Devotions

[Montravia]

https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2023/06/27/the-gift-of-soul-friends?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9-SbXJrnDTUruZp5Y0RatzLZ9E3uM-Cz5zHAaQhrYdUvIOB8EqyjjxlsQUEpP_EQX2MsJTd0rjbWg4LxkdvU0-RQJEOQ&_hsmi=261943791&utm_content=261943791&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

The Gift of Soul Friends
June 27, 2023
by Jodi Harris

"As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." 1 Samuel 18:1 (ESV)

My best friend and I met as young wives and became fast friends. We stayed close like sisters even when my family moved away, and we raised our babies as cousins. Our visits were frequent, and we spent hours together in our pajamas with coffee in one hand while our free hands managed the misbehaving child or the one who needed a hug and a snack.  We talked of home décor, outfits we got on sale, and sometimes our quirky husbands. But more importantly, we held space to wrestle through hard questions about our faith and how God was working in our lives. We shared the doubts we had about our parenting skills and the burdens we carried in our emotional struggles. We championed each other and prayed for one another. She was in my corner; I was in hers.  We all need friends who bring us back to who we are in Christ, challenging and cheering us on throughout our spiritual journeys, speaking God's Truth when we lose our way. These are soul friends.  The English term "soul friend" comes from the Gaelic words anam cara, which were adopted by Christians in the sixth century when missionaries arrived in Ireland. This description speaks to the spiritual connection between godly friends that creates a strong bond. For a season or a lifetime, however many we have or for however long we have them, soul friends nurture our souls' soil like a hearty fertilizer, helping us flourish into who God created us to be.  In 1 Samuel 18-20, this was who Jonathan was to his friend David:

    He delighted in David (1 Samuel 19:1).
    He spoke well of David (1 Samuel 19:4).
    He was loyal to David (1 Samuel 20:4).
    He defended David (1 Samuel 20:32).
    He cared about David (1 Samuel 20:34; 1 Samuel 20:41).
    He respected David's privacy and confidences (1 Samuel 20:39).
    God was the bond of their friendship (1 Samuel 20:42).

Sadly, Jonathan's father, King Saul, wanted to kill David because he was jealous of him. And because of this, David had to flee. Both friends wept as they said goodbye: "The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (1 Samuel 18:1).

Soul friends don't come and go without pain. Maybe you've experienced pain in your own friendships because of jealousy or misunderstanding ... even a wound so deep it just couldn't be repaired. Or perhaps a move across the country separated you from your closest friend. Our grief over the loss of soul friends speaks to the deep bond of love. Soul friends give us a place to belong and this is God's idea. We were created for community by a triune God who loves us and wants the best for us (Genesis 1:26a).  Maybe you are in a season of longing for a soul friend, and if so, God hears every prayer you lift up to ask Him to bring godly community into your life. But even as you wait for His answer, you are not alone — you can lean in to the one Soul Friend who never leaves us, the Friend who loves at all times (Proverbs 17:17) and sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). Jesus is the Friend who laid down His life for us and who shares everything with us that His Father tells Him. He chose us, and He teaches us to go and love others the same way (John 15:13-17).  Let's invite Him to encourage, equip and embolden us to go out and become the kind of soul friends we desperately need. As we do so, we can ask God to lead us to someone we can bless with our lives and His love. In turn, we, too, will be blessed.

[Cocobean]

 

[Cocobean]

https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2023/06/28/hearts-wide-open?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_IIoC3HZbjv6ONuw0u3JQERB6GBaaV8p1NKmvVfXvgRgV3lKbmGE22nFjP1zetShcNbzGAmai_Bmrqf5DpajnSUgCWw&_hsmi=261943793&utm_content=261943793&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

Hearts Wide Open
June 28, 2023
by Alice Matagora

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26 (NIV)

"What?!" I shook my head and stared at the test. One strong line and one very faint one.  "There's no way What?"

If there was anything five years, one positive pregnancy test and deep grief had taught me, it was not to get my hopes up so easily.  I tested again, this time unable to clearly make out a second line. Maybe it was there maybe it wasn't. I decided to go out and purchase a more sensitive pregnancy test, bringing my dog along for moral support.  When I got home, I took the third test and was unable to make out a second line. Later that night and the next day, I started to see the sure signs that I was not, in fact, pregnant.  The ache and pain of this disappointment were so devastating that I felt like they would crush my body and soul. My heart was broken.  It was painfully difficult for me to wrestle with the goodness of God in unexplained infertility. Why, God?

If You knew it was going to be negative in the end, why give me a positive test?

If You know each month I will end up with no baby, why drag out the disappointment?

Don't You see how painful this is already?

Don't You care?

At times, I felt that it would be easier to know pregnancy would never happen, to grieve the loss and move on, rather than keep hoping. How could I keep my heart wide open and vulnerable to hope and at the same time keep my heart wide open and vulnerable to devastating grief month after month?

How could I keep doing so when I'd experienced more pain than joy?

How could I not numb or harden my heart to protect it from disappointment?

Recalling God's unwavering love, goodness, promise and presence with me and my husband even in the deepest, dark valley of infertility kept us holding on to nothing else but Him. He is the God who is able to throw the mountains into the sea (Psalm 46:2) and raise the dead to life (Matthew 28:6). He is the God who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it (Genesis 1). He is El Roi, the God who sees, and is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18).  "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" (Psalm 73:26).

We can also look to Jesus, the Son of God who was forsaken by the Father as He hung on the cross for the sins of the world (Matthew 27:46). Remembering that Jesus can identify with us in our own feelings of being forsaken gives us comfort that He understands our grief.  The cross helped my husband and me hold on to hope that our story wasn't over yet, just as it wasn't over for Jesus when He had yet to be raised to life in defeat of death itself. God was still at work to bring about the salvation of the world even as nothing seemed to be happening; Jesus' body lay in the tomb, and all hope seemed lost. But Jesus' death and resurrection give us courage to believe that God can redeem even our darkest moments.  At the end of the day, when all else fails, we put our hope not in the things of this world in doctor appointments, fertility treatments, scheduling, testing and temperature taking but in God alone. He alone is faithful, He alone is enough, and He alone is able to rewrite our stories of pain to be more beautiful than we could ever think of or imagine.