Have you ever felt like your personal desires were leading you down a path you never imagined? My wife's journey, filled with unexpected pain and joy, serves as a poignant illustration of how personal ambitions can obstruct a higher calling. We discuss her initial motivations that led to her first marriage and the subsequent experiences that led to her finding Jesus. This detour led to her obtaining her true desire and divine purpose.
Modern society's quest for identity and morality leads us away from what is natural and good. We explore societal trends like DINKs (Double Income, No Kids) and contrast that with the fulfillment found in parenting, highlighting a movie where a career-driven woman finds unexpected joy through caring for a child. Along the way, we draw parallels to the biblical story of Babel and examine humanity's attempts to redefine itself, often resulting in self-destruction. With a mother’s compassion, we discuss complex issues such as plastic surgery, gender transition, and the moral implications of abortion. We reflect on the spiritual and societal consequences of defying God's divine order in creation, all the while emphasizing the need for empathy and understanding in addressing these sensitive topics.
How can we build and sustain meaningful communities that nurture our spiritual growth? In our conversation about local fellowships, we stress the importance of recognizing and amplifying each individual's talents and gifts. We share insights from her experience in a large Dallas church, where the sense of unity and inclusivity left a lasting impact. Yet, we also address the heartbreak of losing fellow members, underlining the necessity of intentional restoration, reconciliation, and fellowship. Through the metaphor of pruning a dying branch, we illustrate the importance of staying connected to God and each other, fostering a community where everyone thrives together.
Have you ever felt like your personal desires were leading you down a path you never imagined? My wife's journey, filled with unexpected pain and joy, serves as a poignant illustration of how personal ambitions can obstruct a higher calling. We discuss her initial motivations that led to her first marriage and the subsequent experiences that led to her finding Jesus. This detour led to her obtaining her true desire and divine purpose.
Modern society's quest for identity and morality leads us away from what is natural and good. We explore societal trends like DINKs (Double Income, No Kids) and contrast that with the fulfillment found in parenting, highlighting a movie where a career-driven woman finds unexpected joy through caring for a child. Along the way, we draw parallels to the biblical story of Babel and examine humanity's attempts to redefine itself, often resulting in self-destruction. With a mother’s compassion, we discuss complex issues such as plastic surgery, gender transition, and the moral implications of abortion. We reflect on the spiritual and societal consequences of defying God's divine order in creation, all the while emphasizing the need for empathy and understanding in addressing these sensitive topics.
How can we build and sustain meaningful communities that nurture our spiritual growth? In our conversation about local fellowships, we stress the importance of recognizing and amplifying each individual's talents and gifts. We share insights from her experience in a large Dallas church, where the sense of unity and inclusivity left a lasting impact. Yet, we also address the heartbreak of losing fellow members, underlining the necessity of intentional restoration, reconciliation, and fellowship. Through the metaphor of pruning a dying branch, we illustrate the importance of staying connected to God and each other, fostering a community where everyone thrives together.
May God bless you and make you prosperous in Him as you listen and obey His voice!
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
The vision received was that of blood cells traveling throughout the body, supplying the much-needed oxygen and other nutrients to the differing members of the body to fulfill their purpose. Once the blood cells are spent, they must return back to the heart to be refilled before being sent out again and fulfill their purpose and fulfill their purpose. So let me tell our audience what this has been like for me hearing all of this. Because if you make a podcast or if you make anything and you're trying to produce something maybe it's a video, maybe it's an audio you know you come up with ideas and you have those ideas and you kind of organize them and put them in a list in order so you can kind of walk your way through it and there's this logical progression.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
You know how we build up to the moment, and it's very hard to do with my wife because all I have to do is ask one single question because I'm trying to get somewhere, and then I get this whole litany of information that I didn't quite ask for. I wanted but I wanted in any series, to help all of you listeners be able to kind of understand the timing and and then what was learned in this important time and and how it continued on. You know. So she, she ended up just finishing, you know the whole story in one fail swoop. So I'm going to have to pause, I'm going to have to go back and kind of help her slow down. That's why I asked for do you want a break, do you want to take a breath? And she's like no, I'm on a roll. I was like okay. So I asked you, have you always desired to be a mother? To get back to the beginning and that was no, it wasn't.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
You, if I can kind of summarize a recap, you decided you wanted something for yourself. You saw something, you wanted it. I think of Eve seeing the fruit and desiring something and then taking the fruit and doing all of that and that sends you on a downward spiral, because you did what was right in your own eyes and I think you said nine years, nine years. And then when you got out of that, then the Lord spoke to you, but then it didn't come to fruition until seven years later. So we're talking about 16 years. That's a pretty nice chunk of your life. I mean, again, you didn't have God at the time, that kind of well, what do we expect? We expect, you know, the Eden for people who that are not godly. No, actually, we expect them to see a life that's outside of Eden. So it brings to my mind that you know we all have decisions to make, and it's wonderful if we are, if God raises up an environment that is going to foster godly direction, godly wisdom. You didn't have that, and so it's not a surprise that you made these decisions on your own to do these things. But when you sit back and realize and you look back, it's like wow, that took 16 years of my life and there was a lot of pain, there was a lot of suffering, there's a lot of anguish, but I was going to ask you back then to kind of build our way through it, and I think you've answered it.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
So I'm going to state the question and I think your testimony answers it Was there anything in particular in your life that caused you to want to be a mother, or was there something innate or inherent in you that caused the longing and the desire to be a mother? And I think what you've shared is that you went off on your own to do something, not really wanting to be a mother, just wanting to have a relationship, something that you could, I guess, depend upon, because maybe you didn't have that earlier on, being the only woman or, you know, woman child in the house except for your mom. And and then, after going through all of that pain and turmoil, you wanted a second chance, if I could say a second chance. I want to be a mother, the way that you're calling you know people to be a mother, and so I was going to ask you before we got to all of this point, because there's a lot of things that are going on in our society, in our state, and I thought I'd ask you, as a woman, what are your thoughts on dinks?
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Ah, she gave me the face. She doesn't know what dinks are. I don't Double income, no kids. Oh, they're putting out these messages people that refuse to have children, they're voluntary not having children and they're living off a double income and they're just living the high life. And how does that sit with you, based upon you being a woman, based on you being married, based on you having kids, and the message that they're trying to market basically to society in this dinks message double income, no kids I mean I.
Patricia Ruiz:
You know, Jay, that I'm not one to judge anybody in the decision that they make.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
If no, it's a woman. I want to know how is know? How does it speak to you, respond to you?
Patricia Ruiz:
It tells me there's a part of you that you're not going to have fulfilled, just developed in your life, that I believe the Lord created us all to be, and so I was smiling because and I cannot remember the name of the movie but there was a movie that I saw of a lady who was a businesswoman.
Patricia Ruiz:
She was a go-getter and she had the high life double income. They weren't married, they were living together and then something happened and a baby lands in her life and she doesn't know what to do with that baby, but her life starts changing.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Did she birth or somehow it just came to her?
Patricia Ruiz:
No, it was a long distance relative and she was the only surviving.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
To take care of her sister's baby.
Patricia Ruiz:
Yeah, and then it wasn't a sister and then, after you know, she was going to give the baby up, she couldn't. She got attached to the baby and I used to love that love. It's a chick flick, but I used to love that movie. It's Diane Keaton. Is the. Is the protagonist in it? Okay, because I. It reminds me of what happens when we make a decision that we want to do something. She used to say I'm a career woman and I'm, you know, I'm just as tough as anybody here. She was in a I don't know if it was a marketing oh, she made baby food yeah, that's really yeah.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Yeah, I remember what you're talking about.
Patricia Ruiz:
Oh, okay, yeah, and then she ended up making baby food, but she ended up. She ended up falling in love with the baby and at that point everything that she thought was important to her ended up started not being important. And I think the reason why I like it is because it reminds me of even my perspective. Once I started experiencing God and I started experiencing things the way I, the way the Lord developed in people, and again, they weren't perfect, they had their challenges, but I wanted, I longed for that. So I think He creates us with that longing. It just has to get woken up. So dink double income.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
I mean I guess I, you know, I, I can't relate to that because again, I pulled away from that world and it I don't, I don't, I, I talked well, I would think that you could probably relate to in some sense, because in because in your first marriage, that's well, that isn't one of us, because he wasn't working either.
Patricia Ruiz:
No, it was just a single income. Yeah Okay, it wasn't a double income, that'd be sink.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Single income, no kids. Yeah it wasn't Okay.
Patricia Ruiz:
But it was. It was and, even no matter what, my parents were traditional in the sense that they got married, they had children, they had the house. So, no matter what we want to say, that was in my head.
Patricia Ruiz:
That was a blueprint in my head and so you know. I mean there were a lot of other things, but the traditional part of it was there, so I don't know. Again, I don't like to judge or say anything about something, because if a person finds himself in that place, okay, go for it, I will pray for them that they find. I always want people to find the Lord and find fulfillment in the Lord, but I struggle to think that that will be a fulfilling thing forever, because what some people that are dinks end up doing is having dogs or cats or you know.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
And they are overly obsessed about them.
Patricia Ruiz:
Yeah, they're meeting the need in another way, right? Or I had a relative very I was very close to her who they she couldn't have children she does now have four children, but she couldn't have children and she they had ferrets and they were like that was, that was their family and I struggled with that. But, um, so I think that we sort of deceive ourselves and what we think is going to be fulfilling, because people fill that, that place with animals, pets, something else.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
So there's a space that they have that they don't discern what exactly it is. But they try to fill it with things of this world that seem to satisfy them naturally, superficially, but in the end, in the long run, that's not even really what they're looking for.
Patricia Ruiz:
Right. Obviously, it's the Lord Right.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
He's the only one that could fill that, but then when the Lord captures you like he captured you, all of a sudden new desires spring up.
Patricia Ruiz:
But I know that God had to capture that's a great word. He had to capture me. He had to get my attention. It had to come from Him, not from lectures, not from, not from other people telling me. It had to be God ministering to me and um, and persuading me. I don't know if persuading or showing me, revealing to me, that's a better word. Revealing to me what His heart was, what His truth is which, [what His his desires were for you] right.
Patricia Ruiz:
Right, because you know, then then I, that scripture that I gave earlier delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart takes on a whole new meaning, because now, when you're delighting in Him, you want what He wants it's not even like there's a tug of war going on.
Patricia Ruiz:
Nothing that you want is going to take precedence over you just want to make Him happy, you want to please Him, you want to walk in, in a way that you're honoring Him, you're glorifying Him. So that is like my heart cry now in this stage of my life, so that if I'm going to talk to anybody, I would want to just let them see God's joy in me, let them see what God has done, but never say, well, you know with me, He did this. I do the same thing with homeschooling. I loved homeschooling but I know not everybody can relate to that.
Patricia Ruiz:
As I was telling you, the other day I was talking to the teacher in the conference that I was in and I was telling her you know that I was able to do that and I had an admiration and sort of felt a little tug for moms that are teachers now, because all day they're dealing with the things that we deal with and then they have to give the leftovers to their kids. And I said but it was so neat for me to teach my children, and the words out of her mouth was no me in spiro, that doesn't inspire me, and I was like shocked, you know, but it was because she said I need my, I need my me time, I need to get away. And then I said well, I guess I had that because when I was doing it I tutored and that was my, I guess. But I didn't think of it that way. I don't think I mean I could be thinking back and not being honest about it.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
But well, I think what you just said brings to mind the garden, and I've been thinking about the garden for a while now, for the last few months, as we've been reading through the Bible in a year. Humanity if you can think of humanity and what it represents, it seems to represent the bride, and then you have God, who is the bridegroom.
Patricia Ruiz:
Waiting for his.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Waiting for his bride to do the things that please him? Mm-hmm, because, as we've read through the scriptures, there's been a difference between doing that which is right in your own eyes and you doing that which is right in His eyes. They're completely different, and every time we did humanity I'm speaking as a corporate level every time we did things that were right in our own eyes, we suffered immensely, but we would taste Eden, we would taste and get a glimpse of what it was like, what, what His original intention was if we do what was right in His eyes, right, right and then it's like humanity submits its own will to His will.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Because you're, you're you. You stated I wanted to do, I wanted to please Him. My desires became what was going to please him. That became my desire.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
And once we realize that it's, the showers of blessings of God just come down, because you're not doing what's right in your own eyes anymore, you're doing what's right in His eyes, and when that happens, He wants to overflow in blessing, in healing, in restoration, in all of the things that we actually want and desire because we live in this fallen world. And those are the things that I told you. I wanted something in the future, and that it's kind of formulating as I'm having these conversations with you. So I think there's a point I'm glad you shared that.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
There's another idea that's been thrown about in our society lately and I wanted to get your thoughts on. What is your, I guess, your immediate reaction or thought when you hear about when you hear the term trans women, meaning a man wants to be a woman, or trans women a man wanting to be a woman that are supposedly becoming mothers, or the idea that a trans man that means a woman wants to become a man in order to have a baby, to demonstrate that men can have babies. I say that and it's just my mind goes like explodes it explodes in contradiction it explodes in.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
this is irrational.
Patricia Ruiz:
This is completely out of water. So I wanted to get your thoughts as a woman and as a real mother. And it increases and it becomes illogical and logical.
Patricia Ruiz:
Intellectual people become illogical in their rationale to the point of being just ludicrous and so I ludicrous idea, yeah, and I think I, I know it's it's a harsh word to say, but it's like frankenstein, you're trying to take something that God created and make it something else. You, you're trying to produce something that is I just, you know, and it reminds me of Babel. Everyone was trying to build to go to heaven and God was like what are they doing? It's the epitome To me. It's just, it's just a lot, it's it's. It's evil and wicked, and I'm not saying people that do it are evil and wicked. I believe they're under the influence of this evil, wicked spirit at work in this world that's pumping this information and against.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
To mar what.
Patricia Ruiz:
God's creation To mar God's image.
Patricia Ruiz:
Because that's what the enemy wants to do anyway. He wants to take what God created and pervert it, like he did with Eve when he said oh, if you eat this, I'm going to you know, I'm going to do this for you, which is something. I heard somebody saying this, so I'm not going to take credit for it, but it was like, yeah, it's what God was going to do with us anyway. It's like God's idea for us is so much better than any thought or imagination that we can come up with on our own, which is usually helped by the spirits of this world. That's rotting. That's, you know, it's.
Patricia Ruiz:
I was telling my friend, I feel like people in revelations. It talks about the rocks falling down and people are shaking their fist. That's what it feels like. People are just shaking their fist at God. Why did you create me like this? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? And they're trying to find fulfillment and they're self-destructing in the process. There's a, there's this, you know, self-destructing. That's going on. It's taking out people and, yes, I struggle with it, I don't like it and I pray a lot about it.
Patricia Ruiz:
you know that I it's tears you know, whenever I encounter anyone that that is battling that, and with with compassion. Okay, not judgment compassion, because I think what? How did you get so tangled up? How did you lose?
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
you know, maybe you never knew, did you lose sense of reality?
Patricia Ruiz:
and who you are and how beautiful you are. Why are you messing with that? Why are you so? I just you know yeah, no, I struggle with that, just like I struggle with anything else that people do plastic surgery. You know where people start looking like Frankenstein because they've just done it so much. And you're just like the other day you were making a comment to me like that person has had plastic surgery and I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But then I took a closer look he's like, he's not wrong, you know. So it's.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Yeah, I mean it. Just it becomes where you don't look like a real person. Yeah, and so I look like you're aging, like any normal person.
Patricia Ruiz:
So yeah, so you look you look.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Unfortunately is aging, so you look, you look. Unfortunately I have to say weird, you look very weird right now you don't look naturally old.
Patricia Ruiz:
Yeah, you know you look naturally old, yeah, you're old.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
That's expected. But when you look old and you look weird as you're growing old, it's like what did you do to yourself? Yeah, you know, when I look at this and I and I see all of these things that they're trying to put into societies if it's normal, I see it as man deciding to do that which is right in his own eyes and taking everybody with them, and trying to make everybody do the same. But what happens? What is the end result of anything that man does?
Patricia Ruiz:
that's right in its own eyes, that is contrary to what's right in God's eyes. Yeah.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
It ends in death. Yeah, it ends in suffering, it ends in pain, it ends in anguish. And we hear about you know people that you know trans, and then they regretted it and they coming back. But you went through all of that and now you can't change it and now you're suffering for the rest of your life because there's no way you can replace what you cut off, right, I mean, there's no way, right, you know you try to change it and make yourself something. That is impossible is impossible for a man to give birth, it's just impossible.
Patricia Ruiz:
And you know, as we read the minor prophets, as we read the prophets, and we see the buildup of why the judgments came and we always think of it as end time, but actually stuff they went through as a consequence of their sin. It was such a buildup and there were so many warnings and there were so many ways that God tried to, you know, draw them back and get their attention and get them to, and it seemed like the more He did that, the more determined they were to go in their own way and build and increase the wickedness that they were doing to where they were. You know they were sacrificing their children and then when they were in judgment, they were eating their children.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
You know they were doing what was right in their own eyes. Yeah, and people think, oh, I would never do anything like that.
Patricia Ruiz:
But what about parents that are trying to advance an ideology in their child when they're little, to tell them that, oh, you always acted like a little boy and you're a girl physiologically, but you acted like a little boy. So we need to transition you, we need to change you, and I think who are I? Just? It's just those things. Abortion also, you know, because it's just we're destroying. We're destroying God's creation, we're destroying what God made and what God said was good. When He created everything in the garden, He said it is good. And we're saying, no, it's not good, we got to change. Saying no, it's not good, we got to change it, we got to fix it, we got to, we got to distort it.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
And which is why the world is today the way that it looks. And everybody looks at the world today and the first thing they do is they blame God. But the world is not made in the image of God. The world is made in the image of man who has rebelled from God. That's why it looks so awful, that's why it looks so grotesque, that's why God wants to redeem us from this, but he has to redeem the heart of man.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Once the heart of man comes in alignment, god is going to restore and God is going to replace and you know it talks about how you know the old. The earth will pass away and a new earth will come, and a new heavens and a new earth. That's going to happen. As man Submits and surrenders to the will of God and then begins to do things that are pleasing to him, then you're going to see a radical change throughout the world. But as long as you see all of these men trying to do and women and women trying to do what's right in their own eyes, the world is going to get uglier, more grotesque and more corrupt and more awful, and it will not be God's fault.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
It will not be. God did not say for you to do that. He didn't say for you to do this. And because you did this and now you're suffering for it, now you want to blame God. It doesn't make any sense.
Patricia Ruiz:
But the good thing is, you know, then there's my compassion side. As we pray, I get angry at things that happen.
Patricia Ruiz:
But as we pray if the Lord puts people in our life that are trying to come out, just like I was trying to come out of. Well, I didn't know I was trying to come out, but God was bringing me out of all those stupid decisions that I made. And there were people that had compassion on me and so you know, I remember one time having an argument about abortion and how they were saying that Christians were really intolerant and they were mean and they were just sitting there with the signs and I said but I know Christians that are out there waiting to have compassion on anyone that wants to turn to God [which is exactly how God depicts Himself with man when they're in rebellion, if they turn to Him, He is totally compassionate, He is totally forgiving of whatever awful things you did as an affront to Him, He is ready to do that but He is not going to do that when you want to continue] because when you want to continue you don't want the compassion anyway so that's the other side of the coin that I have had to learn the hard way over time how we are so different you know that I have that compassion and I want to chase after people and reason with them and help them to see the way.
Patricia Ruiz:
And I realized, no, you have to let them. Just, you got to let them go, you got to let them walk it out.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
You said it yourself today. If someone were to get in front of your face and say you got to do this, you got to do that, you weren't going to receive it.
Patricia Ruiz:
Right.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
You said that, right, what, what? What did it take? It took God, coming in the only way that He can to minister to you, in a way that it was not going to offend you, but it's going to help you see the light.
Patricia Ruiz:
Yeah.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
It wasn't going to be, you know, bringing a signpost and saying you need to repent or you're going to hell.
Patricia Ruiz:
Right, and I mean so, I, I, but I pray for people that do that because they have a heart to rescue. I, I, I think in as I, as I grow older, I would like to think that God is seasoning me to be more like Him. So there's a balance. There is a righteous indignation for sin. So there's a balance. There is a righteous indignation for sin. There is a righteous indignation when I see injustice.
Patricia Ruiz:
you know, because you hear me react to it, and then my prayer is always Lord, according to your righteousness, deal with these situations. Show yourself mighty and strong. Help your people that are trying Maybe they don't know you, but they're trying to walk in what you said. Help them to know you so that they can be a more solid witness of truth and justice in an unjust world, people that are getting jailed for things you know. I cannot believe what I have seen come to fruition. I grew up in a law not grew up, but I worked 15 years of my life in a law firm, and so there were a lot of things that I learned while I was working in a law firm that I'm watching happening, and it's like what they did what In the court.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
They did what Because it doesn't make any sense, yeah, and so it's like third world countries.
Patricia Ruiz:
It's like stuff that my parents talked about that happened in their countries, that I would never, ever think I would see here. So there is something in me that, even though I see people go well-meaning, they're praying, they're well-meaning, but they do stuff that's like, oh you know, I pray for them just this month. I don't think I would do that, because you do have to count the cost of whatever you decide to do and you need to be fully persuaded that God indeed told you to do that. And if you are, then like Paul and Peter in the Bible, you're going to be fully okay with where you land because of whatever you did, you were fully.
Patricia Ruiz:
You asked me if it goes against the word of God. That's my standard.
Patricia Ruiz:
But what does the Bible say? And if it's against what the Bible says, then I am not for it and I pray for people that are involved in it. I love on people and if God gives me the opportunity to say anything because they ask me, usually that's the way I measure if I'm supposed to say anything or not. Every once in a while I don't get that. I get that. No, you need to say something, then I you know, I want to. I want to do that. I want to model Jesus. I stand on the promise that He says if you lift me up, then I will draw all men. He's the one who draws them if I highlight Him in my life. But I did want to say one other thing that was stirring in my heart Okay, and then I'll follow up.
Patricia Ruiz:
It's. You know the burden and you know that I have this burden for the body of Christ, for the different expressions of fellowships. You know the same way that we've seen people not be able to stay committed to a marriage or stay committed to a family or stay committed because something goes awry and then they're off. And I see this going on in the body of Christ a lot and I think it's, I see it as the enemy working in a sense, because God wants us somebody said this in church he wants us to be knit together and we cannot be knit together if we're running around doing this and that and being here and there and everywhere. Knitting together means that you are committed to go through life with each other, through the good, the bad and the ugly, that you're willing to talk to each other and hash out differences and give each other an opportunity to grow. Because I don't have faith in you, Jay, as my husband. I mean I do in a sense, but my faith is in God, in you, God working in you, just like your faith in me. The things that you battle with with me are in God working in me, and our faith in our children is God working in them. It's not because I can control them and make them do this or not do that or say you know what I'm done, I can't deal with it.
Patricia Ruiz:
I mean, there have been times and you know that I have felt like I just I can't, I want to just run away from this and God's like, no, you're not going to because you're a family. Well, we should be that way in the body of Christ. And so I see the blessings and all the promises that God has for us there. He's not going to give it to us individually He could but every blessing that I received, the big mile marker things that God did and everything that He does in my life has been in relationship with other saints.
Patricia Ruiz:
It's been that way, people that recognizing the talents and the gifts, and you know really putting the, the, putting the um, what's up, what you use when you're um, um, trying to see something bigger. You know putting that focus to amplify, to see the good, and really working on overlooking or praying about, but you're not focusing on the defects, you're focusing on the good that God is doing. I believe that the Lord wants to move us in that direction and it breaks my heart when I see sometimes I'm not as connected myself, like like connected where it affects me, as bad as it might've been a place that I was for 15 years or something. But I watch it and I watch it in different friends, different churches, and I know that this makes our father's heart sad and we, as a church in our nation, we really need to get our act together as far as that goes. Sometimes, sadly, the way we get our act together is going to be through struggles.
Patricia Ruiz:
You know that's going to make people like well, if you have a storm, for example, when we used to live in Florida and we had a storm, we might have been conducting our lives any which way, as storm came and we were drawn to be with my cousin and her husband, or either they came to us or we went to them and all of a sudden we were engaging with each other at a different level. When, when Hurricane Andrew happened in Miami that happened for a while People started being community.
Patricia Ruiz:
We don't live in a society that is conducive to community. Community requires sacrifice and I know for me I'm constantly being challenged in my own ways to lay down some things so that I can have that relationship in that community with other people. I can let them into my world and I want to know their world. You know to partake of their life and they partake of mine, because that's how we become community, right? So I share experiences.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
We share life together, just like a small nuclear family shares their lives and experiences together. And I think what you're desiring is actually God's desire for his body, for the differing members of his body. When you come into a what we call local fellowships, smaller fellowships, you want to not neglect your own physical family they are your responsibility but find a way where you can share your life, your family's life, with others that are involved in your local fellowship, because in doing so that knits the hearts of people together and we begin to draw even closer to the Lord.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Because it's not an individual, one on one with God. I mean, in some sense it is, but another sense it's also communal, it's community-oriented, and I think that's one of the things that you know, our pastor really wants to try to develop, Not in a carnal way, but try to provide opportunities for people to make a decision. Because I think you and I know that whenever you know the longer lasting effects of the spiritual life in people is always when God is doing the work in them and not that you're that you as a, as a, as an individual person, man talking to another man, woman talking to another woman and trying to get them to be a certain way, act a certain way.
Patricia Ruiz:
The other one is more longer lasting than you trying to to manipulate them to do the right thing, but, but, but. Yes, I totally agree with you, but for me the longer lasting was in family, like I was in a humongous church in Dallas the church that I, that I ended up in with the different pockets of people was.
Patricia Ruiz:
There were 1400 people at that church, but I can tell you that I was very, very uh in community. You know, there was the young married home group, there was the single home group, there was the ministry school, there were the people that I saw on Sunday on a regular basis. So I didn't know every single person, but I knew a good, significant amount because I wanted to know them and they wanted to know me. More importantly, they drew me in because they wanted to know me and so I found myself adopted by a lot of people and I know that that's the heart of God and that's the model that he raised me in and that we and our family try to replicate in a smaller way, but we try to replicate it of just being that to other people. So it doesn't matter if you're not married, you're single, you are married, you're a single parent. It doesn't matter. God meets you where you are and he wants to build his community, because as he knits us together and as he builds his community, then he, then he can draw others, but also his blessings are pouring out. Why? So that the blessings are pouring out out, that we're not keeping them, they're pouring out to others. So you know, we battle with some of our kids with this, this privacy this is my privacy or I'm independent and this stuff, stuff is not healthy in the long haul in the body of Christ and we we have to be careful. You know, sometimes we have to be careful what we share with who. But the point of the matter is we are that way with family anyway, because there are some things that you talk with the kids, or I talk with the kids, that doesn't get shared. We'll talk with one kid and we're not sharing it with all of our children, unless it's something that everybody needs to know in the family. But there's no secrets and there shouldn't be. So those are the things that have been ruminating in my mind.
Patricia Ruiz:
That, as I read the minor prophets, he's talking about a restoration and he's bringing a restoration to everyone. But as we allow Him to do, what he wants to do in our lives is when the restoration comes, the full restoration that John 16 was him praying and telling them that he was about to go and there was coming a time of suffering. Was him praying and telling them that he was about to go and there was coming a time of suffering. But then, you know, there was a reason why he was giving that prayer preparing them for what was to come. But then I think about what happened. You know, at first everyone skedaddled and everyone was kind of lost, but then that was such a community, the whole Church of Acts grew off of that prayer.
Patricia Ruiz:
You know what did He pray? The unity. The unity. I mean, we have to have unity with Jesus, but we have to have unity with each other. So those are the things that he was. If I talk about motherhood and being a woman, being a wife, you know I cannot neglect that part, that that heartbeat that I have.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Sometimes I'm like Lord, I don't know, but it's the heartbeat that He's put in me, that's Him doing that. I think there's something to be said about love being profoundly and deeply impactful when it comes from someone you don't expect it to come from. So when we come into church local fellowships I'm talking about they're not my relatives in one sense. In a physical sense, they're not my relative. I would expect to be loved and, ya know, and cared for and adored by people in my family. But when you have someone who would go out of their way to love you, to share life with you, to help you, to pick you up, and then you do the same with them, it's not that it's different, it's just, for some reason, it's a level of impact in your life that you weren't expecting. So it makes it a deep, profound impact because I would expect to be received by you, I would expect to be forgiven by you, I would expect to be loved by you. You're my wife. Our family would expect the same of us and us with them, because you know we're blood and that means something on some level. But when you do it in a local fellowship and over time you develop that, just like you do in any family. You develop trust, you develop, you know parts where you become vulnerable with them and maybe they become vulnerable with you and you're like oh, they didn't beat me up, oh, they didn't think ill of me, oh, they still love me. Oh, okay, that's different. I wasn't expecting that. It just does something in you and it's.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
It's heartbreaking because we've recently experienced um in our local fellowship, at least in my mind, because we've been there for what? Two and a half years. But in my mind there was like two years of developing relationships and then, all of a sudden, because of offenses, misunderstandings or whatever, people just walked away from it. And that was so hurtful, that was so heartbreaking, not just the, not just the matter that they walked away, but in the manner that they did so, after having spent at least two years of like we, we were hanging out, we were working together. You know we were spending a lot of time. You know a lot of time considering. You know we've been here two years and then they just walked away with an email, walked away with some posts, walked away, and it's like what? It's heartbreaking because you thought you were investing into them, they were investing into you and your hearts were knit, and then, all of a sudden, they just ripped it up and walked away and didn't look back. Seemingly that's very hard to. It's hurtful, it just is.
Patricia Ruiz:
But we also came out of a place where we spent a significant amount of years. So it could be said that we did the same thing.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Well.
Patricia Ruiz:
But there was a change of season and we did communicate.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Yeah, that's the thing that we're talking about apples to orange. It was totally unfortunate.
Patricia Ruiz:
I don't want to neglect that, because that is there, but there still was. There's still the love and there's still the communication.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
There was because of the manner in which we tried to address.
Patricia Ruiz:
There still is. You know, we still love and bless each other and pray for each other and stuff like that. So there is a time in life where change may come. But, like you said, when it's done in a way that is abrupt, or with an email, with a post, with a you know and then you never know anything else, that's hard and it it's not as heartbreaking for me because I wasn't as vested, but it was to. It was hurtful to watch for other people that were hurt.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
We hurt when others hurt.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
Yeah, yeah, and so we saw other people who had sacrificed. Yes.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
And so much of their life, so much of their time. So much of their life, so much of their time, so much of of just sharing life with them and then to see people walk out on them but you know it's so then on the other side of the coin.
Patricia Ruiz:
You know, the prayer is always that everybody find hear the Lord and find a place and be in life with God, because outside of Him I think about the vine and the branches and outside of what He set up yeah. I mean, people could say well, Jesus is the branch and you're and I'm the vine, and I don't need anything else. Well, no, but there but the vine exists in a conglomeration of other vines other branches and other branches, other branches.
Patricia Ruiz:
Okay, so I'm getting the terminology mixed up, but the point is, you know, a tree is not just one one branch, a tree is many branches, many branches, many member body right and so when?
Patricia Ruiz:
I'm messing around with my flowers, the branches starts getting kind of snarky, snarlyly. It's not doing so well, I got to prune it so that the rest of everything can flourish. So that branch that's dying for whatever reason it's doing that, that it's not producing the flowers anymore, it's not happy, it doesn't have life in it, you know, reminds me of what happens when we walk away, when we cut ourselves off, and we will eventually. We won't produce, we may think we do, but we will be doing it in our own strength. So I know I've gone full circle on a lot of things that have been reverberating in my mind. But as I think of God, a God of restoration, a God who has promises, all his promises involve bringing back a community of people and knitting them together, and that's not going to happen in a haphazard way, you know.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
So it has to be intentional, yeah that's a good word.
Patricia Ruiz:
That's the word that's being used a lot.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz:
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