Following God in All with special guest, Felice Gerwitz ~ Episode 53

Welcome to our special Throw Back Thursday edition of Mommy Jammies Night! Once per month we’ll give kudos to a previously unpublished or replay podcast or audio.

This week’s Throw Back Thursday is from creator of Mommy Jammies Night, Felice Gerwitz, Following God in All Things

Have you ever had a plan that didn’t go exactly how you thought it would? Did you want to throw in the towel?

Felice reminds us not to grow discouraged, but to place our faith in the ONE who is in control of all things. His plan is much better!

Get your free download 5 Gems to Remember by Felice Gerwitz

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Faithfulness and Endurance During Life’s Biggest Hurts with Jen Grice 

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Faithfulness + Endurance Through Life’s Biggest Hurts

George Mueller is known for saying, ‘To learn strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings.”

Just like George Mueller and some of the other people I’ll be talking about, I too have learned my faith and learned to endure through my life’s biggest hurt.

If you’re a homeschooling mom like myself, you read the story of George Mueller and how his faith helped him to feed and house thousands of orphans. I just love hearing stories about how other people have used faith to survive. We actually read through the Christian Heroes Then And Now book, about George Mueller, while I was going through my divorce trial. It opened my eyes to the fact that…

God uses life’s hardest times to bring His sons and daughters to a place where their only hope is found in their faith in Him.

 I was one of those people who said, it won’t happen to me… it won’t happen to us. We’ll never divorce… I’m “married for life.” We can’t control the actions and choices of other people, our husbands, our family or our friends… so sometimes we get hurt. Sometimes we have to deal with suffering. I’ve never been sold into slavery but I was told to get out of my mother’s home at the young age of 16, with nowhere to go. I’ve never been to jail. But I’ve been confined to a hospital bed, pregnant, struggling to survive while people I considered family pretended I didn’t exist.

Betrayal. Treachery. Pain. Humiliation. Falsely accused. Unjust punishment and suffering. Feeling alone and forgotten.

Anyone else experience these hurts before? I think we’d all agree that these are the biggest. And they can prove to be the biggest threat to our faith as well.

It’s even more painful when we experience these things, from family, or from someone who vowed to love, honor, and cherish you for life.

These are the very feelings Genesis Joseph felt as he faced trials that were inflicted on him because of the choices of others. Sin causes problems. And usually innocent victims feel the brunt of the pain of someone else’s sinful heart. And we don’t always get what we expect out of life. Those biggest hurts… tend to disrupt our life’s focus.

I know I expected to get married and then stay that way until I died. I expected my husband to stay faithful only to me. After that I expected him to repent of his behaviors, get help and spiritual guidance, and then stop the sin. But that’s not what happened. I was betrayed and then served divorce papers… and told I was the one forsaking.

Someone walked out and then God walked in.

He said, never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you. (Hebrew 13:5)

Joseph learned to depend on God for everything. So have I. Our Father took very good care of us discarded people. Providence was there the whole time. I had no idea how I was going to get through this but I knew where to look for guidance. I spent a lot of time reading God’s Word. I felt so much like Joseph. I felt betrayed. I was being blamed and feeling humiliated.

Even in my pain and anger at God, because of my situation, I knew there was more to my situation. I knew my faith was being tested. I remembered verses about growing my faith. But my eyes would look at my circumstances and I was afraid and felt alone. When the promises were easy to forget I would write them on my bathroom mirror and on my forearm… just trying to keep my faith.

And I’m here to share I’ve made it through… and to encourage you too with my story.

Through my life’s biggest trial, struggles and pain, I’ve learned these three things about faithfulness and endurance.

#1 : God is always with us – guiding, comforting, and protecting us

#2: We grow in faith as we endure

#3: God has a purpose for pain – a divine destiny

Our response to life’s biggest hurts? Faithfulness and endurance. To recap we do this by remembering that God is always with us, growing in our faith as we endure, and looking out for the purpose for our pain and suffering.

If that’s you right now, I want to encourage you! You can and will get through this too. God is with you! Slow and steady wins the race… we just have to keep pushing forward.

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Dealing with Mom Guilt with Felice Gerwitz  

Overcoming Mommy Guilt (Scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN to get to the player)

We’ve all done it – you know thinking we are not good enough or it is all our fault. Where did I go wrong – what could I have done differently –

When I was expecting my first child I thought – how can it be that hard? I was a teacher and handled an entire classroom of kids, one little kid can’t be difficult after that!

I was filled with my own self importance, my own skill set – my own…well, degree! I had an education degree in Early Childhood, Elementary Ed and Specific Learning Disabilities – I was degreed for K-12 I was all set, right?

Wrong!

Along came Neal, this beautiful bundle of joy – and he was the first and most perfect baby. He slept well and for hours, he barely cried, he nursed really well. In fact, I thought he was the easiest child ever! And, compared to my other four he was a very easy baby…

But fast forward and let me tell you I began to second guess every decision  because the experts began to weigh in.

Well meaning family members, friends, the lady next door – everyone was an expert!

I began listening to my friends talk about their kids and their parenting methods were all over the board from the way permissive to the super, super strict—train up a child and that is the way he will grow crowd and don’t spare the rod crowd.

While I was very comfortably somewhere in between I began to realize that moms in general were a mess –

They were threading water – barely surviving.

I listened to people share:

1. I’m not good enough
2. I’m going to ruin my children
3. I’m not an expert
4. My kids are going to grow up to hate me which is why I am going to be sure to spoil them
5. It is all my fault!

Friends – if you hear nothing else I say …please hear this. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT – Let me repeat that – IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

As a Christian we have the tools to be super parents

– after all as Christians aren’t we heirs of the KINGDOM isn’t GOD OUR FATHER? Didn’t God promise not to forsake us but to send HIS spirit to guide us?

I understand you are on overload – I understand your child may be lost – and you know what? God has given us and them free will…

We can not mold our children in our image – however we can introduce them to the Almighty God

And we often preach to the choir – we ask our children to do the heavy lifting – to demonstrate to us God’s love and to show us they really understand.

We can see their walk with the Lord in the fruit they demonstrate

And if we don’t like that fruit – guess what? It is up to us to pray. And we pray – God do this and this and this – NO – we need to pray YOUR WILL LORD NOT MINE

God did not give us a spirit of fear New International Version 2Timothy 1:7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

Deuteronomy 31:6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or …

Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will neverleave you nor forsake you. …. and hope; unto us is this gospel preached, as well as unto them; he will never fail thee, nor forsake thee, Heb 13:5.

Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
…17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and He will be in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans;I will come to you. 19In a little while, the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live.…

Do Not Worry (Luke 12:22-34) 25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns—and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifespan? 28And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?31Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans pursue all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.

Moms – stop with the guilt!

1. If you feel guilty it is not from God – He does not give us a sense of guilt.
2. Feeling guilty is a sign that we lack faith – in ourselves and the power of God – think about that. It hurts doesn’t it? When I realized this myself … I had to pray and repent.
3. Guilt is often misplaced. The guilty person – i.e. your child, gets off scott free – “It is not my fault”
4. It’s not about you – it is about the offending party

It is not your fault. It really isn’t

Let me tell you a true story. I was praying to the Lord about a situation that was really outside of my control. I was apologizing to Him for something I felt was really a lack of  faith. Then I felt the Lord answer my prayer with clarity – but the answer was very compelling, the Lord basically said, “Do you really think you have that much power?”

Wow. Just wow!

Sometimes friends we take on the burden of fault when it does not lie on our shoulders. We allow our child – in point 3 above to get off with a “free” card.

We are not responsible for someone eles’s free will decision – sometimes our children need to fall in order for the Lord to minister to them where they are – even if it feels like the entire world is falling in around  your shoulders.

We fix everything from the time they are little to the time they are big – and when we can’t we get overwhelmed. We just can’t do it anymore!

Solutions:

1. Look at Mary – her infamous example as the mother of our Lord. At the wedding feast of Canaan where her wise words were, “Do what He tells you.” These words are applicable for us as well.
2. Praise God in everything – yes, everything. Remember Romans 8:28
3. Pray specifically, and if we don’t know how to pray ask the Lord. (Podcast: AFewMinutesWithGodPodcast.com
4. Know that God hears you! He really does.  

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