All Bible quotations are taken from the New
King James Version
September. It is a month of change, a month
full of new beginnings, new adventures and new opportunities. We can even think
of new beginnings or adventures as expanding our territory. The Lord will build
on the foundation He has already laid in our lives as He shows us new
opportunities where we can reach out, using our particular gifts which the Lord
has given each of us. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for
good works, which God has ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians
2:10).
As trees go through the changing of the
season, so the change of one season gives way to another season or a further
expansion in our lives. In order to expand our territory, the Lord often has to
shake us out of our comfort zone, either in one, or many areas of our lives. If
you look at a single aspect of yours or my life, that is changing, we may
wonder how it blends into our lives as a whole. Yet, the Lord knows what He is
doing and how all the different aspects will blend together. Sometimes we may know
when the Lord is about to lead us into a new territory. Yet, sometimes we might
be taken by surprize and suddenly be thrown into a whole new territory we never
thought we would be in, even if others around us saw it coming.
For
some people, it may be a change they never anticipated. A change can come at
any time, whether we are ready for a change in our lives or not.
I don’t think that I was ready for the
change which faced me in February 2020. Before I tell you of the change, I must
go back and tell you what precipitated this change in my life. In 2015, I moved
to Barrie, into a building which had five accessible apartments for disabled
adults. I was assured that there would be PSW staff on site 24/7. It was like
this for the first two years I lived there. Then, very slowly, the Head person
began to make changes to the “24/7 on site PSW staff Policy.” The staff were
required to move about in the community instead of being stationary in one
location. This meant that there were several hour gaps when there were no PSW
staff on site. I no longer felt safe in that environment. My family and friends
also did not feel that I was safe in that environment. I needed the staff more
than ever, at a time when they were not always available.
After two years of constantly being in and
out of the hospital, one day the Director of Care came to me and said, “The
next time you are admitted, you are staying here until a Long-Term Care bed
becomes available.”
The Director of Care called for a Family
Meeting in which she strongly urged my family to start looking for Long-Term Care
Facilities. We could choose five, in order of preference.
In February 2020, I moved from living
independently in a one-bedroom apartment (I remember my brother saying to me as
we were leaving the building, “Say goodbye to your apartment.”), to a
shared-room at MacKenzie Health Long-Term Care. I knew all the physical and
health reasons as to why I had to be here.
What I did not know was why the Lord had me
here. For months, I felt like Abram. “Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out
of your country, From your family And from your father’s house. To a land that
I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make you
a blessing…So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with
him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.” (Genesis
12:1-2, 4).
Just as Abram had to leave his country and
his father’s house before the Lord made any promise to him, so the Lord
moved me away from family members when I moved to MacKenzie Health LTC in
Richmond Hill. My brother and sister-in-law, who had been living in Richmond
Hill for ten years moved to Oshawa in February 2022, exactly two years after I
moved here. I believe that was the Lord moving my family members away from me.
Now, I do not have any family members in close proximity to me. I feel a lot
more freedom because of it.
In Genesis 13:14-15, it says, “And the Lord
said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him; Lift up your eyes now
and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and
westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants
forever.” The Lord is saying to Abram,
and I believe, to us as well, “Look from where you are—which of course means
yours and mine, location. Yet, I see it meaning far more than our location. The
Lord also says to us, “Look at, and for all the possibilities which are ours,
which I will give you if you are willing to step out of your comfort
zone.”
It has been, since I’ve been living here in
LTC, that the Lord has expanded my territory in writing. Since I have been
here, I finished writing my book, “Sufficient Grace—Living Victoriously with
Cerebral Palsy.” I have also written over forty devotionals here, whereas
in Barrie, I only wrote twenty-five devotionals. One year after moving in, I heard a still,
small voice, one night in bed, say, “Create a Newsletter to circulate your devotionals.”
I thought I had heard the Lord. To be sure, the next morning, I called Irene, my
life-long friend, and told her what I believed I heard the Lord say to me.
Irene not only confirmed it was the Lord, she started helping me with it. I
have been sending my “Sufficient Grace Newsletters” out for 17 months now.
I believe the Lord wants to expand my
territory even further by sending my devotionals and short stories out to
various Christian Publications.
What possibilities do you see before you
that can expand? Perhaps you cannot see any possibilities in front of you.
Maybe you once had a vision of what the Lord wanted you to do, but now all you
see in front of you is a vision that has died, and you are in the midst of a
valley of dry bones. “The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought out in the
Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full
of bones. Then He caused me to passed by them all around, and behold, there
were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry.” (Ezekiel
37:1-2). Is that what you see around you in your valley of depression. Take
courage. The Lord may take His time, but He will not leave you there. It is you
that needs to take action and speak to the dry bones that they (your vision)
may live again.
“Thus says the Lord God to these bones
‘Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you will live.” (Ezekiel
37:5). The vision you thought was dead, the Lord will breathe fresh life into
it and cause it to live again. Are you willing to pick it up again and see the
Lord’s potential in it? How far are you
willing to go out of your comfort zone to fulfill the Lord’s plan for your
life? Like Abram, the Lord will show you all the land He has for your vision to
grow and bare fruit in.
Would you like to know Jesus as your
Saviour and Lord? If you do, pray this prayer: “Jesus, I want to invite You
into my life to be my Saviour and Lord. Please cleanse me by Your precious
blood. I surrender my life to You now. I also want You to fulfill Your purpose
in my life and expand my territory.”
If you have a Bible, start reading in the
Gospel of John, the fourth book of the New Testament which explains who Jesus
is (the Word), how much He loves you, and what He has done for you in His life
and death and resurrection.
SUFFICIENT GRACE NEWS BULLETIN
If
you would like to read more of my devotionals, please go to my Blog at: http://sufficientgracedevotionals.blogspot.com/
If
you would like to receive my “Sufficient Grace Newsletter” on a regular basis,
please provide me with your name and e-mail address and send it to me at: sufficientgrace59@yahoo.com
Sufficient Grace Newsletters are provided entirely free of charge.
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publication.
If
you would like to become a financial supporter of my writings with your monthly
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your gift and your faithful support.
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