Leverage Your Life
By Josh Barrick
If you are reading this post, that means you're still alive and breathing. God is not done using you on this earth. He has a purpose for you that is far greater than yourself. He wants to use you in ways you never dreamed possible for His glory. God has people for you to reach with the gospel and the love of Jesus that no one else can touch.
You are uniquely gifted. Your talents, passions, hobbies, trials, failures, pain- everything that makes up your life- can be leveraged to point people to Jesus. God doesn't waste anything that you have gone through in life. He has handcrafted and prepared you for a time such as this to make a difference in your generation.
What if we told you that YOU were meant to have a ministry?
What if you changed the way you thought about ministry?
What if we said that your life is your ministry?
What if the ministry God has given to you to help someone go from death to life was something you already had, something you were already doing, or something you were already passionate about? What if it was something that came naturally to you? Often the supernatural starts with what comes naturally. Just add God's power, and BAM- now it's a way to help people meet Jesus.
What if your ministry was...
Your Ability to Fish (Take people fishing and talk to them about what God has done for you while having fun.)
Your Cooking Skills (Invite people over for dinner and break down faith barriers by being interested in them.)
Your Boat (Entertain teenagers and give them an option for good clean fun.)
Your Past Addiction (Help someone else a few steps behind you on your journey to freedom.)
Your Car (Give people rides to the grocery store or church)
Your Business Knowledge (Help young adults get started in life)
Your Story (Whether it is written, spoken, or shared online)
For our family, our pain became our ministry. Our brokenness became something we could leverage to relate to others. Everyone is broken. Everyone needs some kind of healing. Our tragedy gave us the perspective and opportunity to humbly speak into the lives of others going through their darkest days and point them to the healing power of Jesus.
Each of you already has something- a hobby, skill, talent, habit-something you own, something you've been through, something you care about that you could use to tell someone the message of God's love. You don't have to change careers, start a non-profit, or move to another country; you just have to start where you are, as you are, leveraging what you have already.
Will you leverage your life for eternity?
Why Should I Forgive?
By Jen Barrick
The drunk driver changed my life forever. He took a lot of things from me. He took my teenage years from me. He gave me a brain injury, and left me in a lot of pain. If you have been hurt by someone, you know that forgiveness is really hard. You can’t do it in your own strength. I had to pray and ask God to help me to forgive.
The reason I wanted to forgive was because I wanted to be free. I didn’t want anything to grow into bitterness and hinder my purpose. I didn’t want anything or anyone to consume my thoughts, but Jesus. Before I chose forgiveness, the drunk driver could hurt me emotionally again and again by controlling my thoughts. After I forgave, I finally felt free to use my story to make a difference in the world.
One thing that helps me is to visualize taking the drunk driver “off of my hook” and putting him on God’s hook. I no longer expect him to pay for what he did to me. I have given him to God. He’s on God’s hook. Jesus paid for what he did to me when he died on the cross.
Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” I had to remember all the times that God had forgiven me and given me grace. Knowing that I was forgiven, helped me make the choice to forgive. If you have never asked Jesus to forgive you, it will probably be impossible for you to forgive. You need His unlimited love and mercy to fix your heart before you can offer forgiveness to someone else.
Another thing that helped me was praying daily for the drunk driver. Bitterness cannot grow while you are praying for someone. When we don’t forgive, bitterness spreads in our hearts like a toxin. I wanted to be free of that, so I started to pray for my offender and asked Jesus to helped me forgive him.
in my situation, my offender was not physically able to say he was sorry or fix what he had done to me. He is still more injured than me. I decided to write him a letter and let him off my hook. I still have never talked to him, but I am free. Forgiveness does not mean that everything gets fixed perfectly. Forgiveness means that you are free to receive all the love and hope God has for you. One day everything will get fixed perfectly in heaven where there is no more sorrow or pain. Until then, we have forgiveness.
The Gift of Pain
Linda Barrick
My husband, Andy, has a history of prostate cancer in his family, but he hadn’t had a checkup in years. He insisted he was feeling pretty good, so it was a miracle that I convinced him to go to the doctor to have blood work. When the results came back, we were shocked to find out that he had prostate cancer and needed immediate treatment. We almost caught it too late because Andy didn’t have any pain. If we’d waited a month or two longer, the cancer could have breached the prostate and spread throughout his body.
I’m typing this through tears because I’m so thankful for God’s grace and mercy. I wish Andy had had some pain so that we could have discovered the cancer sooner. Pain tells us there’s a problem. It’s God’s way of letting us know that something is wrong and it’s time to take action. It’s a warning sign to protect us from greater danger. A signal that it’s time to do some deeper investigation. Unfortunately, we can be tempted to think of pain as a punishment or a curse.
After all, God promises no more pain or tears in heaven, so it would be easy to conclude that pain is bad. But what if we thought of pain as a gift? God knit the experience of pain into the fabric of human- to give us warning signals, to keep us running back to Him, and to get us to admit that we need help. (That’s why we won’t need it any longer in heaven!) Pain leads us back to God’s protective boundaries. Psalm 119:71 says it this way: “It was good for me to be afflicted so thatI might learn your decrees.” Nothing gets our attention quite like pain.
If you’ve ever gone to the doctor because you’ve been in pain, you know that the first step in any healing process is identifying what hurts and why. If we’re to be healed, we have to get to the root of what’s wrong. In essence, pain is the beginning of healing. Healing may not mean the pain goes away entirely. It may mean that it grows into a purpose. Either way, pain is a gift. It’s meant to keep us from further harm. The problem is that we get so focused on pain as “a pain,” we fail to see how it can actually help us.
I live with chronic pain. Maybe you do too. Each morning when I wake up and feel the nerve pain in my left hand and foot, I’m very aware of how much I need Jesus to get through the day. The truth is that the more pain I have, the more I talk to Jesus. Many days I pray, “Lord Jesus, please come to my rescue. Fill me with Your strength and courage today.”
Pain is also what leads us to seek healing.
Your pain matters. It matters to God, and it matters to me.
Yet we can be tempted to manage our pain by minimizing it. We convince ourselves, I can handle it. I’m fine. It will go away eventually. If you were the oldest sibling in your family and one of your parents died, you might have had to bury your pain to hold the family together. If your husband’s porn addiction or affair is crushing your heart, you might minimize your pain by reason- ing that many marriages face the same challenges. Or you might minimize the loss of a father because your single mom did a great job raising you. But when you minimize your pain, you actually give it more power.
Ignoring pain is not strength. It leads to greater injury. Though our bodies have been exquisitely designed, our wounds need attention and care.
New Blog!
Hello Hope Out Loud Family!
Welcome to Hope Out Loud’s new blog! We will be posting a variety of things on here with the hope that it will help you navigate your every day situations as well as overcome the painful situations we all experience in this life. We will be talking about the lessons we learned through our miracle story, how to navigate the lies of the enemy, how to walk in power of the Holy Spirit, how to leverage your life for eternity, and just other posts that will prayerfully bring hope to your heart.
We want you to know that you are not alone. We are here for you, and we want to help walk with you through this life. We need each other. When we say “Hope Out Loud Family” we mean it. You are family now, which means we have your back. We are excited walk through this life with you by our side. May we both continue help each other learn how to live and love like Jesus!
Love,
The Barrick Family
Hello Hope Out Loud Family!
Welcome to Hope Out Loud’s new blog! We will be posting a variety of things on here with the hope that it will help you navigate your every day situations as well as overcome the painful situations we all experience in this life. We will be talking about the lessons we learned through our miracle story, how to navigate the lies of the enemy, how to walk in power of the Holy Spirit, how to leverage your life for eternity, and just other posts that will prayerfully bring hope to your heart.
We want you to know that you are not alone. We are here for you, and we want to help walk with you through this life. We need each other. When we say “Hope Out Loud Family” we mean it. You are family now, which means we have your back. We are excited walk through this life with you by our side. May we both continue help each other learn how to live and love like Jesus!
Love,
The Barrick Family