I was literally blown away by this book!  It was so enthralling that it kept me reading late into the night and early again the next morning.  It is the story of a friendship between two women, one of whom has the hidden identity of being a convicted murderer who got a light sentence.  Which woman is the killer?  And what kind of woman is she really?  Both Frances and Kate seem very normal on the surface..  Frances is suffering from being overweight and not being accepted while Kate is everrything Frances wants tos be.  Frances has one son, Marcus who is also overweight and not accepted at his posh private school.  Kate has two children, Daisy and Charles.  Daisy is a teen with a lot of secrets who has no relationship with her family at all, so she seeks relationships outside of the home.  Charles is in Marcus’s class at school and they befriend each other, leading to the friendship between Frances and Kate.  I love how the author tells the story from the point of view of Frances and Daisy as well as some unknown entity known as DJ.  His identity is not explained until close to the end of the book.  The whole book was a thrill ride, as I constantly waited to find out who was the killer in hiding and what would happen to their friendships.  But I must admit that the story that fascinated me the most was that of Daisy.  Readers of psychological thrillers will definitely enjoy this twisted and mysterious novel from Robyn Harding which teaches all of us about appearances and friendships.

Disclaimer

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”

In my devotional time this morning, I read this Scripture from Shelia Walsh’s Bible study, “In the Middle of the Mess.”

Then, I began to meditate on what this Scripture means to me personally.  God is working on my behalf.  He has already started and He will make a way where there does not seem to even be a path.  What He is doing and will do in my life is beyond my ability to comprehend, because He is God.  I have tried to limit God and tell Him what I need Him to do and all along He has been trying to get my attention and tell me that what He is doing in me and for me is a totally new thing.  So, now I am preparing my heart to receive this unexpected gift from the Lord.  The God of all creation loves me enough to do something new in my life, something that I could never expect.  I’m waiting for the Lord!  How about you?

I’ve been thinking about power a lot lately, particularly since our electricity has been going off 3-5 times a week, for 2-6 hours at a time, and this is during a heat wave.  Repeated calls to our electric provider have been less than helpful; they are trying to locate the problem and fix it.  You know what?  Jesus knew the problem when we aren’t “working” as we should.  We need to know two things:  the Scriptures and the power of God.  To know the Scriptures, you have to spend time in God’s Word, reading, absorbing it, letting it speak to you personally.  To know God’s power, you have to spend time with Him, allowing Him to speak to you and to empower you to do His will on the earth.  So, although my house electricity may fail, I don’t ever want the power of God that lives in me to fail.  I charge it daily, with time with Him and in His Word.  If I’m not connected to Him, then I am not connected to the Source of Life, the Source of all power and whatever I try to do for Him will be in vain.  Get connected today!  Stay connected.  Don’t flicker on and off like you have a power shortage or an electrical problem.  I can assure you that if that is the way you are living your life, it is not God who has cut off the supply.  You didn’t plug in.  Blessings and prayers until next time.

This is my prayer for the United States of America, that we as a people will turn again to God, and He, in turn will make His face shine upon us.  Then we will be saved and be blessed by the God who created us.  Dr. James Dobson has a wonderful tribute to Independence Day.  Here is the link:

Independence Day

I also want to share a song to celebrate our nation:

Today, I just want to say thank you to the Lord for all of His blessings to me.  I have been blessed this week with a visit from two of my grandchildren, and I am feeling especially blessed because a friend from church, Maribel Velez, came to stay with my while my husband is out of town.  How blessed I am to have a good Christian friend in the house!  I am blessed to be alive.  I am blessed to be a sinner saved by grace.  I am blessed to be an American.  I am blessed to be a wife and a mother.  I am blessed to be able to exercise every day.  I am blessed!  And I am so thankful to the God who made the Universe and decided that the world needed one of me!  Thank you, Lord!

Lest there be any confusion about my testimony, I want to unequivocally state that I am a sinner saved by grace.  When I was living in a little apartment in southeast Virginia, on my own for the first time, God saw my heart and my need and sent a neighbor to tell me the Good News about Jesus.  After reading the book of John through that night, I was convicted and saved of my sins.  No one led me through a sinner’s prayer; I just prayed for forgiveness and felt clean for the first time in my life.  Up until that time, I didn’t feel like I was a bad person.  I had never robbed, killed or done any of the awful things that you hear on the news all the time.  Nevertheless, I was and I am a sinner in need of God’s grace.  As I look around at all that is happening in the world, especially in the United States, I know that there are many who need to have knowledge of the Lord in order to be saved.

This is the prayer for my nation, and perhaps it is the prayer for many for their nations.  God is the God our salvation and He can forgive our sins if we repent and call on His Name.  Therein lies the problem—the people need to repent but they don’t know that they need Jesus.  Just as I was going about my daily life doing my regular things and feeling pretty good about my own accomplishments, I, too, was unaware of a need for Jesus. Then, one day, a neighbor told me that Jesus would forgive my sins and offer me eternal life, and more than that, a relationship with the Father in Heaven.  From the moment of my eyes being opened to the salvation of the Lord, I was saved and I have not turned back from that road.  But there are many on the wrong path and that discourages me.  When I watch the news and see so many ungodly people doing ungodly things, I think to myself, “Lord, how did a Christian nation become so un-Christlike?”  In my prayer this morning, God seemed to answer me with another scripture.

God reminded me that there are more on “our side” than what is on the side of evil.  He spoke to my heart that we are surrounded by chariots of fire, by God’s Holy Army of Angels, just waiting for His command to act.  Prayer changes things; it changes hearts.  And the change starts with me.  My attitude needs to be one of victory, of knowing that the Lord has this.  I need to continue living my life in a way that people will want to have the same thing I have.  I realized this morning during prayer that I have been living like we are already defeated and there is nothing that I could do. But we are an army of the Lord, facing new battles and challenges daily. We are called to continue following the Lord and fighting the good fight until He calls us home or He returns, whichever happens first. God hasn’t given up on our sinful nation and neither should we. Are you praying? God is even now sending an answer. Wait for it!

I have to confess that I have not felt much peace this week. Our electricity keeps going off, sometimes for hours and sometimes for only a second or a minute.  Regardless, it is worrisome because it is so hot here in Virginia and I am asthmatic and need the air conditioning.  Which brings up another problem—our AC unit is very old and not working well.  Of course, we don’t have the money to replace it, so we put a asmall window unit in our bedroom so that it is cool enough to sleep.  The den, the room in which I stay most of the time, gets up to the 80’s most days.  Uncomfortable, yes, but I have been making do.  Next, my husband is taking his annual trip to his brother’s and will be gone for four days.  What’s the problem you may ask. Well, I am very spoiled and used to having him here to take care of me, especially since I had my stroke.  I have a special diet and he does all of the cooking for me.  Normally, I go somewhere when he is gone, like my daughter’s house (she is out of town now for a gymnastics competition) or to my sister’s condo which is a close drive away.  Well, there is another issue.  My sister told me this week that my husband and I are not welcome anywhere near her.  Her birthday is this week and I had called about when I could get her gifts to her.  She doesn’t want any gifts from me because I am a conservative, believe in pro-life and have a “holier than thou” attitude (all according to her).  Besides, my husband wrote something on Facebook that offended her.  So, after sobbing and praying for hours because my sister and I have been close for years, I accepted her mandate and determined just to save her gifts.  Finally, my grandchildren will be spending the next two weeks with us while their dad teaches summer school.  It’s a blessing to have them here, but it is also a stresser because my darling granddaughter is autistic and non-verbal.  I have to keep her from getting frustrated and biting herself since her favorite person in the whole world (my husband) will be gone for four days of her visit.  Also, she wanders during the night and turns on all the lights in the whole house.  And a friend from church is coming to stay with me so I won’t be alone.  It’s the only way my husband will leave me; he is good and caring and concerned about leaving me totally on my own.  I hope that Maribel can adjust to Iris’s insistence that the TV and lights stay on 24-7.  So, lots of worries, but nothing God can’t handle.  I think that is why He gave me this Scripture this morning.  And He gave me another one that is equally helpful.

So I am holding on to these promises this week.  I hope that you, my faithful readers and believers in the goodness of God, will join me in prayer for peace and that God will work everything out.  I know that He can and He will!  Do you know that God is working on the chaos that is your life?  Know Him and know His peace.

I have been thinking a lot about my future and where I would like to be and what I would like to be doing.  It all seems to go with the theme of our days are numbered.  So, these are the scriptures that God gave me today.  I told Him my heart, that I would really like to go back to our house in Pennsylvania.  It is a much nicer home and the plan is to live there a couple of years and then move to something smaller.  My husband wants to avoid the huge capital gains tax that we would pay if we sold it now and just moved to something smaller because we have been renting it for almost twenty years now.  Anyway, ultimately, I would like to live in a small home in Pennsylvania, central to my grandchildren and close to a good church.  I also dream of being in a neighborhood again and not living in a small house in the big woods which is where we are now.  But God says to commit my plans to Him and not to take a step without Him.  He will direct my steps if I let Him.  So, here I am, waiting for the Lord to tell me my next step.  I tend to try to make my plans and then rush into them.  This time, I am waiting for the Lord to open doors and tell me what to do and when.  It’s not just making the plans; timing is everything with God.  He is my Father and He knows what is best for me.  How about you?  Have you committed your plans to the Lord?  Are you letting Him direct your steps?  That is the only way to make sure that your plans succeed.  Let God lead!

God was about to judge all of Israel for their sins and then He remembered that their days were numbered.  He chose to turn away from His judgment on the whole nation because He knew that one day they would be gone from the earth.  Makes you think, doesn’t it?  Our lives are like a breath of wind to the Lord.  Another scripture says:  “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  (Psalm 90:12).   So, as I meditate on these verses, the Lord is reminding me that He has forgiven my sins and the eternal God of the Universe recognizes that I am not immortal as He is so He wants me to learn wisdom.  I remember when I was growing up and spending a lot of time with my grandparents that they looked forward to the arrival of the evening paper every day.  Pa would go out to the box and bring it in and the first thing he always turned to was the obituary section.  I was old enough to understand that he was reading aloud to Nanny the names of those who had died.  What I couldn’t understand at that time was why that was the most important part of the newspaper to him.  Now that I am older, I understand two things:  1)he was reading aloud the names of friends and acquaintances who had died; 2)he was reminding himself and Nanny of the fleeting passage of life.  Unlike Pa, I don’t scan the obituaries daily, but I do read the entire paper and pay attention to the obituaries of those I have been acquainted with.  As I get older, it seems that more people that I know are dying.   It makes me think and calls to my mind that I will one day go the way of my ancestors and pass away.  In the meantime, I have work to do for the Lord.  I need to learn wisdom, especially about what to say when to certain people.

Like many people, I have a tendency to try to evoke my feelings on others.  According to the scriptures, what I am supposed to be doing is listening and rejoicing if they are rejoicing and mourn if they are mourning.  I am not the most important person on the planet, although sometimes you wouldn’t know that by my attitude and words around others.  What we humans need is someone to walk by our side and laugh when we are laughing and cry when we are crying.  Sometimes, we, including me, are too proud to admit that we have a need.  God looks down and knows that we are “here today and gone tomorrow” so he extends to us mercy and grace.  Unfortunately, I sometimes forget my mortality and that of others and have higher expectations of them than the Father would.  I encourage you today to appreciate the day that God has given you and to look for ways to help others in their journey through life.  We are God’s chosen people and He chose us for the purpose of extending His Kingdom by telling others of God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness.  No matter what we are going through or how close we are to the end of our lives, we need to remember that we are Christ’s ambassadors and reach out to others.  No one knows how long their life will be, but this we do know:  We are to live for Christ and to do the kind acts that He would do if he were still walking around on earth.  Live, Go, Love!  

God wanted the Israelites to always remember what He had done for them.  In fact, He told them to tell their children for all generations about how He led them out of captivity to the Egyptians and into a land flowing with milk and honey.  Well, I was never held captive and enslaved by an evil nation, but I have a lot of memories about what the Lord has done for me.  It’s like the old song, “Count Your Blessings” that is a good thing to sing at night as you fall asleep.  Now, there is a new song by Steven Curtis Chapman that I want to share with you.  It’s called “Remember to Remember.”  I think that in the midst of our suffering and daily trials that sometimes we forget to remember how far God has already brought us and all He has already done for us.  I bless God’s Holy Name for His love for me and His taking care of me through everything in my life.  I hope that this song will help you to remember as well.

Mr. Chapman and his music are very special to me because it is the last concert that I attended before I had a stroke.  Because I am now hypersensitive to sound since my stroke, I cannot attend concerts, but I will always remember this one and this man and his testimony.  God has carried him through some really hard times, including the death of his beloved daughter Maria when she was only 4-5 years old.  He has since established a charity for parents who want to adopt children and need help doing so.  He is a wonderful example of someone who does a good job of remembering.  If you want to know more about his charity, go to www.showhope.org.