me – I made it through! So as we celebrate Passion week, I am celebrating His love, grace and forgiveness.

It’s been 20 years since I saw a line on a stick in a Wendy’s restroom – since I sat in disbelief and wondered what it meant.

20 years since I hesitated to make a phone call to a clinic and set an appointment for a consultation.

20 years since they told me I was making the right decision.

20 years since they told me it was safer to terminate the pregnancy than to try to carry to term and deliver a baby – safer for me anyway.

20 years since they performed an ultrasound and told me I was lucky I came in when I did because it was going to cost me $250 less than it would have in another week.

20 years since they handed me a valium and sat me in a dark room with other women, wait, other girls, who sat in silence and tried not to think about what was to come.

20 years since they positioned me on a table and told me it was my last chance to change my mind.

20 years since I didn’t.

20 years since I laid upon a table and read the serenity prayer taped to the ceiling above me and pondered the irony.

20 years since the sound of life being sucked from my body brought me to the reality of what exactly it was I was doing in that moment.

20 years since I couldn’t get out fast enough to throw up in the parking lot.

20 years since the enemy began an assault on my mind that would convince me I didn’t deserve a loving husband or children.

20 years since I felt my sin was too deep for the Blood of Christ to cover it.

20 years since I took the innocent life of what was formed by the Lord in my womb.

But in those 20 years, though the enemy tried to win – he has lost.

Christ’s Blood has won.

In those 20 years I met a man who would love and cherish and serve me – who calls me his “bride” every single day.

In those 20 years God showed that the enemy had no power over my womb, but He did – He has given me three beautiful children.

In those 20 years God has replaced my guilt and shame with FORGIVENESS and JOY.

In those 20 years God has used my darkest sin for His greatest glory.

In those 20 years every time the enemy tried to whisper “you’re not worthy”, God would shout “MY GRACE IS ENOUGH”

“Not that I have already obtain all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14

Category - Forgiveness