Spiritual Growth
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Feeling Like a Failure?
How often to you feel like a failure? Daily? Yearly? Have you ever thought about how God can use our failures to move us forward in Him? Today my daughter Alycia is again blogging for me. I know you will be blessed as she shares her recent feelings of failure. This picture popped up in my TimeHop from 6 years ago and caused a whole slew of emotions. Six years ago I got my first very own horse. Amadeus was a tad nuts and not the right fit, but he started the passion of riding again. I have struggled through the past 6 years of trying to find the right…
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Where is That Reef?
There is a man-made reef on the gulf where we love to vacation. I often see snorkelers swim out to see it. To find it, I have to kayak out from the shore, then line up a yellow triangle in front of a blue rectangle. Then I paddle out hoping to find it and the fish it attracts. Sometimes I find it right away, and other times I don’t find it at all. At times, I just know I’m right over it, but the water is murky or the waves make it impossible to see the reef. OK, if you know me well or have read past posts on this…
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Surrendered, but NOT Defeated!
I wrote an earlier post on surrendering all we are to Christ. You can read I Surrender here. Today I want to address surrender without defeat. If you are a believer, you should never surrender to defeat! Why? Because as a believer, we are NEVER without hope, no matter what you are facing. Let’s just be honest…life is hard! Sometimes our own decisions cause us difficulty. Sometimes it’s the decisions of others. And often, it’s the work of the enemy whose job is to seek to keep believers living in defeat. Since he cannot change our eternity, he wants to cause us to live as though we have no hope as…
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What Do You Do in a Dry Season?
Ever experienced a long season without answers? Maybe without feeling like you are growing spiritually? Maybe a longtime unanswered prayer? Perhaps you wonder if God is even listening? If you follow this blog often, you, no doubt, are aware that I love the beach. You also may have read my other “beach lessons” posts (check that category if not). And you probably know one of my favorite things to do at the beach is hunt seashells. But the last couple of years have had very little yield. Today as I walked Johnson Beach looking, again I came away empty. As I write this, I have two friends in very treacherous health…
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Who’s in the Spotlight?
Have you ever served Christ in some capacity and it just felt good? Perhaps it was serving in a homeless ministry and you came away feeling blessed yourself. Maybe you helped plan an event for a church gathering and got a few pats on the back and thought, “wow, I might just do this again”? As follower of Christ, we are to serve. In fact we’ve been created to serve. Ephesians 2:10 (which happens to be my life verse) tells us, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (NKJV) But when we begin to feel good…
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Wanderer, Come Home!
Today my daughter is blogging for me again. And as before, this will no doubt speak to a deep place in many of you. Alycia knows this journey and has seen God’s love wash all over her. All of us have if we are followers of Christ. Our stories are different but our eternity is the same! My hands were full when I tried to quickly shut the backyard gate behind me, but my dog, Walter, was able to quickly squeeze past my legs and he took off into his new-found freedom. I was talking on the phone at the same time and hollered his name. The person on the…
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I Remember
I LOVE this song by Lauren Daigle, Remember. Such a testimony of the faithfulness of who God is and what He has done for us. On this blog site, I have shared previously about how I’ve had quite a bit of history with the Lord (mainly due to my age!). I’ve known Him since I was a pre-teen, but didn’t really know how to GROW in Him as a disciple until I was in my early 20’s and facing my first major life challenge…infertility. It was then I learned to stop seeking MY purpose and to seek HIS purpose for my life. (You can read more in these posts: What’s Your…
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Talent or Spiritual Gift?
Exodus 31:1-5 shows a beautiful picture of God taking a talent and making it a spiritual gift to be used for His glory: “The Lord also spoke to Moses: “Look, I have appointed by name Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. I have filled him with God’s Spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and ability in every craft to design artistic works in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut gemstones for mounting, and to carve wood for work in every craft.” Today’s post by my daughter Alycia is her own personal journey in the area of God’s transforming power to take talent and make it a…
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Who Feeds You?
This year as my husband and I dropped by the office to check in to our condo for our beach vacation, we were greeted by this guy… We wondered if this heron was our welcoming committee! We inquired about him inside the office since he seemed rather tame, having never moved from his spot even as we walked right by him to enter the realty office. The receptionist said he’s there quite a bit and they’d been feeding him. Ahhhh, now I get it. Kind of like the seagulls on the beach if you throw food to them. They will be back! As always, I’m watching for God’s “beach lessons”…
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Time for a Reassessment?
Have you ever been moving along, things were going well and you knew you were in the center of God’s will…then for some reason you find yourself totally thinking…”It must be time for a change, this doesn’t feel right anymore.” I have. Right in the middle of following God’s surprising purpose in my life and ministry. My call didn’t happen overnight. It was a gradual pull by the Holy Spirit to grow deeper in Christ, serve Him by serving others and then eventually into vocational ministry for women. Definitely not my plan…not even on my radar. But having felt so blessed and fulfilled to GET to serve Christ and others…
