WOW! WOW! WOW!
God speaks clearly to me through our family friend, Ceri! The other day, I was under my God tree, and my friend Marcie asked me, “Have you left your husband yet?” I explained to her that I was not leaving him and was his ride-or-die wife. That I’m God’s representative, and I’m sticking with my husband, even if that means being the poster child of a wife sticking with her husband despite all the messiness involved. That I will love my husband up. Show him a lot of mercy and grace because none of us are perfect, and keep loving and supporting him the same way he has lovingly done for me. Even though the world might tell me the complete opposite, I follow what I feel God is calling me to do: Give my husband grace and mercy and even go as far as not discussing the issue again by being extremely gentle and patient.
Fast forward a few minutes later, I saw the date Feb 11 and felt God saying to go to Ceri’s message of Feb 11 on the Clubhouse app, where I go to stalk him and record his messages. Incredibly, Ceri confirmed what I had just told Marcie:
“… You got to be kind. It reverts back to what they said Paul said in this verse. He says to make allowance for everyone for each other’s faults and forgive anyone who offends you. When you make allowance for something, you prepare yourself that people will fail you. Ain’t nobody perfect. And even when people mess up, you must give them that Grace.
Remember now, we cannot keep asking God for grace and mercy when we don’t extend His hand to each other. Whatever it is that God gives us, he provides us with the opportunity to reflect that onto our fellow man. Hence, he told us he made us in his own image. What He’s given to us, we have the opportunity to give to other people. Every day we see the love that God has given us. From the moment we woke up and have our eyes open, we now have the opportunity and the ability to Grace others with what God has been so gracious with us. God helped us to wake up to see another day. He shows us love continuously. He is telling us once we wake up, ‘Hey, that’s what I did for you, now go out there and do for others.’ And forgiveness is one of those things.
Remember, it’s something that I always used to preach in here from when I first started preaching in this room. Forgiveness is something that God gave to you. He gave that to you. Forgiveness is for us. Nobody cares if you forgive them or not. Trust me on this one. Nobody cares. The only person to be affected by you not forgiving somebody is you. You’re going to walk around with a spiteful heart. You will walk around with hate in your eyes. You will be having sleepless nights because there’s something this person did to you that has you upset. You think they care? They don’t care because they can continuously run into the same problems over and over. They can keep running into people who either forgive them or who don’t. You think that like they are going to stop at you? Nah. It just doesn’t work that way.
The forgiveness is for us. The forgiveness is for us to say, ‘Hey, you know I forgive you. You don’t do it because we want God to forgive us. That isn’t just the reason. You have to honestly search deep down inside you and realize that whatever this is, I am bigger than this. I’m not gonna let this consume me. This isn’t a part of me. This isn’t me. This isn’t what I’m going to focus on. I need to focus on the word of God. I need to focus on loving other people. I need to devote my energy to something more important than what it is that this person did to me. And that’s just what it is. So today, let’s remember to go out there with exactly what God asked us to do in these verses when He asks us to clothe ourselves with mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God our Father.”
I can’t get over how God had me to go to that specific message of Ceri’s for Feb 11 that has drastically changed my life. I feel so loved by God that He would go to this extent to reveal His Presence with our family, confirming I must continue giving my husband grace and mercy, the same he does for me. I told him today that I never want to discuss this issue (infidelity) again because it has only been a total distraction to our family. Honestly, my hubby has been loyal, devoted, reliable, trustworthy, and steady and deserves our deep respect, love, and appreciation. I said we need to recalibrate from exactly where we are and keep our eyes on the prize God has in store for us. As Ceri said, the thing has consumed and distracted us too much. The setback, though, will be our set-up for an even stronger comeback, by the grace of God! Time to refocus on Him and His plans for our family!
We can’t change anyone! People have to want to change on their own, but in the meantime, WE MUST MAKE ALLOWANCES FOR THE WEAKNESSES OF OTHERS, GRANTING MERCY AND PATIENCE as GOD DOES FOR US BECAUSE NONE OF US ARE PERFECT. LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD. Amen!