Hate versus LOVE… By Rena Oynes
Hate is verbal and physical abuse...Sandwiched between extensive porn and other women…Breaking apart a family….Hate is the enemy who did this to kill, steal, and destroy a family.
Love is painting a picture of an angel that looks like one’s grandchild and seeing tears run down the friend’s cheeks when given to her.
Love is painting a picture for each child who is baptized with Jesus’s arms around her and she is wearing the same colored dress upon accepting Jesus as Savior.
Love is seeing a painting you painted of Jesus and seeing a small child touch and saying Jesus my Jesus.
Love is painting a newly adopted child a sign with a beautiful flower and her little shoes had the same flower.
Love is painting a picture depicting God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit which gave hope to those in a nursing home and another one for a mother who had a son in prison.
Love is painting a picture that looked like one’s father’s church who was thinking of him as you delivered it to her door and as she was grieving with having lost her husband and being her first year without her husband.
Love is making and painting a doll for a women who on the day she received, her husband had a heart attack and she slept, cried, and held the doll and prayed to Jesus to bring him through.
Love is painting a wall picture of Jesus with wonderful help of friends, saying, “Let the little children come unto me,” and seeing the children’s face light up, touch Jesus, press their bodies against the painting, and touch Jesus’s foot which is on a power outlet which says to them get plugged in.
The painter weeps to see God’s loving hand touch peoples lives. Also touching hers by sending people to pray for her in her brokenness.
The God who turned tears of hate into tears of joy. God is the God of miraculous love for His children.
Thank you God for the gift that has lifted me and others whatever they are going through.
thedailylily.com 
Rena, Your love song speaks volumes to those that are wounded and hurting from abuse. Out of hate so often we derive love. Our Heavenly Father saw and hated and loved with an everlasting love and overcoming love that only He could do. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be slaughter like a lamb and hung on a ‘Cross’ to pardon our sins. Easter, which we in the Christian Church will celebrate in just a very few days speaks to the world of this great love through teachings, songs and symbols as we celebrate “The Cross” that has power like none other.
(Jude 1:23 NIV) gives us an illusive illustration of love vs hate…”…hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” And, as we read this scripture in full we are told just what to do.
You have done well and healing is yours as you have given your testimony according to, (Rev. 12:11) “And, they overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”
Some of us on this site have been going through a book on healing and forgiveness by Flora Slosson Wuellner (see our post on The Beatitudes). Page 70 of her book, chapter title, “Release to New Healing Choices”…”Speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) She writes, “I have read that for a former victim of an abusive situation to tell even one small lie to keep the peace is as dangerous as an alcoholic’s taking one small drink.” She goes on to say, “We cannot afford an inner or outer deception about what is really happening, how we really feel, what we will and will not accept. Abuses of any kind depend on cover-ups. Any form of communal or individual forgiveness that consents to cover-ups is not forgiveness at all; it is corruption!”
As Wuellner says, “The Truth must be named!” Rena, I believe you have turned hate
to love just as Jude 1:23 and Rev 12:11 instructs us to do. Thanks for sharing your story. May many be healed.
I thank the Lord for His truths that have been poured into me, which has over time unmasked in my mind the evil making the truth seen and spoken real. No fairy tale marriage . When thinking on all God’s hand has done in my life, I have chosen to forgive and move into the present where I can exercise my God given gift to paint and encourage hurting people with God giving me every tiny detail to meet the brokenness of others. (What was intended for harm, God intended for good… . (Genesis 50:20).).
Rena, another realm of truth that comes to my mind from John 8:31,32, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
You must have been faithful to His Word! 🎨🎨🎨🎨
“I have chosen to forgive and move into the present where I can exercise my God given gift to paint and encourage hurting people with God giving me every tiny detail to meet the brokenness of others.” Thanks for sharing this Rena. As I have just read the last few pages of our little forgiveness book , by Wuellner this afternoon. I’d like to share some of her words from page 154. “Forgiving from the heart is not easy. Over and over we may need to return to the earlier stages, and it may take a long time for us to feel and experience its fullness and completeness. But within these stages, no matter where we are, the living Christ is telling us that forgiveness is already complete in all fullness within him. Though we know forgiveness only dimly, this power is embodied in the risen Jesus and walks with us.” Rena, I believe your words here have made it clear that you have CHOSEN to take it in “HIGH GEAR” and “it will influence you the rest of your life”! All glory and honor goes to our Savior, Jesus Christ!
Rena, thank you for sharing your love song and each example born from your own experiences…stories of many being touched. I think your story is also a painting that contrasts hate and love.
Thank you and others for praying for me during the brokenness. I have kept your card of 1996 depicting me on the rock with this poem:
Rena on the rock eternal stands unflinchingly in the wind
Knowing that the Son of Glory
He has risen with healing in His wings.
She does claim her rightful position
Arms extended to Heaven’s Throne….
Comes from her the ‘Shout of Victory!”
Needed for this very hour.
Poem is dated 1996.
It has been and continues to me so encouraging. Thank you!
In thinking on Rena sharing her ‘light of love’❤️ and not hiding her light under a basket…Matthew 5:15 “No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.” And, then I am reminded that others sing 🎶 their praises as well. There is give and receive in the Kingdom of God.
I read one such story this am. I’m posting hoping we will grow in our giving and receiving so our little light beams will cluster.
Marian Wright Edelman, “Disciplines” writes “…my mother, Maggie Leola Wright. Her devotion wasn’t just the sit-down-and-pray kind (although prayer and worship were an important and integral part of her life); her devotion was also expressed in an active, following-in-Jesus’-footsteps way.
She, with my father, the Rev. Arthur Jerome Wright, welcomed twelve foster children into our home, created and ran a home for the aged, loved the left-out, and bound up the brokenhearted. In the segregated South of my childhood, they worked hard so that every child knew himself or herself to be a beloved child of God. …
[My mother’s] life was a picture of what it looks like when we really live out the inclusive, enormously loving, always forgiving good news of Christ with faithfulness and generosity. Think of those you celebrate who, like her, have lived lives in faithful response to that call. And then ponder how you can evermore faithfully follow Jesus like the twelve and “some women.”
I believe very strongly in timing of our doing just as Rena shows in giving her art. In her poem each piece of art arrive at exactly the right time. She shares and her sharing intersects with the study of Wuellner book. And, the above devotion from The Upper Room be Edelman arrives as a car 🚗 on a mission.
Light🕯 cluster 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯Equals the sky is the limit for all. Wuellner writes, pg 146 the rock of the church not standing still, waiting to be attacked, but thrown by God , flying through the air, crashing through the gates of evil to release those trapped there.”
Rena illustrated that well, a victim of abuse, porn, etc and heartbreak from a broken marriage. She did as Wuellner suggested, name it, call it what it is, forgive by standing against the horrid of destruction of evil and letting love fly by using her gifts to the fullest. And, I don’t like this part but there are prescutors along the way, enemies trying to block and say stay a victim. But, Rena overcame👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
By Rena Oynes…
I loved reading about those who push ahead to serve Jesus in love. Doing and not thinking that sounds like a great thing to do. Making time for doing what God wants done.
Yes people do say don’t speak out, just keep quiet. But people need to know my story as it wasn’t good but Jesus can use it to help others know that Jesus can heal and hold their hand too; encouraging, consoling, loving ; through scripture, others,and songs. Also they need to know how I clung to Jesus through it all!!
I’m adding Pam’s comments at Rena and Pam’s request. Sara
“My name is Pam, I’m a friend of Rena’s. We taught school together for years. We are now neighbors. And, above all, Christian friends. I want to add my love to Rena’s words. ❤️“
“I can understand why you were so emotional when I talked to you…you put your life into those paragraphs! It really touched me as I personally know how much you suffered at the hands of Chris and even the boys before they really understood what you went through.
God has blessed you with strength and so much love for others that you are a true survivor and a blessing to your family and friends💕” Love, Pam
Pam, Rena has been greatly blessed to have you by her side. You and she could write a book and produce a movie on how you have walked together being lights aglow. You are both champions. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻❤️
In thinking on the word hate this am as used in Rena’s poem, I thought of how often God’s people understood hate. Here’s one, Psalm 139- “They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.”