I hardly know how to start this one without coming off like the Church Lady or the type of person that James criticizes in James 2:15-16, saying, “ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”

Now that you understand my mental state at least a little, I hope you will also understand that I’m trying to be extra-sensitive today. I hope you will bear with me if anything I post today seems insensitive. I don’t mean to be.

That said, Satan has been a busy little punk these last few days. In my small part of the Christian Tumblrverse, people have been fighting temptation, giving in, coming to repentance, and thanking God for restoration.

It’s almost as if a virus has broken out, but it’s no virus. It’s Satan waging war on a group of Christians that’s only been getting bigger, stronger, and bolder in our attacks on the enemy.

Is that Church Lady enough for ya?

If it is, go back through my posts of the last few days and read what the Bible says about how Satan is constantly accusing us before our Creator, and waging war on us through our insecurities, ignorance, and doubts.

It’s about to get even more Church Lady up in here.

Through prayer, I have learned that Satan has been especially ruthless in his attacks on one person in particular. I don’t know the specifics, but I know that Satan has caused spiritual and emotional earthquakes of horrifying magnitude in this one guy’s life. As a result, this guy (you know who you are) has once again turned his back on God.

My darling, that is exactly what Satan was hoping for.

When Satan took away everything — family, friends, career, wealth, health, prestige, love — that Job had, Job wrote, “My days are past; my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. They make night into day: ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’ If I hope for [Hell] as my house, if I make my bed in darkness, if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope? Who will see my hope?” (Job 17:11-15)

Through it all, including a bruising interrogation by the Almighty God, Job had faith. Even though he had been a righteous man, he came to repentance for the sins he committed while Satan was putting him through the wringer.

Oh, hooray, more Bible! Isn’t that what you’re thinking, my friend? Aren’t you disgusted with the way I sit here on my lofty perch, throwing Scripture at you, citing the kinds of miracles that just don’t happen anymore? Isn’t that what you’re thinking?

It seems the time has come for me to do some deep sharing.

See, this stuff isn’t theoretical for me — not even a little bit.

After flirting with Christianity for over a year, I had an “Aha!” moment, and fully but secretly committed myself to Jesus on January 1, 2009.

My husband was working at a job he hated just so he could get medical insurance when the company merged in September. On August 25, 2009, he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, which left us “medically indigent” and at the mercy of the county. He died on November 3, 2009.

I was permanently disabled, couldn’t drive, couldn’t find work. My husband left me deep in debt with no real resources to get out of it. I was forced out of our rented house into a 10’ x 12’ bedroom with relatives. I had very few things I could sell for real cash. My relatives didn’t want to take me to thrift stores, so I was forced to pay for a trip to the county dump to throw away everything I couldn’t jam into this one room.

My relatives, professing Christians and always borderline hostile, gradually started to show their true colors. They planned to use my husband’s 10-year-old car for local errands. On a rainy night in January 2010, they drove it to L.A. for a date-night. The engine gave out, and they had a meltdown that hasn’t stopped.

Since that time, they have refused to take me to do any errands. The only exceptions have been when my computer has crashed and I’ve had to take it in for repairs. On those occasions, I would sometimes beg to be taken for a haircut and have my request honored.

I have not been taken shopping for groceries, clothes, or other necessities since January of 2010. For everything I cannot order online, I have been forced to hand my shopping lists to my relatives. I have been subject to their decisions and their mistakes and misunderstandings of the items on my lists.

Last Christmas, I wasn’t even allowed to do my own Christmas shopping. If I was to buy gifts at all, I was told, they would be chosen by my relatives, and I would be presented with the bill. I refused, and was criticized for doing so. After all, weren’t they being perfectly reasonable and charitable?

Shopping for clothes with all but two online merchants (whose clothes usually fit me) is impossible. If I get something that doesn’t fit or looks bad, I’m stuck with it because I have no way to take it to the post office for return shipping. My relatives simply aren’t willing to do that with or for me.

As for leisure activities, I haven’t been to a concert, haven’t been able to get out and find anyone to sing with, haven’t been able to resume teaching myself guitar. I cancelled Netflix because so many DVDs arrived broken.

My computer is out of warranty now, so I haven’t been in to have it repaired since January, the last time I was even out of the house. Prior to that, I had to beg to be taken to Fry’s on ten separate occasions for repairs.

Under California’s Lemon Law, if the same problem has had to be repaired three times, the device is considered a lemon and replaced. Accordingly, the technicians at Fry’s have diagnosed different problems for the same symptom, so no replacement. My computer is hanging on by a thread, thank the good Lord.

Speaking of God, while my secular friends have turned their backs on me since I confessed my faith, my relatives’ hostility toward me has increased exponentially since He prompted me start this blog. Beginning in last August, God commanded me to specifically address them and the sins they’ve committed against me; I certainly wouldn’t have done so otherwise. We don’t speak; they’ve unfriended me on Facebook.

Wait, wait wait!

I know what you’re thinking: Ain’t nothin’ but a pity party.

I’m thinking more along the lines of Peter and the rest of them in Acts 5:40-42, “[A]nd when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.”

That’s right: Through it all, I have constantly called on God. I have turned to Him for help with the smallest decisions and complaints, and He has always answered me. When it’s for my good and the good of the Gospel, He is faithful to tell me what is going on, and to guide me through it.

He has abolished almost all my debts, even though the lion’s share of my disability check goes to pay for rent, food, and basic cell phone usage (I was certified disabled and legally blind in May of 2010).

He has seen to it that I am clothed, fed, and housed. He has kept my computer going so that I could do what He commanded — preach the Gospel to the unchurched and those who, like me, were falsely and dysfunctionally churched in childhood.

What Paul says in Romans 5:3-5 has come true for me. “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Because I have relied on exclusively God, He has given me the character and strength to complete Christ’s sufferings in every trial.

That brings me to the most important thing Jesus has done for me: He has given me the boldness and confidence to stand up for what is right in front of professing Christians whose concept of Godly living changes to suit their desires.

Jesus has given me the grace to suffer wrong and be defrauded (1 Corinthians 6:7), even as I preach and teach against it to the very people who wrong me, and I am so very thankful for the new person I’ve become as a result.

Why have I confessed all this in mortifying detail?

It isn’t to play the comparative pain game, which I find despicable. I don’t care if you’ve turned your back on God because you got a hangnail: I have no right to favorably compare my pain with yours, and that’s not what this is about.

Besides, my friend, I understand that this new setback is much, much bigger than a hangnail. I want to tell you that it is possible to soldier through and triumph over your setbacks, whether they are literally or figuratively crippling — but only if you confess and remember that Jesus Christ is your Savior in this and every trial, only if you go to Him first and always.

I want to beg you to return to Him — not because I want to see you punished, but because I want you to discover what I have — how richly He’ll bless you when you cling to Him through good times and bad.

And, I want to encourage, comfort, and strengthen you with the words of others who have made the same discovery in their trials.

Psalm 34:17-19: “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (emphasis mine): “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”

Jesus, in John 14:15-16 (KJV):If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.”

“Comforter” is translated as “Advocate,” “Counselor,” and “Helper” elsewhere. Jesus is all those things and more to those who love Him, and He will keep His promises to you. In Mark 10:29-30, He promises you this: “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”

You’re probably not suffering this setback voluntarily, but be assured that you are being asked to do so for Jesus’ sake and for the Gospel. Jesus is not like humankind: When He makes a promise, He keeps it. Trust in Him, and you will be paid back one hundred times over.