{"id":21384,"date":"2017-05-13T00:10:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T07:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=10787"},"modified":"2017-05-13T00:10:42","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T07:10:42","slug":"may-13-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/05\/13\/may-13-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"May 13, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cAs for God, His way is perfect; the Word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.\u201d<\/em>
\n2 Samuel 22:31<\/span><\/p>\n

No Other Way<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

One bright spring day recently, I decided it was time to do something about my camellia bushes whose branches were nearly touching the ground. They were stunted and their sad limbs were tangled. They hadn\u2019t been prolific bloomers in the past, and mostly I forgot about them, except to water them in the heat of summer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remembering the tall, lush camellias in my mother\u2019s yard, I knew I could coax blooms and growth with some tender care. I bought some garden stakes, hammered a couple of them into the ground, and cut a length of nylon twine to tie up the branches. I tied a knot in the twine; it immediately came undone. I tied a tighter knot; it, too, lay at my feet in a moment. I then tied bows, which lasted a few seconds longer, but as soon as I moved the branch beside them, it all came undone. There seemed to be no way to accomplish the work, as I had no other string.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally I got the bright idea of using grocery store twist ties. I located a few in the junk drawer, and found they worked like a charm. The others things I had tried were useless. After everything was tidy, I watered deeply. Next, I will buy some fertilizer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t help but relate this concept of \u201cno other way\u201d to the phone conversation I\u2019d had with someone just a few minutes before tackling the camellias. We were talking in generalities about hard things that had happened to us in our past, and the other person said, \u201cI just try not to think about it. If I think about it, I get all churned up inside and then I can\u2019t sleep. Even if it happened years ago, I still get mad at the people who hurt me, and it makes me grumpy and impatient with them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew this person well enough to know the situations being referred to. They are things that would bury most people in waves of despair and hopelessness, like briars and thorns that rip and tear away peace. Similar pain has come into my life as well, but I know the way of release from the dungeon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I told this person, \u201cThere is no other way to be free of it than to forgive.\u201d We talked about how forgiving had changed me, had brought life where before there was only a slow and painful death, and how anger and bitterness were things of the past. I know I won\u2019t forget what happened, but I don\u2019t have to live in numbing bitterness.<\/span><\/p>\n

People often consult self-help books or ungodly counselors to figure out how to deal with the pain, or they may bury it by some means. But it will come back to haunt unless it is brought into the light of Christ\u2019s love by which we are enabled to forgive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJesus, help us to forgive and be rid of the things that would otherwise destroy us. This is Your proven Word. There is no other way. Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAs for God, His way is perfect; the Word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5yU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}