From My Heart To His
By
Michelle Greene Wheeler
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Michelle Greene Wheeler at Smashwords
From My Heart To His
Copyright © 2012 by Michelle Greene Wheeler
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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From My Heart To His
*****
Contents
Our Search for God’s Perfect Will
Anticipation Is Making Me Wait
Rather Be Praying For Than Prayed For?
Because Jesus Lived And Died For Me
The Presence of the Holy Ghost
If I Could Look Through Christ’s Eyes
He Never Ceases To Look On Us With Hope
~~~~~
All thanks must go to my Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed me in ways too numerable to list.
The poetry, songs, devotions and stories you read here are from a collection of writings I’ve been doing since I can remember. Those included here are from 1990 through 2010.
The words you read here will be filled with the tribulations and tears, as well as the joys of my lifetime. Most importantly, they express my gratitude to God for everything He has been to me and done for me through the years.
My hope and prayer is that the musings of my heart may be a blessing to yours.
All scripture references are from the KJV unless otherwise specified.
~~~~~~
In memory of my loving sister, Melissa Greene Ponder
I read a magazine article recently which posed the question What was the most life altering day of your life? It didn’t take me very long to decide that my answer was not as simple as one particular day, thought there had been many that had changed my life for the better or for the worse through the years. Birthdays and births. Milestones and marriages. Triumphs and tragedies.
But no. None of these singular events quite felt like they truly fit the description of most life altering.
Mine was not a singular day, but a span of fifteen years. Years that were altering because of one particular person who was a very central figure in my life during that time.
I can remember the first day I ever saw her. I had been very excited about this first meeting. It was at a backyard picnic in the summer of 1978, and Dad was bringing the lady that he had begun dating to meet the family. Even more importantly to me, she was bringing along her daughter who was my age. The possibility of having a sister had been the subject of many frequent prayers on my part.
In some ways, she was my complete opposite. She was taller than I was, though we were both ten years old at the time. I was pudgy, with sandy colored short hair and green eyes. She on the other hand, had long, dark hair, blue eyes, and was very slender.
We both were two lonely hurting little girls who needed each other more than either of us could have imagined on that humid summer day. And definitely more than Missie would have let herself admit at the time. For even at that tender age, she had built a fortress around herself. She was hoping that this would effectively keep anyone from hurting her ever again.
You see, we had both experienced devastating tragedies in our short lives. For all our differences, this fact made us very much alike. It made us able to understand each other as no one else really could.
In October of 1974, when I was only six years old, my mother had been killed in a terrible automobile accident on her way to work early one morning. I had even seen the accident in much of its gruesome detail from the window of the van that took me to school each morning. Because her car was behind the other, or maybe because it was not yet daylight, I never recognized that it was her car in the accident. I did not know my mother had died until later in the day when the principal of my school drove me home personally and my uncle stood to greet me in the driveway.
I dealt with her death with enormous grief. I mourned not only a mother, but also someone who told me that they loved me every day. I never really had that after she was gone, and I was very conscious of that affection missing from my life. It’s not that my father and the rest of my family didn’t love me, but it was more that they were just not the kind of people to make such displays of affection.
In December of that same year, a state away, Missie had forever lost her Father in a brutal act that can only be described as a murder.
Some teenage boys had been scaring his niece who was home alone across the road. Unfortunately, this had not been the first time that this had occurred. In an attempt to protect his family, he went after them. He was a tall man, with an immense presence. He was intending to warn them, for sure. Maybe even to put enough fear into them so that they would leave his family alone for good. But the tables were turned on him, and before he knew it, he was on a backwoods country road with four teenage boys beating him with baseball bats essentially to death. No doctor or machine made by human hands was capable of bringing the life back into his body.
Missie had dealt with her grief with much anger. Anger at the world, it seemed. And who could really blame her?
During those first days and weeks being around each other, we had a wonderful time. The parents would take us out to the movies, out to eat, and to meet more of the extended families. We would have sleepovers, and spend our time scanning the Sears catalog for all the toys that we’d like to have in the playhouse we were sure to have once we became sisters. Some nights we would giggle and count the kisses our parents were sharing in the hall where they thought they were quietly hidden away from us.
In late September of 1978, our respective parents were married. Needless to say, actually living together took a lot of adjustments. At times the anger would return and Missie would not be quite so sure that she approved of her mother getting remarried after all. There were times when I would become downhearted because I hadn’t fully realized just how much of my Dad’s time I would now be sharing.
Those first few years were certainly rough at times. There were fights over friends. Fights over boys. TV time. Telephone time. Fights over the parents. Fights because of imagined insecurities that we were being treated differently in some minute way. You name it; we probably fought about it at one time or another.
There were times when we fought for each other, too. The only time during my school years that I can remember being sent to the principal’s office is because of an unfortunate lunchroom incident. In sixth grade, three students would stay after lunch and help the ladies who worked in the cafeteria clean up. The kids were scheduled on a rotating basis. My day came, and I was assigned along with a set of twins that Missie and I had played with on the playground, as well as after school. Unfortunately, on this particular day, one of the girls had had a disagreement with Missie earlier that morning. She then took it upon herself to tell me that my sister was a word that cannot be printed in civilized publications. The next thing that I knew, I had taken the broom that I had previously been sweeping with and smacked it across this girl’s head.
Similarly, there was once an incident on our bus ride home one evening when another rider threatened me. I stood up, but before I knew it, Missie had come up from the back of the bus and was standing in front of me letting the offender know in no uncertain terms that they would have to go through her first.
But as much as we fought, we loved, too. We would talk on each other’s behalf to boys. We would devise plans to work one parent over the other. Have late night talks about school, and friends, and how much we missed our parents who were no longer there.
If we had truly been sisters by blood, one would just count all these things as normal sibling behavior. And it was.
Somewhere along the way, we had truly formed the bonds of sisterhood. Though not by blood, but through love. And even after such a rocky and uncertain start.
I can’t remember when we stopped using the word “stepsister”. When someone would ask, we would always just smile and say, “We’re sisters”. In the history of time, I doubt that there ever were two sisters who were closer or who cared more for each other than we two. Mom used to say that our relationship was an even closer one than that she shared with her own sisters, and maybe that was true. Unlike most, we could remember a time when we weren't in each other's lives and that, I believe, caused us to appreciate the simple fact that we did have one another.
The day that Missie married is one of my favorite memories. It was a bright and promising June day in 1990. Everything was in place and the ceremony had been rehearsed to perfection. Already in my Maid of Honor dress, Missie asked me to help her with her hair. I stood behind her, looking at her in her beautiful dress, with her veil lying beside her. There was a glow on her face, and her eyes were twinkling, and suddenly I realized something.
We were no longer to be those “Greene girls”. No more would we be Mom’s “M&M’s”. And whenever I needed her, as I so often did, it was not going to be as simple as going into the next room. And I began to cry.
She smiled as she turned around to me and asked, “Shell, why are YOU crying? I’m the one getting married!”
My heart filled with dread as I explained, “I’m afraid I’m losing you!” She half laughed and said, “Michelle, you will never lose me.”
And she was right. For the next three years, we babysat each other’s kids, worked together, attended church together, and spoke if only by phone most every day.
Then it came. The horrible news that Missie had a hole in her heart that needed to be repaired immediately. The doctors throughout our youth had told us that she had a slight murmur, but that she would probably grow out of it. How wrong that prognosis now proved to be. Here she was, twenty-five years old, with two small boys at home, facing the uncertainty of such a risky operation.
She did not seem to be nervous about it all. And she had a way about her that could calm others in the center of a tornado. She seemed so at ease when we talked about it, and she assured me that everything was going to be fine. And I believed her. Perhaps blindly, but I believed her. We talked about my taking a day off work to be at the hospital or stay with her boys, but she told me no. She knew that I had just recently started a new job, and she thought that it was going to bring great things for me. She didn’t want me to miss a day of work. “Everything will be fine!” she assured me again. I told her that I loved her, and she replied, “I love you, too, Shell”.
And that was it. Those were the last words I ever heard her speak. She died, after several failed attempts to stop the hemorrhaging, and being wheeled from the operating room to recovery and back again.
I am not ashamed to say that I did not take the news well. I was certain that there must be some mistake. It simply could not be true. I screamed. I sobbed. I fell on my knees and asked God to take me instead.
At the funeral, I shook uncontrollably. And I prayed as I stared at the small head of her oldest son sitting in front of me. Nineteen years later, and her boys were going to be forced to live through the same sort of circumstances that she and I had lived through in 1974. They too were losing a parent at a very early age. They were even younger than we had been. Would they even remember her as time went by?
Thirteen years have passed since that somber November day, and I still miss her unbelievably. There are still days when the tears flow. Still people, places or things that will bring her face or her voice back to me within an instant.
There have been so many things that she has missed in these past years that I wish she could have seen. My daughter who she loved so much is like her in so many ways. She shares the same interests, the same tall slender figure, even the feel of her hands. It’s hard to believe that they were not related by blood. That would have pleased her a great deal. And then there’s my son. She never got to see my son. She would have loved him so much. And I think that she would have laughed hysterically to know that I ended up marrying a big redheaded guy just like she did.
Her boys- they’re taller than me now. She would be so proud of what handsome and wonderful her boys have turned out to be. They will be men of their own all too soon.
No, the most life altering event that ever occurred in my life was not the day that I met Missie, nor the day the she died. It was both of those days and every single day in between them.
You see, for fifteen years I had a best friend who loved me unconditionally. She knew all that I had ever done. She knew everyone that I had known. She knew all my loves and all the things in my life that might have been. She prayed constantly about where my life would lead. She was my strongest ally and my most honest critic. She was everything that you could ask for in a sister. And I thank God often that she was mine, even if only for a time.
For fifteen years, I had a sister. And she was absolutely right. I will never lose her. She will be with me always.
*****
You know that life
Draws me closer to thee
And I know that death
Will be our victory
Not even angels
Nor all the powers that be
Could ever take Your love from me!
Can’t take Your love from me
Just can’t take Your love from me
No matter what the world may bring
To You, my Jesus, I will cling
‘Cause nothing can take Your love from me
*****
Something worth having
They say is worth waiting for
And the finest example of this
Lies beyond Heaven’s door
Of what lies beyond, we know not much
But I tend to believe
That judging from the pictures
The Bible’s scriptures weave
Twill be a sight for these sore eyes
Exquisite beauty to behold
With gates grand and pearly
And streets of purest gold
The fairest of all to view
Will be our Savior’s face
Along with the scars He bore
To save too human a race
Yes, when they repeat the old cliché
You know, I must agree
‘Cause Heaven will be worth waiting for
At least, will be for me!
*****
I don’t need to see the gates of heaven
I don’t need to walk the streets of gold
I don’t need to heal the blind or leper
To know the truth that’s in my very soul
I don’t need to see all the beauty
Of everything He’s made or He’s done
I don’t need to know what lies before me
To know in my heart that Jesus is the one
I don’t need to walk upon the water
I don’t need His blessed face to see
I don’t need to feel the holes where nails were
To know that Jesus died and lives for me!
Chorus
Jesus
‘Cause Your Spirit lives inside of me
Your grace is all sufficient
You are all I ever need
Your mercy is over abundant
Your love is all I crave
Not one thing more I’ll ever ask
‘Cause, Jesus
You’re all I need
No, I don’t need to feel the holes where nails were
To know You’re all I need
*****
Lord, it seems I've been forgetting more and more these days. Maybe it's just a factor of getting older, though the pride that still dwells within me might argue with that.
Or maybe, it's just Your way of reminding me that sometimes being a little forgetful is alright. After all, You are even more forgetful than I am! I know, I know. I guess most people would think that I was more than a little bit crazy making a statement such as that, but really Lord, isn't it true? I mean, look at all the things that You have forgotten...
You've forgotten every harsh, angry, terrible word that I've ever spoken. You've forgotten every time that I've held back from speaking even though I knew that You were leading me to speak. You've forgotten everything that I've done that I shouldn't have, and everything that I should have done but didn't. Every time I've failed You, and every time that I've failed myself, my family, my church, my friends. Even when they haven't forgotten about it. Even when I can't, no matter how hard I try, forget about it. You've easily forgotten more than my simple mind will ever be able to remember.
Of course, You've not forgotten all these things for me because Your mind is failing, as mine may very well be. You've forgotten all these things because I asked You to. To forgive and forget; more fully than any human with even the best of intentions are able to do. Not only for me, but for every single one of us who are called by Your name. Psalms 103:12 says that "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us." It's amazing to know that it's all just vanished. Disappeared. Never to be held against us anymore.
But after all those things that I've asked You to forget about, it brings a smile to my face to know that You've not forgotten everything about me. You still remember the child You knew before the world ever saw. You remember the teenager who went astray and lost everything but her heart for You. You remember the tears I've cried over my past. You remember the smiles I give without thinking, the ear I've lent to someone who was hurting, the songs that I've sung without knowing that someone in the back row was touched by the words. You remember all the things that I forget when I'm beating up on myself for letting You down again. And I'm so glad that You do. I'm so glad that You can remember anything good about me when You've had to forget so much that was bad. And even though You remember all these things, none of them are really the most important thing I know that You'll remember. For You remember the 11-year old girl who knelt at an altar in a red polka-dot dress one Sunday night to call out Your name. And You remember hearing me. You remember that from that day since, through all the good and bad, You have called me Your child.
Lord, I can never relive the lost years, nor take my sins back. Thanks for being a God who doesn't expect me to. Thanks for loving us even when we're unlovable. Thanks for loving me with a love that I cannot even imagine the depths of.
And don't forget, Lord, I Love You.
*****
Chorus
It’s all about grace
It’s all about love
It’s all about Jesus Christ
Who left His home above
To live-to die
To save a sinful world
The way He looks at one as flawed as I
Yet sees a precious pearl
Jesus, That’s what it’s all about
All around the world I see
The blind trying to find their way
Blinded by pride or indifference
Yet still searching for just one ray
That One Ray is what it’s all about
Repeat Chorus
There’s a fear of being different
Being someone besides who people think they are
Standing out from the crowd
Few are willing to step out that far
But taking that step is what it’s all about
Repeat Chorus
Yes, Jesus is what it’s all about
*****
A young girl gave her heart to Christ
And made a vow to live her life
Telling others that she met
Of Jesus love-His life and death
A classmate came to her one day
“I’ve been thinking about the things you say-
You don’t act the way the others do
Tell me how to be like you.”
The classmate invited the Savior in
And met that day a timeless friend
Time passed for that same young girl
She began to live her life for the world
Others looked to her as leader and friend
Having it “all” took over witnessing then
Once again the time flew by
When one day while watching channel five
A familiar face appeared on the screen
One of the pals from the high school scene
But the talk show host soon explained
The topic of the show that day
That old pal had commited crimes
And in the process shattered lives
How the girl longed to take back the years
Go back somehow and face those peers
And be the witness she should’ve been
If only to this one lost friend
The moral of this story of mine
Is, when it comes the end of time
Will friends look up at you and plead
Why didn’t you witness to me?
Or will they greet you at gates of pearl
And say “Thanks for witnessing to me, young girl.”
*****
Chorus
Ask Him and He’ll wrap arms around you
Ask Him and He’ll send you His love
Ask Him and He’ll show you life’s purpose
Ask Him and He’ll lift your heart up
Ask Him and He’ll carry your burdens
Ask Him and He’ll take up your fight
Ask Him and He’ll calm raging waters
Ask Him and He’ll make it all right
There is no limit to what He will do
When you ask Him
Why worry about meaningless troubles?
Why dismayed by continuous trials?
Why long to be back on the mountain?
This valley lasts only a while
Do you need a comforting shoulder?
Do you need a discerning ear?
Do you need a hand to hold onto?
Or a heart that remains always near
Repeat Chorus
Why care what may happen tomorrow?
Why dwell on your yesterdays?
Why regret the life you’ve been living?
Or be crushed under burdens today?
Do you need an unquestioning Savior?
Do you need an unbeatable friend?
Do you need an unequaled confider?
Who loves you beginning to end?
*****
I took some pretty good hits today, Lord. I think Satan threw some of his best at me, but I’m still here. I’m sure he’s off in some corner, chuckling, sure that his slings and arrows have done major damage this time.
But, here I am. Not even wounded. Not really. Not too much worse for the wear. I am completely convinced that there is absolutely nothing in this world that You and I cannot handle, Lord.
But wait. Am I speaking too quickly? Should I just shut up before I get myself into an even greater mess than You got me out of today? I don’t want to antagonize Satan. The arrows of tomorrow might be on fire, or the slings filled with razors instead of just rocks.
No, let him bring it on! My faith is in You, Lord. The battle that You and I were victors over today has made me stronger, quicker and just a little more agile and able to dodge his ammunition. And even though I’m a little bit more dependent on You for my defense than ever before, I know that that was exactly the purpose that You had in mind when this battle began.
I know that if the arrows that are shot at me tomorrow are sharper, faster, and hit closer or deeper, then You will see me through. You have, in Your infinite wisdom, used today’s battle to add another layer of holy steel to my armor.
Thank You, Lord. Thank You for this battle. Thank You for the victory. Thank You for all my victories. Thank You for loving me enough to be my ultimate shield in this great war that we call living on earth.
Thank You for the scars from past fights. For there is a story in each one. No one else on earth may ever hear the details, but You and I remember them. And I know that each one gave me just a little more of Your strength that carries me on in this battlefield.
So, if Satan wants another fight with me, and I know that he will, then that’s fine. I will be here. I’ll fight. And I’ll keep on fighting as long as I have breath. And I’ll still be standing in the end. Even if though it’s through no strength left of my own. Even if Your hands are holding me up completely. I’ll still be here because of you.
I Love You, Lord.
******
I only have one life to live
I want to live for You
There’s nothing that I would not do
To prove my love is true
My life belongs to You, my Lord
You bought it with a price
And I could never quite repay
That supreme sacrifice
Take my life, O Lord, I pray
And use it for thy will
And if it lasts a hundred years
I’ll be living for You still
If I could leave one thing on earth
I’d want that thing to be
A testament for all who live
Of Your precious love in me
*****
Sometimes I question
Why and how
Or even when
And why not now?
At those times
When I don’t know
If I’ll see the end
Of my rainbow
The only thing
That I can do
Is trust in Him
To see me through
I know that He
Must grow weary
Of all my doubts
When my outlook’s dreary
But even then
He loves me still
And in time
I’ll learn His will
For now, I guess
I’ll live by faith
And I’ll get by
With a touch of grace
*****
My mind’s been full of worldly concerns
And I begin to think without me it won’t turn
It seems I can’t see the forest for the trees
I need to spend more time in Your word and on my knees
When the work I need to do for You
Seems too much for me-the hours too few
When my train of thought goes off track
I know that You can surely bring it back
Lord, sometimes the words are hard to find
They let loose and flow sometimes
It’s like You’re here and telling me
My heart’s not as close as it needs to be
Chorus
I need to get a little bit closer to You
I need to fill my mind with Your truth
I know everything will be alright
If I make You the center of my sights
If I can only stay
A little bit closer to You
*****
I stood on the beach today, Lord. I stood there and was struck by the vastness of the ocean before me. I could not see the borders of this great body to the east, west or in front of me, and I could not really grasp just how far away those borders were.
It made me think of You, Lord. About the love You have for all of us. It has no limits, just as the ocean appeared to be from where I stood. We cannot even imagine how vast it is. I thought about the depths of the ocean. Even though it has a bottom, I will never even catch a glimpse of it because of the great distance downward at which it dives. But Your love for us has no bottom; there is no end to the depth of it.
I stepped out into the water a little way, letting the water lap up onto my legs. Then I went a little farther, where the water would come up onto my neck when the waves rolled by. I stayed at a safe distance from the shoreline should I find the need to make my escape from the waters. I dared not go any further because as You know, Lord, I don’t know how to swim. And even this reminded me of You.
I do not have to fear going into the deepest waters of life because of Your love. I know that even though in the deepest waters, where the waves are powerful and the current is strong, that You are in complete control. As long as I realize that I am in Your hands, I will have nothing to fear.
Father, squelch that little part of Peter in me that makes me lose my focus. That makes me turn and look toward the shore with that little bit of doubt that makes me question if I’m really safe from drowning after all. For I know that in that moment, I will begin to sink. Or I will make a mad dash for the beach where I have been deceived into believing there is safety. And that is not what I want my fate to be, Lord.
I want to shed everything that keeps me from truly experiencing the fullness of Your love and leave it lying on the beach. I want to jump in with no hesitation and no fear. I want the waves to wash away all the things that I was unable to free myself from; that only Your love can cleanse from my life. I want to swim freely in the deep waters, with no distractions, no encumbrances, and no doubt. I want my movements to be beneath the surface, where nothing that is outside of these waters can influence me, or entice me to come up for air, and where I cannot even see the surface. Because I want You to be my breath, my strength, my stamina, and my life preserver.