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.
Author: vicklea
I love to read! I’m a retired teacher with a spouse of 45 years, three amazing children and nine wonderful grandchildren. I am blessed!
This morning in my devotional, God was dealing with me about my words, particularly the words I use with my spouse. I am very careful to choose my words with people whom I don’t know well or those I want to make a good impression on. But with my husband, I just say what I think and I am not always kind.
For example, when we went to the beach, Harry brought along a huge fishing cooler. Of course, he had put it into the back of the SUV and I didn’t even see it until we arrived. I was actually shocked to see it there and asked him why he would bring it, full of his clothes like a weird suitcase. He said he brought it to take to the beach with us. Well, I exploded, mostly from embarrassment at the laughable idea of him dragging that across the beach with us. Nevertheless, he took his clothes out of it and packed it daily with his towels and other things he wanted to take along to the shore. That thing is heavy even empty, so he only carried it a short ways and then truly had to drag it across the sand. I was berating and not at all kind as I followed him to the place where our daughter and her family had set up chairs and an umbrella. Then, he pointed out that he as dragging it in front of me and making a smooth path for me to walk across the sand so I would not fall. How foolish I felt about all of my unkind words! I had chosen to speak without thinking and to express my honest frustration instead of noticing his commitment to safeguarding me.
We didn’t really argue about the whole cooler thing, but I was not happy and I am sure that everyone knew it because I don’t hide my feelings well. If only I had seen Harry’s genuine acts of kindness and shared kind and appreciative words with him! They would have cheered both of us up!
I don’t mean to have a “deceitful tongue” but sometimes I confess that I do not tell the entire truth. I make excuses that I am doing it for the benefit of the other person because I don’t want to offend them. What I am really doing is saving face for myself. God wants me to be completely honest if I am going to say anything to others. Or, the other choice is to just be quiet! I don’t want to go around being deceitful, then the other person finds out what I was really thinking (or others tell them the whole truth), and they are crushed because I wasn’t honest to begin with. God is honest with me. He tells me when and how I need to change. He doesn’t mince words or tiptoe around so He doesn’t offend me because He has my best interests at heart. If that is my real motive, can I do any less towards others?
Words matter. They show the condition of my heart and places that are raw inside me and need to be healed and changed. Sometimes, they show what I am really feeling and sometimes they show a parody of what I feel because I don’t want to be offensive. I end up offending anyway more often than not, so my plan to not do so doesn’t usually work out for me. Kind words…gentle words…think before I speak and speak as the Spirit leads. My lesson for today, and I hope that it helps you, too.
The Scripture is very clear that one day every knee will bow before the Lord and give Him the worship and glory He deserves. Read that again and think about it. Every knee! Those who are in power, the rich, the poor, the homeless, the famous and the infamous. All will bow before the Lord. So my thought is that we should be practicing our worship now and get ready for that day. There are so many who are still lost in their sins, so many who will be bowing in fear of the judgment to come, so many for whom it will be too late for them to repent and confess Jesus as Savior and Lord. For those of us who already recognize God’s sovereignty, mercy and grace, we should spend time on our knees praying for those who do not yet acknowledge their Creator.
I would like to think that this verse means that everyone will be saved, but I know that is false thinking. Everyone will bow before God, but not everyone will have acknowledged Him as their Savior. We will all face Judgment Day, some of us with Jesus as our Advocate. Thus when God opens the Book of Life and finds our names written there, we are safe from the lake of fire. But others are not and that breaks my heart. Therefore, while there is still time, we need to practice our worship, practice our faith and practice telling the gospel to others. We don’t have to be perfect at it…we just have to do it. We are rescuing people from eternal flames of hell, and that is worth whatever discomfort we face in order to tell them the truth about how to be saved. Every knee! The whole earth…
Many years ago, back in the 70’s actually, my husband and I attended Youth with a Mission. There we studied the Bible in preparation to share the gospel with others wherever we went. We also studied the works of some great theologians. One such book was by Norman Grubbs and was entitled Rees Howells: Intercessor. If you are interested, you can get a copy here:
The Bible says that each one of us who has accepted the Lord Jesus has an intercessor because He intercedes for us.
Jesus’s death on the cross was a “once and done” action, but His intercession for us is constant because although we strive to be like Him, we have not achieved perfection.
What is our role in the world if we want to be intercessors like Jesus and plead for the souls of friends and loved ones? We are standing in the gap for them, asking God for mercy and as David Ettinger said in his blog today, we are to realize that they are blinded and need to pray for their eyes to be opened. David Ettinger on WordPress
For more information about Rees Howells, check out this video,
Many times as our children were growing up, I would throw up my hands in despair, look towards Heaven and tell God that since He made them, He needed to help me raise them correctly. His response was always the same, “I already gave you the instruction manual.” Of course, He did! But when I was frustrated, I would forget to turn to it.
God’s instruction manual for our lives is in His Word. I recall my husband putting together baby cribs, small furniture and toys. So many toys! Bikes, Barbie houses, race car tracks, etc. He would start out okay but soon I would hear Harry call my name and tell me that he was stuck because there seemed to be a part missing or a step he left out. So, I would head to where he was and he would start again. This time, I unfolded the instructions that he had usually left in the box and read them aloud to him, one step at a time, until the work was finished. You see, he always thought he could complete the task without looking at the instructions. After all, it should be easy and it was just “common sense.” I think we do the same with our lives. We are going along happily and come across something unexpected that disrupts our plans and our happiness. Instead of reaching for our instruction manual in God’s Word, we often try all kinds of other solutions first. We call a friend for help, we decide to deal with the problem another day (I call this the “Scarlett solution” from GONE WITH THE WIND. If you have read the book, you know the reference). Or we simply walk away and try to live life without a solution to the problem If only we could all learn to first look in our instructions and follow them step by step. God does not leave us without teaching, correction and rebuking us. He does all of this for our good and expects us to take the instructions out of the box and use them. They are for our good and end up helping us to be more like Jesus.
After a time of fruitless grumbling and whining to God about the children and their actions, I would inevitably turn to my Bible, finding comfort and resources there to continue to parent in spite of my children’s opposition to my parenting skills. I learned by doing things incorrectly and then I learned how to do them the right way. God always has a right way to do things, including putting together the puzzle that is our lives. I also learned that when I disciplined the children, reading Scripture with them and praying with them afterwards soothed them as well as me. We were reconciled to each other and to God, and that is exactly where we needed to be.
I live on the east coast and we have a good number of hurricanes or tropical storms pass through. The worst one that I can remember was Isabel, a storm that took out our electricity for almost two weeks and forced us to evacuate and stay with friends for a while until the roads were cleared and it was safe to go home again. I vividly remember hearing that the storm was coming and getting ready for it, with flashlights, bottled water and canned foods as well as crackers. Then, as the storm got closer, Harry and I prayed together for safety. The rain was pounding, the thunder was crashing and the lightning just seemed to light up the sky with one lightning bolt after another. We didn’t sleep much that night; the electricity went out early in the evening and since we live rurally we were in total darkness except for our small lanterns and flashlights. But, we made it through the storm safely. When Harry went out to scout around, he found that there were electrical lines down everywhere and it wasn’t really safe to go anywhere yet. But once it was, we moved to stay with someone else who still had electricity. The storm was powerful and scary, but there are worse storms to be in.
There are storms of broken family relationships. My siblings don’t all talk to each other but they all talk to me. That makes things awkward for me, to say the least. Some of my siblings won’t talk to my sons because the latter are so liberal. I don’t believe as my sons do, but they are still my sons, so I try to mediate that situation, too. My sister has a health issue that is causing her to go blind. My daughter had a cancer scare last year. We have three grandchildren going to college this year, and we all know that college is expensive and sometimes their ideas aren’t worth having. My husband and I are both getting older and have decisions to make about our future. The list of storms of life goes on endlessly.
As I look around the “boat of my life,” I am convinced that I would not have made it this far without Jesus calming the storms. He doesn’t always calm the storms around me. He calms me so that I have a different perspective and can maintain peace even in the middle of the storm.
When the storms of life are shouting for attention, Jesus makes them whisper and when the waves want to toss me around, Jesus makes them still. Are there still storms happening? Yes, every day. Why, I can’t go a few hours without someone trying to disturb my peace with a troubling story or a complaint. I take them all to the Lord and continue, with my sea calmed and the voices becoming a whisper in the background. The voice that stands out will be that of the Lord telling me to “Peace, Be still.” Yes, that’s right. He calms me so that I can face the storms. Does that mean that I am always calm? No, but I am a work in progress. What it means is that I am trying to remain calm and when that doesn’t happen naturally (which it seldom does), I ask for Jesus’s intervention and He is faithful to calm me to face the storm. Then, He calms the storm and the thing that I feared or dreaded is not a hurricane but only a mild wind storm that passes quickly.
Just about every Christian probably knows no quotes Jesus’s words from the cross, “It is finished.” He declared that the sacrifice was done, the work the Father had sent Him to accomplish was done and because of His great love and death on the cross, He knew that He was opening to door to eternity for us. But is our work on earth done as soon as we become a Christian?
The work that Jesus gave us to do is to continue to tell others the Good News about the grace available to them through accepting the Lord Jesus as Savior. I used to be so diligent about every task. If a teacher assigned me something to do, I jumped right into it, eager to complete it and do a good, impressive job of it. I don’t think it’s an accident that Jesus is called “Teacher” and that He left us an assignment to do. He wants us to participate in bringing the story of His mercy and grace to others. I wish I could say honestly that I am been just as diligent about this assignment that Jesus left me to do. I have been more of a “hit or miss” kind of person. Because of my shyness, I am reluctant to approach others, so I need boldness that can only come from God. I need His guidance to show me the people to whom I should speak His words of comfort and affirmation, those who are ready to receive His Word. I am elderly now and don’t work at a regular job anymore. I am in awe that God gives us a job to do in spite of our weaknesses and infirmities. I can still tell others about Jesus and the gifts of grace and eternal life that come from freely to those who believe. I am not finished with my life on earth, nor am I finished with my assignment from God. If you are still walking on earth, living and breathing, then you, too, still have an assignment. Let’s work on it together!
After almost a week of sand and sea and fun with family, we are heading home today. God never ceases to amaze me with His power, love, mercy and grace. Just sitting on the beach and watching the waves gave me a feeling of how awesome God is and how much I want His glory to shine in the earth.
This is my prayer for the earth, that it will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Just as I look at the endless sea as it drops into the horizon, so is God’s knowledge and glory endless and timeless. Totally unfathomable to me, but such is the truth of our God.
The waves crash against the shore and God desires to come into our heart with His power and love. But He waits to be invited. Unlike the waves, God has the power and the might, but He loves us too much to just take over our lives without our invitation.
As the sun rises over the earth each day, may the Lord shine brightly in each heart of every believer until the day in which the Lord’s glory shines over all the earth. Selah.
A stalker who wants to finish what he started. A US Marshal who’s vowed to protect his charge. And one woman who is determined to put the past in the past.
Flight paramedic Raina Price has been running so long it’s hard to stop. To escape a dangerous stalker, she changed her name and disappeared, building a new life with the help of a friend from her time in juvie. It feels good to put her energies into saving people’s lives, but because her stalker was never found, she’s never stopped looking over her shoulder. And one can only run so far before the past finally catches up.
US Marshal Vincent Corelli’s job is to hunt down fugitives and protect those who are assigned to him. When Raina is almost killed right in front of him, he vows to protect her at all costs–whether it’s his job or not. Together they work to solve the mystery of Raina’s past. But someone is out to make sure Raina doesn’t live long enough to do it.
Countdown is the breathless conclusion to USA Today bestselling author Lynette Eason’s thrilling Extreme Measures series.
All are available from your favorite bookseller, and I highly recommend each of them!
My Thoughts
This is a heart-pounding romantic suspense with lovable characters who jumped off the page and into my imagination. Raina has been on the run for most of her life but decides to take a stand against her aggressor when he threatens those near and dear to her. The new man in her life, Vince, is suffering from some past trauma himself but he is determined to keep Raina safe. The adventures of these two are harrowing and cleverly written, with some deliberate misdirection that kept me on the edge of my seat. I enjoyed the intrigue, the multiple layers and how tightly the plot was written. With lots of action and plenty of characters, this intense and complex book had me captivated to the very satisfying conclusion. This is the perfect book to end this outstanding series! The characters from the previous books have cameo appearances while Raina is featured in this one. All books can be read as a standalone, but I am thrilled to have read and enjoyed each of them. The author explores with heart the effect of trauma on a person and her treatment of the Raina’s terrifying past gives a great deal of depth and authenticity to the story. With a fast pace and continually crackling with tension, this is a must read for fans of compelling romantic suspense. Disclaimer Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author as part of her launch team and an e-copy from Revell as part of the Revell Reads Blogger Program. 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 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”
Rated PG due to intense suspense. Christian fiction and a clean read!
About the Author
Lynette Eason is the best-selling, award-winning author of over sixty books. Her books have appeared on the USA TODAY, Publisher’s Weekly, CBA, ECPA, and Parable bestseller lists. She has won numerous awares including the Carol, the Selah, the Golden Scroll and more. Her novel, Her Stolen Past was made into a movie for the Lifetime Movie Network. Lynette can be found online at www.lynetteeason.com and www.facebook.com/lynette.eason and @lynetteeason on Twitter.
Questions and Answers with Lynette:
Questions for Lynette Eason:
1. What was the most interesting (or most frightening) thing you learned in the research you did for this book?
Countdown was a cool book to write. I found it really interesting that hospitals monitor employee keystrokes. Like everything typed into the computer is monitored. I should have known this, but it surprised me for some reason. So, when I wanted someone to delete an autopsy report, I had to get creative in how it could be done.
2. What was your favorite part of writing this book/series?
I enjoy reading books in a series, so I’ve always been drawn to writing them. I love the fact that I get to revisit characters on a regular basis and see how they grow and change as the series goes on.
3. Did anything in the story end up surprising you or changing trajectory?
I was kind of surprised by the villain—which happens frequently. I had one person in mind as the bad guy, but as the story went on, the REAL villain came to light and I was like, “Ohhhhh…yeah.”
4. Do you have any bits of “trivia” or “behind the scenes” tidbits you’d like to share with my readers?
I suppose just the writing of the story is always a learning process. With each story, I feel like I’m always starting over and am like, I’m really not sure I can do this again. LOL. And then in the end, it works out. Mostly because I pray a lot and force myself to make it work with the Lord’s help!
5. What’s coming next and when can we expect it?
I have a new series releasing starting in January 2024. The series has been named Lake City Heroes and takes place in the fictional town of Lake City, NC. Double Take is book 1 and Target Acquired is book 2. Books 3 and 4 haven’t been titled yet.
6. When and how did you know that you wanted to be an author?
Well, that kind of snuck up on me. I started writing out of loneliness and once I had a story written, I kind of wondered if I could get it published. I didn’t get the first three books published, but the 4th one was the charm. 😊
7. What is your writing process like?
No matter what I do in a day, my rule is I have to write just 50 words before my head hits the pillow. NO LESS. And more often than not, once I start, I obviously get way more than 50. But it’s the absolute minimum every day. And often people ask if I plot out a story. I used to say, no way. But as I’ve noticed, is I start with an idea, then have a very loose outline (a plotting technique!!) and I go from there. So, I’m more of a plantser – half plotter and half pantster. For those that don’t know that term, it’s someone who writes by the seat of their pants – they let the story guide them. I used to think I was for sure a pantser, but I know now I’m a mix of the two.
8. What would be your advice to new authors?
Study the craft by reading books on writing, attending conferences and definitely by writing, writing, writing. A lot of people say to find a mentor and I agree with that. It can be difficult to find one so keep that in mind and be patient until God puts that person in your life. And don’t worry because He will.
9. If you could have a luncheon with a group of authors, whom would you invite and why?
Colleen Coble, Robin Carroll, DiAnn Mills, Carrie Stuart Parks, Lynn Blackburn. There are more, of course, but I’d run out of room listing them all!
Why: I’ve known them for ages and we’ve walked the writing journey together for a long time. And we can’t get in the same space without brainstorming someone’s next book.
10. What is your favorite thing to do when you are not writing or reading a book?
Photography and traveling with my husband. I love taking pictures of nature and animals—zoo or free roaming. I also enjoy taking portraits and family photos, too!
Thank you, Lynette Eason, for answering questions that inquiring minds want to know!
This is a new release and is available NOW! Purchase Links:
I am thrilled to be a part of the Revell Reads Blogger Program that gives me the opportunity to read and review so many wonderful Christian books! I also appreciate that I was chosen to be on the launch team for COUNTDOWN, and I so appreciate the launch team geek, Tammy Karasek who helped us with the launch of this fantastic book. Special thanks to Lynette Eason for once again providing a book that I couldn’t put down!
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 