Struggle and Loss
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Friday’s Encouraing Message
This week I had the blessing of writing posts for encouraging.com. Each day I will link you to that day’s message. Please sign up to receive encouraging.com posts daily Monday through Friday throughout the year. You will be blessed weekly by various authors. Enjoy! Please see link to Friday’s post Battling Your Giants. Thank you for allowing me to share these with you this week. I pray you have been greatly encouraged, no matter what is going on in your life presently. Photo by Ryan Riggins on Unsplash
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Wednesday’s Encouraging Message
This week I had the blessing of writing posts for encouraging.com. Each day I will link you to that day’s message. Please sign up to receive encouraging.com posts daily Monday through Friday throughout the year. You will be blessed weekly by various authors. Enjoy! Here’s the link to Wednesday’s post God Fights For Us. Photo by Ryan Riggins on Unsplash
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Monday’s Encouraging Message
This week I had the blessing of writing posts for encouraging.com. Each day I will link you to that day’s message. Please sign up to receive encouraging.com posts daily Monday through Friday each week. You will be blessed weekly by various authors. Enjoy! Here is the link to Monday’s post, Waiting In The Wilderness. Photo by Ryan Riggins on Unsplash
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Thieves of Peace
Have you ever had something of yours stolen? When I was in 3rd grade, my family came home from out of town to find our house had been robbed. It was a house with an attic that could be accessed in the garage or the house and you could go from one end to the other once inside. I made my dad get up there to look to make sure the thief wasn’t hiding there! After that, I was never again comfortable in that house. I was glad when we moved away within a year! Not only were my silver dollars and $2 bills taken, so was my sense of…
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Between the Holidays
Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is quickly approaching. How’s your heart? Ticking along at a steady pace, or beating out of your chest in this holiday season. Perhaps some of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and you look forward to Christmas even though you have shopping, decorating and cooking to do. Photo by Element5 Digital on StockSnap Others may have had a very tense Thanksgiving and the thought of another family gathering is more than you can even begin planning. Maybe you are missing someone who is no longer a part of your holidays due to broken relationships, geograhical distance, or death. Does your job, kids holiday activities, or purchasing and…
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A Week of Devotions
Recently I had the honor to write 5 devotions for Encouraging.com, which I do quarterly. This week I decided to link all 5 in this post. Feel free to read one a day, all at once, or at your leisure! I pray they bless and encourage you! Breathing Worship Small Yet Mighty Tear Down to Build Up Writing the Word Your Holy Ground Banner photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Inset photos used from Encouraging.com
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Sun and Clouds Together
I love all beach sunrises, even gray days, because…well, we’re at the beach. But my absolute favorite is a combination of sunshine AND clouds.There’s just nothing quite like the beauty of seeing the colors as sunshine peeks through the clouds. Only a creator God can design this kind of beauty. As I watched these views, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the beauty that comes through the sunny joy filled days AND the gray seasons of life as well. Romans 5:3-5 reminds us that … we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope…
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A Reminder After the Storm
During our beach trip this year, we kept our eye on not one but two hurricanes. One landed in Louisiana (Francine), the other in Tallahassee (Helene), about 3 weeks apart. There is another one brewing that could also land on the Gulf coast, but we will be home by the time it arrives. After the eye of Hurricane Sally went right over us in 2020, we are much more cautious about any category hurricane anywhere close by. Around 36 hours after hurricane Helene made landfall, destroying so much and taking over 225 lives in several states (at the time of writing this), I awoke to the most amazing sunrise we’d…
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Getting Through the Muck
After a month at the beach, you can expect Beach Lessons in my posts! Here’s the first. This year we had a some seaweed just beyond the shore. If it’s out a ways, I don’t mind walking in the shallow water. But walking on and through wet, grassy gunk is not something I enjoy. But, what’s just beyond the seaweed? From the 18th floor balcony of our rental, I get a great look at the clear water beyond the dark mucky stuff. There is a sand bar out beyond as well. It’s shallow enough to stand on and draws many, including me at times, especially when it is clear and…
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Be Alert to Satan’s Tactics
My pastor is preaching through Revelation this year and as we got to chapter 12, we studied John’s vision of spiritual warfare in the heavens and the earth. Another quote from my favorites list (see past posts) is by one of my former presidents at LifeWay, Thom Rainer, who said, Satan has a simple agenda…to keep people lost. But another tactic of his is to keep saved people ineffective as disciples. Pastor Robby Gallaty recommended a book by C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, and since I hadn’t read it, I ordered a copy. It truly exposes how subtle the devil is and how naive we can be about how…
