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What’s Over the Bridge?
What’s over the hill or around the bend? Does it scare you when you cannot see ahead? These two great-grand boys were excited to get over the bridge to get to the ocean. A trip to the beach is a big adventure! What about us? Often, we think we know where life is taking us. Yet, how many of us actually land where we expected? What would we have done differently if we’d known what really lay ahead? Most of my “aheads” turned out vastly different from my careful plans. The simple truth is, I don’t know what tomorrow brings, or even the rest of today. But fear doesn’t prevail,…
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You Must Be Looking to Find
Since I love all things “beach”, that means I love the water, sand, sunrises and sunsets, birds and fish! Dolphins are a favorite. But, if I am not intently looking for them I can easily miss their trek across the gulf in front of me. Some days I just glance once in a while, looking up from what I’m reading, and spot a fin. As I keep my eyes on the water I see more as they surface for air. On days I really spend time staring at the water, I tend to see quite a few more. One morning on the last beach trip, I began thinking how few…
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Joining In
Have you ever been sitting on the beach and enjoying the peace of the surf and sun? Next thing you know someone has speakers blaring out music that is not your style? And it’s ruined the peace you were enjoying. I often wonder if they think we all want to listen to their genre of music! But what can you do? Go ask them to turn it down? Give them dirty looks? Just put up with it until you leave the beach? Or, like I found myself doing, do you notice your foot is tapping to the beat? All of a sudden I realize what I’m doing and that I’ve…
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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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The Changing Landscape
Each morning while at the beach, my hero husband goes down early to claim our spot on the beach. Each day, where he puts our chairs changes a little. We’ve watched the changes as the surf has gone from calm to strong. When we first got here, the beach was level at the shore. Easy to roll our beach buggy onto. But as the waves got choppier, we began to see a “cliff” form at the shoreline. We talked about how it will be harder to be beachfront with that drop off. I love watching thees shoreline changes each day. One morning the attribute of God I was focusing on was…
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2022 Beach Lesson
So after years of hearing from the Lord when I’m at the beach (just click the “Beach Lessons” category for evidence!), I don’t always hear “new” things, but sometimes I hear old things in a new way. This year that happened. I heard something I know, but with a fresh visual. It came to me in a variety of ways: through a couple of books I was reading, and by watching the shoreline. Life has had lots of twists and turns this year, mostly unexpected ones. Some painful. Some just a nuisance. But even as I’ve waited for resolution and healing, I’ve known that God was in control and had…
- Beach Lessons, Leadership Lessons, Lessons, Spiritual Growth, Test, The Cost of Leadership Series, Trial
The Cost of Leadership Part 7
Please start with the first 6 posts in this series if you haven’t already. The seventh aspect in the cost of going deeper is battles. Followers of Christ have an adversary, and his name is Satan. His desire is to keep us from knowing, serving, and trusting Christ as we walk with Him. At times we will carry scars from the battles with him. Ultimately Christ has won the war, but this side of heaven the enemy still has influence on earth that we will face continually. It may come through painful relationships, failure, criticism from others, health…any number of situations in which we face spiritual warfare. Even when we…
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The Cost of Leadership Part 6
Please start with the first 5 posts in this series if you haven’t already. The fifth aspect of the cost of going deep is prayer, and the time it takes to pray. Deeper for me was when our daughter walked away from our family for 8 years. And God called my husband and me to continue walking and serving faithfully when the waves we had to cross got even bigger. We continued to pray for years that the Lord would bring her back, keep her safe and draw her to Himself. Sometimes as we serve and lead, God does not answer for a long time. But He is at work even…
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The Cost of Leadership Part 5
Please start with the first 4 posts in this series if you haven’t already. The second aspect in the cost of going deep involves laying down our fears through our faith in Him. For me, the deep, was when He first called me to speak in front of my church. If you know me, you’ve heard me say, I’d never be a public speaker. Deeper was when the Lord called me to LifeWay to continue serving out the call to disciple women, this time training church leaders across the country how to effectively develop ministries for women that help them grow deep! Laying down fear takes courage. Just look through…
