Author Archives

Norma L. Brumbaugh

Inspirational Writer, Author, and Speaker

PO Box 6432, Chico, CA 95927
nlbrumbaugh@gmail.com

Keep a smile in your heart.

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That Secret Place, Part 1 of 3

This is Part 1 of an introduction to a soon-to-be book, Lord willing, THAT SECRET PLACE: Time Alone with God in Silent Sacred Space: Awaken Your Spiritual Life to Close Relationship with God.

Woe or Weal?

“He will rejoice over you with singing.” -Zephaniah 3:17

GOD IS IN CONTROL and we are not. Like clay being molded by the potter on the potter’s wheel, God is shaping us into the people we were always meant to be. That is a good thing. We do not anticipate where our spiritual journey will take us nor the ways in which God will teach or interrupt us.

God has a way of stripping away much of what we think is important, gets our attention, then gets down to the business of doing it. He is a good God. Thanks for the reminder. Problem is, we are not liking it much. But He has our attention. Then God goes about rebuilding our lives from the ground up.

Thus, God begins a new work in us.

I am a simple messenger with a bigger-than-me sized message. A beauty is present in the gifts God offers to those who desire to seek Him to know Him. Spiritual joys come in that secret place. For greater-than-me sized reasons, I am both focused and driven to share with others in the faith community what I have learned.

God wants to be known.

We, as God’s beloved, can know our Beloved in intimate relationship. This is a journey of many steps, of many emotions, of many long hours, of many tears and of many joys. Any who make this journey will enter as child and exit as a child, but the child will know wonder, know healing, know joy, know peace, know contentment, and by journey’s end, will know faith of the richest kind.

Each step is both beautiful and painful, like how joy and happiness are noticed and appreciated after angst and suffering. A diamond’s brilliance is released through precision cuts to the stone, exacted to reveal its spectacular beauty. So it is with us. God creates masterpieces. We get to be part of that.

Adversity and joys are intertwined in this process of becoming free and whole. We are diamonds in the rough. God’s refining, defining, and shining Life is at work in us at His table of grace.  We emerge a different, lovelier person that we were before we got to know Him on this journey of journeys that is transforming our life.

Getting there is a process one can’t quite define, but it is authentic.

My joy is in God and my satisfaction is in my relationship with Him. True joy and happiness originate in the Beloved as He imparts life-giving Substance to our lives. Those who go through what my former pastor termed, a “crucifixion experience,”–where they die to self and come alive to God–are no longer the same as they were before.

They have met with Jesus.

Take a moment and let that sink in. They have met with Jesus. They met Jesus. They were shaken, changed, and made fully alive. They emerge awakened, transformed, and humbled. Soon they come to realize their steps are being redirected by God. They are now on a new path.

Such was true for me. I knew the crushing and brokenness and discouragement. And I knew and experienced the flip side; the reviving, and healing, and renewing, and joining, and rejoicing. I can never be as I used to be. I am forever changed. God has been teaching, healing, and refining me ever since. The gain is worth the pain.

God met me where I was at, showed me He was in it, and changed my life.

You can meet with God.

Being alone with God in times set aside to seek Him with heart, mind, and soul, begins an insightful journey to greater spiritual awareness and tender closeness with God. I sought God. He responded. My journey opened a path into the divine mystery of “God with us.” This book came into being because of my times in the stillness alone with God

Welcome to that secret place.

. . .

POWER IN PRAISE: How the Spiritual Dynamic of Praise Revolutionizes Lives! by Merlin R. Carothers (Foundation of Praise, 1980)

I have to say this book nailed it. I absorbed it while I read a section at a time. I wanted its message to go straight to my heart. And it did, really did. I have taken “praise” to heart. The challenge presented is to give praise in all things, both good and bad. I’m not used to thinking that way. To be honest, it seems backwards and a little daunting, perhaps. On the first page the statement is made: “Power … is released when we begin to praise God for everything in our lives instead of pleading with Him to change the circumstances that displease us.” Story after story shows where someone had a difficult circumstance they praised God for and continued to praise God for. Then it got interesting. The person they were giving praise for… would have a change of heart or the circumstance would have a positive turn around. I took up the challenge. I started implementing praise in my thoughts, prayers, and activities. To be honest, I felt some resistance to doing this. Already my views are changing concerning troubling issues. This book is packed full of verses that I’m highlighting. I intend to read these verses often to impress them in my thinking. Merlin Carothers also wrote “Prison to Praise,” which is distributed in prisons. I’m sure it is every bit as beneficial as this book.