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6 Month Check Up
In January, I shared what I felt God had laid on my heart for the new year in Focus 2020 , but during the pandemic, the Lord has expanded my focus and built on what He had already been teaching me. These themes were added to my focus this year…prayer, preparing for the return of Jesus, and bolder witness in the mean time. My D-Group finished studying the book of Revelation during the quarantine. Our isolation, along with the culture of our nation in general, made me want to say, Come on back, Lord! But what He said to me was, “not yet, more need to know me.” And as…
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Overwhelmed, But Praying
You know, some days right now, after receiving another bit of news from a friend or loved one that is painful, sometimes I just want to give up. Right now the things I have on my intercessory prayer list include: a friend who has been in COVID ICU for 7 weeks, a friend whose 50 year marriage is in trouble, a child custody battle, job losses of those I care about, a friend whose husband just died suddenly, family grand-pet having to be put down, a friend with incurable cancer. And then add COVID pandemic, church reopening, politics and other issues in our country, the need for a huge movement…
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Are You Listening???
Do you ever wonder if God hears our cry for Him to do something? Perhap’s it’s been a long season of praying and not seeing any answers. Do you think, maybe He’s not listening, maybe He doesn’t know, maybe He doesn’t want to fix this? I think the real problem isn’t whether or not He hears us, but whether or not, we hear Him. Too often, I just miss His answers, or maybe I’m just not intentionally looking for them. And I too often look only for answers as I want them to appear! Daily we see people listening intently through ear buds of one kind of another. We put…
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4 Pandemic Lessons
I recently spoke virtually to women’s leaders in Baptist Convention of New York sharing some of the things I have learned during the pandemic. I limited it to only 4 of those many lessons and wanted to share them with you today in this post. Since December, I’ve been reminded of a post by Noe Garcia on Jeremiah 29:11. He shared how that verse is a follow up to the message that Israel would be in captivity a long time, and while there, the Lord told them through the prophet Jeremiah to settle in, marry and have children, grow crops and be fruitful. I actually wrote on this in January…
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Who Really Knows You?
For women, one of the biggest issues I hear over and over is something that is connected to their identity. It shows up in many forms in the lives of women, but it stems from an understanding, or lack of understanding, of who I am, who I am supposed to be, and what am I supposed to do in life. So many women have lived all of life trying to figure it out. For some, it’s like being anonymous in a sea of people. For others, it’s questioning who their ancestors are and how that impacts them. Sometimes it’s a person seeking significance from the world. But whatever is the…
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Living in the Not Yet
Today I read Psalm 47 which seemed to connect so much with my New Testament reading of Revelation: God reigns over the nations;God is seated on his holy throne.The nobles of the peoples have assembledwith the people of the God of Abraham.For the leaders of the earth belong to God;he is greatly exalted. Psalm 47:8-11 What a comfort and hope this message is…one day this will be reality! It really WILL! Having just finished Revelation with my D-Group, (I wrote last week’s post on The Hope of Revelation) I see how very timely it’s message is for where our world is today. News continues to show pain, chaos, fear, and…
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The Hope of Revelation
My D-Group had finally made it to the book of Revelation! To get here, we are using Foundations F260 for the Old Testament, then we stopped and began Foundations NT260 for the New Testament. We began in January 2019 and have arrived at our last few weeks together as a group. One of the hardest books to understand is Revelation, so I am SO grateful this plan ends with the Gospel of Matthew! Very refreshing after trying to understand a very difficult book in the Bible. In preparation for our weekly meeting, and for my own deeper understanding, I’ve read numerous commentaries with my daily reading. But one book that…
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What Are You Standing On?
Have you ever built a sand castle…for a day? Perhaps as a child you spent endless hours creating a beautiful castle only to find the next day the tide has demolished it completely. Such is the way of houses built on sand! As an adult, if you have undertaken the task of building a home, you certainly wouldn’t choose a foundation of sand, but one of something much stronger, so that your home would sustain torrential storms without collapsing. I am in the process of memorizing the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6 & 7 with my D-Group. It has been challenging, but so rewarding, for all 4 of…
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What’s Your “Go To”?
What is your first “go to” when you struggle? We’ve seen recently what some people go to when they are upset or angry. Violence and hatred brings even more harm to an already unjust situation. But maybe you go to something less harmful like chocolate? Isolation? Running away? Despair? A friend? Usually we all default to something when things do not seem right in our world. As a Type A perfectionist-leaning woman, I think my big default is trying to control the situation. But God has shown me over the years that I am NOT in control even when I think I am, but I can fully trust that in…
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“However”
Sometimes I am having a great season, growing in the Lord, watching what I say so I don’t unintentionally offend, and feeling really grateful in general. HOWEVER, all of a sudden, I find myself doing what I didn’t really want to do, or saying what I really didn’t want to say, or being so self-centered I cannot find anything to be thankful for. Where did I go wrong? What was the HOWEVER that changed things? As I continued through Lysa TerKeurst’s study, Trustworthy (get this study!), I watched this cycle of good kings and bad kings, those who did right in the eyes of the Lord, and those who did…
