Author: Cherry Finamore

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Gratitude Matters

Dear sisters,

Don’t we all remember our mothers and fathers saying to us, in front of others, “What do we say?”, and we dutifully answered the prompt, “Thank you.” If we have small children or grandchildren of our own we echo what our parents instilled in us. My dear mother reinforced this coaching by guiding me in composing meaningful thank you notes and I taught my children the same. Even my daughter with special needs reminds me it is time for her to write her thank-you note for the gift some thoughtful loved one presented to her recently.

Gratitude is commanded by God and it is essential for healthy psyches and for our spiritual selves. Even a secular health site I occasionally visit touts the salutary benefits of living lives of gratitude. If we are thankful people, thankful for all things in our lives, we are not grumblers, whiners, complainers, dissatisfied ones. We give credence to something or someone outside of ourselves for bringing good things to us. It is an antidote to pride and self-sufficiency. It hints of admission of dependency.

To whom are we grateful? We could be just appreciative in a nebulous sort of way, not really crediting anyone for actually giving us the thing we are thankful for. I’m so thankful for my health. My children are wonderful and my grandchildren even better! My bills are paid. I’m glad she’s my good friend. But to what or whom are we grateful? Our lucky stars? Fate? DNA? Our own hard work or charm? And what if what we received does not seem good, is unwanted, even painful? Are we supposed to give thanks for that?

I remember being on an argumentative family forum once when I commented on being grateful to God for all things. One of the responders asked why I had to thank Him. Couldn’t we all just be grateful, period? Just an attitude of being, not an act or attitude of heart toward an ultimate giver. Well, I suppose that’s slightly healthier than being a whiner, but…

As always, we come back to Scripture, our truth, our compass, our steadiness, the authoritative written Word of God. And God says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks IN all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1Thessalonians 5:16-18) Again, in Ephesians 5:20, we are told to “give thanks always and FOR everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Giving thanks can show how appreciative we are for something we really like given by someone else, but we do not often thank people for being mean to us or hurting our feelings or such things. But God tells us, in our relationship with Him, to give thanks, not just IN all things, but FOR all things, as evidenced in the Scriptures just referenced. There is a difference. Lord, thank you that I can trust you during this difficulty. Thank you that you are conforming me to the likeness of your son in this circumstance. That’s gratitude IN. And that is good and commanded. But how about, “Thank you, Lord, for this illness, thank you for the breach in this relationship, thank you for this financial trial—knowing that God is always good and is working whatever is happening for our good in His great providence and wisdom. This is not an easy thing to do, but it is the time to adjust our hearts to correct theology about who God is, His love and care and compassion and wisdom—all seen in the circumstances He brings into our lives—the good and the seeming bad. And it is good for us because everything He tells us to do is good and right and beneficial. Not doing what He commands is not good, not right, and harmful.

Thankfulness to God displays obedience, trust, and rest in Him and His manner of gifts. It recognizes He is in command of every circumstance of life and acknowledges He is good in His decrees. It tears down prideful independence. Lack of gratitude shows disobedience, faithlessness, dissatisfaction, self-righteousness, unrest, and lack of contentment in His giving and His goodness.

We may not feel very grateful to people for everything they give or dish out, but we can give thanks to God for these things, asking Him to change our hearts, knowing there will somehow be blessing in the obedience and God is glorified when we acknowledge that His ways in our lives are worthy of gratitude. Obedience is often a sacrifice, a surrender, a denial of self, a putting God foremost in our thinking and agendas. A heart of gratitude is not in rebellion. It is a humble heart. It is a dependent heart. Without Him we are helpless and undone.

We have the promise that, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies Me…(Psalm 50:23a) This sacrifice includes the denial of self-power, of self-reliance, of self-aggrandizement, giving place to new desires and motives of pleasing Jesus. And whatever is done for Him, whatever honors Him and not self, matters, now and later.

I will ask God to help me remember these things when I sit with my family around the Thanksgiving table this year—the table with one less setting.

Love,
Cherry

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Scary Requirements

Dear sisters,

I was born in 1948. That makes me 70 years old this year. None of my decade birthdays bothered me much, but this year is different. I didn’t mind being in my 60s, but 70 seems old somehow. I don’t feel old. It just sounds old. My life flashes before me in all its fullness, joys and sadness, ease and difficulty, without Christ, in Christ. And I think of the future more these days. I think of my 95-year-old mother and all the things I did for her as her caregiver and I wonder who will care for me if God gives me that many years. My daughter has special needs. She won’t be caring for me.

God requires many things of us, some posing as choices with various consequences, depending on our choosing. Some are imposed. We have no choice. Some are easy if our personalities lend themselves to the required behavior. Other demands are more difficult and require much chiseling and refining from God’s hand. And occasionally God insists we undergo circumstances which are downright scary.

When I called 911 the other morning, I expected to follow the ambulance in about half an hour, knowing it would take awhile to get a patient situated in the emergency room. Had I not done this countless times? Little did I realize this would be the last time for my mama. I knew the symptoms were different, but I hoped against hope the doctors would fix it like every other time. As I prepared to get in the car, my phone rang and I immediately knew that on this occasion my husband would have to accompany me—and I was scared. And now, after that fateful and fearful day, I’m still afraid (when my thoughts become unharnessed from captivity to Christ’s truths), afraid of my unbidden and uncontrollable sobs, afraid of recurring black thoughts in the night hours, afraid of too-real dreams, afraid for my future, afraid of unknown prospects for the rest of my family and loved ones.

Those of you who have watched death in all its horrors head-on know the severing, the cutting in the heart, in the surroundings. Breathing and alive—and then the still chest and motionless body—all from one moment to the next. The beautiful blue eyes which warmed our hearts were closed, never to see this creation, this family, in this form, again.

Don’t tell me death is just passing from this life to the next. Well, actually that is what happens at the moment, but no matter how peaceful, no matter how much we believe the truths of the gospel and the promise of the glorious resurrection of our bodies, no matter that, for the believer, absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, death is ugly and an enemy—and enemies are frightening, in spite of how much preparation against them, no matter how much time we have to steady ourselves, no matter how much skill the undertaker plies.  When it happens, the shuddering and sobs, even primal anguish begin, and we are never fully ready for the amputation from our lives, the phantom pain which continues long after the initial loss. We come home and the symbols of life are everywhere. I open a drawer and there lie her pills. In the frig, her orange marmalade and queso. Her chair where her beautiful head once rested, now empty. The side table still holds her Bible, Tabletalk, and latest book she was reading. Her nightgown hangs in its usual place and her walker seat compartment reveals her glasses where she had just placed them the night before her breath was taken. I take out four forks to set the table before remembering we need only three.

This is not how it was supposed to be way back when God formed Adam from the dust of the ground which He had spoken into being just a few days before. Everything was perfect and death was barely a concept to that first man and his mate, until the tree, the fruit, the great deceiver and underminer…Then fear came into his heart, fear in living and fear in dying, never the original design, and he was banished from perfection and life in that lush garden forever while time remains.

I’m scared of death, the process, the missing, everything preceding and succeeding for the victim and the remaining living. But, if I were to leave you there it would be tragic and hopeless and frightening indeed. God warns us of the horrors of the final, universal humiliation (Hannah Anderson speaks beautifully of this in “Humble Roots”), but He gives us the remediation, the balm, the victory in the midst of great trepidation and sorrow. In John 11:25, Jesus comforts his dear friend, Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die [spiritually].” Therefore, for the Christian, in the middle of terrifying events for one’s self and for the in-Christ loved-one, there remains a joy and a victory based on the sovereign power, goodness, and control of Almighty God.  This final event will come, but He walks through it with us, and He has promised never to leave us or forsake us.

And then, Jesus says to Martha, after His resurrection promises and condolences, “Do you believe this?”

Oh, my sister and friend, how do we answer the Lord’s query? If this is not true, if our belief is not based in fact, we are undone in the face of death. But it is true. Christ is proof. Trust Him in the middle of grief and tears and confusion. His inexplicable peace will fill your soul and your shudders will subside and find rest and refuge in the One who walked this path to death, then resurrection, in front of us, in complete victory.

As for me, I believe what Jesus said, wholeheartedly believe it. But I also believe that there is a generation who will not taste death and I long to be in that company.  Jesus is coming back and “…we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)

Fear is meant for our good. It means to warn and keep our lives straight. It means to drive us to Christ, the One who alone can relieve the deep-seated fears of our souls by His grace. John Newton says it well. “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear—and grace my fears relieved…”

At the graveside, as we sat and reminisced and wept, my shy adult daughter with special needs astounded us all when she commanded, yes, commanded us to all turn and face the box in which my mama’s body lay. Then, in her broken way of speaking, reminded us all, “Grandma not here. Grandma get new body. Grandma with Jesus. Remember that.”

Yes, I am afraid of the death process. It can hurt. It’s not pretty. But, like everything God ordains in our lives, He gives grace in the journey, in the moment, in the final place. He never leaves. He never forsakes. Right up to the end. And then, our eyes are truly opened and we are safer than we have ever been. Completely and forever safe, never afraid again.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

Your sister,

Cherry

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I Am Woman …

Dear sisters,

I was in my early twenties when our country was experiencing a time of intense turmoil in the late 1960s and 70s. I followed the crowd, walking in protest marches dressed in a military camouflage jacket while my brother fought in a controversial war on the other side of the world in the dank jungles of Vietnam. Women were on a rampage, feminists burning their bras, sexual promiscuity rising to new heights, the stigma of babies born out-of-wedlock and divorce waning, rebelling against the social mores of two hundred years of tradition. And to the great shame of our nation Roe v. Wade was settled at the Supreme Court giving legal license to women to murder their made-in-the-image-of-God babies in wombs which were fashioned for safety and life, not gruesome extermination. Not really a feminist, I still sang lustily along with Helen Reddy and millions of others, “I am woman, hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore…No one’s ever gonna keep me down again…I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman…”, enjoying the elusive power the lyrics promised—And with Nancy Sinatra a few years before as she sang to some faceless man, “These boots were made for walking and that’s just what they’ll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.” I had not thought of these catchy yet dangerous tunes for many years until reminded of them in a Bible Study recently as we discussed the counter-cultural truths of God’s design for womanhood. I was not a Christian way back in my twenties, nevertheless, much of what was going on repulsed me though I hypocritically pretended agreement. I was brought up the old way, the biblical way, and those God-given nesting and nurturing sensibilities were part of me. I had always wanted to love a man, be married, have babies (not that these are the sum total of—or even necessary for—Christian womanhood!). I’m thankful for my inward revulsion. Good grief, God had enough to demolish in my heart, breaking down ugly rooms of sin, pointing me toward submission and a gentle spirit and a myriad other beauties to replace hideous qualities in my being when He finally brought me to Himself.

As I contemplate God’s design for womanhood and what is most meaningful to me at this stage of my life in 2018, I can’t help but ponder the first man and woman in the garden and the perfections of their creation and marriage and dominion over the land and animals and how God created woman to be a helper and a life-giver. These two go hand-in-hand implying selflessness, servanthood, and nurturing, making life easier and more pleasant for others, enabling them to glorify Christ more and more with help, not hindrance from woman. But then came the forbidden tree and its fruit and the wily serpent when everything changed and God’s glorious design became twisted, distorted in the lives of His children. Helper became hinderer, life-giver became life-taker. Such utter sadness. A pall over the once perfect.

But God still calls us to be helpers and life-givers, marred though we are, showing us how that is worked out in our lives in the classic passage on older and younger women in Titus 2:3-5, as well as in 1 Peter 3:1-5 and Ephesians 5:22-24.

Think about it. If we are life-givers, we will speak well of and to others, not killing them with gossip, whispering, and back-biting tongues. We will not drain life from our husbands and children and loved ones with smart-aleck sarcasm or put-downs, thinking we make ourselves look quick and witty.

If we give life we will be discerning without nit-picking and judgmentalism which only disclose pride in our supposed great knowledge and intuition, revealing abhorrent self-righteousness.

If we grant life we will be given to opening our homes for nurturing needy guests with beauty and graciousness and selflessness. Without hospitable hearts, our homes, our tables, our
decorations are a shell and a show, feeding our own shallow hearts with empty and ugly pride.

We nourish the souls of others and honor the Lord when we are soft and amenable, easily entreated, gentle and quiet in our spirits, forgiving one another as the Lord forgives us. Petty disputes, jealousies, and insecurities disappear as we sacrifice our lives for others and find our worth in the God of the universe, not in volatile emotions and false sense of self-esteem.

If we are giving life to our husbands, children, and others in our spheres of influence we help fill up what may be lacking in their emotional tanks, depleted from the world’s vicious and unrelenting demands.

Submission to our husbands or other authorities in our lives, deferring humbly to their leadership promotes peace, stability, joy, even freedom all around.

We give life by being self-controlled and not lazy in all areas. Lack of discipline affects everyone around us, sapping them and us of peace and calm, order, refuge, and rest.

If we do not give life to others, God’s precious Word is blasphemed as we arrogantly dismiss His commands as not as important as our agendas, feelings, convenience, or weariness.

You get the picture. Not many of our words or actions are truly neutral. Most affect those around us, bringing joy and peace and safety or sorrow or anger or discomfort. But lest we think selfless character qualities can be conjured up in some lovely personalities of our own design and doing, God tells us the ability begins with Him and His power. We are to live reverent lives before Him, Coram Deo, thinking of Him rightly as He is revealed in His Word—as Lord of all. His selfless, life-giving love, exhibited ultimately on the bloody cross, is shed abroad in the hearts of His daughters, and we, in turn, are given the power to give our lives to others as we live in obedience to what we know to be true.

I wish I could say I do these things perfectly. I wish I could say I’m a fast learner. Not so. The sanctifying process is painstakingly slow, yet sweetly persistent. I know what God expects of me as a woman, and with resolve and God’s strength in me, I press on. I ask forgiveness a hundred times in short order, but God is working His life-giving character in me, making me a little more like Jesus every day, imperceptibly at times, but as surely as the sun rises and sets—until that day when we, who belong to Him, will be like Him, having seen Him face-to-face. O blessed day.

May God make us the helpers and life-givers of His grand and wise design—to our husbands, children, friends, the church, store clerks, Amazon delivery men, strangers, even that one, an enemy, who has taken life from us, sapping our emotions and energy with thoughtless or intentional words and deeds. May others love to see us coming, not because we are charming or popular or for what they can extort from us, but because we liberally offer trustworthiness, safety, emotional nourishment, and words of truth for life here and for eternity, spoken in love.

“A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit…Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body…Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
(Proverbs 15:4, 16:24, 18:21)

Love,
Cherry

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Starting Over

Dear Sister,

Start at the beginning…Let’s begin again…Beginning high school…Beginning a new friendship…Beginning marriage…Beginning a new chapter in life, a new job…Beginning a treatment…A new day…A new season…A new year…A new decade…New life…

There is something so hopeful in those words. Beginning. New.  Something is coming which shows promise, a sense of starting over, another chance, a new opportunity.  We tend to appreciate possibilities for the new unless we fall into that category of people who remain satisfied with the status quo, who resist change.  Yet, even those comfortable in their circumstances, beneath the superficial and with some reflection, might admit some new beginnings are desirable, preferable. We are people who often gravitate toward the new, love second chances.

Does our great God like new beginnings? I know He does. He is filled with tenderness, kindness, compassion. He wants to and is more than able to wipe away our tears and anxieties and terrors and stagnation and point us to His new and best way, but what do we do with the new beginnings He grants us? I’m reminded of Israel. How many reprieves and forgivenesses and mercies did they receive only to squander them again and again, preferring wretched idols and licentiousness and danger to serving God and obedience and safety? What about you and me?

Many years ago I was entrenched in misery. Nothing was going the way I wanted. I was out of control.  Having grown up in a Christian home, knowing the gospel intellectually, thinking perhaps reading spiritual things would magically solve my issues, I bought a Bible and inscribed on the cover page, “To myself—Here is to a new beginning.” I purposed to turn over a new leaf, throw off the behaviors that were making me wallow, regain a semblance of control.  I was hopeful. My natural tendency to organization and order kicked in and I was reasonably confident life would give me the things I wanted as I worked my plan. It lasted about a week. The idols, the sin, the love of the world reared their ugly heads again in full-blown power and vengeance. After all, they had not been put to death or eradicated, only minimally suppressed for seven days. My will-power could not effect a lasting change, my affections had not been altered. I was the same-old, same-old, with a temporary change of façade. In fact, my sin seemed to cling more tenaciously with ever deepening and beckoning hooks.

However, God’s grasp was deeper and more powerful. Years later He did bring me to Himself and make me that new creation, wiping out my sins, delighting in giving me a true new beginning, one in which my sins were no longer counted against me, Jesus having paid the death penalty for me. He changed my disposition, my affections, my purposes. He gave me Himself in place of the idols of my wicked imagination and consumption. With all that long ago marvel, He continues to give me fresh starts, including daily, even moment-by-moment cleansing, new mercies every morning, healing, the sweet gift of forgiveness from my family and friends, new ministries,  new people to encourage with the gospel, and on and on.

The most coveted new beginning, aside from God’s granting His children saving faith, is when faith ends and becomes sight.  My precious father has known this new beginning, as has my dear, suffering pastor. And yet, it is not really a new beginning. It is simply the continuation or furthering of that new beginning when the triune God, in eternity past, chose these two men for Himself, in time and space granted them regeneration and salvation, and now in eternity has made them like Christ, for they have seen Him with their eyes and have become like Him forever and ever and ever, without end.

What about you? Has He granted you the first new beginning? Do you know the Savior? Are your sins forgiven?  If not, trust Him now. Ask Him to give you Himself. If you do know Him, what are you doing with the new beginnings, new learnings, new opportunities, fresh starts that, in His grace, He is giving you? Let’s not be like the unfaithful servant who hid his Master’s money in his fear and irresponsibility. Let us not presume upon God’s grace and His long-suffering heart. Let us make maximum use of newly-given opportunities of gifts, of hours, of days, forgetting ourselves, and like Jesus, for the hope set before us, endure patiently and with joy any sufferings given and take advantage of every mercy He lavishes, putting His beauty, faithfulness, and love on display before a watching world that is desperate for new beginnings.

With gratitude that the old has passed and all things are indeed new—Waiting expectantly with you for His glorious appearing,

Cherry

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God’s Holy Heat

Dear Sister,

We know the analogy. The refiner’s fire. Precious metals undergoing intense heat in order to remove impurities resulting in glimmering gold and silver readied for the artisan’s creative mind and hand—And God’s ramping up of trials in our lives in order to surface besetting, even egregious sins, in order to elicit repentance and bring forth the purity of Jesus in our souls and behavior.

Which one of us Christ-redeemed sisters has not felt the singeing, the distress, the anguish of our Father’s furnace? The pain is often excruciating—especially when the refiner must make the fire hotter. The initial temperature did not remove the dross.

Those of us who have birthed little ones know the agony of labor and delivery and the sweet reward of the child laid on our breast. God wants that for us in the fires of refinement. He desires that the pain in the trials and the outcome of holiness be sweet to our remembrance and taste.

Is it enjoyable in the fire? Obviously not. Do we love the travails of infertility, losing little ones, wayward children, betrayal, cancer, lupus, accidents, death, the agony of our babies born with special needs and medical equipment displacing all the pretties in the room? Those are the big ones. What about the daily scrapes and bruises, disappointments, unmet expectations, anxieties, frustrations, elusive peace? Do you often feel like the sons of Korah in Psalm 88, lamenting God’s seeming abandonment?

Do we truly believe all things are working for our good? Are we being conformed to the image of Christ in patience and purity and holiness? (Romans 8:28-29) God tells us that the peaceable fruit of righteousness is the yield for those who are trained in life’s painful trials. (Hebrews 12:11) Are we indeed being trained or are we chafing and rebelling under the yoke of the One who is gentle and humble in heart and promises rest for our souls? (Matthew 11:29) Do we trust that discipline proves we belong to the Master and we are not illegitimate? (Hebrews 12:8) Can we honestly say, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised”, when our undesirable situation never changes? (Job 1:21)

Do we toe the line because we love our Savior’s face and groan at disappointing Him or simply because we are afraid of punishment? Or do we not care all that much and rely on distorted meanings of mercy and grace, not comprehending that these two can be severe in order to bring us to Himself in struggling or glad submission.

In the gifting, yes, gifting of trials in life, do we give thanks, obeying His admonition to be grateful in all things which is His will for us? (1 Thessalonians 5:18) Do we rejoice in difficulties because of the glorious fruit they produce in us? Do we find evidences of His holy attributes when our emotions are bent low with the weight of the present burden?  Can we say, “He is the Always Good” even when we do not understand?  Or do we grumble and complain, thrusting our fists at God, telling Him He does not know what He is doing?

Dearest Sister, let us ask ourselves these questions and ask the Lord of all to give grace to answer these queries according to biblical principles, with bare and honest hearts. Let us reckon His holy heat as good because He is good—always good. Embrace the emotions of pain and grief because they are real, but bring these under the authority of Christ. Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Bear in mind:  All trials are ordained through His loving hands; all trials are His discipline/teaching in the school of becoming like Christ; our sufferings will not always resolve in relief on this earth; some trials are actual chastening for sin. It is not for me to figure that out in your life, dear Sister, only in mine. Whatever our conclusions about the why of a difficulty, one thing is certain: All is for our good and for His glory.

“Count it all joy, my sisters, when [not if] you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4

I’m so grateful for His preserving love and His holy, refining heat in my own life, preparing me for the perfections of my heavenly home, causing me to love the Savior more deeply and yearn to see Him face-to-face when trials will cease and I will truly be like Him forevermore. Oh, yes, I still grumble. I still question. I resist thankfulness. Rejoicing is not my first go-to.   But these times are shorter in duration and always end in repentance. That’s an advantage of aging physically and in the Lord, by His grace alone.

“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 31:24)

“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him…” (Job 13:15a)

Enjoy this song by Shane and Shane and let the truths of its words sink deeply into your heart.  http://Though You Slay Me

With love,

Cherry