The Gentle Whisper of God
Mar 15, 2019 | Mary Southerland

Today's Truth

Be still and know that I am God.  (Psalm 46:10, NIV)

Friend to Friend

It is totally true that we have to learn to get still and quiet in order to hear from God. This is why God tells us in the Psalms:  “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

I love the story of Elijah the prophet who is waiting to hear from God about the man who will replace him and carry on the ministry. (Elijah’s story is found in 1 King 19.)  Elijah asks God to speak to him. Elijah goes through a great storm but God does not speak in the storm. He experiences an earthquake but God does speak in the earthquake. He sees a great fire but again, God does not speak in the fire. Elijah finally hears God in a still, small voice in a gentle whisper.  God will use a 2 x 4 to get our attention when nothing else works. But He prefers to get our attention through a still, small voice. We must learn to get quiet in order to hear the gentle whisper of God’s Spirit.  If you have established a daily time with God, you have no doubt discovered the reality that the minute your body gets still, your mind and heart kick into high gear. Your mind brings up all the things you have to do, while your heart reminds you of all the things you are worried or concerned about. One of the challenges of being still is dealing with these issues.  Within the Quaker faith, there is a great deal of teaching about the concept of “centering down.” It is a way of dealing with the mind’s desire when we get still to push us towards reflection and thinking. The point of what I call “chair time” or time alone with God is not to reflect and think but to clear your mind and heart so you can hear from God.  I have developed my own practice out of what I have learned from the Quakers. I call it “spinning off.” Here is how it works for me. The minute I try to get still, my mind (my intellect) kicks into gear and reminds me of all kinds of things:
What is still on my “to do” list?
What do I need to get done tomorrow?
What did I forgot to do today?
What about the bills that I still need to pay?
Is there enough money in our bank account to pay those bills?

The heart (my emotions) does the same thing. The minute I get still, my emotions take over and bring to mind:
That recent hurt or loss
Anything I am worried about
My friends who are struggling
How tired I am
How depressed I am
How frustrated I am

What is happening between the mind and the heart is actually counter productive. You are trying to get still to hear from God. And yet your mind and heart are racing ahead, not wanting to sit still at all.  This is where spinning out comes into play. Picture yourself trying to center down trying to get to the place where your body, your mind, and your heart are still so you can hear from God. I start out by praying, “Jesus I want to hear from You today. Help me to center down. Help me to spin off any distractions that come to mind.”

Then, as I get still, something will pop into my head or my heart. I think about it for a moment, make a plan to deal with it later, and then spin it off. I literally picture it leaving my mind or my heart and spinning away. When the next worry or thought or hurt comes, I do the same thing.  I often think through phrases like these to help me spin off:
“I can’t fix that right now I will deal with it later.”
“I am concerned about that but God, I trust You with it.”
“I do need to get that done but not right now.”
“I do need some time to process that but that is for another day.”

My experience is that when I learn to practice centering down by spinning off the thoughts from my head and the feelings from my heart, I get still enough and quiet enough to hear that still, small voice of God.

As the manager of our hospital's softball team, I was responsible for returning equipment to the proper owners at the end of the season.  When I walked into the surgery department carrying a bat that belonged to one of the surgeons, I passed several patients and their families in a waiting area.  "Look, honey," one man said to his wife. "Here comes your anesthesiologist."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/luke-ryan-hart-father-murder-mother-sister-spalding-a8928471.html

Online hate spurred on our father to kill our mother and sister, say his sons

'He believed that just because he was a man he was entitled to having a wife to serve him who met his every wish. He never believed what he was doing was wrong even murdering mum and Charlotte,' says Ryan Hart

Maya Oppenheim
Women's Correspondent @mayaoppenheim ,
Maya Yagoda
@mayayagoda
Saturday 25 May 2019 17:12

Online networks where misogynistic hate are routinely shared spurred on a domestic abuser to murder his wife and daughter with a sawn-off shotgun, his two sons have said.  Lance Hart, 57, killed his 50-year-old wife and 19-year-old daughter before turning the weapon on himself in a swimming pool car park in Spalding in Lincolnshire in 2016.  Mr Hart, who was described as a “cold, calculated, scheming man” by a coroner but as a “nice guy” who was “always caring” and “good at DIY” by the media after the murders, subjected his wife to a campaign of domestic abuse and coercive control for 27 years before carrying out the killing.  The murders happened five days after the brothers had helped their mother Claire and sister Charlotte escape their father after saving up their own money to do so for years.  Luke and Ryan Hart say that it was their father’s gendered view of the world which ultimately led him to murder his daughter and wife of 25 years.  The brothers, who describe their father as a “domestic terrorist” and their situation of abuse as a “domestic hostage”, say their father’s patriarchal views were linked to the fact his own mother was a “typical 1950s housewife” and was “very submissive” to her husband.  “She did all the cleaning, all the cooking and did not drive and just served her husband,” 28-year-old Ryan said. “Our father saw that growing up and he tried to replicate it in our family. It was not that he had been through anything difficult. He just grew up with an expectation of women and families from five or six decades ago. He did not really inherit any trauma. He just inherited the belief system.”

He added: “Despite society changing, he refused to change his beliefs. Our father believed that his birthright as a man was power over women and children so he believed that just because he was a man he was entitled to having a wife to serve him, who met his every wish. He never believed what he was doing was wrong even murdering mum and Charlotte.  In his murder note, he justified his actions because he believed that we had destroyed his world view that we were going against what he was entitled to. In his view of the world, us disobeying him was punishable by death. He had no ability for introspection at all. There was not a single point in his life that he doubted what he was choosing to do.”

Mr Hart’s control included financial abuse, isolating his family, accusing his wife of being gay or having an affair if she met friends after work, stopping her from applying for promotions at work, refusing to let her go on holidays, including going to watch her son Ryan’s triathlon in Turkey, and banning his sons from talking to their aunt and uncle for ten years. Their mother’s revolved around a “rigid schedule” he created for her which involved doing chores and being home at a certain time.  “Growing up, our father created numerous trivial rules, like filling the kettle up. If it was not full he would go absolutely mental for hours. He was always trying to find better ways to have control over us,” Luke, his 29-year-old brother, added.

He said his father looked at conspiracy theories on the internet and spent a great deal of time on “misogynistic” closed forums which did not have a specific agenda but attracted people who were anti-government.  “They were self-pity parties,” he said. “Online hidden closed forums of men who think they are subverting the government. But they are pathetic. They just complain about women, complain about power, complain about the world they did not succeed in because of supposed problems with the world not them”.

He said his father subjected his mother to financial abuse throughout their relationship and after the murders, they found out he had given away over £10,000 to friends from the internet in an attempt to control the family by keeping them “cash poor”.  “At the time it made no sense why he was giving money away,” he added. “Not to charities but to random men. When we found out afterwards it was like ‘why the f**k would you do that’ but actually it is very clear that our father valued control over anything in the world and what he was effectively doing was paying for control of our mother. By giving money away, it made sure there were no collective assets in the relationship, so our mother could never leave because she was only earning five or six grand a year. He was a low-status male in the public world but he was a high-status male in the private world because he had domination of his family.”

Mr Hart had sole control over the family’s bank accounts and all of his wife’s spending was scrutinised, with her having to provide receipts for everything, his brother Ryan added. He said his father saw him and his brother’s earnings as a threat to “the chains he had around our mother” and wanted to minimise their money too.

The brothers, who are both engineers, said they were left deeply disturbed by the media’s coverage of their father’s murders. They said the letter, a 12-page note found on a USB stick in his car, their father left behind was a byproduct of months of researching online actual family murders and “taking the media justifications”.  Luke said: “The media call it a suicide note. We call it a murder note. but really it is a manifesto a political manifesto these men write when they kill their families. It was a manifesto about a gendered view of the world that the media was very happy to echo and give coverage. Whereas if someone creates a racially abusive manifesto and goes on to commit a crime, the media says ‘oh should we not publish it’. But when domestic abusers do it they just publish it willy nilly. Mum and Charlotte were the ones who were questioned in the media coverage, our father was given justifications, not a single question was asked of his behaviour.” 

He said that neither he or his brother had a proper relationship with their father saying that he believed Mr Hart had simply seen children as vehicles through which one can establish control over women.  Neither of the brothers saw their father’s behaviour as domestic abuse at the time with Ryan explaining his father was so calculating that he eventually started thinking that he himself was the problem.  “You start to normalise yourself to the abuse and actually start to believe it is not abuse and it is just me unable to satisfy the rules that are in place in the world,” he said. “I guess by the time you are able to really comprehend what is going on you are so intertwined in the abuse that you start to believe that you are the one that needs to change.”

Society needs to shift the focus onto controlling behaviour, he said, rather than violence when tackling domestic abuse, because control is the ultimate aim of abusers.  “We just thought domestic abuse was something that was miserable but not lethal and actually we found out in research afterwards that domestic abuse is hugely dangerous in our society,” Luke added. “Nearly a quarter of all murders are domestic homicides and women and children are at most danger of being killed in their own homes. One thing that really struck us was the fact 100 women every year are killed by partners or ex-partners which is almost ten times terrorist-related deaths. The key thing to identify is that this is deadly. We are always following the abuser but a third of domestic homicides have no history of violence. They all have a history of control but a third of them don’t have a history of violence like ours.”

The brothers, who have gone on to become prominent campaigners on the issue of domestic abuse, said that it was their mother and sister who had helped them learn how to be a force for good in the world.  “From mum and Charlotte, we learnt that even in an environment of hate and suffering, you can apply yourself and you do not have to give in and just be an excuse which our father was,” Luke added. “He was just an excuse. That is all he ever was. But mum and Charlotte created themselves, in spite of that environment, into incredible people and we use them as examples.”

Facing the Future or Fearing It?
Mar 12, 2019 | Kathi Lipp

Today's Truth

Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  Luke 12:33-34

Friend to Friend

When I was a young adult, I would often tell myself, “When I become really successful, I will give away so much money! I will support orphans and the needy. I need to work hard so that in my later years, I can do a lot  of good in the world and for God’s kingdom.”

At the same time, I was in a constant battle: me verses my stuff. My home was stuffed to the brim with things I bought and used (or not).  I would try and try to declutter, but everything in my house, to me, was completely essential. Maybe not right now; I couldn’t get rid of anything that I might need, someday. It seemed wasteful to have bought the heart-shaped muffin pan, use it once, and then give it away. (What if, five years later, I had another child who wanted little heart shaped cakes for Valentines day?) My entire house was brimming with “what ifs.”  So as my house kept bursting at the seams, my plans I had to care for the poor never magically happened. I knew the next step was to earn more money so I could serve the poor and buy a bigger house so that we weren’t always so crowded, and I could concentrate on loving others well. Right?

Isn’t this what the world tells us?

All of this was faulty, future thinking. Instead of doing what I could, in the moment, to serve those right in front of me, I kept saying “someday.”  About my clutter.  About my helping the poor.  And at the root of this future, faulty thinking was fear.  When it came to clutter, “What if I need it someday?” is the cry of the fearful heart. Because for the fearful heart, what we once decided would be “enough” to start helping the poor, “enough” to have in our homes, will never be enough.  The only way we will have enough in our homes, enough to help those who need the help, is to get to the place where we trust the God who has already given us so much.  It took me well into my forties to believe really believe that I could get rid of the “extra” in my house, the “just in case” in my house, without fear. Have I given away a few things I needed again?

Occasionally. In those instances, I’ve had the peace of knowing that my extra was being used by someone else who needed it, and I could, if I really needed it, buy or borrow those items again.  But the most exciting part of this journey has been the ability to help people not “someday” but right now.  Instead of selling our couch that was still in wonderful shape and people had offered to buy from us, we were able to give it to a single mom who just moved to our community.  And when our friend was raising funds for clean water in Africa, I had a piece of jewelry (given to me by someone who was no longer in my life) that I was able to sell for money to help build a well.  I would rather carry these acts in my heart than extra stuff in my house.  Don’t let your abundance be what you put your trust in. Instead trust your abundance to God.

A lonely frog telephoned the Psychic Hotline and asked what his future holds.  His Personal Psychic Advisor tells him, "You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you."

The frog is thrilled, "This is great! Will I meet her at a party?" he croaks.

"No," says the psychic, "in biology class."

When the Storms Come
Mar 11, 2019 | Mary Southerland

Today's Truth

God is our refuge and strength, a tested help in times of trouble.  Psalm 46:1

Friend to Friend

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He feverishly prayed for God’s rescue, but with every day that passed, his hope weakened. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little  hut out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few possessions.  One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. Everything was lost. Stunned with grief and anger, the man cried, “God, how could you do this to me!”

The next morning, he woke to the sound of a ship approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. “How did you know I was here?” the weary man asked.

“We saw your smoke signal,” they replied.

Storms are for our good. When a storm hits, I usually look for the nearest exit, hoping to escape the high winds. I am more than willing to give up my seat in a rocking boat in exchange for tranquil waters and blue skies.  I don’t like pain.  I dread uncertain times.  When life spirals out of control, I often withdraw from friends and family in an attempt to hide. Stress can paralyze me and make it difficult for me to function normally. Small tasks become huge mountains as the clouds gather and the winds pick up speed. To think that storms are for my good is a stretch to say the least.  I know you have repeatedly heard and maybe even taught the truth that we are strengthened by our storms. Honestly, there have been times when I felt as if I would explode if one more person told me to praise God for my storm. Looking back, however, there is absolutely no doubt that my greatest growth has come during my most fierce life storms. Each storm has become a spiritual marker, a testament to the sufficiency and faithfulness of God. It is from those markers that a powerful life is shaped and molded.  Storms will come. Storms are a reality of life. We will either become storm survivors or storm statistics. The choice really is ours to make. We can stop telling God how big our storm is and start telling the storm just how big our God is. The key to enduring storms is to embrace each one that comes, knowing it contains and can yield a seed of victory.

The first person I remember dying was my Poppa (grandfather) when I was about 8 years old.  My great grandmother had died a couple of years before but I don't remember being told about it. 

The first time it really hit me was when I saw my grandma and I knew I wasn't going to see him again.  It was hard even at that age as I loved my Poppa but fortunately I had good parents who told me and my sister in the best possible way.  Even then I was a christian so right from the start I believed he had gone to heaven.  Whenever I think of him it is always good memories.
 

Fear Has a Really Big Mouth
Mar 07, 2019 | Gwen Smith

Today's Truth

Friend to Friend

I often try to quiet fear by pretending it doesn’t exist. Clever  I know. But alas, it does exist and that’s not always a bad thing. To the contrary, it can actually keep us safe in proper context. When my house was struck  by lightning and lit with fire, fear sounded an emotional alarm, insisting that I escape and fast. In this instance, fear was good. It kept me safe.  In many instances, however, fear is not good. I’ve found that while it’s natural to be afraid at times human, even it’s best to not allow feelings of fear to consume and control large spaces of real estate in my heart. In Psalm 56, David handles the intersection of his fear and faith nicely.  In Psalm 56, captured by the Philistines in Gath, and in Psalm 57, hiding in a cave to escape the pursuit of Saul, David sifted through honest feelings of vulnerability and desperation. I imagine his reality was one of shaky hands, pulse raging wild and brows soaked in sweat. Yet fear was silenced as he made the powerful decision to redirect his emotions toward a more productive, more faith-filled response when David chose to trust God.  By choosing to trust God in the hiding and in the chains, David’s fear shifted to faith.  Faith shuts the mouth of fear. 

“When I am afraid, I will trust you.” (Psalm 56:3, CSB)

“You yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call. This I know: God is for me.” (Psalm 56:8-9, CSB)

These weren’t just flippant statements or memorized verses. These were sturdy declarations. Deliberate choices made by a deeply determined worshiper. The kind of choices that change and calm a frantic heart. The kind of choices that speak peace to anxiousness. The kind of choices we can make when we’re afraid. The kind of choice we can make when fear screams loud within.  Bring it. Fear is a liar. We can choose faith, knowing God is for us. Decision made.