What you meditate on is usually what you speak and how you act. When the heart is crushed and broken by the cares and trials of this life it often festers over with hardness and an intimate knowledge of pain in the heart and mind! Pain so pure and pristine it leaves one breathless and with nothing but an old rock where the heart was! Hardness!

In a world where the grace and mercy of GOD is freely available to those who ask, it is not justifiable to continue to live in pain from the past and allow that pain to affect the rest of one's life!. The Lord GOD, through the Prophet Isaiah said, "Do not remember the former things. Lo, I will do a new thing!" Grasp the new thing!

Christians are not strangers from the love and mercy of GOD! Yet, should we hold on to that hardened heart out of fear or pride, we reject GOD's love and mercy. Indeed, then we haven't the faith needed to repair not only our own pain but the pain we've caused! Should we fall into the rut of the abused becoming the abuser? Where is our faith?

Pastor James F. Clarke said, "All the strength and force of man comes from his faith in things unseen! He who believes is strong; he who doubt is weak! Strong convictions precede great actions!" Then to remain bitter, defensive and fearful in our pain is weakness and to step out in faith demonstrates strength! Ahh, yes! That requires us stepping out of our comfort zone!

A heart that has been crushed and broken by the world can be healed with a word! It is a spirit of fear that does not allow us ever again to love from a tender heart! If we do not come against that spirit in Jesus' name, a tender and trusting heart is impossible! Indeed true and lasting love is impossible!

We must go to the Lord in humble submission and ask Him to manifest Himself in our lives! This is how we handle the bad things that have happened in our lives!

Someone said, "In order to survive we often sacrifice our ability to thrive!" Shall we not thrive instead of just surviving? Are we so fearful of heartbreak, destitution, homelessness, loneliness that we will do anything to survive? Oooo! I've been there! Done that! I would have bought the T-shirt but I was bankrupt!

If we just ask it of the Lord He will indeed stir up the fallow, hard ground of our heart! A fearful heart bent on just survival will never love tenderly! It's not possible! It will indeed seek out substitutes.

Abraham believed GOD when He said his descendents would number as the sands of the sea and that belief, that faith was accounted to him for righteousness! If our fear, our need to survive instead of thriving, keeps us from that righteousness it's our own doing and cannot be blamed on something someone did to us in the past!

"But let him ask in faith, without doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the sea! For let not that man suppose he will receive anything from the Lord; for he is a double minded man unstable in all his ways!" James 1:6-8 Doesn't that sound like us? "I want to live and love again but I'll never trust another man/woman again!" "I'm lonely but I don't need anyone!"

GOD therefore wants us not to fear! He wants wives for husbands and husbands for wives! He wants healing and the renewal of our minds! He wants us happy and complete! He says that in His word!

We must deal with the fear! GOD commands us not to fear! Fear is an emotion that is out of the will of GOD! We must believe him as Abraham! He will walk us through the Valley of Dry Bones! He will destroy the hurt and pain of the past and put new flesh of what we have missed and make it live again!

We must get back in touch with the love of GOD before we can love others! Since we know GOD loves us are we receiving that love? That agape love?

Satan, on the other hand would have us believe we are alone! No one has ever been hurt like us! A lie! You've been cheated on! You've been verbally abused! Physically abused! Stolen from! Left destitute! Ridiculed! Laughed at! Well, get in line behind all the others out there! The only thing special about you is GOD's individual, undying love for you!

Shall we block that love with fear, pride or brooding! Shall we retire to our little sanctuary, our private little room where we can be alone with our brooding? Or shall we reach out in faith and grasp that new thing GOD has for us?

Shall we not steadfastly gaze into the Glory of GOD and allow Him to inhabit our praises? Shall we not call those things that are not as though they are? Bring joy to our lives once again? It can't be done for us! We must seek it!

All of these words are written on a page in my Bible! They are there to remind me that I wrote them for ME! I wrote them while looking in a mirror at my life! Shouldn't we all be this honest with ourselves?