I am a Christian, a retired teacher, a mother and a grandmother. I love to read and I love the Lord Jesus Christ! Unless otherwise specified ,all visual illustrations are from the YOU VERSION APP of the Bible.
I love the line in the devotional that says “God is more interested in what you are becoming than in what is happening to you.” He is using what is happening to us to help us become more like Jesus, if we will let Him work in our lives. We have to be persistent, faithful, determined and dogged in our decision to do the next right thing. Not just the next thing…the next right thing. Someone is always watching for us to fail, to fall flat on our faces and to spew anger at God. That is what the people in the world do daily and they want the Christians to be just like them. Instead, we are to take the circumstances of our lives, learn from them and grow from them, knowing that what happens is not outside of God’s control and mercy. So, what are you becoming? God wants you to be more like His Son and will use circumstances that life throws at us to cultivate the fruit He wants us to bear for Him.
Our current world is one where generally people step over others to get to the top. Telling lies is accepted as the norm. Breaking promises is expected. But what if we decide to be faithful and totally honest, one day at a time? If we say we will do something, as Christians, we should do it, no matter what gets in our way on the day of the event. If we always tell the truth, we will be known as one to be trusted.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust any politician, not even the ones who say that they are Christians. Why not? Because they make promises they don’t keep. I’m not sure about their intentions or the roadblocks in their way, but I do know the end result is they don’t seem trustworthy to me. Not only do they break promises, many politicians lie…small lies, big lies. The size of the lie doesn’t matter. The fact that I heard them tell a lie matters to me a lot. Thus it is hard for me during the election season, with ads on every radio and TV station that tout all that the candidate will do for me once in office. Hmm. If they have already been in office and haven’t taken care of the business they said they would, why would I believe their new lies for a new office? The answer is that I don’t. The dilemma is that there is a hard choice to make when voting because I don’t think anyone running for office is totally honest or trustworthy. However, I do have to choose, so I will vote for the candidates who have done the best job of keeping their word and being honest, even if their score is not 100%. I try not to judge them on their relationship to Christ because that is between them and God, but I do my due diligence and investigate to the best of my ability how their stance measures up to God’s Word. Like I said, hard choices.
In a perfect world, people would be honest with each other all the time. No lies or subterfuge, but honesty and keeping promises. That is what builds our character for ourselves and in the opinion of others. It is also what makes us more like Jesus. And isn’t that the ultimate goal?
The Path to Success
There are many definitions for success in today’s culture. For some, success is defined by the number of accomplishments we’ve made, or the number of possessions we’ve attained.
Jesus’ definition of success is counter-cultural. It has nothing to do with our accomplishments or our possessions—it has everything to do with our character.
Jesus’ teaching in Luke 16:10 is primarily about the content of our character. He says that those who are trusted with small things will be entrusted to larger things. Those who are faithful with what they’ve been given will be given the opportunity to be faithful over more. And those who are dishonest, unfaithful, and untrustworthy, will do the same with what they’re given.
It’s not ultimately important to Jesus whether we are financially successful in life. What’s more important is what we do with what we’ve already been given.
Little acts of faithfulness every day is how our character is shaped over time. The small decisions and the hard decisions are what create us into people of trust and honesty.
If you’re asking God for more in life, make sure that you’re being faithful with the things He has already given you. Use the resources and opportunities you have to build trust and honesty with other people.
God is looking to use people of character. Pray for God to increase your character and to give you the opportunities to become a person who is faithful and honest in every area of life.
This devotional hit me right where it hurts because I have been the one to say that I do things because I enjoy them. Yes, God wants me to enjoy my time on earth, but He also wants me to use the talents He has given me to serve others. I am trying to get better at that but I haven’t been what I would consider a GOOD steward, more like a mediocre one who sometimes serves others and sometimes myself. I need to stop being self-centered and look at the need of others. One of the ways I know I serve is to use my talent to spot grammar and spelling errors in the writing of others. My grandchildren regularly send me their papers to “redline.” Now, an author friend has asked me to be a Beta reader for her, finding errors in her new book before it goes to final print. Both tasks require a time commitment, but I am happy to do it because I know that I am using the talent that God gave me to help someone else. I need to look at other ways to use my talents. How about you? What are you particularly good at, and are you being a good steward of that talent?
Changes in life and in this world are never more evident that when it’s an election year and when you are aging quickly. Election years bring all kinds of anxiety for me, so I have learned to tune out the news and to turn to God. He knows what is going to happen and He isn’t afraid, so why should I be? As far as the aging process that seems to get more aggressive these days, it is a natural part of life. Again, with the aches, pains and dimming vision, I can turn to God who already knows what I am going through and who comforts me, heals me and strengthens me. My bones don’t work so well anymore as they pop and creak at each movement, but God never changes and is a stalwart and dependable refuge for me. I don’t have any idea how people without God cope with life and its many challenges, and I don’t really want to find out. But I feel sad for them, because I know that without God every day would be bleak and hopeless. With God, every day is a new day, filled with hope and expectation of what new thing He will do that day to show me His love and protection. Have a great day and remember to run, don’t walk, to the Lord God! He is waiting for you with outstretched arms.
God Our Rock
There are hundreds of different names and titles for God throughout Scripture. And since the Psalms are written from various seasons in life, there are many different perspectives of how God acts within those seasons. Psalm 18 is written at a time when the author, King David, was delivered from his enemies by God.
In this Psalm, David almost immediately calls God his rock, because God was dependable and stable. There was nothing that could overtake God or move Him. This truth wasn’t just for David, but for everyone who relies on God.
When we belong to God, He is a rock and a fortress for us as well. Everything in the world constantly shifts, but we belong to a God who never changes. He is our protection from things that might seek to harm us.
We belong to a God who can protect us throughout our lives. Even if we don’t have physical enemies, we can run to God when life gets difficult. That’s why, like David, we get to respond to God with praise. We need to remember what God has done so we can praise Him for who He is.
Take some time today to thank God for how He has led and protected you so far in your life. And if you’re currently in a difficult season, run to God and ask Him for help. He is able and willing to protect and comfort you.
Sometimes, God answers our prayers right away. But I have found that most often, His answer to me is to wait. I am not very good at waiting. I want to act, to help out like Sarah tried to do when she told Abraham to go ahead and take Hagar and have children with her. I want to help God…that sounds funny, doesn’t it? God certainly does not need my help or my advice about how He can best answer my prayers. He just says to wait.
I think it’s interesting that the Spanish word for to wait is “esperar.” That’s because this word has another meaning…HOPE! We wait and we hope with faith and trust in God. Those two words that seem to be different are a pair that go together. It is by hoping that we know we can trust God. And it is in the waiting that we learn to trust Him more.
Every day we wait for something. Sometimes it’s a phone call, other times it’s a personal visit. We wait for packages to arrive and for a special day to come. But do you know who else is waiting? God is waiting for each of us to turn to Him as we wait and to communicate with Him about our fears and frustrations, to be honest about the problem we are having waiting. I cannot imagine how hard it would have been to send my son to die, knowing that it was inevitably going to happen, but having to wait for that hard part, the time of separation from my only son. That’s what God did. He didn’t hurry things along, come up with a Plan B or change His mind about the sacrifice of His Son. No, He waited for the perfect time for Jesus to be born and the perfect time for Him to die for each of us. God wants us to wait because in the waiting, we can experience a closeness to Him because He also waited. He didn’t have to learn any lessons in His waiting since He already knew everything. But God, in His great love and wisdom, knows that we need to be in the waiting room sometimes just to hear His voice and to wait for Him expectantly. Not demanding our way, not trying to work out our own solution, but just to wait, to hope that the answer is coming. God, who did not hold back the sacrifice of His Son, is not holding back good things from us when we wait. He is working His perfect plan for us, helping us to be more like Jesus and less like Adam. God’s schoolroom is the best place for us to learn about His character and how to wait patiently while also being brave and facing whatever it is that is a problem for us. We have to learn to wait well, not to wait while we tap our feet, constantly look at our watch or the calendar, with an attitude of “well, God? What’s up with this? I’m still waiting!” You know what? He knows we wait, He wants us to wait and learn from the experience. Waiting builds faith if we will let it.
Waiting Well
Waiting can be hard.
Most of us would prefer quick, efficient, and, when possible, instant results and answers.
But waiting is a part of life.
We must wait for seeds to grow into food, for one season to fade into the next, for babies to mature into adults, and for trees to stand tall enough to finally offer shade.
Like it or not, waiting takes patience.
We can wait days, months, years, or even decades for a prayer to be answered, for an overdue apology, for the timing to be right, or for a dream to finally come to pass.
Waiting requires courage.
King David lived nearly 3,000 years ago, but he knew what it meant to wait for God’s timing, to wait to be king, to wait to be rescued from his enemies. He wrote:
“Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”
Psalms 27:14 NLT
If David thought waiting on God was important enough to write it twice in one verse, we should probably pay attention.
But waiting patiently for the Lord isn’t an excuse to do nothing.
We can proactively wait on God by staying in communication with Him, by looking for His fingerprints in ordinary moments, by reading about His story and His plans in His Word, by worshiping Him no matter what’s happening across the globe, by serving the people both inside and outside of our circles, and by thanking Him for the gifts He’s already given us.
Just because a specific door isn’t opening, or a particular opportunity isn’t available at this moment doesn’t mean that God isn’t moving.
Even when we are waiting—God is working.
Noah spent decades building an ark as he waited for God to do what He’d said. Ruth journeyed with her mother-in-law and worked in the grain fields while trusting in God’s provision after her husband’s death. Joseph stayed faithful in prison for several years before his promotion to second-in-command of Egypt. John trusted God’s ultimate will for his life, and wrote several books of the New Testament while sentenced to exile on the island of Patmos.
So, no matter what you’re facing, you can ask God for patience and trust that He is in control of your future. No matter what uncertainty lies before you, when you rely on the Lord, you can be someone who waits well.
Berlin 1961: When Uli Neumann proposes to Lise Bauer, she has every reason to accept. He offers her love, respect, and a life beyond the strict bounds of the East German society in which she was raised — which she longs to leave more than anything. But only two short days after their engagement, Lise and Uli are torn violently apart when barbed wire is rolled across Berlin, splitting the city into two hostile halves: capitalist West Berlin, an island of western influence isolated far beyond the iron curtain; and the socialist East, a country determined to control its citizens by any means necessary.
Soon, Uli and his friends in West Berlin hatch a plan to get Lise and her unborn child out of East Germany, but as distance and suspicion bleed into their lives and as weeks turn to months, how long can true love survive in the divided city?
My Thoughts
This novel is like reading an eyewitness account of the people living in East and West Berlin when the dividing wall was built and the repercussions in their lives. It is a well-crafted and mesmerizing story of two young people caught on their respective sides when all they want to do is be together. Uli loves Lise desperately and his decision to create a way to get her to the west without getting her arrested or killed was interesting, believable and gut-wrenching. The division of the novel into parts added to my understanding the story better, as the time line changed with the parts and the story was set further in the future, with more changes in the daily lives of the main characters. Uli, Lise and their friends Jurgen, Wolf and Inge became like real people to me, suffering from the will of the government and with no recourse but to find a way to rebel clandestinely. Reading the story of how they were forced to live separately, trying to find happiness in a different life than they had planned spoke to their resilience, which seemed to be a major theme of the story. I really enjoyed getting to know the characters and was fully invested in their finding their happy ending, whatever that would be. The fact that the happy ending did not immediately appear kept me engaged and invested in what was a twisted and compelling story. I think my favorite part of the story was Lise’s honest assessment of her life with her brother Paul, a man who sold out to the state and then devoted himself to discovering a way to make her happy in the east, even though she had to live without Uli. The emotion of that scene jumped off the page and made my heart pound as I read quickly to see how Paul would react. What a breathtakingly complex story that was written in a powerful way, getting way under my skin and right into my heart. This is historical fiction at its best, with plenty of action and a deep, immersive plot that captivated me from beginning to end. Disclaimer Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16th CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”
Rated G, Historical Fiction
About the Author
BRYN TURNBULL is the internationally bestselling author of The Woman Before Wallis. Equipped with a master of letters in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews, a master of professional communication from Ryerson University and a bachelor’s degree in English literature from McGill University, Bryn focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record. She lives in Toronto.
Uli stared out his apartment window, his pulse beating wildly in his ears. Seven stories below, a tangle of concertina wire ran the length of Bernauer Strasse, bisecting East Berlin from West: onlookers on both sides of the wire watched, muttering, as green-uniformed Grenztruppen, separated from the East German citizenry by a line of Volkspolizei, jackhammered the cobbles to fix stakes into the ground and carted in more spools of barbed wire, rolling it out with gloved hands.
Was it war? He studied the faces of the border guards, searching for an indication of panic, of fear, but they looked measured and resolute. Was it a planned operation, then? A provocation?
He needed to find Lise. He pulled on a shirt and trousers and descended into the fray.
Outside, the sound of jackhammers was a relentless snarl that drowned out the fury of Berliners on both sides of the wire, shouting their ire. In the East, a mishmash of soldiers—police officers and border guards and members of the People’s National Army—stood with their backs to the west, shoulder to shoulder, as guards hammered stakes in place.
“Uli!”
He wrenched his attention away from the barbed wire to see Jurgen’s stocky, sandy-haired figure. “Have you spoken to Lise?”
Uli shook his head: across the street, a scrum of people had formed around a nearby telephone box. “I only just came outside. I’m still trying to piece together… What’s going on?”
“Ulbricht’s sealed the border.”
“Sealed it?”
“Yeah.” Jurgen bit his lip, and Uli knew that he was thinking of his family, his brother and sister-in-law and niece, living in Bernau. “People kept saying he was going to do something, but I never thought…” He trailed off. “You’ve not seen Lise?”
“Not since Friday.” Uli searched for a higher vantage point— a bench, the bonnet of a car—and gestured for Jurgen to follow him toward a rusting Mercedes, parked on the opposite side of the road. “Have you spoken to your brother?”
“I tried telephoning Karl, but they’ve cut the wires. I heard they’ve sealed off the U-Bahn and S-Bahn as well… I don’t think anyone can make contact.”
Uli jumped onto the bonnet of the Mercedes. What purpose did it serve to cut the telephone lines? He gave Jurgen his hand and tugged him up on top of the car: from here, they could see past the guards and jackhammers to the bewildered East Berliners beyond.
“Lise was out of town, wasn’t she?” Jurgen muttered. In the empty streets beyond Bernauer Strasse, Soviet tanks rolled in and out of view in the direction of Brandenburg Gate: Where was the answering military presence from the West? He turned, hoping to see British or American troops: on a far-off corner, a pair of French soldiers watched the growing crowd but made no attempt to move closer. Surely, they had to intervene?
Uli turned back to the barbed wire and his heart lurched: there, coming down Brunnenstrasse, was Lise. He shouted her name and waved to catch her attention: she turned and lifted her arm in response.
Uli leaped down from the car and made his way toward the wire. He muscled past men and women with Jurgen in his wake, rising onto his toes to keep Lise in his sights.
A shout rang up behind him—“Fascists!”—and the crowd surged forward. He stumbled, and a West Berlin police officer caught him before he hit the ground.
“Watch yourself.”
Uli straightened. “My fiancée. She’s in the East,” he began, hearing in his voice the panic he was trying, and falling, to quell. On the opposite side of the wire, Lise was pushing forward too, her pale head visible as she tried to reason with a Grenztruppe. “I need to speak with her, if you could just let me through, she’s right there—”
The officer’s expression was pitying and fearful in equal measure. “I have my orders. No one is to approach the barrier,” he said. Across the wire, a second Grenztruppe turned his head, listening to their conversation over his shoulder. “They’re operating within East Berlin, we have no jurisdiction to intervene—”
“They’re tearing the city apart!” Uli shouted, his rational mind reeling against the sheer absurdity of what was in front of him. He took another step, searching for a break in the wire. “If I could just talk to her—”
The officer’s grip on Uli’s arms was mercilessly hard. “If you want to start the next world war, keep going,” he hissed, before shoving Uli back. “There’s nothing I can do, mate. Take it up with Walter Ulbricht.”
He stumbled into Jurgen, trembling with a rage he’d never felt: an impotence, a helplessness that he’d not experienced since he was a boy.
“Easy…this might only be temporary,” Jurgen said, his hand steady on Uli’s shoulder. “We ought to go to Brandenburg Gate. We might learn more about what this is—there will be reporters, politicians—”
On the other side of the wire, he watched as Lise’s own attempts to reason with a border guard failed: she stepped back, looking distraught. “If Ulbricht really is sealing the border, we need to act now. We need to find a way to get to Lise—bring her across—”
“I know.”
Uli broke off midsentence, wrenching his eyes away from Lise. Jurgen stared at him, resolute, and his steadiness gave ground to Uli’s panic, helped him think beyond his own fear, his own anger.
“We need to act now, but whatever we do, it can’t be here,” Jurgen continued. He was right: they couldn’t push through, not here, where there were so many people, so many sets of eyes. “We find a break in the wire—a gap…” “They can’t be everywhere all at once,” Uli said. “Further along,” Jurgen whispered back, and Uli’s heart quickened. Across the wire, Lise stared at him, and he jerked his head, knowing that Lise would understand—she nodded, and melted back into the crowd.
“C’mon,” he muttered, and he and Jurgen took off down the street.
Learn to trust God at all times. He is listening for our prayers and knows that the praise will follow. Sometimes it’s harder to trust God than others. My husband and I have had some health issues lately, not serious ones, just part of the aging process. Pressing closer to God during the multiple doctor’s visits and procedures that have to be done have helped me to stay calm and focused. In a period of time in our lives when we had planned to travel and celebrate together, we are going to dentists, eye doctors, regular physicians, and specialists instead. My prayer is to be a good witness to each helper we come across, so I lay aside my impatience and anxiety and smile with sincere thanks for the service they are offering me. Every day that we have together is a day to praise God for His grace and mercy; we are still celebrating, just not on a cross country train trip yet as we had planned. We actually planned it a year and a half ago,for our fiftieth anniversary, but I had multiple heath issues that arose that required that we stick around home for testing and such. This year, my husband had to undergo a dental procedure that will ultimately result in a dental implant when all the prep work is done. He also has to have cataract surgery that he has postponed until now when he really needs it to be able to drive. So, prayers for the procedures, the doctors to be wise and skillful and for a good recovery. But mostly praise that God has provided us for each other. When I was down, Harry was up and ready to help me. Now it’s my turn to be his helper. Praise God that we are not alone and that we are both believers, saved by grace and moving forward with the Lord into whatever adventure He has for us next.
As a recovering perfectionist, I know the frustration of wanting everything to be just right, of planning for everything to be just right, and then of feeling after the event that if I had done one more thing, it would have been perfect. But then perfection is not possible in this broken world. We have to accept that and do the best we can to change what we can and live with what we cannot change. I like that the devotional’s author says that we need to help people get to that perfect place. How do we do that? We share the gospel so that they can know the peace that comes from not striving to be perfect here on earth, knowing that we are God’s children and can rest in His love, even in an imperfect world. Let that one more thing you need to do be to tell someone the difference Jesus has made in your life.
When Lauren Wentworth wakes up in the hospital after falling from a ladder, she has more questions than answers. Way more. She knows where she is—the wilds of New Hampshire. But she’s apparently lost the last four months of her life. Is she really contemplating forfeiting her big-city dream job for a position at a rustic resort? And how did her number one nemesis become her adoring boyfriend?
Jonah Landry is crushed to learn Lauren has forgotten their entire summer together. Terrified of losing her for good, he determines to help her remember their deep connection as she finishes her obligation to the resort. But soon it becomes apparent Lauren doesn’t want to remember falling in love with him or rethinking the entire course of her career. She wants to pretend the summer never happened and move on with her life. Without him.
As Lauren falls back into the steady routines of resort work with Jonah, she’s relieved her memories haven’t returned and remains resolute about her big-city future. But as autumn leads into winter, she begins to see glimpses of the Jonah she’s forgotten. Will she be able to resist the steady love of this patient man? Or is her heart destined for its own freefall?
My Thoughts
This is a carefully plotted romance about a young woman who loses her memory and breaks the heart of the man who loves her because she doesn’t remember him at all. Lauren Wentworth is a newly graduated events planner and goes to New Hampshire to work at a small family camp while she waits for her the date when she will report to her dream job. She never counted on the fun and flirty relationship that started with the owners’ son, Jonah Landry. The novel goes back and forth in time between the current time after Lauren got injured and lost her memory and the past when she and Jonah were getting to know each other and courting. The conflict is very realistic in that Lauren cannot remember Jonah but she does recall that she has a dream job waiting for her in Boston after the first of the year. This is a slam dunk great love story, with a well-crafted plot and appealing characters characters. I really enjoyed the dog Graham, too, who acted as a buffer of sorts between the couple who seem to be fated to separate. The story is satisfying, engaging and heartwarming, with family and relationships that matter front and center. Disclaimer Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16th CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”
Christian Contemporary Romance, Rated G
About the Author
Denise Hunter is the internationally published bestselling author of more than 40 novels, three of which have been made into Hallmark movies. She has appeared on The 700 Club and been featured in Woman’s Day and Southern Living.
Denise writes heartwarming, small-town love stories, peopled with layered characters who struggle with real-life issues. Her readers enjoy the experience of falling in love vicariously through her characters and can expect a happily-ever-after sigh as they close the pages of her books.
In 1996, inspired by the death of her grandfather, Denise began her first book, writing while her children napped. Two years later it was published, and she’s been writing ever since. Her husband says he inspires all her romantic stories, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too!
When Denise isn’t orchestrating love lives on the written page, she enjoys traveling with her family, drinking coffee, and playing drums. Denise makes her home in Indiana where she and her husband are currently enjoying an empty nest.
You can learn more about Denise by visiting her FaceBook page.
The title is not very encouraging, is it? But if you really dig deeply into the devotional today, you will find that nature is damaged resulting in disasters like floods and hurricanes because of the sin n the Garden of Eden. This damage and confusion in nature was not God’s original plan for His creation. Neither was death. Man was meant to live forever in communion with God, in a perfect place that He had created for them. But sin brought decay and ultimately physical death. Not one doctor or any elixir, no matter what they proclaim, can stop the ravages of death forever. As the devotional points out, we are not meant to live on this damaged earth forever. God has a better place that Jesus went ahead to prepare for us, the perfect place in communion with God that He meant for us from the beginning. So, does God cause the bad things to happen? The death, destruction and decay? No, sorry to disappoint you, but all the bad things cannot be blamed on a loving God. That responsibility lies squarely at our feet because we are all sinners. Thank God we have been saved by grace and this life is not all that there is!
www.bible.com/reading-plans/1201/day/27
www.bible.com/reading-plans/1201/day/26
www.bible.com/reading-plans/1201/day/22
www.bible.com/reading-plans/1201/day/21
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 