Author: Marcia Furrow

Loving and Leaving

01/07/2014Spiritual Walk, , , , 23 Comments

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The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.” – Genesis 12:1 – NLT

When Abram/Abraham was 75 years old, God called him to leave all that was familiar and go. God didn’t give him directions; He basically said, “Follow me, I’ll show you where to go, and I’ll let you know when you get there.” Trust me, and walk with me.

Because Abraham loved and trusted God, he left the familiar, his family, his home, his job, everything! He left because God was more important than anything.

This is my Aunt Rachel and Uncle Ralph. On December 23, 1965, they left their families of origin and promised to walk with God through good times or bad, sickness or health, riches or poverty until death parted them. They walked with God as they started their own family and weathered the storms of life. They are continuing to walk with God as everything familiar fades into the rear view mirror and they become strangers.

You see, Uncle Ralph has Alzheimer’s, and Aunt Rachel is losing him a little bit each day. The familiar is gone. The unknown lies ahead.

No one said that following God would be easy, but no one expected the path to lead through Alzheimer’s. Because Aunt Rachel loves Uncle Ralph, and God, she walks where God leads.

People say, “God won’t give you more than you can handle!” Unfortunately, that isn’t true. God won’t allow temptations to overwhelm us, but he does allow difficulties that do.

The truth is that God does allow more heartache and hardship than we can bear. If he didn’t, we wouldn’t need to trust Him and we would assume that we could take care of everything the evil one throws at us. We would spend our days trudging through life trying to endure in our own strength.

Even the Apostle Paul was overwhelmed by difficulty…

“We do not want you to be uninformed …about the troubles we experienced… We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.”

But, Paul doesn’t stop there…

“But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.” – 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 NLT

It is not easy to follow God. It wasn’t easy for Abraham – his failures are recorded in the Bible! It’s not easy for Aunt Rachel. And it won’t be easy for you.

However, if God is calling you away from the familiar, you can be sure He is with you. He is all-powerful and he wants you to rely on Him. He will never leave you nor forsake you. And, you can rest assured that nothing is too difficult for God!

What is God calling you to leave behind as you begin a new year? What is He calling you toward? Do you love and trust him enough to follow Him wherever he leads, even if the path leads away from the familiar and into the unknown?

Refunds and Exchanges

01/03/2014Gospel, Sharing the Gospel, , 12 Comments

Don’t you just hate the refund and exchange lines after Christmas? Sometimes it’s easier to keep something we don’t like rather than stand in that line. Maybe that’s why we work so hard to find the perfect gift for those we love.

Although, there are moments when we fall victim to a great marketing plan, salesman, or impulse and pick up the worst possible gift. Then we pay for it twice: once at the cash register and again when we stand in the returns line.

Our first parents, Adam and Eve, made a purchase that I’m sure they’d like to return.  When they succumbed to the serpent’s persuasion and ate the fruit sin and death entered Eden and remains with us today. They would one day physically die, for the wages of sin is death. (Genesis 3)\

“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” – Romans 5:12

They also experienced spiritual death. When they chose to sin, they were separated from God who is holy and cannot abide sin. We are born spiritually dead, separated from God, and living under the influence of our sin nature.

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins… By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.” –Ephesians 2:1-3

It may look fun, living apart from God, after all, who wants the continual conviction of falling short of God’s holy standard? We all want freedom to do what we want. But true freedom is not being able to do what we want; true freedom means not living with fear, guilt, worry, or shame. True freedom is being able to stand in the presence of God cleansed and forgiven.

We can’t return to Eden, nor can we return the sin nature that’s born in each one of us, but we can exchange it! And, amazingly, the line is not long, nor is the process difficult.

Actually, you are the only person in the line, and Jesus is waiting for you to step up to Him. When you come to Jesus, it’s as easy as saying “I have nothing to bring, I cannot clean myself up, nor change my own heart. I believe that you are the One and only way to the Father, and I ask you to wash away my sin and enter into my very being. I freely choose to submit to you as my Lord and my Savior.”

You were dead because of your sins and because your sin nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” – Colossians 2:13-14

What a way to start the year! Cleansed. Forgiven. Spiritually alive. Freed from sin’s power. Freed to live for God. Have you made the exchange? If not, why not today?

I Thank My God For You!

12/20/2013Holidays, , , 14 Comments

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. –James 1:17

As Christmas draws near, I want to pause and thank God for the gift of friends and family. So, please indulge me as I thank God for you!

Almighty God, thank you for the Winnetka, Illinois Bible Study Fellowship leaders and class, for using them to encourage me and for all the times they carried me before the throne of Grace in prayer that I might receive grace and mercy in my times of need!

Father, thank you for Becky, for her willingness to walk with me almost as many miles as I drove last spring when dad was sick, for her listening ear, her strong shoulder, her prayers, her encouragement and her sympathetic hugs.

And, thank you for Donna, who picked up the phone, on her birthday, on vacation with family and friends at the beach, to listen and pray with me as I cried and wrote dad’s obituary.

Father, thank you for Carolyn, who is helping me transition from BSF to this blog; I thank you for her patience with me, her dependability and creativity.

Gracious God, I thank you for every one of my friends, both near and far, would you please bless each one abundantly in 2014! They are such sweet gifts to me; you are so generous.

Sovereign Lord, thank you for my sweet children: Dan, Nikki, Bob and Jen! You are so gracious to allow me the privilege of being their mom/mother-in-love. Thank you for supplying them with forgiveness, patience, grace, mercy, love and compassion toward me. They encourage me, challenge me, support me, and pray for me. I am most blessed!

Father, thank you for my siblings, Betty, Donna, and JR. I am so blessed to have a brother and sisters who love deeply and care for one another as these do. Lord, your abundance overwhelms me.

God, thank you for Mom, and for the pleasure of being her daughter. Thank you for her willingness to pick up the phone every time I call, and for indulging me in conversation whether it is about the weather, missing dad, or what to plan for Christmas dinner. Almighty God, you are so loving to knit us together as you have.

And, Father, thank you for Genelle and Ernie Furrow, you were so kind to give me such gracious parents-in-law; please continue to sustain them this year as they trust in you.

Glorious God, I thank you for my husband, Brian, and for the ways that you use him to show your love to me. Thank you for enabling him to meet the challenge of having me for a wife!

Father, thank you for Jacob and Matthew, and for the way they keep me on my toes, exhaust me, open my eyes to the wonders of life from a preschooler’s perspective and shower me with love. Your blessings are uncountable.

For my extended family (both spiritual and physical), I thank You. Each person holds a special place in my heart, and I pray that every one of them will allow You into their heart, that we might enjoy You together, forever. Amen!

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you! Thank you for spending a few minutes with me on Tuesday and Friday mornings and I’ll see you in the New Year!

♥ Marcia

Decorating the Whole Tree

12/17/2013Gospel, Holidays, Sharing the Gospel, Spiritual Walk, , , , , 5 Comments

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 When our grandsons, Jacob and Matthew, decorated their Christmas tree all the ornaments were hung on the bottom. When they decorated our tree, with help from their taller cousins, Abby and Emmy, they reached a bit higher, but the top third was still bare.

After everyone went home, Brian and I moved the ornaments over the entire tree so that it was balanced and perhaps more pleasant to look at.

Christians don’t just decorate trees; we have ornaments with which to decorate our personalities. God calls us to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love.

Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

We enjoy putting these virtues on, and like ornaments they are nice to observe; but are they balanced? Do they cover every bit of our lives?

Sometimes, like Matty’s ornaments (all on one branch in the back of the tree), we reserve kindness and compassion only for those who are the closest to us.

And, like Jake’s ornaments: Our gentleness and patience abound, but we only interact with people directly in front of and close to us and we don’t consider those who are out of sight.

Occasionally, we’re like Abby and Emmy’s ornaments, we are humble, loving and forgiving for the most part, but there are some situations and people just beyond our reach and we don’t really want to go out of our way to touch them.

In the grocery store, at church, at the mall, on the phone with customer service, in the morning before coffee, at the end of a very long day, in the hospital room, in the office, in the classroom, or on the road, would you say you reveal these virtues all the time? Are they spread throughout your life evenly and consistently?

Acting Godly in every situation is difficult and exhausting. And some might even say it’s hypocritical or fake. It surely isn’t natural.

And that’s true, it isn’t natural; but when we trust God for salvation, by believing that God came down at Christmas, died on Good Friday, and rose on Easter morning to save us from our sins, he begins the process of changing us from the inside out. He changes us from who we were to who He created us to be.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Is this Christmas season the time to believe, to be born again, and let God change you from top to bottom and enable you to live a life that displays his Godly virtues throughout your entire life? You can’t do it on your own, but with God, all things are possible.

Christmas Lights

12/13/2013Death Grief and Mourning, Holidays, Sharing the Gospel, , , , , , , 15 Comments

 MarciaTree2013

Dad was an early riser, and every year during the Christmas Season, he’d get up early and turn on all the Christmas lights so that Mom would walk into a brightly lit and festive living room first thing in the morning.

Last week, mom decorated the tree by herself, and at the end of the day, she turned the lights off and went to bed. The next morning when mom got up, she walked into a dark living room. The tree was there, the lights were in place, but everything was still dark when she got up.

We don’t like the dark. Children are afraid of the dark. Bugs come out in the dark. Wickedness happens in the dark. And darkness signals the end of the day. For Mom, the darkness is a reminder that Dad is not there. It is empty in the dark.

When we were little, Dad would bundle us kids up and drive around for what seemed like hours just to look at Christmas lights. Mom didn’t usually go with us, I don’t know why, maybe it was too cold, but when we got home there would be lots of newly wrapped presents under the tree! How did that happen!?

However, throughout the years when it was just mom and dad, mom went on those drives with dad. They had their favorite neighborhoods and houses that they’d drive by and enjoy. One of mom kids will take her out this year.

Christmas lights are a great tradition, yet I wonder, why do we put lights up at Christmas? So I Googled: “Why do we put lights on Christmas Trees?” and an article said, “As Christians, we believe that God is the light of the world.”

By putting lights on our houses and trees, we are testifying to the world: I believe God is the light of the world, and I believe that God came down and lived among us. We are not simply decorating; we are proclaiming truth in a dark world.

John 1:1; 8:12 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Matthew 1:23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”)

At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation of the eternal God in the Person of Jesus, who is the Light of the World.

Our Christmas lights shine forth for God because God calls each of His children to be light in the world; we are to let His light shine through us in our words and our deeds. Everything we do as Christians should be done to make God famous.

Matthew 5:16 – In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

During Dad’s final days in his body, he said to me, “If I survive this, my house is going to be a beacon for Jesus!” His body didn’t survive, but his soul did, he is brightly priaising Jesus in heaven today! And his house is shining also! The Christmas lights are on again this year, inside and out of Mom and Dad’s house as they always have been.

This year Dad is celebrating with Jesus in eternal light. We know this because Dad believed that God, in the Person of the Lord Jesus, left the glory of heaven, and being made in human likeness, lived a sinless life, humbled himself and died on a cross as Dad’s substitute — paying the penalty for Dad’s sins —  and then he rose from the dead three days later, and now he is exalted in heaven as Lord over all!

Merry Christmas, Dad!

mom, dad and Dan2