To my Friends who do not have a relationship with Jesus

"Living the Christian life is difficult. There is only one thing harder-that's not being a Christian. The price that you pay to follow Me is far less than the price you'll have to pay not to follow Me."
-Jesus to a man named Kalafi. From the Book "Is that Really You, God?" by Loren Cunningham.

I'm reading this book. It's been driving that passion back into my heart again...to share that which changed my life, with all those around me.

I'm in a season where I'm meant to be resting. This is always hard for me, to rest I mean. I don't know how to rest very well. Just ask my husband. I always feel the need to be productive. It's not healthy, I know that, and I'm learning over time to be able to rest...

However, in my quiet times, I find myself pleading with Jesus to use me, use me even though I'm meant to be resting...so I read. I listen to sermons, I try to draw closer to Him and fill myself up so that I can then pour Him out in love towards others.

I have many friends who don't know Jesus. It breaks my heart, because there are selfish reasons, and un-selfish reasons...the selfish one, is that I want to know that I will see them again. When this life is over, I want to know they will be with me in eternity. My heart breaks at the thought that might not be...

The other reason is because I know the life they are living. I lived it myself. I was too drunk to care, to drugged to notice, even to the point where life didn't matter. Now, not all my friends are at that point...but I know in my heart there is an emptiness they feel. I remember it. It haunted me. It made m do the things I did. It created the way that I thought, it moved me towards decisions, it helped shape my worldview.

Now days, the media and TV has done that for us too. Shape our worldview. Every channel, every episode, people are dying, and sometimes you don't care because it's not a main character...people are choosing lifestyles that they don't realize lead to nothing but heartache and death...what happens to them once they are gone? What will happen to us, when we are gone? There is an eternity to think of...

It breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart to see people kidnapping a young challenged boy so they can torture him because of his political standpoint.
It angers me to see shootings at airports, and senseless killings in Europe by terrorists...
My heart aches when I read a story about a little baby that's dying because it hasn't been given the chance to live, or is born with a defect and might not make it...
But it makes me angry to think that a little life is torn apart, because the one who is meant to protect it, has made a choice....to consider it's existence not valid, to end it's life.

And for someone who has had trouble having a baby, it breaks my heart to think that someone would chose that. Not only for the sake of that baby, but for the sake of the mother who does it.

She doesn't realize the hopelessness she will feel. The guilt she will carry, the emotional trauma of it. My sister and mother are counselors and have gone through intense grief counselling with many, many women who suffer for years afterwards....it's such a sad situation, that could've been avoided...my heart breaks for them.

I say all this to compare the situations.
The world is like this, wanting to not give you a chance.
The Devil is like that. He wants to kill and destroy before you have a chance to live.
He wants to take that opportunity from you.He wants to get you involved in something that will cause you to go further and further away from the life God has planned for you all along.

God has given us all a free choice.
He will never force us to follow Him.
He wants us to choose Him because of His great love for us.
He wants us to have a life, and an abundant life.

But life is hard. No matter what.
It was harder when I didn't have Jesus.
Now, I have hope, in every situation. In every lose. In every heartache... I have hope. In each death I've experienced, in each loss of life, in each uncertain situation, I have Jesus who gives me a deep and explainable peace that covers me, and helps me through the pain. I can't explain it, it just is always there. He is always there.

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." Jeremiah 1:5

I just read this morning, a interesting scripture verse.
"We are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are the smell of death; to the other the fragrance of life." 2 Corinthians 2:15-16

So some of you might be reading this, and it stinks to high heaven to you. In fact, you are angry with me for speaking my mind and heart. And that breaks my heart too. Because I wish this was sweet to you. I wish this would change your heart and mind to want a living and real relationship with Jesus.

But one thing is for sure.
For all of us Christians, we must always remember,
We are not the ones who lead anyone to Jesus...only God can call someone to Himself.
So if you are not there yet...don't forget, you have someone who will not give up on you. I won't. And I will continue to love you, right where you are, for who you are...because that is how God loves, and I will love you, like He loves you...unconditionally, because you are amazing, and you were created for unreal things...that you might not even know yet...

So this is my promise in times of resting...for all my friends who have yet to know Jesus...

I will never stop praying for you. I will never stop hoping...
"This then is what I pray, kneeling before the Father....may Jesus, through His Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self, so that Christ may live in your hearts, through faith, and then planted in love and built on love, with all God's holy people you will have the strength to grasp how wide and the long, how high and deep is Christ's love for you; so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God." Ephesians 3:14-19

This is my prayer for all my friends that I love so deeply, that I pray will come to know the one who created them, that they might know life more abundantly, being loved unconditionally by a Saviour that is waiting for them...day and night.

Please, let me live for eternity with you...
Please, confess with your heart and believe with your mouth, that Jesus Christ is Lord...so that you too might come into a daily relationship with the God who loves you more than you will ever be loved on this earth. Ever. Period.

And please, if you've read this, and prayed for Jesus to become a part of your life...would you please let me know? I want to be there for you to share all the wonderful things that you have just opened your life to...it will NEVER be the same.....let's get some coffee together....

All my love and prayers Always--
~Larena Ann