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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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Delayed Gratitude
This week, I want to rejoice in a 3 year delay in celebrating our 50th anniversary on a cruise. We planned this cruise for 2021, but ships weren’t sailing at that time due to COVID. Our 50th was celebrated, just not as we had planned! We actually discovered a new favorite beach on Captiva Island, Florida that year! This year, for our 53rd anniversary, we made the cruise with several of our friends and had the best time. For me anticipation is half the fun! I love to plan ahead and wait for something to happen. But, I must say, the week we were to leave, a major winter storm…
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Spiritual Game Changers Part 2
Two weeks ago I started this list with #1-5 in Spiritual Game Changers Part 1. Please scroll back to read that first if you missed it. Here are the last 5: What else would you add? A lifetime is not long enough to get to know the One Who knows us best and loves us most! Banner photo by Jose Castillo on Unsplash, inset photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
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Thanksgiving Blessings
Next week I’ll conclude my two part post that began last week: Spiritual Game Changers Part 1. This week I just want to say how grateful I am that you read my musings as I process what God is teaching me and share some thanksgiving encouragement. Three things for finding gratitude: 1 This is a fabulous podcast to prepare your heart for this holiday of thanksgiving from LifeWay Women Marked: Finding the Courage to Celebrate. 2 This is an article I wrote for LifeWay Women recently and am sharing here again. Unpacking Gratitude in Scripture. 3 And this is a Bible study my life group just completed in preparation for…
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Spiritual Game Changers Part 1
At this stage of life, and I have a lot of life behind me (although I’ll never get old!), I’ve looked back over my years and my walk with Jesus and thought about what has given me the ability to keep breathing when life is difficult. Especially if one difficulty leads to another and another. What is it that causes us to walk in faith throughout our lives? What keeps our focus on those things that will sustain us on into eternity? How do we allow God to use every circumstance in our life to draw us into a deeper walk of faith? Here in part 1 are the first…
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Gratitude In ALL Things
I recently had the privilege of writing an article for LifeWay Women’s The Reference Desk department. The topic was “gratitude.” The timing of the request was designed by God, as it was during a really tough few weeks. Gratitude was not overflowing, but I desperately needed it! I was forced to look at my heart as I studied in preparation for writing this article, and as I prepared to teach my life group using the study Grateful. Banner photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
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Just Below the Surface
As I write this my husband and I are on an extended time away from home. We don’t live here, but the beach is our home away from home every chance we get. Our time here began a bit sad as I wondered what God was doing. The first couple of days we were here, I saw only a handful of dolphins. It was in the morning as I sat on the balcony spending time with Jesus. The dolphin sometimes jump and spin and are very obvious. Today, they were only showing their fins once in a while. It was a quiet and slow movement and I had to watch…
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It’s The Truth, All Of It!
I’ve been guilty, and I bet you have too, of using a verse of scripture to prove a point. Sometimes, it doesn’t even mean what I’m trying to prove.. Jen Wilkin has said, and I’ve quoted often, “A text without a context is a pretext for a prooftext.” This means that unless you understand the context, you don’t fully know the meaning. You may be using it to prove something it doesn’t. To understand meaning of scriptural truth we must know the context in many ways. This includes knowing the placement of your verse regarding: chapter, book of the Bible, where it sits in the whole of the redemption story,…
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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…
