Author: Judy Glasser

Life is a journey. Sometimes I'm coasting downhill and, other times, its a tough road uphill. My journey has been straight uphill since May 19, 2016 when my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix Police Officer was killed in the line of duty. When my life and dreams blew apart, I only had one option - to hold on tightly to my Rock, my Father God. I have a new understanding of just how short life is and how important it is to take loving each other seriously. God is love and all love comes from him. I have seen love do supernatural things since my son was killed. I have published a book, "Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love." about my tough and painful journey since my son was killed. You can order it from Amazon or you can get an autographed copy by contacting me on messenger. I am sharing some of my experiences as a survivor of a line of duty death in MYFAMILYBLEEDSBLUE.COM. Please feel free to share these blogs with anyone you know who might find them helpful. My other blog - JOURNEYTOWARDSTHETRUTH.COM - has been a work of love for many years as I read through the Chronological Daily Bible each year and share what I hear from God when he stops me. I am inviting you to come along on one or both of my journeys. Please share as often as you'd like. Thanks so much for reading!

Lost in the Weeds

On By Judy GlasserIn March2 Comments

Going in the same direction.

Moving forward together.

Shared goals.

Unity.

And it feels good when I’ve got it, doesn’t it?

But unity isn’t an easy thing to achieve.

There is compromise – it doesn’t have to be all my way.  I need to take a look from other people’s perspective – there are other valid opinions.

Prioritizing – is it worth creating an issue?  Wisdom = losing a lot of battles in order to win the war.

And – if this is a battle that needs to happen – much planning and selflessness needs to be included in figuring out how to bring up the issue.  Emotions stay out of it because they cause me to over-react and say things that aren’t helpful.  Just because something is true doesn’t mean that I can say it anytime I want to.  The timing of discussions on difficult issues can determine success or failure.

I can get lost in the weeds.  Details that don’t really matter can derail me when I’m trying to discuss difficult issues, causing any forward movement to stop.  Sometimes I get so lost that I actually move backwards.  Very disappointing!  I know you’ve been there, too.

So unity is not easy to achieve but it’s very much worth the effort.  We read about the joy the Israelites experienced in Joshua 22 when they avoided some serious conflict between groups merely by talking with each other.  One group thought the other group was rebelling while the 2nd group thought the first group was going to try to make an issue of where they were living in the future.  During their discussion, they realized that they worshipped the same God and they were on the same page.

Unity.

We could use more of it, right?  Where do we get more unity?

God.

As my relationship with God grows, he is able to give me the wisdom and perspective I need to bring more unity into my life – more unity with my husband and family and more unity with my church family.

When we are all looking to God for direction and insight, God provides unity.  It’s his desire for us to live peacefully together and live a life full of joy.

In him, we are unified.

And we find joy.

Thank you, Abba Father.

 

Sold Out!

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

What would you sell your life for?

It’s a great question because sometimes we dedicate our lives to things that just aren’t worth it.

We can sell our lives to making money and spending it.  But everything we buy gets old, breaks and requires more money to fix it up or replace it.

Our ‘stuff’ will always disappoint us.

We can sell our lives to work and accomplishments.  We may love it but, someday, that all goes away.  We get fired, laid off or we just get old.  I recently retired which meant giving up a nice paycheck and a lot of rewards and recognition.  I loved working and now I love being retired.  I’m glad I worked long and hard for over 34 years at something I loved to do.  Now I’m very happy to reclaim all of those hours in my week and move on to the next phase of my life.

We can sell our lives to relationships with our spouse, our children, our family and friends.  They are very important but they will also dissappoint us at times.  It’s a fact.  And they all will eventually pass away some very sad day.

In Joshua 8, Achan sold his life for a robe and some gold and silver.  It was too good to pass up.  So he didn’t, probably believing he would never get caught.  Not smart. He couldn’t hide from God.  After getting caught, he admitted his disobedience but that didn’t change the consequences. He lost his life for that ‘stuff’, ending up under a pile of rocks.

I don’t want to end up like that.

So I choose the path of obedience and faithfulness to God.

I choose to be ‘sold out’ to God.

And I’m 100% confident that it’s the right choice.

What is your choice?

I love you, Abba Father.

Control Freaks – Chill!

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Her home was demolished.

Everything she knew was gone.

Her city was burned down by foreigners.

All of her friends and neighbors were killed, only her family was saved.

Things didn’t look good for Rahab.

She and her family were still a live but every one and everything else from her life was gone.  Crushed.  Burned.  Now she had to live in the enemy’s camp.  What good could possibly come from this situation?

Well, we know the rest of the story.  Rahab’s name would later show up in the lineage of Jesus!  She was Jesus’ great, great, too many greats to count, grandmother.

God had unbelievable plans for Rahab when he saved her from being destroyed as Jericho burned.  She didn’t know it.  I’m sure there were times as she started up a new life in the camp of her former enemies when she wondered why she was still alive.   Everyone else except her family was dead.  Everything that she had known before was gone.

Rahab had no way of knowing that God was going to bless all of creation through her lineage.

Just like I have no way of knowing what God is doing as I struggle through the twists and turns of life, trying to figure out how to transition from phase to phase.  Looking back, the pieces often make sense.  But it can be very hard to navigate through the maze of today.

I just don’t know.

But God does.  So I focus on him, trusting him to show me the way one day at a time.  Its often one step at a time.  Trying to control the world causes frustration and stress.  Trying to control even my little space in the world is impossible.

This last year of my life really proved this to me.  I ended up in so many places I never thought I would be – never wanted to be.  God is working good things out of the evil that is done.  I am already seeing some of the good things but there will be many more that I will never see.

Like Rahab.

So I will trust you, Abba Father.

 

Watch Closely Now

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

I love it.

God is not limited by cultural rules.  He created justice, he is just and he acts justly.

Whenever we see God’s actions and directions not lining up with current culture, we need to take note of it.  We know that God is right and our culture is wrong in every one of these instances.  Sometimes it takes our culture thousands of years to catch up to what is right.

The historical account of Zelophehad’s daughters in Numbers 27 is one of my favorites.  We’ll call the Z’s daughters from now on  🙂

At that time in history, women were considered to be the property of men and most men had more than 1 wife.  When Z died without having any sons, Z’s five daughters asked to inherit his property.

What!?

That just wasn’t done.

Women didn’t inherit property.  They WERE property.

When Moses took this case to God, God directed him to give the property to the daughters as an inheritance.  He stipulated that they had to marry within their tribal clad so that the land stayed with in the family.  If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense since the land was physically divided by clans.  This kept everything organized as God had designed.

I bet there were many long and heated discussions by the male leaders of the families as they gathered around the campfire at night!  This story is only 4 paragraphs in the Bible but I’ll bet the arguments against doing this could fill up several scrolls if they had all been written down.

I’m sure the same concern came up that was discussed with King Xerxes later in the book of Esther.  If these women received this request now, they are just going to ask for more and more.  A dangerous trend was starting!  But we read that they made the right decision and obeyed.

It took thousands of years but – yes, women inherit and own property now.  As recently as the 1950’s women were generally considered not capable of inheriting and running large properties and businesses.  But way back in ancient times, God knew he had created women equal to men.  Different, but equal.  He set a spiritual leadership hierarchy in place that has everything to do with order and process and nothing to do with intelligence and aptitude.

And our culture has finally caught up to God’s truth….. in most cases.

Please help us live by your truth, Abba Father.

Everybody is Doing it……

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

But that doesn’t make it right.

Peer pressure can be a very strong influence in our lives and it can push us in a direction we don’t want to go.  It can give us ‘permission’ to do things that aren’t good for us, causing negative consequences to happen in our lives.

“Do not follow the crowd”.do-not-follow-the-crowd

God told the Israelites this thousands of years ago in Exodus 23.  And we have the same issue today.  When we see a lot of other people doing something, we can start to wander and think its ok.  All of these people can’t be wrong, can they?

Yes, they can be.

Yes, they are.

If I want to live a life of truth and integrity, I need to build my house on the Rock which is God.  He is the creator of truth.  He designed justice.  He knows everything.  The crowd has no effect on his right and wrong.

When I am in line with God, I am in line with how he created me to be.  I’m in line with ‘why’ I was created.  I was going to say that I’m in line with the universe but that sounds like the beginning of a song from the 60’s. 🙂

If I’m not building my house on the solid ground of God’s truth, it’s going to get washed away by the next storm.  A lot of the mess we see in our culture is the result of people’s houses getting washed away in the storms of their lives.  And there’s always another storm coming our way.

What is your life built on?

God’s truth?

Or the wavering, changing, untruth that defines our culture?

This is an important question for each of us to answer for ourselves.  It has eternal implications.

Thank you for your truth, Abba Father.

Justice For All

On By Judy GlasserIn March2 Comments

Equal Justice.

Due Process.

Our modern justice system was modeled after the laws which God gave Moses.   The culture at that time was filled with cruel kings who capriciously imposed evil and sub-human punishments upon their people.  The processes and procedures God set up brought a higher level of due process and equal justice than that culture had ever seen.

The Mosaic laws were meant to teach the value of life to the people and raise the level of ethical conduct within the Israelite nation.

One of the key words there is ‘ethical’ which means ‘how one should live’.  Our current culture has morphed that definition into ‘how I think I should live’ and ethics don’t mean anything with that definition.  When we lose a compass, any shared standard of ethics is also lost.  This explains a lot of the mess in our culture today.god-is-our-compass

Because our compass can only be one person – God.

He created us.  He knows how he designed it all to work.  He wants the best for us.  He is omnipotent – he can do anything.

There is nothing and no one else who knows us and loves us like God.

When I make him my compass, I am plugging into the Creator of the Universe.  It’s not what I think is right that matters.  What matters is what God thinks.

And so I read God’s word.  Study God’s word.  Memorize God’s word.  And I’m very serious about this journey towards the truth.

I’m very glad you are on this journey with me.

We love you, Abba Father.

 

So Undeserved

On By Judy GlasserIn February4 Comments

I have worked hard.

I have more than paid my dues.

I’ve planned and struggled and persevered.

I can feel like I’ve earned it – everything.  I deserve it.

But what I have really earned from our perfect and holy God is eternal separation from him.  My rebellion, sins and lack of so-underservedconsistency deserve condemnation by my Father God.  And you aren’t off the hook, either.  We share this tendency to sin and rebel, don’t we.

A re-enactment of Sodom and Gomorrah – that’s what we deserve.

But that’s not what God offers us.  He offers us salvation through this son, Jesus.  He offers us an unwarranted gift of grace and mercy.  He offers us unconditional love for today and unconditional love for all of eternity.

As I trust in Jesus to lead me through my life here on earth, I receive peace and joy and strength and purpose.  I am so undeserving of all of this.

In Deuteronomy 6, we read the list of things God was planning to give to the Israelites –

cities they did not build,

homes filled with good things they did not provide,

wells they had not dug,

vineyards they did not plant.

The list was long.

And Moses went on to tell the Israelites ‘when you eat and are satisfied, be careful you do not forget the Lord.’

I have a very long list of things that God has given me.  I know you also have a long list.

Let us be humbled by how undeserving we are.

Let us not forget our Father God who gives us everything we have.

The best and most important thing he gave us was Jesus – our salvation and our role-model for life here on earth.

Thank you, Abba Father.

Keep Watching…..

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Every morning,

looking….

What’s in store for me today?

Do I move?  Do I stay?bike-path

I’m imagining what it was like for the Israelites as they began their journey through the desert.  When the Cloud of Guidance covered the tabernacle, they stayed.  When the cloud lifted above the tent, the Israelites packed up and moved on.

There were times they stayed in the same place for months and other times when they were moving again the next morning.

Every morning, they would look to the tabernacle to determine their direction for that day.  Everybody could see it – not just the priests and the leaders.  God made this visible to each person – he wanted all of them to be able to see that he was the one leading them.

What would our lives be like if we had that clear guidance for each day?

I think God still wants us to look to him each day just like he asked the Israelites to do.

He wants me to look to him before I stay or go….

Before I agree to something….

When I’m trying to choose what words to say in a conversation about a difficult subject….

As I take steps forward on my journey.

Because I have to keep moving forward.  We all do.

And we’ll find what we’re looking for when we move forward with our eyes focused on God.

We’re watching you, Abba Father.

 

It’s A Struggle….

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

the journey..

the heartaches….

the joys…

the pain…

the uncertainty…the-struggle

the many twists and turns of life as the earth revolves each day.

You struggle…. I struggle….

We struggle just like the Israelites struggled on their journey of 40 years through the desert.  It’s one of the reasons why I like reading Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The Israelites battled unbelief,

lack of control,

wanting more than they had,

wandering away from God’s truth,

fear of the unknown,

self-centeredness and more.

Any of that sound familiar?

It’s a struggle.

But that struggle becomes easier when I keep my eyes focused on God.  His truth is the solid ground I stand on every day.  His love heals the hurt in my heart and fills the empty places.  His purposes fuel my efforts and give me strength.  His total control helps me give up mine.  His faithfulness that has no end reminds me to be faithful.

Yes, it’s a struggle.

I have a choice.  I can grow through the struggle or I can become bitter and stuck.

I choose to grow and move forward.

What are you choosing?

We love you, Abba Father.

Does It Make a Difference?

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Do I act differently?

Do different words come out of my mouth?

Do I look different?

Is there an obvious difference in my life – other than going to church – because I’m a Christ- follower?

There should be a difference – right?  It should be all different – how I act and speak and look.  God is in the process of transforming me  – a big religious word for this is sanctification.

Believing in God, trusting in Jesus and obeying the Holy Spirit’s promptings and guidance should change my life from what it would be without God.

I’m reading in Exodus that Moses’ face was radiant after he met with God.

What would it take for my face to radiate after meeting with God?  What about your face?

I know Moses actually went inside the tent and ‘met’ with God but don’t we also meeting-with-god‘meet’ with God every time we read and study his word?  We meet with him when we have a conversation with him in prayer.   And when we worship him.

What would it mean for us to genuinely radiate God’s love and mercy and truth in our lives?

Please open our eyes and our hearts, Abba Father.