Inspirations

Trials!  this year has been a year full of them.    Relationship struggles have me feeling "anxty" and wondering how I ended up in this place of uncertainty. Do not even get me started about the whole COVID virus  that has us in lockdown and wondering where that train will end. add to that an election year where both candidates act like children,   and you have a very stressful year.   Sometimes in all the craziness, I am not sure If I am coming or going. I can lose hope and begin to feel overwhelmed. I am thankful that in every trial, God is there holding my hand,  encouraging me and helping to go on  and remain strong in the midst of the fiery ordeals of life.  I am thankful that in the trials,  I can be sure that God is working to make me more like him.

I am thankful for each new day. Each day is a chance to start over. Yesterday, with all of its problems and struggles, is over, gone, poof. I may have made a mess of things yesterday, but I can try again today, and tomorrow, if necessary. When I am having a bad day, I am thankful that I have hope that tomorrow will be better. I have the privilege of making today the best day it can possibly be. With each day I can choose to; laugh more than I did yesterday, Be kinder than I was yesterday, love more than I did yesterday, dream bigger dreams than I have ever dreamed. What a blessing that Yesterday does not define today. No matter how bad yesterday was, today may be different. I don't have to live in yesterday's failures. Each new day offers hope that things will be different than yesterday, and it will be because no two days are ever exactly alike.

Thank you, God, for helping and encouraging us to widen our horizons. Thank you for helping me to try new foods some I liked, and others were awful, and I'll never try again. Thank you for putting within us the desire to branch out in other areas as well like writing, and painting. Thank you for the milestones that these new things created. I have met new people, I learned new things. Sometimes as I have branched out, I have succeeded.   Other times I failed, but I did  learn more about myself in the process. Thank you, that, as you expand our horizons, you are right there cheering us on, and smiling as we take those baby steps. Thank you for standing close-by, ready to pick us up if we fall.

When I first bought our house twenty plus years ago,  we had a relatively large back yard.  Now, however, the yard is much smaller.  Why?  Did I plant trees?  No.  Did I add a pool or pond?  Nope.  I didn’t even make a pretty Garden.  So, what did happen?  Well, about thirteen years ago, I took a job in a local store.  I worked much of the time,  and so mowing the lawn became everyone’s job.  The problem is that when other’s mow, they don’t like to mow the corners.  It was a small thing, and at the time, it wasn’t worth the fight, so I let it go.   As I was looking at our yard,  I realized that all those years  of not mowing the corners had taken its toll.   What I’m understanding is that it is incredibly easy to give up the edges,  but it’s super hard to take back the corners....

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways. Hebrews 1:1   I gave a silent scream. “God, are you Listening?” I think that we have all felt that way a one time or another. We feel as though our prayers are falling on deaf ears. We believe, at that moment, God is not listening, and if you haven’t, hang in there, your time is coming.  Yet, deep in my soul, I know for sure he hears. For, God is not deaf to the cries of his children, and he quiets our soul with his presence,  and the Almighty speaks in the laughter of a child  or in the pastor at church on Sunday,  in the words of a friend, or the train wreck at work, and in the beauty of nature  or even the doctor you dread to visit. God is not limited in how or when he speaks as though he were human, but he does speak. He’s the nudge to do the right thing, or the voice prompting you to visit a neighbor or friend. His ...

Words, they are powerful.     God spoke, and everything was created.     He didn’t use anything except his words.    He took nothing and made it something.    He spoke into the darkness, and there was light.     It’s hard for me to even imagine creating anything just by commanding it,  but God did just that.     He spoke into the heavens,  and there were stars and the sun and moon.    Amazing!   Our words are powerful too.    God says that, if we have faith,  we can tell a mountain to move, and it will be moved.     Is God speaking of literal mountains?    I am not sure,  but I have seen financial obstacles removed because of prayer.   I have seen diseases cured because of words that were spoken.    Relationships can be restored or broken because of th...

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.   We're all broken.  Good news!  God is the glue to fix it We are all broken!    We hurt,  we cry,  we make bad choices.  Don’t believe me?    Look around.    School shootings,  climbing suicide rates,  anxiety,  and depression  are all evidence that all of us are broken and hurting.     It’s no one’s fault.  We are born that way.    That’s right, we start out broken by the sin of this world.    But we are not doomed, forced to live in our brokenness forever.    There is hope.   God.    We can’t fix ourselves,  and other people may help some,  but to be fixed entirely, we need God.    He is the glue that will take the fragmented pieces of your life  and ...

This morning as I poured my coffee, I looked out the window, and there was a leaf swinging in the wind.   It wasn't attached to a tree like most leaves; instead, it was dangling by a thin piece of string.  As I watched the leaf being blown about by the wind; yet being held in place by a piece of string, if you call it that, I was reminded of the times in my life I feel a little bit like that leaf.  I feel like I am barely holding on, I’m being tossed to and fro by the winds of this life and at any moment it’ll all come crashing down around me.  Then I was reminded that the “string" holding me is the God of the universe.  He’ not just a knot at the end for me to hold; no, he’s the very string holding ME when life closes in. The very same one who has been holding the stars in place for four thousand years or more is the one holding me.  If he can hold the universe in place, he can certainly hold me without a problem.  So even if it seems like I’ll b...

Now you are the  body  of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.  1 Corinthians 12:27 Monday night and all day yesterday I had a problem with a tooth bothering me.  It hurt like crazy!  Such a small portion of the body; yet when that tooth started hurting my entire body seemed to hurt.  I imagine as you read this, you can think of your own experiences with this as well; a stubbed toe, a broken bone and the list could go on.   As I was thinking on this, I was reminded that, as believers, we are also part of the body of Christ.  It made me wonder how we respond when a fellow Christian is hurting. Do we ignore them; criticize them; minimize their pain? Or do we instead help them; pray for them; ease their burden.  In short, do we love them and treat them with the care that we would treat our own body?    The fact is that one part of the body cannot hurt without the whole body hurting.  I talked to my Daugh...

 whoever believes  in me will do the works I have been doing,  and they will do even greater things than these,   John 14:12     Yesterday I had breakfast with my husband, daughter and son-in-law when God me gave an “ah ha” moment.  As we were lingering over our beverages, we started talking about a website I had created.  I was explaining what my thoughts and hopes were for the website.  I was hoping to pick up some pointers on how to work a few of the kinks out of the site.  While we were talking, my daughter’s husband asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks.  He asked me what I would do if someone wanted to order, what seemed to me, an astronomical amount of the item I was selling.  It was at that moment that I realized that I was not thinking big.  I was thinking sell a few and he was thinking sell a lot.  It was then that I also realized how that thinking can carry over into the spiritual realm...

Drama, you can find it anywhere; at church, at work, at home, at social events.  In short, anyplace you find people, there will be at least one or two that like to create drama.  Some people thrive on discord and disputes.  They live for it, and they are not happy unless there is drama, and they will tattle, gossip and stir the pot just to cause drama.  Me, I do not like anger, strife and negative talking.  I prefer peace, unity and harmony.  Yet, often it seems I get caught in other people’s drama; sometimes sadly it’s my own fault, and I could have avoided it if I had wanted to avoid it.  I know at other times the drama is unavoidable, and we have to deal with it. While we may not have a choice about whether we want the drama or not, we do have a choice about how we deal with it.   It seems to me that, as Christians, we need to manage drama in a way that glorifies God. Here are a few suggestions:   Refuse to participate in gossip. ...

  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value  others  above yourselves.  Philippians 2:3 You know you’re invisible when…   You wait in line for your turn, and they skip over you. You swipe your hands under the automatic faucet, and it won’t turn on. Your parents move and forget to tell you. You speak, and no one responds. The waiter comes and takes your food while you are eating. You walk through airport security and no one notices. You don’t have a name. You move and no one notices for days. Some of these are funny and yet the stark reality is that, at times, we all feel as though we are invisible.  We feel as if we have a shroud of invisibility wrapped around us.  We have all experienced the sting of being skipped over, forgotten and lost in the shuffle as though we don’t exist.  No one enjoys that feeling of being invisible.  God wants us to be concerned with the people aroun...