Iron Rose Sister Ministries

Written by Tony Brizendine, husband of Brenda and volunteer with Iron Rose Sister Ministries

I can remember the excitement I felt as if it were yesterday. Brenda and I were picking out the paint colors, cabinets, carpet, and light fixtures for our new home. This is something we had prayed about for years and our dream was finally coming true. We received a phone call from our realtor while we were celebrating my birthday. He congratulated us on securing the property to build our new home on. I thought for sure this was God’s hand blessing us. We had already sold our previous home and were living in the basement of my parent’s house while waiting on our new home to be constructed. We also were pregnant with our daughter and were hoping the new home would be finished before she was born.

The months that followed seemed to contradict all of our excitement. The building of our home was delayed for several months due to a shortage of workers. By the time there were workers available, I received news that I was being laid off from my job. We ultimately had to pull out of building the house a few weeks before Brenda’s due date. I was crushed. No job, no house and a baby on the way. I asked myself over and over, “Why would a good God allow this to happen to us?” I felt angry and abandoned by God.

A few days after our daughter was born, I received a call from a former boss of mine. He invited me to apply for an open job with his new company. Within a week after his call and interviewing, I was employed again. My parents and younger sister helped us with our newborn daughter while we were living with them, which was a huge blessing for us. Two months later, our realtor called us and had a great home available for us to purchase that suited our needs perfectly. We were able to move into our house the weekend of my birthday, exactly 1 year after we had secured the property for the home we wanted to build.

After having some time to reflect, I realized that I was not putting God first. In that season, I had become selfish and shortsighted. I didn’t see God as my provider. I saw myself and my job as my provider instead of Him. He is the Great “I AM” and as Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” God is not interested in just granting the desires of our heart, He wants our whole heart. While we see the surface level things, He can see from a much higher level than we can.

While I was very grateful to God for restoring my employment and helping us through that season, I felt as though our dream was lost. Yet three years later, God provided a home that was not far from where we originally wanted to build, and was constructed at the same time we lost our “dream house”. The selling owners took very good care of the house, which was far beyond our expectations, and left it in pristine condition. It was as if God had these people taking care of it for us while He waited for the right time to deliver it.

God had seen what we needed on the surface level, but He wanted us to learn to see Him first, The One, The Whole. Thanks for letting me share this reminder to keep our eyes fixed on the I AM.

The Good Shepherd leads His sheep beside still waters. He restores their souls. He leads them in paths of righteousness. But those paths of righteousness are not always smooth. Walking with God may even be difficult, at times.

As Kid President put it, when you take the road less traveled, it is HARD. There are stones and thorns; it is not easy. And as he states in this video, which I often quote, “Not cool, Robert Frost!” The poem by Robert Frost, included below, is a picturesque description of what God first described in Matthew 7:13-14.

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matt. 7:13-14)

Our first choice would not be a path that we know is more difficult. Yet I would rather walk with God through challenging times than walk alone on a smooth path.

The same God that leads us beside still waters also accompanies us through the valley of the shadow of death. We need not fear. He is our comfort.

Think back over your time of walking with God... we can see how He never left us, no matter how many times we stumbled or fell. We grow through the hard times. And our choice to continue to walk with Him makes all the difference.

Lord, direct my path beside still waters, please. But if I must traverse a valley or survive a defeat, endure a hardship or face my enemies, may I always remember how You, the Good Shepherd, faithfully walk with me on the road less traveled. And You have made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken/Less Traveled, by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Written by Johana Batres, Iron Rose Sister Ministries volunteer

A year after I got married, my husband lost his job. I trusted that my husband and his good academic preparation would help him find a new job. What I earned was enough to cover the basic needs of the house. God wanted my husband to get closer to Him, so he put his talent into the service of His work. Eight months passed, long and distressing, but we never lacked God’s provision. We always had food and medicine. We were about to lose our house, and on one occasion they cut the electricity service. It is sad to remember those moments, but the most beautiful thing is that God was always there as our Provider, until, finally, my husband found a new job!

Why did I want to share this with you? Because in this world, we can only survive with provisions that come from Above. At that time, I learned that my trust must be placed in God rather than in well-prepared people. My husband started to serve in God’s work and to work with the youth group.

God, the Creator of the universe, our All in All, is the One who provides all that we need. Prayer is, for us, the important method to connect us with God.

Jesus urges us to pray, “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one’" (Matthew 6:9-13).

‬At that time, bread was the basic food and it represented all the needs of the people. In the same way, besides physical needs, Jesus teaches us to pray for everything: comfort, health, encouragement and wisdom, among other things.

What is your need today? Pray to the Lord... “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Psalm 145:18).

Prayer is the voice of faith of those who trust that God will provide what is necessary.

God bless you!

Walking in the light as He is in the light...

The light walk can look heavy, but His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:30).
The light walk is a life of transparency, sincerity, and honesty.

Recently, some Christian friends have fallen into the trap of addicting sin. These addictions and affairs are not God’s will for their lives, nor for the lives of their family and friends. However, even when confronted with the truth of their struggles, their first tendency is to hide. They want no one to know, not out of shame that leads to repentance, but rather because they have embraced the darkness. Only God can redeem these tragically sad situations. And so, we pray.

Exposure to the light allows for healing and growth.

Through faith, God offers the opportunity to repent and transform a life.
Only fear can grow in the darkness. Perfect love drives out fear.
Light shines and cuts through the darkness, even the flicker of a small candle of hope.
Faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.

We love those who are hurting. We love the person, even when we despise the sin and darkness that has consumed their lives. And we recognize the temptations of darkness in our own lives.

The “light walk” does not mean that we walk perfectly, but it does mean that we choose to walk with Him who is perfect, the One who is the light (1 John 1:7-9).

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

As we imperfect people navigate the light walk, and invite others to join us, the path is not always clear. Yes, we are promised that God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Ps. 119:105), yet the “light walk” is not always fully illuminated. We are called to walk by faith and not by sight (1 Cor. 5:7).

I pray that you step into the light, even when it implies painful repentance.
I pray that you embrace the light, even when the light walk feels heavy.
I prat that you remain in the light, even when the path seems unclear.

May we all walk in the light as He is the light, walking by faith, not by sight.

#IronRoseSister #walkwithGod #inthelight #faithhopelove

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” I’m not sure where or when I first heard that expression, but I know I was very young.

But what is the difference between success and failure? Isn’t failure merely a step on the road toward doing things better the next time?

A baby does not run a marathon immediately after exiting the womb. She falls down many times while learning to walk and later, to run.
An entrepreneur does not create a successful business without making a few rookie mistakes along the way.

Life is filled with failures. We are not going to do everything perfectly.

And these failures can feel like thorns that we wish could be removed. We focus on the negative aspects of those failures instead of recognizing the value they bring to our growth in our walk with God.

I am not talking about failure in the sense of continuous sin that we should repent from and allow God’s transformation to remove from our lives.

Rather, failure is a mistake along the way. We were walking in the light, but we tripped up or stumbled. Our best effort wasn’t quite good enough. We would’ve done it better if...

Yet, the thorns of failure can be a blessing. Just as thorns protect the rose and a part of its growth process, our blessed thorns of failure can protect us from pride and other sins that entice us.

I invite you to consider four blessings from the thorns of failure:

1. Failure makes us compassionate.
Guess what? No one else gets it all right either! We all have different gifts, talents, interests, and passions. It is okay to not be good at everything. We value other people’s contributions when we recognize their strengths and our weaknesses. We more easily forgive when we realize all we have been forgiven (Matt. 18).

2. Failure helps us learn.
Alfred asked master Bruce, also known as Batman, “Why do we fall?” The answer: “So that we can learn to get up again.”
Onesimus experienced this when Paul recommended him to his former owners after having been useless to them previously (Philemon). Onesimus had learned from his mistakes and grew, as a person, a servant, and a Christian.

3. Failure is only one chapter in the book of life.
“One should not judge the book of someone’s life by the chapter just walked into.”
God is a God of forgiveness and redemption. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. And He does not look at us through the lens of our failures, but rather through the redeeming blood of His Son. Our identity is not that of sinners, but as redeemed children of the Father. Yes, Peter betrayed Jesus, but that was not what defined him, because...

4. God is bigger than any failure.
The book of Genesis (or really the entire Bible) can aptly be subtitled “God specializes in working through failures.” He is best glorified through our shortcomings, our inabilities, and our missteps. He longs for us to ask for help in our weakness, for then it is His strength we rely on (2 Cor. 12:9).

Today, as we close out the month looking at our #walkwithGod, I encourage you to take a moment to thank Him for the blessed thorns of failure. And also, to take time to share in the Common Threads with a Christian sister, an Iron Rose Sister. Even if the failure you wish to remove is a sin, don’t let it define you. God is the God of second chances... Just ask Paul.

A dear Cuban friend and Christian sister passed away over the weekend from cancer. Also, over the weekend, a 102-year-old faithful Venezuelan Christian sister completed her journey here on earth. Both women are at peace, with no more suffering.

And on Saturday, we celebrated the new birth of Micaela, a 94-year-old in El Salvador!

Each of these women is an excellent reflection of our theme this month: Walking with God.

Josefina was a faithful follower of God for many years. The adopted “abuela” of many in the San Cristobal Church of Christ in Venezuela, she was blessed to meet great grandchildren who are being raised in Christian families by servants of the Lord’s church (grandsons) and their wives. I had the blessing of meeting her and calling her a friend. Her legacy of faith continues, not just in her family, but with everyone whose lives she touched and encouraged. Nothing hindered her commitment to daily prayer and Bible reading. Her walk was long and exemplary.

Mercedes came to Christ less than two years ago, but her Christian walk was no less exemplary. A neighbor in her Cuban town invited her to church and Mercedes shared more of her story in a previous blog post. The joy and strength she found in the Lord were a testimony to many as she battled cancer. As a friend shared in a recent email, quoting Mercedes, “like Michelle said when she was here in August last year, “We can be joyful in trials!”” Christ gave her the strength to call her mom to forgive her from past hurts. Her constant prayer was for the salvation of her children and her family, and that many other women would come to know God’s saving grace.

Micaela’s walk is just beginning. Her daughter, Dilsia, who now stays home, caring for her mother, helped facilitate my invitation for the national women’s event in San Salvador, El Salvador, at the end of August. We rejoice with the angels in Micaela’s decision to walk with God the rest of her days.

Josefina’s walk was long and faithful, a constant encouragement to others.
Mercedes’ walk was short and inspiring, a light to those who knew her.
Micaela’s walk reminds us that it is never too late to choose to walk with God.

No matter where you are in your walk with God, may you be encouraged by these women and the hope of walking with God through all eternity.

#IronRoseSister #walkwithGod #legacies

Walking with God through the Most Difficult Moments

My name is Carole Gastineau. I am married to Zane Gastineau and we live in Searcy, Arkansas. We have two children. Our youngest child, our daughter, is married and lives in Kansas. Our oldest child is our son, Isaac. Isaac is no longer with us. On April 28, 2012, Isaac died from a rare form of Leukemia. He was diagnosed in October of 2011 and he died in April 2012.

That one event has defined my walk with God, hard. This was not my first experience of losing someone I love to cancer. In June 1991, my father died from cancer. I was 7 months pregnant with my daughter when my father died. My dad only lived three months after being diagnosed with cancer. My walk with God has been hard at times.

When my son was diagnosis with cancer, my first thought was “God, I have already had my turn with losing someone to cancer. Why, do I have to do this again?” I was in shock. We took Isaac to M.D. Anderson in Houston, TX, where Isaac and I lived while he went through the chemotherapy. My husband would come every week and stayed with us 4 days and then he flew back to Searcy and worked 3 days. My daughter was married and in college and she came every weekend that she could. This was our family life for 7 months.

Before this life-changing event, life was good. My husband and I were both raised in the church of Christ. We raised our children to be active and faithful members in the church of Christ. We praised God for our children and their decisions to remain faithful to Him. We were and still are a close family. We lived, loved and played together. We had fun in our family. We enjoyed being around each other (granted we did raise teenagers and sometimes they didn’t like each other or us) but overall we loved each other deeply.

I guess you would say we were a typical family, enjoying life, loving our church family and watching our children grow up and all of us growing in our faith. Then that October day came, when Isaac was diagnosed with cancer and my life changed forever.
On Monday, April 22, 2012, Isaac was in the hospital and the week before we didn’t know if Isaac would live through the week. He had been in ICU in a coma, but he pulled out of it and we were moved back to a regular room.

That Monday morning, I woke up and took my husband to the airport so he could return to Searcy. I returned to the hospital and around 8:00 a.m. the doctor came to Isaac’s room and he told me “I promised you that I would come to you and tell you when there was not anything else we could do for your son and that you needed to take your son home.” I had to then wait for my husband’s plane to land in Little Rock so that I could call him and tell him he needed to come back to Houston so we could take our son home to die. I was all alone in Houston, no one to sit with me, only me and God.

My husband couldn’t return until Tuesday, so I spent the day holding Isaac and crying because I knew my time with him was quickly coming to an end. I continued to pray for a miracle. I asked God again and again to heal Isaac.

Then I remembered the scripture in Isaiah 57:1, “The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.” I then could say to God, “If there is a future evil that may cause Isaac to lose his faith, then by all means, take Isaac now because I know his heart belongs to God.”

I wrote a blog while Isaac was sick, and I wrote every day and I ended it by saying God is good, God is always good no matter what and God is faithful to all of His promises. That is what I hung onto every day. I knew God loved me and He loved Isaac and God would do what was best for us.

I was thankful for the verse from Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” I could do that. I could take on each day and do what Micah 6:8 said to do.

I was blessed to be with Isaac every day for 7 months. Isaac had many favorite verses, but the one verse that sticks out is Proverbs 16:9 “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” That verse sticks out because Isaac struggled with that verse and he and I spent a lot of time talking about that verse. Many precious conversations were started between Isaac and myself based on that verse. But, we never stayed focused on that one verse, he would talk about God’s promises and he would talk about heaven. Those are precious conversations that I hold close to my heart.

It would not be fair for you to get the impression that I walked through this with strong faith and never wavered. I did waver. I struggled daily with the question “Why doesn’t God answer my prayer to heal Isaac?” I know that God heals people! I had witnessed people being healed and doctors saying, “We can’t explain what happened, but he/she is healed.” Why wouldn’t God answer my prayer? And my answer is I don’t know. I still struggle with that question.

After Isaac died, I was looking for a way to draw me back into God’s Word. I had discovered Bible journaling on Pinterest. That is drawing pictures to illustrate scriptures or stories that are in the Bible. It is a way to record your feelings in your Bible or to record your feelings in a journal. So, I committed Bible journaling a scripture every day during the month of June. I did it! And it did draw me back into God’s Word. It also allowed me to communicate, with God about how I was feeling spiritually, through drawing, writing and coloring. And, because I was in God’s Word, God spoke back to me.

Isaac was 24 when he died. He was in the Army National Guard. He was attending Harding University and had finally decided what he wanted to major in. Isaac had dreams about how he was going to serve God. All that ended on April 28, 2012.

My life will never be the same. Part of me died when my precious Isaac died. But I can still say without a shadow of a doubt that God is good, God is good no matter what and God is faithful to all of His promises.

Thanks for listening to part of Isaac´s story, about his walk with God, and some about my own walk with God, as well.

#IronRoseSister #walkwithGod #Godisgood