Trial
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Blogs For You!
Often I run across some really relevant blog posts that I like to share with my readers. Today is one of those days! 1. Consider who is speaking into your life as you read Who is Influencing You? from LifeWay Voices and Rachel Sinclair. 2. In seasons like we have been through and continue in right now, hope is sometimes hard to find. This is a great post on ways to recover and keep hope alive. 6 Ways to Preserve Your Hope in 2021 by LifeWay Voices and Yvonne Faith Russell . 3. Our churches want to grow and continue to reach the younger generations. They are leaving the church…
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Another Stop-Over “In- Between”
Ever feel like you’ve just left a dry place but it was where you truly experienced God’s amazing presence and provision…then you find yourself in another “pickle of a place” when you really want to get to that mountaintop of perfect contentment and accomplishment? Often, waiting is like that. We wait and wait. Then God moves, and we think it’s all behind, and we’ve learned what He wanted to teach us. Now let’s get to the good stuff! Then there’s another delay in that perfect picture of life. As my husband and I waited in days of infertility, and eventually were blessed with the adoption of twins, I thought…now it’s…
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Are You In-Between?
Right now, we are in-between two winter storms…just waiting to see what comes next. We’ve not had a storm like this in years. And, are we surprised? Kind of just the next issue to face in year 2020-2021! So far, we’ve not lost power as we continue to be covered not with snow, but ice! But will this second wave of snow and ice change that? Kind of like being in limbo and waiting for this next storm. Has this past year made you feel a bit like you are in limbo in lots of ways? You aren’t where you used to be in pre-pandemic days, but not where you…
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Do You Need Courage?
Who knew, when Jennifer Rothschild began writing her Bible study Take Courage, on the Old Testament book of Haggai, how desperately we would need the messages of encouragement for tough times that Haggai preached! No one knew we’d be in the middle of a global pandemic, or that we would have such turmoil in our nation! But God certainly did. Perhaps you have faced difficulty, opposition and discouragement that causes you to question your purpose, especially as you reflect the 12 months we have just lived through. Maybe situations have not turned out like you thought they would, or how you wanted them to. Maybe you are desperately needing encouragement…
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Hold Loosely
Hold what loosely? I’ll get to that! God has taught me SO much over the last year. Retirement 4 years ago gave me more time with the Lord each morning than I’ve ever had before…and I have LOVED it! Retirement also has taught me how to live with my husband of 50 years full time…and it’s not all been pretty since it’s the first time we’ve ever lived together 24/7! You can read about that here in this post, Retired Together…3 Issues and 7 Tips. During pandemic, it’s as though retirement has gone to whole other level. Although we have made so much progress in learning to live together well,…
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Over the Nations
As I write this, we have come through one of the most frustrating and tumultuous weeks in our nation. How easy it would be to feel helpless and hopeless. How in the world did we get here? I cannot answer that question, but I can say this, God knows, He allowed it, and He will use it. I am reading and journaling through Psalms right now. One morning recently, I came to Psalm 67…right in the middle of the that difficult week. Here is that Psalm… May God be gracious to us and bless us;may he make his face shine upon us Selahso that your way may be known on…
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Sneaky Snakes
I don’t like snakes. Not any kind. Doesn’t matter if they are poisonous or not. To me a snake is a snake! And I certainly DO NOT want one in my house. When our girls were just babies and my husband Pat was a Texas state trooper, I was home one night, with him on the interstate 20 miles away (and NO cell phones). The girls were in bed. When I walked into the den, I saw a small worm-like varmint crawl under a chair. My next thought was, “Worms crawl differently than what I saw. That was a snake!” Hysterical (and in my nightie), I climbed on my desk…
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He’s In Our Boat!
The banner photo above looks lovely, inviting, serene, peaceful. I would love to be in that boat pictured here. But what about the boats that are in the middle of a storm, waves crashing over the sides? I would volunteer to jump in to the boat for that ride! I recently started the Angie Smith Bible study, Matchless: The Life and Love of Jesus. One of the miracles of Jesus that I studied was one I’m very familiar with. But reading it during the 2020 season we are experiencing, just days after this crazy election, it was a reminder of what I really do know…but needed to consider once more.…
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Who Are You Becoming?
I recently read Ellen Vaughn’s biography Becoming Elisabeth Elliot. Having had the privilege to meet Elisabeth (who was known as Betty in her younger years) when she spoke at a women’s event, in the late 1980’s, at my former church in Texas, I was interested in how she became the wise woman of faith she was. Perhaps you know her story of mission work in Ecuador. Her husband and 4 other missionary men were speared to death by an unreached tribe of warriors to whom they were trying to share Christ. Elisabeth was a young woman with a baby when this occurred. When I met her upon her arrival at…
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I KNOW I KNOW!
I read Psalm 16 today, a beautiful testimony of David about his God, his Refuge. It took me back once again, to my Hurricane Sally experience. If you’ve read my previous posts (Part 1: Peace Over the Storms, here, Part 2: My Cornerstone here, and Part 3: More Lessons from Hurricane Sally here), you know I said, I THOUGHT the last one was the final in that series. Well, I guess it wasn’t! Processing this experience just takes time. In Psalm 16 (feel free to stop and read it, it’s short), David claims God as his Lord as he prayed for protection. He mentions relying on God’s counsel at night…
