A way to live in Harmony - Submission (part one)

I have three kids and they often fight, and most of the time I hear them arguing about how to play a game. Benedetta wants to play in one way, Hannah in a different way and it doesn't matter what the rules of the game are, each one of them wants things in their own way, that's how usually every fight starts at my place.

They just don’t know how to let go of what they want and do what the other wants, they don’t know how to place themselves under the other. We have the same struggle as adults. Today I want to talk about submission as a way to live in harmony.

What is submission?

The word submit is from the Greek word hupotasso (hupo, “under”; tasso, “to line up,” “to get in order,” “to arrange”), which, in a military sense, means “to rank beneath or under.” As Christians, we are to rank ourselves under one another, not over one another. The whole mentality of the Christian life as we relate to each other is one of humility and submissiveness

( from The Fulfilled Family by J. Mac Arthur)

Voluntary placement of oneself under the authority and leadership of another (Gk. hupotasso). Submission is taught in the context of various relationships. In divinely ordained relationships, submission enables a unique Christian harmony, based on God’s good design.

 (from Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p.1537)

So in essence submission means to put yourself under somebody else and it is a voluntary act. What does it mean? 

1- it is an act of the will, it depends not whether we like it or not, or if the person in authority is worthy or not, or if my husband shows much love or not, or if the leader of my country is a believer or not, I have to submit willingly and not being forced to;

2 - it is placing myself under somebody else.

Examples of submission

• Hagar

Gen. 16:9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.”

The story before this verse is the story of Sarai who gives Hagar to Abraham so that he could maybe have a son through her. When Hagar gets pregnant then Sarai becomes harsh towards Hagar to the point that Hagar runs away. The angel of the Lord finds her and tells her to go back and submit to Sarai even if she was a mean mistress.

So submission is not only for the good circumstances, good leaders or good husbands.

• Jesus

Luke 2:51 "And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. "

This verse talks about the time that Jesus was twelve and went up to Jerusalem with his parents and then stayed there instead of coming back with them. His parents didn’t realize he wasn’t with them until late, so then they had to go back to find him. When they finally found Jesus he went with them. If there was someone that didn’t need to subject to anybody was Jesus, but He had to show us the way and we see here him putting Himself under his parents authority.

• the Church 

Ephesians 5:24 "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands."

Another example of submission given to us in these verse is the church. How does the church submit to God? How do I submit  to God? How often do we know what God’s will is and yet try to tell God that what we think was better than what He had planned or decreed? Do we obey right away? The way it should be is that God is the boss and has a plan for our life. In fact Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”  In the end He has the final word! And we are called to obey right away.

The Bible teaches that we have to submit to:

• Rulers in Titus 3:1
• One another in Ephesians 5:21
• Leaders in Hebrew 13:17
• God in James 4:7
• Our husbands  in Ephesians 5:22-23; Col.3:18; 1 Timothy 2:11; Titus 2:5.

(To be continued....)

Snickerdoodles Summer Treats

This is going to be just a different post from the usual ones. The other day Hannah was at Junior Camp, so for part of the day I was with Benedetta who was so sad not to be able to be part of juniors yet. Ruhamah was taking her nap. So we decided to enjoy the afternoon making something that our family loves: special summer treats, frozen snicker doodles. Most of you may like the cookie, but we like the dough even more so we have found a way to keep the dough always at our disposal and always fresh! We freeze the little balls and eat them like icecream. They make a nice dessert and a special treat!

It's also nice to have been able to spend some alone time with Benedetta and give her some fun while Hannah was with her friends.

Here is how we make our snickerdoodles:

Ingredients:

2 and 3\4 cups of flour

1\4 tsp salt

8tbs (1 stick) butter

1\2 cup vegetable shortening

1 and 3\4 cup of sugar

2 tbs cinnamon

Preparation:

Sift together flour and salt. set aside. Combine butter, shortening and 1 and 1\2 cup of sugar. Add dry ingredients that was set aside.

In a small bowl combine 1\4 cup of sugar and the cinnamon.

Form small balls (the smaller the ball the more treats you make) and roll them into the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place the coated balls in a container and freeze. They are a good and refreshing treat on a summer day.

Enjoy and let me know what your kids think about them!

A foreigner

"But our citizenship is in heaven..."

Philippians 3:20

Growing up I lived in the same town for 24 years. We moved houses once when I was 5, but ww moved within the same city. I grew up with my relatives nearby, so I had the same friends and same faces around me all my life.

Then I got married and we have basically moved every two and a half years since then. At first we moved to the north where people had a strong repulsion for people from the South (i.e. me). Life was completely different, people would often notice my diferent accent. We lived in three different towns in the North and every time I felt like a foreigner: I was always the one with the diffrent accent( it was a mix of Southern and American and trying to get Northern!!), I ate differently (not polenta or frico, more olive oil than butter), and I missed tipical food from my area, the summers at the beach, missed the Sea...

Then, after eight years we moved to Sicily and I thought, "I am going to be in the South again and hopefully near the Sea." (it still took 15-20 minutes to be able to go to the Sea or go to the beach and here there was not sand but lava rocks...and the water was cold).

Once again I was a foreigner, I still had a different accent and a different culture.

Once at school I was bringing Hannah to her class and one of the school supervisors told me something that sounded like this:" blah bla blablah blah blah." 

Yup, I couldn't understand a word of what he said.

One lady looked at me and laughed.

I asked: "what's the matter?"

"He told you, you could not bring your daughter to the class" she said.

I thought "he should have said it in a way that I could understand it!"

The truth is that I was a foreigner!

This week has marked my one year of being in the States...again another language, another culture.

There are times when, in speaking to locals I repeat the same things a few times before the question mark on their faces disappears. Times were I have to say my sentence with the simplicity of a 5 year old, in order to be understood.

I am weird when I vacuum my floor every day, or if they see that in my cupboard I have a tons of pasta boxes. I am weird when I talk and make jokes!

Again I am a foreigner!

I would love for that time that we can settle somewhere and not be or feel like a foreigner anymore. At the same time the Lord has used this image in my life to remind me that I am a foreigner from spiritual prospective. When I talk about Jesus, to the World I am weird, I am crazy. When I live love, grace, forgiveness I am crazy.

When I live for an eternal hope, I am crazy. My faith is crazy.

My language is a foreign laguage to this World, my culture is different because based on the Word of God!

I can live in every part of the World but I will always bring with me an imprint of where I belong and I will always miss my homeland.

The same is true for our spiritual life, let's always bring the imprint of who we are in Christ where ever we are, always looking forward to the time we will be in our heavenly home.

When a storm hits our life...

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;"

Psalm 23:4a

Weeks ago a friend of mine had oral surgery and everything went well, but after two days he started bleeding and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. His wife brought him to the hospital and in doing all the exams they found out he had leukemia.

When the circumstances around us are against us, do we still hold on to our God?

I grew up in a catholic family, my parents never went to church, they didn't have a Bible and if I had questions about that Jesus that we would celebrate every Christmas and Easter, they didn't know how to answer.

When I was 8 my mom attended for the first time an Evangelical Church. Despite the difficulty with my dad threatening her for divorce if she would go again, she enjoyed listening to the Gospel and secretly kept on attending the meetings. I was placed in Sunday school. At first I didn't really like it, but in the next two years they started teaching about Christ, that same Christ that my parents could not explain to me.

When I realized I was a sinner, even if so young, and that if I would have a died a sinner and  that I would have gone to Hell and be separated from God, I repented of my sins and asked forgiveness and started a new walk with God. I was ten at the time.

When I was fifteen I wanted to get baptized, I wrote a letter to my dad who was still  against my new faith and I asked permission to obey God by being baptized. Long story short he got very upset and brought me to our farm house, one hour away from my family, as a punisment. He kept me there for a week and then he didn't talk to me or consider me his daughter for about one year. 

Years went by and I was seventeen and I was encouraged by my elders to talk to my dad so that I could be baptized. I was scared to death of what it could happen because I didn't want to be hurt again. After praying much I talked to my dad who didn't say much this time, maybe he thought I was joking. Well as time went by and the day of the baptisms drew closer I approached my dad again and this time things went a little different. First he told me that if I did get baptized I was not allowed back to the house, and I said "ok."

Then he said he was physically going to hurt me, and I said "ok."

Finally he said he was going to be there the morning of the baptisms and not let me out the house, and I said "OK."

My dad wasn't there that morning and, with the encouragement of my leaders, I got baptized, there was a potluck for lunch and then and afternoon service as well. 

My prayers during that time were that I would be able to praise God no matter what , like Paul and Silas when they were put in prison. 

My dad came in the afternoon and was very upset, he almost came into the church building yelling but he was stopped by his own brother (who gave his life to Christ a few months earlier). I went out serene, knowing that God was taking care of everything. And He did, in fact my dad didn't do anything of the things he treatheaned to do. 

In those years I learned that only God can give true unconditional love. 

I also learned to hold on to God. We may not like everything that He allows in our life, but we need to keep trusting Him. We need to hold on to Him in the good and in the bad that happens in life. God is the only one who can give the peace in the storm and the strength to get through it! 

All the trials He allowed in my life helped me be who I am today. 

There are going to be many storms in our lives, maybe the death of a dear one, an unexpected change in our job, our parents, strong believers suddenly go through a divorce...what will we do? 

When a storm hits our life, let’s hold on to God, let’s keep our trust in Him. 

Count your blessings!

"to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,

for his steadfast love endures forever;

and brought Israel out from among them,

for his steadfast love endures forever..."

Psalm 136:10-11

A few days ago i received gifts from people of the church we served in Sicily, Italy. I loved the letters, to read and feel the love of the people you love is the most amazing thing.

In our married life we have served in ministry in different places, we have met many people, made friends, seen lives be changed and then we had to leave. For me sometimes this is hard! In leaving a place you know for a new one I always find myself wondering "Could we have stayed where we were before?" Obviously not. The Lord has a plan and His plan is perfect. I am blessed with a wonderful husband who helps me see what often gets fogged in my mind. And so he starts listing the places where we have been and helps me see that if we had not moved to Sacile for example, we would have never met Gabry or Sonia, and would have never seen the changes in their lives. We would have never been part of their lives.

So when we struggle in the present trying to figure out the why's and how's of our life, we can remember His promises, as I said in a previous post, but also, we can look at our past. We can look at how the Lord  amazingly worked in our lives. The Psalms are full of accounts of what the Lord had done for Israel in the past. I personally think those are there so that the people of Israel could praise God, but also find courage in knowing that, as in the past, He will still take care of them in the future.

Look at what the Lord did with Pharaoh...yes He is good.

Look at what happened at the  Red Sea...yes He is good.

Look at what happened in the desert by providing the manna...yes He is good!

Look at what happen at Jericho...Yes He is good. 

The same is true for us too, if we look at our yesterdays we can see the mighty things that God has done in our lives, the situations that we thought were horrible and God turn them into amazing blessings!

Take a moment today to look back and count all the blessings that God has poured into your life and then take courage...He has many more to give!

The Teacup

There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in the beautiful stores. They both liked antiques, pottery, and especially teacups. This was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

One day in this beautiful shop they saw a beautiful teacup. They said, "May we see that? We have never seen one quite so beautiful." As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke. "You don't understand," it said. "I haven't always been a teacup. There was a time when I was red and I was clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over, and I yelled out, 'Let me alone,' but he only smiled, 'Not yet.'

"Then I was placed on a spinning wheel," the teacup said, " And suddenly I was spun around and around. 'Stop! I am getting dizzy!' I screamed. But the master only nodded and said 'Not yet.'

"Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to burn me, and I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the opening, and I could read his lips as he shook his head, 'Not yet.'

"Finally the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. ' There, that's better' I said. And he brushed me and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. 'Stop it, stop it.' I cried. He only nodded 'Not yet.'

"Then suddenly he put me back in the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot and  I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see him through the opening, nodding his head and saying,'Not yet.'

"Then I knew there wasn't any hope. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on a shelf. One hour later he handed me a mirror and said, 'Look at yourself'. And I did. I said, 'That's not me, that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I am beautiful.'

"'I want you to remember, then' he said, 'I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurts and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad  when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you would have never hardened; you wouldn't have had any color in your life. And if I hadn't put you back in the  second oven, you wouldn't have survived for very long because the hardness would have not held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began you.'"

-Author Unknown

Do you have times where you feel like the little teacup? There are days when I feel like screaming and crying because what God let us go through is so hard and difficult to bear. Sadly sometimes I am focused on the circumstances: the fumes, the hot oven, the spinning wheel and obviously I cannot see the finish product yet, I cannot see what God is going to make out of my life. But I have to remember that God knows already what He wants to make of me and all the things I go through are to make me the finished product He has in mind.

Today as I was reading again this illustration I was encouraged in knowing that God has a perfect plan and I need to remember always that He is not done yet, this can hurt only for a bit but then we will be a wonderful masterpiece.