On Friday April 26, 2019 I published a blog post called Courage To Tell The Truth About Sin It is a blog post that I had mostly written right after Bill Hybels stepped down from leadership at Willowcreek Community Church.  But every time I submitted it to God so that I could publish it, I discovered that it wasn’t time.  For over a year I made revisions and continually presented the post to God.  It was frustrating.  I wanted to get it off my chest, instead, I waited.

In the mean time God gave me plenty of other tasks to work on.  I am thankful for that, because waiting on God can be difficult.  God uses everything, and this past year he has been cultivating patience in my life.  My mom always told me that patience is a virtue, which makes it sound so lovely.  What I have learned is that patience is the ability to suffer well.  

I love it when people are patient with me, but exercising patience myself is hard.  No discipline is pleasant at the time, but it brings about righteousness.  Recently, God drew me back to the post and indicated that the time to publish it was coming.  As my neighbors and friends where I live, started to prepare for  Easter Sunday, I was preparing my blog post to be published on Good Friday.  

When I woke up on Good Friday morning to put the final touches on the post, I discovered I couldn’t. The dashboard of my wordpress site was missing all of the edit buttons.  The whole toolbar was gone.  I was unable to put text in bold, or italics, or quotes.  I couldn’t add a link, or underline, and most troubling was the biblegateway link was gone! Thus began a week of frustration, while I spent hours on the phone with various people from bluehost.  

Many people tried to help fix the issues. Instead of the issues getting fixed,  the condition of the blog deteriorated.  I watched my blog essentially burning down.  Biblegateway links were broken on published posts resulting in scripture references disappearing.  Code that shouldn’t have been visible started showing up under published photos. I am not a web builder.  I am just a woman who God called to tell the truth about her life and the truth about Him.

I make mistakes every single day.  I misspell words, my grammar can be off the mark.  The wordpress blog editor gives me a red mark because I naturally write and speak in a passive voice.  When I started this process I didn’t have money to hire a web builder.   For years I have gotten up everyday and learned very basic web building skills and put them into practice for this blog.  It’s been a refining process.  I don’t have to be perfect, my job is to show up.  God is perfect and he has given me the Holy Spirit to teach me everything I need to know.

I’ve had to lay down so much to pursue this task God put before me.  A job that I have felt ill equipped for.  Yet God equipped me with his word, and I recite it to myself.  Be strong and courageous Alison, do not be afraid.  For the LORD your God is with you.  He is mighty to save.   It’s been a thankless job, but I know one day all God’s children will be rewarded for being obedient to the tasks he has given us.  I long for the day when the Lord will tell me, “Well Done, my good and faithful servant.”

So this week, I asked people in my inner circle to pray for me to have wisdom, and to be able to discern what my next steps were.  I’m into my seventh year of  walking this path and one of my friends suggested that perhaps my blogging season was over.  This didn’t make sense to me, but I asked God if He wanted me to lay it down and walk away.  He simply told me to abide. So I spent the week clinging to Jesus.  Apart from him I can do nothing.  

Then finally, after a week of abiding, Thursday night a woman at bluehost was able to fix a lot of the problems with the blog.  We spent two hours flushing out problems and troubleshooting and I hung up the phone knowing that I could publish on Friday morning.  When I looked at my calendar I realized it was the Orthodox Good Friday and I pressed the long-awaited publish button.  

Around dinnertime yesterday, I was notified by email that vaultpress had been unable to make backups of my site for two days.  This started another painful process of troubleshooting.  I learned with horror that the blog post I had published was actually missing a huge block of text.  What is written in the rough draft on my dashboard is not what is showing on my website that is visible to the world wide web. 

I spent hours on the phone with Bluehost and at two o’clock in the morning I told the Bluehost representative,  “It’s time for me to get off the phone. I’m going to let God be God.”  I told him.

God’s children can rest.  

At 2:00am I crawled into bed and peacefully went to sleep.  I know who I am, I’m God’s girl and I can rest.  God’s Got This! I do not need to be discouraged, or lose my confidence.  I may not be very cool or tech savvy, I’m just a plain ordinary person.  But I serve and extraordinary God.  My confidence does not rest in who I am but who HE is.  

So today, I will not shrink back, be disheartened or averted from the straight and narrow path.  I do not lean on my own understanding, instead, I trust and acknowledge the LORD in all my ways, and HE WILL make my paths straight.  

Below I am including in this blog post, the text that was omitted because it is important!  The first paragraph is for your reference and is copied from the original post.  After that you will see the missing block of text.  Then you will see how the post Courage To Tell The Truth About Sin ended.  Lastly, I have included some verses God gave me today.

BELOW IS THE FIRST PARAGRAPH

• God puts it on the parents teach their children God’s word.   These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  I can speak to the lack of God’s word being in Willow Creek another time, but I recommend bringing your Bible with you to Church.  It’s not fun being told you are a sinner.  But then again, friends don’t let friends go to hell.  Wounds from a friend can be trusted.

FOLLOWING IS THE ENTIRE BLOCK OF TEXT MISSING FROM Courage To Tell The Truth About Sin

• Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.   
• When I was first directed to read my Bible, I did not do it.   People need to be told by their pastors to read God’s word every day and they need to be taught how to feed themselves God’s word.   One day I saw Bill Hybels stand on the stage, he held up his Bible and said, “I can’t read this for you.  You need to sit down in your chair at home and read your Bible.”  Not long after that my husband started reading his Bible and I was thankful.  It reminded me of a parent telling a toddler, you need to learn how to hold the spoon and feed yourself.
• Bill wasn’t always there at Willow, and there were some Sundays that didn’t seem like a sermon at all.  They were entertaining, but they didn’t edify you with God’s word.  We need to sit with God every day. He is the vital necessity.
• I am praying  for God’s word to be raised at Willow Creek, because it seemed to me that the world was, and still is watching.  When Steve Carter came to Willow we rejoiced because he preached the word of God.  Steve isn’t there anymore and even when he was, I still I found myself at the front of the church begging them to hear the importance of Bibles being in the sanctuary.  “Let people hold the life giving word in their hands. Give them hope,” I’d say.
• The Bible says there are none who are righteous, no, not one.  as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”  

END OF OMITTED BLOCK OF TEXT

Jesus is God’s son and he died to pay the price for our sins we cannot pay. God loves people even though they have sinned. Faith comes by hearing the word of God.  The word of God is alive and active.  God’s word taught me that there was nothing I could ever do to earn God’s love.  God’s love is a gift.

I wanted to leave Willow Creek Community Church a few years before all the of allegations came out against Bill, but instead God called me to stay and pray.  So I stayed, but  I was distressed because so many people I know are broken from sin.  They are either weighted down by their own sins, or they are suffering under the weight of sins committed against them.  Healing is a part of the atonement.  God is a loving merciful God.  

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  

I’m just one person and this is my story in HIS story.   When the enemy comes in like a flood, God raises a standard.  That standard is the word of God.  That standard is Jesus. 

Do not lurk like a thief near the house of the righteous, do not plunder their dwelling place; for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.

 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword,it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.  Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,  so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,  So My Word which goes from My mouth will not return to Me empty. It will do what I want it to do, and will carry out My plan well.