Stroke Survivor Blog

If you have had a stroke, you may be wondering why it happened to you instead of someone who deserves it.  As a result, you may have a hard time believing that God truly loves you. Do you have questions like:

If God loves me, why did I have a stroke?  Why did this happen to me instead of to some murderer?  Is God punishing me?

These are hard questions and I don’t have any pat answer. But I can tell you this…God still loves you, and he has a plan for your life. He has not cast you away because of your disability. He wants to use you as you trust in HIS ability.

It is not because of our own merits or good deeds that God loves us. If that were so, we could work our way into good standing with him. Our own righteousness is as filthy rags to God. None of us are good enough. All of us deserve God’s wrath and punishment, but it was by God’s great love and mercy that he has embraced us.

Read what the Message Bible says:

“You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.  Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! “  (Ephesians 2:2-5)

You see, Jesus is our Righteousness. When we put our trust in him, confess our sins and turn away (repent) from them before God, we become righteous before God. Jesus Christ–God’s Son, who was completely sinless, took our punishment and the wrath of God for sin upon himself. He offered up his life as a living sacrifice so we could be freed from our sin. Through him we become spiritually alive. He comes to dwell in our hearts by his Spirit, and  he transforms us and gives us a desire to please God.

This work is done on the inside of us, so even though we may look the same on the outside, our spiritual hearts are brand new like a newborn baby…with no past or sin. That’s the way God sees us.  We are spiritually born again. When God looks upon us, he sees us just as righteous as his Son Jesus Christ.

God loves us so much that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and took God’s punishment for our sin so we could be in right standing with him. For more information, read How to Truly Know God.

As to why you or a loved one had a stroke, I have no answer. But I can tell you this…the plan that God has for you is a plan to prosper you and not to harm you; a plan to give you hope and a future.

My prayer is that the following scriptures will seal the deal for you…that you may know beyond a doubt how much God loves you. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Blessings,

Kathy

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Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies (Psalm 36:5).

How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings (Psalm 36:7).

Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love (Psalm 48:9).

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever (Psalm 52:8).

But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness (Psalm 86:15).

Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever (Psalm 136:26).

As a father loves and pities his children, so the Lord loves and pities those who fear Him [with reverence, worship, and awe]. (Psalm 103:13)

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends John 15:13).

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love (John 15:9).

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:4-5).

Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:2).

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:4-5).

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.( Romans 5: 5 AMP)

But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us. (Romans 5: 8 AMP)

For whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights. (Proverbs 3: 12 AMP)

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him. (Hosea 14:4 KJV)

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17 KJV)

And I will sow her for Myself anew in the land, and I will have love, pity, and mercy for her who had not obtained love, pity, and mercy; and I will say to those who were not My people, You are My people, and they shall say, You are my God!  (Hosea 2: 23 AMP)

[That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! (Ephesians 3: 19 AMP)

Father’s Love Letter

My Child ~
You may not know me, but I know everything about you ~ Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up ~ Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways ~ Psalm 139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered ~ Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image ~ Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being ~ Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring ~ Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived ~ Jeremiah 1:4-5
I chose you when I planned creation ~ Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book ~ Psalm 139:15-16
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live ~ Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made ~ Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother’s womb ~ Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born ~ Psalm 71:6
I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me ~ John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love ~ 1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you ~ 1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your father ~ 1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could ~ Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father ~ Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand ~ James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs ~ Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope ~ Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love ~ Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore ~ Psalm 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing ~ Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you ~ Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession ~ Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul ~ Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things ~ Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me ~ Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart ~ Psalm 37:4
For it is I who gave you those desires ~ Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine ~ Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager ~ 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles ~ 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you ~ Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart ~ Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes ~ Revelation 21:3-4
And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth ~ Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus ~ John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed ~ John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being ~ Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you ~ Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins ~ 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled ~ 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you ~ 1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love ~ Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me ~ 1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again ~ Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen ~ Luke 15:7
I have always been Father, and will always be Father ~ Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is ~ Will you be my child? ~ John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you ~ Luke 15:11-32

Love, Your Dad, Almighty God

My Prayer:

I pray, Father, that out of your glorious riches you may strengthen me with power through your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within me, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. [Adapted from Ephesians 3:16-21]

Father’s Love Letter used by permission Father Heart Communications Copyright 1999-2009 www.FathersLoveLetter.com