God reminded me of His awesome power this morning.  I have been feeling discouraged because of the lack of answered prayers in my life.  But God reminds me that nothing is too hard for Him, and if He isn’t answering the way I want, He is still answering.  Each breath I take is a gift from God.  Each step I take is a gift from God.  Every morning that I awaken is a gift from God.  His answer is on the way because nothing is too hard for Him.  I am weak and can’t do a lot in my own strength, but it is God’s strength that I am counting on.  Yes, my friend is still in critical condition in the hospital.  But she responded yesterday for the first time.  So, improvement has been noted.  God is answering prayer.  I am so in awe of God’s love and power.  I hope that you realize how small we are and how great God is.  He changed time and sent the sundial back; he parted waters twice; He sent His Son who healed people and represented God’s love and power on earth.  Without Him, I can do nothing and I am nothing.  But with Him, I can do whatever He asks and I am His child, a child of the King.  I hope that you all know who you are in the Lord and how awesome He is!

I was blessed to be nominated for this award by MWSR. She is a talented and versatile blogger who writes poems and shared vocabulary for us to learn from. I hope that you will check out her blog.

The rules are:

• Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to him/her.
• Answer the 11 questions provided by the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
• Notify the nominees by commenting on one of their blog posts.
• List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post.

Favorite holiday and why? My favorite holiday is Easter because it is Resurrection Day

Favorite animal and why you choose it? I like cats because I have one who is my constant companion when I am home. Daisy is cuddly and very smart. I have taught her to sit and beg for treats and my husband taught her to fetch.

Favorite quote? “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Words of wisdom for someone? I will use another quotation, this one from Plato: “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

A gift that was your favorite and why? The last Christmas gift that I got from my parents was a red winter coat. I loved it because it was from them during a time that they were struggling financially.

Favorite movie? I Can Only Imagine

Favorite Song? “Whom Shall I Fear?” By Chris Tomlin

Favorite lyrics in a song and explain why. “I want what you want, Lord and nothing less.” From Lauren Daigle’s “I Will Trust in You.” I love this part because I want it to be true for my life, and I’m working on that.

Someone you look up to? My first pastor who is still alive and still doing missions work in his 80’s. Dean Harvey is a role model and a Christian who lives what he believes.

Share with us a picture and tell us what it is. This is my youngest granddaughter Evie. She is six months old now and is a real joy to be around.

Share something. I became a Christian by reading the book of John from a Bible that my neighbor gave me. I love the Lord and do my best to serve Him every day.

Who is your best friend and what do you have in common?

What is your favorite place to go and why?

If you watch television, what is your favorite show?

What is the book that you would recommend that everyone read?

What is your favorite thing to do on a daily basis?

Share an interesting fact about your life.

What is one word that describes you best? Explain.

If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be and why?

What do you consider to be the priority of your life?

Tell us your favorite author and why.

What is one thing that you wish everyone knew about you?

As an avid reader of books since I was a young child, I have discovered treasure in the book known as the Holy Bible. It is my “go to” book for advice, comfort and acceptance. It is always there for me, and now that we have technology, I can read the Bible in all kinds of different versions. I am currently reading the Bible through in a year, using the New Living Testament. Last year, I read the NIV and the year before that the KJV. I tried reading The Message Version of the Bible, but I really didn’t like the way the words were so different from what I was accustomed to. My pastor frequently uses the ESV, so I may try that one next year. No matter the version that I am reading and studying, I believe that it is very important that we read and study God’s Word daily.

I read a lot of books (over 200 this year so far), but only the Bible is eternal. It was there long before I was born and it will continue to be there for the generations that follow me. Jesus referred to the Old Testament over and over again, appealing to the Jewish people with whom He was trying to relate. We who live in this age have a new covenant and the New Testament, the words and truth that give our lives meaning and purpose. We were created to serve our Creator and to tell others of His great love. What a privilege and honor to share the truth of God’s Word with those who have not heard it or believed it yet!

God’s Word is practical and useful for everyday life, with all of its struggles. His Word is not just a nice story put on paper. God inspired His Word to be written just as it is. What a wonder! And God uses it to teach us, rebuke us, correct us and train us to be righteous. I am working on being more like Jesus. That means that I need more of God inside me every day. God’s Word is the tool, the big machinery, the crew boss of my efforts to rebuild my life so that it is Jesus that others see in me. God wants to give us the tools to help others. Those tools are in God’s Word. No matter what I face each day, I can go to God’s Word to find the answer. God has already provided all of the answers to life’s questions. They are in His Word…open it and find the truth and instructions that He has for your life.

A few years ago, my husband and I bought a new car. Actually, it was new to us, but it was two years old at the time. Anyway, we drove it away and in a few months, a warning light came on the dashboard. Unfortunately, the flashing yellow light did not tell me instantly what I needed to do to remedy the problem. What did I do? I opened the glove compartment, took out the owner’s manual and read what the light meant (the tire needed air) so that I was able to correct the problem. I have heard people express the opinion that babies don’t come with an owner’s manual, so parents do the best they can. I don’t agree with that statement because I think that the owner’s manual for each new person who comes into the world is the Holy Bible. God is our owner and He has provided the manual; it tells us how to raise our children and how to live our own lives so that we become the people that He means us to be. Taking out your Bible should be the natural response to any warning lights in your life because it is the Owner’s manual. After all, we are His and He knows what is best for us. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1 NIV).

I am so happy that God does not expect me to be perfect.  He only expects me to do my best.  That’s a phrase that I am very familiar with since I used to have anxiety attacks before tests in high school and college.  Parents and friends always just admonished me to do my best.  I expected perfection from myself, and therein lay the problem.  God wants me to live each day doing my best.  How do I do that?  I study His Word and pray daily.  I start my day each morning with a devotional.  I look for ways to help others and to tell them about Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us.  Some days are better than others because I have a tendency to get easily frustrated, especially with my spouse who is a laid-back, relaxed kind of person.  I am an intense, A-type personality, so I fall easily into my old self, angry and unable to accept change.  God’s desire for me (and for you)  is to be a worker for Him.  We are His representatives of His Word here on the earth.  We are the walking, talking, Word of God that other people see.  Whoa!  That is a difficult thing to consider, but it is the truth.  And in our ambassadorship, God expects us to do our best.  He isn’t asking for perfect people; He is requiring that we do our best to represent Him.  So, go out and shine for God today!  Do your best to be His worker and to rightly represent the truth in His Word!  Let other people see the living Word in you so that they will want what you have.  I’m not perfect, but I am under construction and I am going to do my best not to thwart God’s plan but to promote it.  I pray that my readers will be encouraged to do likewise.  

I am grateful to have been nominated for The Versatile Blogger Award by Liberah.

So generous to have nominated me and then she had to wait until I could actually post. Thank you, so much, dear!

RULES:

• Thank the person who nominated you.
• Include a link to their blog in your post.
• Nominate 15 bloggers of your choosing to keep spreading the love.
• Share 7 facts about yourself.

I taught in eleven different public school districts, including Arkansas, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., Maine, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

I was a teacher for 34 years.

I have been married for 45 years.

I met my husband on a bus.

I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior on February 28, 1973.

I have three children who are the joy of my heart.

I have ten grandchildren, one of whom I will meet for the first time in Heaven.

Photo from Pathways to God

I have been thinking a lot about prayer lately and why some are answered and others seem to not receive an answer, or at least not the expected one.  The Bible exhorts us to pray, we do, and then we are discouraged when we don’t receive the answer that we expect.  Some even get angry at God for not sending the desired answer.  In this last week, I have seen a good friend go into the hospital for a routine surgery and is now in the ICU in critical condition.  Are people praying for her?  Yes! She is a valued and well-loved member of our small church family.  Yet we are not seeing the improvement in her condition that we are consistently praying for.  I have been praying for an online friend and her husband; he was in a motor vehicle accident.  He just passed away last night.  Finally, I have been praying for my sister who was diagnosed with macular degeneration.  She called railing at me last night because her prayers (and mine) are not being answered since she was told yesterday that the disease has spread into her other eye now.  I have to humbly admit that I don’t have all of the answers.  I know that God does His will on the earth and sometimes (oftentimes, dare I say), it is not the result that we hoped or prayed for.  As I prayed last night, God showed me a vision of a marionette and told me very clearly that He is not one.  So, why am I still praying?  Because the Bible tells me to.  When Hezekiah was told that he would die imminently, he turned his face to the wall and prayed.  God heard his prayer and added fifteen years to his life.  What if Hezekiah had just said, “Okay!  That’s it!  Now I’m upset with God about leading me to death, so I’m just going to roll over and die.”  That is not what He did.  He prayed and seemed to change God’s mind about his imminent destiny.

Photo from What Christians Want to Know

I am trying hard now to keep my eyes on God, not on the circumstances, just as the great Oswald Chambers encouraged us to do.  Jesus knew the agony of unanswered prayer in a very real way, and He was the Son of God.

When Jesus faced death on the cross, He prayed for God to take away that “cup” of suffering.  But He also prayed for God’s will to be done.  That is what I am having difficulty doing, letting go and letting God make the final decisions about everything.  But, like Jesus, I know that this is what I must do.  (Photo from Patheos)

Photo from Patheos

This is the Scripture that I am leaning on.  God’s will for me is to give thanks no matter what the circumstances are and to continually pray.  God doesn’t promise to be the puppet on the end of the string, moving the way I want at any given time.  He has a whole world to take care of, and I am thankful to know that He is my Heavenly Father.  I am disappointed and discouraged when my prayers are not answered the way I want, but I am being told in my spirit that they are being answered the way that is best in the end for all concerned.  That is a hard thing to understand, so I will have to continue to think about that as I go through the days ahead, continuing to pray in spite of the prayers that I have not seen answered in my way.  After all, there is my way and then there is God’s way.  I am thankful that sometimes these two paths intersect and I hope to one day merge my will with God’s but I am not there yet, and I have to trust that God knows what He is doing. Jeremiah 29:11 tells me that God’s plans are better than I can even imagine.  My mind and life are finite; He is infinite and He knows all things.  So, my trust needs to be in Him.  “For I know the plans I have for you, “ declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)

Photo from DailyVerses.net

Back to a previous scripture.  This photo shows a shipwreck, with the boat torn apart.  That is my life sometimes and probably yours.  But I take note that even though the boat is on its side and in a real mess, it is on the shore.  It is safe!  That is what I am believing as I pray for my friends and family, that God will take us safely to the shore, no matter what the storms of life may be.  Death is a problem.  Critical condition in the hospital is a problem.  Slowly going blind is a problem.  But none of these things takes God by surprise!  He is always in control, in the same way that He was there when His Only Son was crucified for us.  That is not what the disciples and His followers thought would happen, but Jesus knew that it was coming and was prepared to suffer for us and give us the gift of our ultimate salvation.  I can only pray that my prayers will line up with God’s will and that He will answer in love, giving all involved the hope to continue on life’s journey or to be with Him in Heaven.  I hope that you will join me in prayer, no matter what is happening in your shipwrecked life.  Let God be God!  He is always worthy and He always knows what He is doing!

I get up very early every day because I am a morning person. I try very hard not to awaken my night owl husband, so I tiptoe around in the dark room, turning on the light in the attached bathroom and closing the door. When I leave the bathroom, I turn off that light and use the flashlight on my phone to find my way to the door and out of the room. At last! I am free to turn on lights and see exactly where I am going. The chores that I do I I the morning are so much easier to do in the light.

About ten days ago, we lost our electricity when Tropical Storm Michael passed through. Since we live in a very rural area, we ended up being without electricity for almost a week. Part of that time, we were in Maryland visiting family, but I know well the frustration of getting up every morning, grabbing a small lantern that we had purchased for just such an occasion as this, and stumbling around in the semi-darkness to find the things that I needed to feed our cat and to find something for me to eat that didn’t require dairy products. The little lantern only lit the space a few steps in front of me. I was so happy each day to see the sun, and so sad at the end of the day when it set. We could not use our phones because we could not charge them. We couldn’t use our electronic devices because we had no internet. The thing that I missed most was reading my electronic You Version of the Bible each day. I could still read my hard copy, but I couldn’t do my Bible plan and that was frustrating for me. I found that I really missed my devices and my connection with the online world. But mostly, I just missed light. I found myself constantly reaching for a light switch and then remembering that it would not respond to my touch. I never got used to the darkness.

God reminded me that I am a light in the dark world. There are so many reaching out for the comfort of the light switch, but they don’t know how to turn it on. They are totally unaware of the comfort and peace that can be found in God’s Word. So, while I was getting accustomed to living in the darkness for those days without power, there are millions of souls who are living without hope, in the darkness, and they have no chance of having light unless we show it to them. That is a big responsibility, but the way the world changes is one soul at a time, one light at a time. I am the light and I reach out and touch someone else and he/she becomes the light. Then, they touch someone else and they become a light to others. And so the light is spread. I have always been very shy, but I have prayed for God to give me opportunities to share with others. Yesterday, as we were in line at Wal-Mart, the elderly man in front of me bent over to tie his shoe, and that simple action seemed to be a struggle for him. When he straightened, I felt the Holy Spirit prod me to speak to him, so I talked to him about how well we are made by the Creator and he agreed with me. We chatted for a few minutes about God and His power and then he checked out, smiling and waving at me. At the checkout, I noticed that the young girl working looked tired, but she continued to do her job cheerfully. I complimented her on her hard work and told her that I appreciated her efforts. Then, I told her that I hoped that her day would be blessed. Just a little thing to say, but one that can make a big difference. She gave me a big smile and a thank you. No, I didn’t say the sinner’s prayer with anyone yesterday, but I shined a little light of hope for these two people and I know that God can use that light to help them through the day and I’m believing that if they are not yet saved that God will fulfill His plan for their lives. I was satisfied that I followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and did a little bit, just a tiny little word of encouragement becomes a light that dispels the darkness of discouragement over difficulty tying a shoe or having a whole line of customers with no end in sight. We are the light of the world. There is no reason why we cannot turn our switch on and shine it in the darkness; we don’t depend on a power company because our power comes from our Creator, the God of the Universe who wants us to shine His light into the darkness of the world, spreading hope wherever we go. “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine!” I hope that you all will do likewise and be listening for the prodding of the Holy Spirit to shine your light.

I have been off-line for about a week now, first because we lost our electricity and then because we traveled to see our son and his family in Maryland.  Visiting with the grandchildren always takes priority over anything else I would like to do…thus the explanation for my absence from my blog.  I am still in Maryland, but Penny is at pre-school and Evie is napping, so here I am.

Is there anyone in your life on whom you can call, day or night, and they will always answer?  I have a few that come to mind, but even those few I would hesitate to call in the middle of the night just because I hesitate to inconvenience them in any way.  But there is someone on whom you can call, at all hours, and you will always get an answer if you are listening.

For those of us who doubt (and I must honestly confess that sometimes when things don’t go the way I want them to, I doubt), God says to us that nothing is too hard for Him.  Then, in the next chapter, He tells us that when we call on Him, He will answer us.  But it is up to us to call on Him first.  I was told once that God is a gentleman and doesn’t come in without an invitation.  So, if you want an answer, you have to ask.  Then, not only will you receive an answer if you are listening, but God will also reveal things to you that only He can reveal.  Isn’t that unimaginably cool?  We are insatiably curious and God can fulfill that desire if we ask Him.  I’m encouraged by these Scriptures and I hope that you are, too.

We are going home tomorrow and hope to have electricity again.  So, I will be back online next week, prayerfully.  In the meantime, be safe, my friends, and guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  My desire for you is answered prayers and revelations from God.

My heart goes out to those affected by Hurricane Michael. We had the tropical storm hit us Thursday night and we still don’t have electricity. The power company says maybe on Monday. We kept our freezer stuff in an ice chest until we could take it to our son’s freezer on Saturday, so that was a blessing. Please keep all of the people affected by this destructive storm in your prayers. And especially send up a prayer for those working tirelessly to restore power. We are out of town now to see our grandchildren. Hopefully we will have power when we get home again.

Did you know that we are all on a journey called life? I compare it to being on a boat and sometimes I feel like I am all alone and kind of lost. But God’s Word tells me that I am never alone; I just have to invite Jesus into my boat and He will calm whatever storm that I am going through. God wants me to reach the shore, to fulfill His plan for me, so He sends Jesus into my life to guide the boat to shore and to calm the waters of a life that is a raging sea all around me. The other day I went out to do errands with my husband, one of which was to visit my kidney doctor. She told me that I need to do an ultrasound to see what is going on with my kidney. Since I was born with only one kidney, it is imperative that I take care of it and when my kidney function decreases, then I have to take some kind of steps with meds or food and beverage in order to help it out. Anyway, I have to do an ultrasound and return to my nephrologist next month for her to do more lab tests and follow up with the first ones. So, since I was expected a “You’re doing fine” report, the one she gave me upset me some. The waves were hitting my boat pretty hard by that point. Continuing our errands, we stopped at the library, only to find it closed. The waves rose and hit my boat harder. Finally, I missed my swimming aerobics class because of my appointment with my doctor, so I had to exercise once I got home and I was already tired from running errands. So, the waves started washing over my little boat and the winds were really picking up now. I could feel myself spiraling into a “poor me” pity party, but I took time to sit down and read God’s Word and to pray about my situation. He gave me Scriptures to console me; Jesus came into my boat and calmed the wind and the waves that were raging. I was being totally human that day, with lots to do and not enough tiime for God. But He slowed me down, showed me that He was right beside me and calmed me to be able to finish my day with gratitude and peace. Do you ever start your day in your boat and as the day goes by, you realize that waves are buffeting your little boat, the wind has begun to blow hard and you are getting off course? That was me on Tuesday. Then, I stopped. I hit the pause button, as it were, and I took time to reflect on how big God is compared to how small my little problems and inconveniences are. Jesus stepped into my boat and showed me the way to shore that day. I hope that you have Jesus in your boat every day so that the winds and waves are calm, so that your eyes are on your destination and not on all of the winds and waves of life that will try to divert your attention. I missed the mark on Tuesday, but I got my eyes back on Jesus and continued along on my course that God has for me. That’s what I pray for you, that you will invite Jesus into your boat and keep on rowing, knowing that no matter what you face in the sea of life, He is enough. Blessings and prayers for a safe and wonderful journey!