Archive for the ‘Melody Jo Hamor’ Category

Did you know that God is a Master Interpreter?

by Melody Jo Hamor

The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. Romans 8:26 (NLT)

Some of my most passionate, heart felt prayers start out with, “Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!” What’s the English translation for that, you might ask? Well, it’s something along the lines of, “GOD HELP ME! I CAN’T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU!”

Seriously though, I have days that I feel like I’m going to explode! There’s just so much being asked of me and I’m overwhelmed. Some days it feels as if I’m defeated before I even get started. Basically, my work load is weighing me down and there are moments when I don’t even know where to start. Okay, so maybe that’s just the life of a full time college student who’s also a full time wife, homemaker, volunteer, fill-in-the-blank, and I ought to just suck it up, get over it, and get on with it. Let’s see – have you ever felt more equipped to take on the day once someone has said to you, “Just get over it?” No? :) Hmmm…somehow I’m not surprised.

I absolutely cannot get through my day and my to-do list without the Lord’s help. But sometimes when I pray about these things, my mind is flooded with so much angst that I don’t even know what to ask for. Do I pray for the Lord to help me get it done, to help me learn to delegate, to help me say “No” more often, to take on fewer tasks, to what?! This Scripture in Romans 8 reassures me that my groaning and pleading is heard by God, and that the Spirit prays for me in groanings as well. The Lord knows what I need even before I ask Him (see Matthew 6:8). I don’t have to know the perfect prayer, the perfect solution, the perfect words… I just need to know the One who is – the One who bends down to hear and answer my prayers. In that case, “Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!” isn’t such a crazy way to start a conversation with God. :)  He’s pleased just to hear me say that I need Him. He’s pleased that I want to sit with Him for a while and listen for His answer in my heart. He’s pleased to know that I love Him and trust Him.

Lord, I know You hear me when I’m groaning for Your help. Thank You for always listening to my needs, and providing for them, even when I’m not sure what they are. Please help me to do my best and please rescue me from anything that will hinder my efforts. I need Your help to be a woman of excellence. Please make Your path clear for me to follow. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.


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Reporting for Duty

by Melody Jo Hamor

Do not be afraid!
Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army,
for the battle is not yours, but God’s.
2 Chronicles 20:15 (NLT)

Please believe me when I say: Trying to run the whole world is exhausting! :) I have a tendency toward people pleasing and people fixing. I’m one of those individuals who was born with a shoulder to cry on, and the majority of my fellows know it. Most of the time this is all well and good. I’m honored to be someone that can listen to, comfort, and encourage the people of God. For goodness sakes, I’m going to school for the very purpose of developing those traits with psychological training. But the real trouble starts when I want to help someone who won’t let me help them! Oh how aggravating that is! And oh how self centered of me it is! Who am I to think that I have the power to help everyone? I’m only human, after all, and I’ve got problems that need fixing, too.

I can tell right off the bat when I’m supposed to be helping someone. I can feel it being signaled to me deep in my gut. Supporting other people is a God given gift. What’s new for me is that I’m beginning to take hold of another signal: the one that says, “This time your job is prayer and patience – nothing more.” In these situations, I’m not being equipped by God to help someone in my usual way of supportive action. Instead, I’m being prompted simply to pray and wait. I think the key is realizing that every battle belongs to God, and so does every victory. God is the General. We are the soldiers. It’s our job to report for duty, no matter what the duties are that He assigns.

Thank You Lord for Your continued efforts to shape me into a good soldier, whether it be action or inaction that You want from me. I’m grateful for these moments when You humble me and ask me to do nothing but pray. It’s not only powerful in the lives of the people I want to help, it’s powerful in my own life as well. You’re the source of rescue, and the battles are Yours to win. Please make your presence known to those individuals I lift up to You in prayer – the ones I can’t help, the ones that won’t let me help, and the ones I don’t even know need help. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.


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God Loves Mohawks!

by Melody Jo Hamor

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity,
but of power, love, and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7 (NLT)

Two things I would have never considered together before last Sunday: Church and Mohawks. :) But I am now convinced - I am 100% positive – God loves mohawks!

I have a dear friend who is doing battle with breast cancer. She’s had numerous surgeries, the first of which was a double mastectomy, and now she’s undergoing chemotherapy treatment to rid her body of any lingering cancerous cells. As you may already know, chemotherapy is a horrendous way to make a person healthy. There’s nausea, vomiting, weakness, vertigo, migraines, etc. On top of all that, as if that’s not enough, chemo patients completely lose their hair. They lose it right down to the slick-shiny surface of their noggins. The chemicals that are pumped intravenously into their bodies are nothing short of a recipe for destruction and depression. But my friend, Indra, is not being destroyed.

Instead, she’s sporting a rockin’, cancer-butt-kickin’ mohawk.

As I write this, her bold hair-cut may have already fallen out, but she made a grand entrance into church last Sunday and blew us all away. I was absolutely overcome with joy to be in the presence of her courage. So much so that I started squealing and laughing the moment I spotted her. Yeah – I was LOUD in church! Eh, I’m usually loud everywhere I go, so that really wasn’t anything new. :)

Here’s the deal… the hair was going to come out anyway, and she knew it. So early in her chemo treatment she started talking about shaving it off before it came out in clumps. One of her three sons is pretty familiar with the clippers, anyhow – he sports a shaved head himself. So…what if she took matters into her own hands and beat the chemo to the punch?

That’s exactly what she did. She gathered up her boys and her hubby, and she took the plunge. With clippers in hand, her son did the deed, and together they hit cancer with a few straight jabs and a knock-out right hook! Then, with a complete lack of timidity, she unveiled the mohawk and let us all join in on the fight!

2 Timothy 1:7 was the first thing that came to mind when I got home that day. “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity…” Indra proved that. God has given her a spirit of joy, hope, humor, and courage! And it is my prayer that He continues to bless her in this way. She is an example for all of us that we don’t have to let the trials of life keep us down. As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. Well…when life gave Indra chemo, she made a mohawk! :) With God, we can overcome anything and everything that life throws at us.

Thank You, Lord, for the opportunity to support such a wonderful woman. I’m so grateful to have been one of the people to see her rockin’ hair-cut. Please bless Indra, her husband, and her three sons with peace, comfort, and continued courage. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.


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Leave the Judgment up to Him

by Melody Jo Hamor

As for me, it matters very little
how I might be evaluated by you
or by any human authority.
I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point.
My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right.
It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide.
1 Corinthians 4:3-4 (NLT)

There are many forms of judgment: the holy and just judgment of God, the ugly, misguided judgments we make about others, and then there’s a third type of judgment – the kind that is, in my opinion, the sneakiest of all – self judgment. When we decide that we are better than others, we immediately set ourselves up for extreme pride, and God will make sure that we take a huge, stumbling fall from our self appointed peak. (See Proverbs 16:18). But what about when we decide that we are worse than all others?

As I’ve said many times, in many ways, I’m really hard on myself. In fact, that’s one of the first things I needed to write about when I started my blog, Hooking Stitches. I knew well that I needed to acknowledge my unhealthy habit of focusing on what’s wrong with me rather than on what’s right with God. Since then, I’ve made it a daily practice to call myself out on stuff, but to immediately seek relief, rescue, and rest for my concerns in the one place I know that there’s trustworthy answers: the Word of God. Today is no different.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote about this very topic in a way that practically jumps off the page and smacks me in the forehead like an old V-8 commercial! According to the New Living Translation, Paul said, “I don’t even trust my own judgment…” In the NIV, that same verse reads, “I do not even judge myself.” And the Amplified Bible translates it like this: “I do not even put myself on trial and judge myself.”

When I let loose on my self defeating thoughts and self degrading words, I’m doing exactly what Paul warns us not to do: I’m passing judgment on myself. This type of thinking leads to only one outcome: choices and actions to match. If we focus on “I’m no good,” “I’m not worth the trouble,” and “I’ll never change,” guess what will happen? No good, no success, and no change. We MUST leave the judgment up to God. And here’s the kicker…are you ready to have your socks knocked clean off your toes? John 3:18 (NLT) There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him.

So what about those times when you’re studying God’s Word and you see your true nature, when you see your deepest sins reflected back at you? This happens to me all the time. The Bible is like a mirror. In it I see the One true God and my true self. At first, I have to admit it was almost terrifying. I was shocked by how much I was lacking and how much I needed to change. But as I continued to read and study, I saw that God’s goodness overshadowed my wrongs; that God’s grace washed away every single drop of my shortcomings.

I believe those times of study are when we grow the most. I believe those are the times when God is trying to show us the way to go; the way to turn. And most importantly, I believe those are the times of study when our faith is most challenged. Why? Because it’s then that we are being asked to trust that His promises are true. He came to this world in flesh and He chose to take the path of our Savior. He promises to wash away every single thing you did wrong, do wrong today, and will do wrong tomorrow. He did it for you and He did it for me.

Don’t be afraid to acknowledge your sin, but never let your focus settle there. God is so much greater than our wrongs. Nothing is too damaged for Him to repair. Nothing is too far gone for Him to pull back. Nothing is too hurt for Him to mend.

Melody Jo HamorThank You, Lord, for Paul’s example of non-judgment. Please guide my thoughts, words, and actions so that my greatest focus is on You. Teach me to take notice of, acknowledge, and name my wrongs, then guide me to hand them all over to You to make them right again. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.


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Tend to Your Own Lawn

Melody Jo Hamor

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are. 1 Peter 5:8-9
I’m sure you’ve heard the cliché, “The grass is always greener on the other side,” where we think about trading in our life for another because ours seems way too complicated or boring. Even though we understand intellectually that that’s an absurd way to measure our life, from time to time we still look longingly around, considering what it would be like to tend someone else’s landscape rather than our own. We look at the life we lead every day, at our own familiar yard, at the same situations, challenges, and hurdles as the day before, and we get complacent about taking care of it all. We glance around at the lives of others and we see something that seems just a little bit better; a little bit easier. What we don’t realize is that we’ve got blinders on, and it’s high time we take them off.

grass

Scripture speaks directly to this in 1 Peter 5:9 – “Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are.” I don’t know about you, but what I see there is, “You’re all in the same boat, people!” Well if we’re all in the same boat, I suppose I can stop wasting my time wishing that I had someone else’s life, right? Right. But how do I resist the urge to covet a trade-in?

The answer is found in knowing and believing that you are loved by God, and that you were created by His hand for a very specific purpose. Scripture is overflowing with exactly that kind of love and promise. Just rest for a moment and consider these:

I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.
Before you were born I set you apart
and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5

I will be your God throughout your lifetime; until your hair is white with age.
I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.
Isaiah 46:4

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand.
Psalm 139:17-18

There is so much more, my friends – so much more. The Bible is a veritable love letter, written by God and addressed to you. These few scriptures aren’t even the tip of the iceberg. I would have to type for days to even put a dent in explaining how much the Lord adores you. But with every promise you read and discover, your side of the fence and your grass will be just as green and lush as you dream of. Not because the day-dream fairies sneak in and re-landscape for you, but because the Word of God nourishes and fertilizes the life you already have.

Thank You, Lord, for helping me to realize that my life is exactly the one You chose for me. When I feel tired, bored, or overwhelmed, please remind me that I’m not tending to my life on my own. You are always there, ever present, offering support, guidance, and love. Please nudge me back to Your promises any time I start to lose my focus. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

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