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Mysterious Purpose
Why does it sometimes take pain to push us to grow deeper in Christ? If I could answer I’d be really brilliant. I can’t even explain it to myself in a way that totally makes sense because I could never fully explain God’s ways. Why? Because He’s so much wiser than I am and well, you know…He’s so much more in every way than we are. But we do not have to understand Him or fully explain Him to know Him! As I’ve continued reading chronologically, I am studying Job and although he was a righteous man, the devil was allowed to test him by destroying what was important to…
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Genesis…Again?
Yes, again. But I’ve read it multiple times, why again? I just started my 5th D-Group. Each group has lasted a year to a year and a half. Each group reads through the Bible chronologically using Foundations: F-260, New Testament 260, Old Testament 260 or The Bible in a Year. This new group This is using The Bible in a Year by Kandi Gallaty. And guess what, each time we begin in the beginning because, well, chronologically, it teaches about the beginning of time! I know, not a shock to you who know scripture! (insert smile here) So, this week I’m reading through part of Genesis and Job. What in…
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Discipleship For Women
If you’ve read my blog in the past, you are probably aware of my love for discipling women. It challenges me to keep learning and growing in my own walk with Christ, and to learn from the women I disciple. Their hunger keeps my own hunger for the Word fueled and my walk with Jesus strong. This week I am linking you to a post I wrote for Get Strong Ministries as a part of their Discipleship Leader Training. On this page (under video session 3) click Leading a Women’s Discipleship Group to read. If you have a heart for discipling women, I pray this will encourage and strengthen your…
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A “Don’t Worry” Reminder
At the end of 2022, I got a call from my doctor’s office about needing some follow-up scans to ones I’d had a few days prior. Not a call you want to get right before Christmas…or anytime really. Unfortunately, they couldn’t schedule the scans until after the first week of January. My first thought was, “I have to go through the holidays with this on my mind? Wondering if there is an unexpected something that will change my life in 2023.” Yes, I would have to go through Christmas and New Year’s celebrations without knowing if something was wrong. Then, I remembered another time, years ago, when I got a…
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More First of the Year Thoughts
How are you are at memorizing scripture? I remember when Beth Moore wrote the study, James: Mercy Triumphs. She challenged those who did the study to take the plunge and memorize, along with her, the entire book of James! I was in my late 50’s and thought, “there is NO way.” Well, there IS a way. Because I like an impossible challenge occasionally, I decided to try it. It took over a year to get it, but it happened. So don’t say you are “too old!” Since then, I have continued to memorize chunks of scripture. I was challenged, at the beginning of 2023, by the last part of my…
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New Year’s Blessings
Thank you for reading my posts in the past. I am so grateful if anything the Lord is teaching me ministers to you. Truly, what you read is not what I’ve mastered, but what He is teaching me, often for the hundredth time! I pray that this coming year, the Lord will use me to continue serving and encouraging you. No matter what we face in the months ahead, glorious joy or the depth of despair, Jesus will walk with us through it all. We will be changed, and we will become stronger in our faith, if we will trust Him completely, even in pain and fear. We will learn…
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Looking Ahead
Do we intentionally make faith more difficult than it is? Sometimes I wonder? As I’ve thought about 2023 and looked ahead as to how I need to grow and make changes, I’ve been drawn back to the “simplicity”, or rather maybe I should say, the single focus, of our faith that leads us to change and growth. In Exodus and Deuteronomy we find God’s 10 commandments given to Moses and all of Israel. The first command, if we get it right, makes all the others possible. Do not have other gods besides me. Exodus 20:3 Sometimes I think I focus on all the others and forget how foundational this really…
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5 Women with a Connection…Part 4
If you could come up with one sin you have committed that disqualifies you from being used by God, what would it be? I’d have to sort through more than one myself. But the truth is, for a follower of Christ, there is not one sin the Lord would call out to us. The fourth woman in this series is Bathsheba. Her story is found in 2 Samuel 11. Men ruled in the ancient world. Women were not in the marketplace and didn’t have a strong voice in a marriage. And the kings had supreme power over their kingdoms and its inhabitants. In 2 Samuel 11:1-5, we see the “man…
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5 Women With a Connection…Part 3
Have you ever left your home and family to move to a place you had never been? Perhaps even a foreign country? That’s what Ruth did. Maybe you are familiar with her story, maybe not. Let’s back up and talk about her mother-in-law Naomi. She, along with her husband Elimelech and sons Mahlon and Chilion, moved from Jerusalem to Moab (a godless nation) due to the famine in Israel. This was a time period of the Judges in Israel and the famine was devastating. In Moab, the sons married Moabite women. Eventually, her husband and sons died leaving Naomi, and her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, widows. In that day…
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5 Women With A Connection…Part 2
Have you ever done something that you think eliminates you from being used by God for Kingdom purpose? The is the second in a series so please click this category to read part 1 if you missed the intro. The woman in scripture we will look at today is Rahab. First, think about the things you already know about her, if you know her at all from Joshua 2. One word that normally describes her is her occupation: prostitute. We don’t know if she was without any support at all for her daily needs, or if she actually supported her family with this trade. One thing we do know, at…
