We all carry a conflict within ourselves. Our flesh battles our spirit constantly competing for first place. I’m currently battling a conflict within myself as we speak… I lost my thirteen year old daughter to cancer three weeks ago. She died in her Daddy’s arms. She was surrounded by her parents, siblings, brother n law and grandma, yet none of us knew she was gone. We kept checking for a pulse, a heartbeat, anything we could as we were not ready to let go, but her body was tired. Her divine appointment for death happened, against our wishes…

My flesh misses my shadow.. My spirit screams “she’s with the Lord, no pain, no sickness”. My flesh wants to hold her, kiss her, see her, love her; but my spirit screams “she’s in better hands”.

For the past twenty seven years I have devoted most of that time to child rearing, maintaining the home, enjoying a beautiful marriage and writing to encourage the discouraged… I’m a firm believer when the children need discipline we are to break their will, not their spirit. I have found recently that losing my child didn’t break my will, in fact it’s stronger than ever but it did break my spirit. My will is to continue serving the Lord and doing the work He has called for me to do. I will continue as long as the Lord continues to press on my heart his will for my life, but if I’m being truthful losing my daughter caused my spirit to break. I’m not under the delusion that my brokenness is unamendable because I believe it can be mended and repaired in the Lord’s timing, not necessarily in my impatient timing. I’m so impatient right now because I want to break free from this emotional distress, yet it is through suffering that healing can finally begin.

My suffering has a name, it is called grief and although it makes me uncomfortable, I choose with my free will to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I also trust God is breaking my will in certain areas in order to strengthen my broken spirit , for a purpose down the road to help someone in my similar situation. I have never claimed serving the Lord was easy, nor living for Him didn’t hold challenges, because it does. Those challenges become testimonies of how I run my race here on Earth with endurance. Testimonies of suffering that turned to healing. Testimonies of what true faith looks like in the stare down of a unfamiliar path I must continue to walk, in order to finish the race before me. I can’t allow the weight of situations to hold me back from completing the race started years ago, I must remove anything that weighs me down or slows me down. For starters I choose not to feel sorry for myself or to play the victims card because those weigh a person down emotionally and hold their head down instead of upright.

I too am in cancer treatment at this time, just as I was caring for my child dying of cancer. I’m three months into treatment and each time I go to infusion I battle how unfair it is that there is hope for my recovery but my daughter who fought so hard without complaining lost her battle to cancer. I remind myself that her suffering led to the greatest healing of all. She’s in the arms of the great physician…She is truly living, to where her passing has me merely existing.

See, a conflict within is a battle between flesh and spirit. Our flesh battles our spirit constantly competing for first place. Right now my will is to stay strong and keep going. Keep encouraging the discouraged, be an example of hope and light to those struggling with despair and darkness. Yet, my spirit is crushed. My soul is in need of a friend and here my spirit screams, “rest in Jesus, He’s the best friend you can have.” I do rest in Jesus, that is where I find strength to carry on. Yes, I’m broken but repairable, lost but hold an established path set out specifically for me to walk on in faith. I have free will to give up at any moment but my spirit still holds a fight to continue and to use my remaining time to show others how to fight, when the battlefields of life seem unfair or when it is time to walk on unfamiliar territory…

You don’t have to lose a child to hold a conflict within. You who are reading can be battling heartache in different areas such as work, relationships, child rearing, health issues, home issues, finances, sickness etc.

When your flesh wants first place then you are thinking in a worldview which will only defeat you in the process. Meaning, if you belong to God but think like the world, then you respond as the world does. This world is lost and in need of hope. So if you think like the world does and act as the world acts, then what does that say about you as a person? It says you’re a follower not a leader. It says you are broken and seek help from a broken ,dying world. That’s not help, that’s called fitting in. We were intended to stand out as different. We are to be the salt of the Earth. This means we add flavor but also assist in the healing process of those around us through prayer and hope we offer.

Your spirit is constantly trying to discern what circumstances come at you that has you responding too. Your flesh is weak but your spirit deserves more credit than we tend to offer it. In order to let your spirit hold first place while competing against your flesh, you must align the desires of your heart under the desires God holds for you as his child. If you have accepted the Lord as your personal savior, then you belong to him. This life is not our own, it was intended to be used in a manner that Heaven’s population increased by the commitment to the Lord and the faith placed in the one who created us. Our main job was to mirror the Lord in each of our responses to life’s circumstances. Don’t allow yourself to merely exist. Life is for the living so we must remember to live life as today was our last day, because just as there is an appointed time to be born, there’s also an appointed time to die. Nothing can stop those appointments as they are divine appointments. ( Ecclesiastes 3:1-6)

Use your time wisely and purposely. Lock it down in your thinking that there are needs greater than your own, all around us. Find the need and then act accordingly. When you do, you will find your struggles weren’t as big as you thought they were. That’s because you took the focus off yourself in order to place it on someone else…

Blessings,

Robin Worgull

I’m not one to air my personal business, but I hope my story helps someone’s struggle today and they walk away encouraged.

The past seven months my regular routine has been turned every which way but right side up. Everything is upside down and then spun in every direction. My equilibrium has yet to reset… Tears stream down my face daily as frustration and exhaustion have become my shadow. I can’t escape pain as I have it both emotionally and physically. I’m hypersensitive to people’s hurtful words and opinions. I don’t know how I haven’t clawed some people’s tongues out over words spoken to me. If looks really did kill, I’d be guilty of murder right now…

Yet I choose to respond with love, gentleness, and discipline of my tongue, as to not project my pain onto someone else. What I am going through is my portion in life at this moment in time. What others say or do is none of my business, so I don’t dwell on it or concern myself with what they think… I also don’t share my business with anyone. The way I see it, is if you know what’s going on then you were intended to know, but if you know nothing I prefer to keep you out of my business because you don’t deserve to know it. In other words, I don’t value the views some people hold of me , so why would I confide in them my struggles just to hear negative feedback? What I do instead is I take my hurt to the only one who can heal my broken heart and soothe my weary soul… I don’t take my hurt to just anyone willing to listen because they can’t touch the deepness of my heart the way God can. I need my heart healed and my soul needs a friend to get through what I’m about to share with you…

Seven months ago during my 26 year wedding anniversary week, my husband had a heart attack. I can’t express how horrible it was to watch my best friend of 34 years laying in bed, staring death down in a battle he could have lost. A couple weeks later after him being home and us adjusting to a new way of living, one of my children walked out the door without saying goodbye because of hurtful words that came out of my mouth. My words were meant to correct behavior but my delivery method was wrong and out of line. I was too harsh at a time that gentleness was needed most. While trying to cope with my husband’s health, digesting my child moving out and trying to care for my other children and the home, my youngest child who had been in remission from cancer for 4 years , relapsed… Cancer came back so aggressively that there was no time to waste and treatment started immediately but in a town 90 minutes from home in a new state I have yet to learn. I went from 0-60 in no time flat. If all this wasn’t enough to send my head spinning, the devil decided to send in another traumatic event to the mess we were already dealing with. That event was me being hospitalized and an oncologist looking at my labs for cancer. He didn’t find any but he did find a serious auto immune disease… I shared all this with you hoping someone can relate to what I’m about to say…

If I were looking at everything that was happening to my family through carnal or worldly eyes, then all of this would be about me and what I was going through. I could play the victim card and be angry towards undeserving people. I could throw tantrums to get attention and receive sympathy in areas that would cause me to not take responsibility for my actions. Yet, I choose to look at what has happened through eyes of discernment… Discernment tells me the truth of the situation , which is, this was never about me or my family. This is something our family is going through to place us in areas no one wants to be in; in order to have a divine meeting with someone that only our family can reach for God’s will to be accomplished…

We don’t know who the person is that we we’re meant to meet but that doesn’t change the fact that God allowed this suffering because whoever that person is, God will press a message on our hearts to share with them at an exact moment that was predestined. We are simply a connecting link to a chain of events God already devised. He placed us in 3 different hospitals over a seven month period meeting hundreds of people. Out of all those people, someone was meant to encounter a meeting with us and walk away with a message that only they would know what to do with, that could only come from our family.

I don’t know if we completed the assignment or who the person is, but I’m confident our faith, words spoken, love shown and commitment to God has left a lasting impression on many people. The devil worked hard at trying to make us lose footing along the way and even threw in division in hopes of thwarting God’s plan from happening…

Isaiah 43:18-18 helped me through this hardship. It reminds us that we are to not think or concern ourselves of the former things because they are nothing compared to what God is about to do. With that being said, I sure wish I could see the impact our family will make for God’s Kingdom, by reaching this person God sent our way through a time of extreme suffering… We may never know and yet we continue the journey ahead of us with faith in each step because sometimes it’s about others, not us.

Blessings,

Robin Worgull

Author of The Conflict Within and The Right-Minded Woman

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Each of us hold hidden wounds. Some of us can talk about them but most of us keep them pushed down. The problem with pushing them down is that they resurface. Once they surface we unknowingly wound underserving people around us with our words or behavior.

Those who hold emotional wounds tend to come from an upbringing that lacked affection. So as they get older they attach themselves to others seeking to heal. They seek approval in numerous ways. It may be through the job they hold or by the love they offer. Did you catch that? They are offering love but grew up in a home lacking affection. How do they offer something they never learned?

They hold an illusion in their thinking of what love is and act upon it. This is where their emotional wounds received as a child now influence the love they offer as an adult. Not being taught what love is, they tend to fabricate an ideology of what they think love is and what it should be, by piecing together times they felt loved. Normally it was moments of praise or affirmation by a trusted individual outside of the family. They learned early on to attribute praise as affection. This was carried into relationships as they grew older. So to be praised meant love and affection but without constant praise they questioned why they weren’t lovable.

In order to feel loved all the time instead of sometimes, they began pursuing differently. Some became controlling in an attempt to avoid pain. Along with controlling they began demanding affection. Usually they would become extremely affectionate in hopes of the affection being returned back to them, the way they offered it. When it wasn’t returned in the same manner, this made them feel rejected, which deepened the wound they already carried. Some were known to resort to begging for attention but in the process they were ignoring their own needs in order to better meet the needs of the one they sought love from. It is a destructive cycle for one to find themselves in as sometimes they believe obstacles must be overcome in order to be loved.

Subconsciously they expect to be abandoned or hurt by those they love and are constantly looking for the signs. You know, the motives or hidden agendas behind everything the person does. They do this so they aren’t caught off guard, yet fail to realize the wound that needs healing started long before the relationship they are in. Unfortunately they issue blame onto their partner for not loving them as they should be loved. If they aren’t being praised they interpret it as they aren’t good enough, then turn around and resent the person because nothing they do is good enough to please the one they love most. They then begin seeking praise outside of the relationship in order to feel self worth. These old wounds keep reopening each time the person feels rejected.

If today’s read applies to you, keep in mind we all love differently. To expect love returned to you the same way you offered it is an unfair expectation to place on someone. Not all of us speak the same love language. Some use words, others use touch, gifts or acts of service.

You are loved and valuable whether you feel it or not. Sometimes we become hyper sensitive to something that was nothing. Whether it was said or done to us , we will interpret differently depending on what we feel at the moment, the circumstance we find ourselves in, or the unmet needs we carry.

Your wound will begin healing when you don’t allow what you feel to become your logic. Your feelings can have you thinking you must convince others of your love, when in reality you are simply trying to convince yourself that you are loveable. Those around you already know, that’s why they stick around. Accept the love you are being offered without expecting it to be shown the way you show it…

Let not your heart be troubled.

Blessings,

Robin Worgull

I get it. We are all watching the departure of God’s standards in a Nation founded on God’s principles. Many people are eating off the bread of lawlessness, hatefulness, offensiveness, rebellion, self righteousness and apostasy. Their appetite is only increasing in these areas rather than feeling satisfied. They feast on wickedness, envy, murder, debate, deceit and maliciousness. They are widely known as back biters, proud, boasters, haters of God, evil doers, covenant breakers, unmerciful, and all the while are disobedient to parents, and lack natural affection. The sad part is they take pleasure in what they are doing.

We are witnessing such lawlessness that most of us never thought we would see in our lifetime but have heard about for most of our lives.

Welcome to the last days! We are watching prophecy unfold right before our eyes. Everything we see on the news or media outlets are us witnessing people playing right into the hand the devil himself dealt. He has not only deceived our government  but the hearts of people who once believed in a higher power than themselves. Now lawlessness is accepted by the very people who put law into place. Evil is seen as good and good is seen as evil. We have so much wrong going on but being seen as right. People are revolting and making stands by removing history and trying to rewrite a new chapter.  A new chapter that is full of lies to cover any truths we may have left. We have innocent people being  killed on the streets, businesses being destroyed but not until all products are stolen first. Rebellion against those in authority positions, babies being murdered daily. We are guilty as a Nation of slaughtering our own children on the very soil that was founded on God. We as a Nation have placed a higher value on Satanic ideology than on our own creator.

No wonder so many people are walking around in disbelief, reaching for anxiety or depression medicine and bottles of alcohol to help calm them down.  Yet, that’s not even enough to slow down the suicides happening at alarming rates due to people not able to cope with the stress of the times we live in or the fact they can’t go back to work and provide for their families. They are losing everything they worked hard for. We have been placed on lock down, told to keep distance, not allowed to enter church which by the way, most people get comfort, encouragement and help during hardships from. Our freedoms are being removed one by one and all the while evil is being recognized as good.

Now is the time believers should be the most excited! This is the time we should be reaching out to the hopeless. God didn’t leave us without answers. We are the ones who hold the answers to all the issues unfolding right before us. God gave us the key to understanding so we could understand the Bible. Not everyone has that understanding as it wasn’t meant for the unbelievers. We were left signs to look for and instructions to follow.  The Bible made it abundantly clear that when Israel becomes a Nation that this generation would not pass until all these things be fulfilled. What things you ask?  ( Grab your Bible and look up these scriptures… Mathew 24:12,  Mathew 24:6-8, Mathew  24:34,  Isaiah 5:20, Romans 1:24-27, 2 Timothy 3:1-7, 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Luke 21:31)  By the way after you read the things in these scriptures you also should know Israel became a Nation May 14, 1948.  All of what is taking place in the world around us is not a surprise to some people, as some of us have been watching for the signs to unfold and now that they are, we are so excited.  God left us a reminder that His word would not return to Him void but would accomplish His will. This scripture can be read in Isaiah 55:11.

We have nothing to fear with what is unfolding before us. God protects His own and left His Word as not only instructions but comfort during the times we would encounter. Now on the flip side if you don’t know the Lord as your personal savior, I encourage you to do so, as your window of opportunity is quickly closing. Romans 10:9  is your scripture you need to know in order to call upon the Lord and be saved from the judgement that is coming on this world. For the rest of us who already know the Lord as our personal savior, then let not your hearts be troubled…

Blessings,

Robin Worgull