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A Rocky 2024?
How’s 2024 so far? Is it what you thought it would be? It has not been for me, in several ways. If you read my posts regularly you’ve seen some of my unexpected experiences. I’ve begun to wonder if this is how it will be all year! But God gave me the song “Good Plans” the first of the year and I decided I’d seek to find the good plan in whatever God allowed this year. I just didn’t think I’d have do it this soon! Instead of dreading what is next, I’m seeking to believe His good plans and ask the Lord what He wants to teach me. What…
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Are You Drifting?
My former pastor used to tell of losing his cool at home. His wife would ask if he’d forgotten to have his “quiet time” that day. He’d admit, no, he had not. It’s easy to let our time with the Lord get pushed aside for work, family, or recreation. Not to be legalistic, but if we skip this on a regular basis, we might find ourselves drifting. I find myself losing my cool in stressful circumstances and wondering what the problem is. Why was I so impatient and easily upset? Not always, but sometimes, it’s because I just didn’t take time to pray and get in the Word that day.…
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Created to Connect: Lessons From a Social Media Fast #3
Today I am just going to share from my daughters journal with almost no comments. This speaks for itself! (You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.) I want to just close with a beautiful prayer Jesus prayed for his followers that reflects the kind of relationships He desires for us to experience (my addition in brackets for clarity). I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their [the disciples] word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent…
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Living For the “Like”: Lessons From a Social Media Fast #2
I wonder how many of us post on social media and just wait to see how many “likes” we get. Kind of opens a pandora’s box doesn’t it? Of course, we post things we think are interesting or funny, but do we do it just to get those likes? Should that be the motive for posting updates? This is the second (read the first here) in this Social Media Fast series of lessons from my daughter Alycia’s week long social media shut down. She has allowed me to share some of the things she learned. I pray these will cause you to stop and think about why you use social…
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What’s Ahead?
Ok, we’ve turned the calendar to 2021. So what? What now? Will life “go back to normal after pandemic?” We do not know what is ahead, but we can choose to answer “so what” by how we enter this new year, even if it doesn’t yet include ditching masks for ever! Even if we still do not have a job, or family gatherings, or great health, or…… For a number of years I have sensed God giving me a theme, verse, or word to focus on for the year. Sometimes it’s just because of where I am in my life, although this past year my focus came from a topic…
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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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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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Do I See?
God is continuing to refine and add to my focus for 2020. One way is through a study by Christine Caine that I just happened to be doing this January. You can read more about my 2020 focus in my first two posts for this year: Focus 2020 and Settle In. It’s both exciting and frightening (in a good way) to see how God is refining and speaking to me in this overall topic of having a heart for Him. In the first day, Christine labels the first week’s study, “When We Feel Hidden in Plain Sight.” She asks if we have ever felt hidden and unseen by others and…
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Settle In
I’m not sure how you feel about our country, or our global world, right now. With elections in the future, crime and violence, anger and hatred all over the news and filtering into whatever we watch, read or hear, we could just decide to go live on a tropical island somewhere away from it all! Tempting isn’t it? Definitely for this beach girl. The thing is, God has not put us here to run away. He has placed us here to make a difference. He actually has a plan for us, for our lives and He wants us where He has placed us. I read a post by Noe Garcia…
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Focus 2020
This time of year I am always watching for direction from the Lord on a theme or passage of scripture He wants to develop in me for the year ahead. As I was reading and preparing for teaching at an event in 2020, the topic for the weekend grabbed my attention. It’s based on Kay Arthur‘s study, “Lord, Give Me a Heart for You.“ Our key passage for the event is Ezekiel 36:26-27: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause…