I confess that I have been guilty of thinking that this verse is meant to be applied individually, to me personally. And when that doesn’t work out so well for me, I end of questioning God and wondering what happened to His fulfilling His word. This devotional today made a lot of sense to me and I don’t know why I didn’t realize this on my own. When we think of it as God addressing the church, then we know that it is indeed true. God is working for the good of everyone, not just me and not just you, but for His entire church. That may mean persecution, but the end result may be many coming to the Lord. It may mean our plans have to change, but we can trust that God will be in the new plan working everything out. I am seeing this verse with a new light and rejoicing in the fact that God isn’t letting me down, not ever! Rather, He is expanding my horizons to see the bigger picture of what He is accomplishing in the world, and I am a small part of His big plan.
Author: vicklea
Faithful God
It has been a tough week for me, but through it all, God has shown Himself faithful. Being faithful means He keeps His promises, and it is part of who he is, not just something He does. Since it is one of the fruits of the Spirit, God wants us to develop that quality in our character, too.
As I spoke quietly with the family last evening at the funeral home, I felt the Lord’s presence surround me with His comfort and love. I saw the teen granddaughters, trying to maintain their composure and smile, but I saw the hurt in their eyes, too. So, when I got up to them, I told them how much their grandmother loved them and talked about them all the time and that she would always be with them in their hearts. That’s when they shed a few tears and I gave them a hug. God is faithful to show us what people need and how we can help them.
God is faithful all the time, in all the ways we need Him. Sometimes, I think faithfulness means that God marches to the beat of my drum, but that isn’t true. God fulfills His promises in His Word, but it is His plan that is unfolding, not mine. He is faithful to His plan for all of our lives, oftentimes in spite of my getting in His way and trying to demand changes in His plan. God remains faithful.
God is faithful when I am irritated with Him. Be honest. You get irritated at God, too. His timing isn’t working out for you. His plan is taking too long. The prayers you consistently prayed weren’t answered the way you thought they would be. But God is still faithful. He is doing what is best for us, even when we are too short-sighted to see it.
God’s faithfulness to us is part of His great love for us. He faithfully works with us, to make us more like He created us to be.
God’s faithfulness surrounds Him and when we are in His presence, it surrounds us, too. There is no one like our God!
When God is shows us His faithfulness, He wants us to share it with others so that they, too, can have hope and believe. In a world where lying, deceit and chicanery are part of the everyday habits of most people, tell others about our faithful God, the God who does not change and who is always faithful in all ways. We may disappoint Him, but He remains steadfastly faithful.
A Friday Prayer
From the YouVersion Daily Refresh 
My additional prayer:
Lord God, I thank you for who you are and for all you have done for me all the days of my life. I bless your name for your goodness and mercy that you have showered on me abundantly. I thank you for your gifts of children, grandchildren friends and other family. These relationships have taught me so much, Lord, about your character and how you want people to be. Thank you, Lord, for being there for me when I was lonely or afraid. Thank you, Father, for being a father to me when mine was not there. I am overwhelmed by your goodness, Lord and your unimaginable and deep love for all of your creation, including me. May I ever be aware of your presence and your desire to bring everyone to you. In Jesus’s Name.
Amen.
When Grief Comes
This was my devotional this morning, after a heart-wrenching day yesterday. The devotional is from the YouVersion Bible App and is entitled “Knowing God Has a Plan: 5-Day Devotional by Anne Wilson.”
When Grief Comes, Is God Still Good?
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5
Some say grief is horror at loss…at not being able to touch them, laugh with them, or make new memories with them. Others may say it is soul-crushing…excruciating…and it makes eternity feel instantaneously close… yet so far away. For me, it is all of this on top of the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens rolled into one.
In the “Seventh of June” song, I wanted to be transparent about the process of grief…how it comes in waves and on anniversaries…how it spills out in tears. We are all in the trenches at times – “praying and trying to make sense of what don’t make sense in this life.” We are all put on notice, waiting for the impossible moment that we never want to face. But we all face loss. We are not getting off of this earth without it.
Grieving people ask themselves: Did they know how much I loved them? What should I have done differently? It can be heavy and full of despair, yet empty of adding up to make sense. How could this have happened? Why did this happen? And the ones no one likes to talk about: Is God still good? And where is God in the midst of our grief?
Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the broken-hearted for they shall be comforted…but ask a new mother holding her stillborn baby if she feels blessed. Ask anyone at the edge of a hospice bed if they feel blessed.
I have learned that the blessing is having Jesus to weep with you. To hold you. To give you supernatural peace that only He can give. At my lowest times and my darkest days, the Prince of Peace is there to encourage me and to catch my tears. I want to remind you that He is good and promises us that weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
Here are some questions to ponder as you process your grief with the Lord:
- Is God responsible for our loss?
- There must be a reason we have a period on earth to experience truth, beauty, and goodness but also deception, ugliness, and evil. What could God’s purposes be?
Now, back to me and my losses. Two good friends and former colleagues passed away this week, but I just heard of their deaths yesterday on my way home from my urologist. I was rejoicing that my bladder scan was good and the solution proposed was an easy one of long-term, low dose antibiotics. Then, I got the text that shattered my world and sent my heart into a tailspin. Ann Garner, the attendance secretary at the high school where I worked for so many years here in Virginia, passed away on Sunday morning. Ann was a dear friend as well as a co-worker. She and I used to go out to lunch together several times a month. After my stroke, she was gracious to include my husband Harry in our outings, since I couldn’t drive myself. We shared laughter, tears and a lot of happy times together. I spoke to her just before I went on the grad tour. She called me to tell me that a former student wanted my phone number and she wouldn’t give it to her without my permission. When I called her back, she sounded really weak, not like herself at all. So I asked her what was going on in her life these days. We hadn’t seen each other for over a year since I had health issues, she had health issues and we just couldn’t make our schedules work. But we stayed in contact, so I was devastated to hear her news that her cancer was not only back but she was on home hospice care. I asked if there was anything I could do and she just asked me to pray. So, my husband and I did. I knew then that the end was close, but I refused to accept that truth and kept praying for healing. After all, she had survived for twelve years with cancer. But the end came in spite of my prayers because God called Ann home to be with him. A widow since 2006, she is reunited with her beloved Clarence now, so I know that her cup is filled with joy. I, on the other hand, feel distraught and a deep grief, a sense of longing for our times together that won’t happen again.
The second blow came as I was online trying to find the information about Ann’s services. I finally found it on Facebook, of all places, and in scrolling, I discovered that a second colleague, Coach Joe Harper had passed away yesterday. Joe was a wonderful man and a good friend who encouraged everyone to enjoy life while we had it. After my stroke, he used to come by my room almost daily just to check in with me and ask how I was doing. I should note here that he taught all the way on the other end of a very large building, but he made the trek to the language hallway because he cared about others, including me. He used to greet us in the office at the mailboxes each morning with the same big smile and the words, “Another day in Paradise!” I truly believe that this kind and loving man who was unselfish to his core is also in the presence of the Father.
After these two deaths had time to settle in my conscious, I cried quietly, then I sobbed. Then, I went to bed early, long before my regular time. In fact, I was asleep before 6:30 last night, praying for peace and comfort for all of the friends and family and that God would give me peace and allow me to rest. He did, and I did. I awakened a couple of times as usual, made my bathroom stop and fell back to sleep. Today, I am feeling a little numb and like I have entered a world that is not well known to me. The death of two friends within days of each other invokes grief but also a wake-up call to my own mortality. None of is promised tomorrow, but if we know the Lord, we are promised eternity.
So, to answer the questions in the devotional: God is not responsible for the loss. Sin came into the world and death follows sin. God’s purpose is not always known, but He is always working out His plan, in others and in me. May the deaths of these loved ones point others to Christ. I know this must be part of His plan.
I am not really feeling joy this morning, but I am feeling a peace and a comfort that can only come from God. Whoever you are missing today, I hope that as you read these words, you will know that God is close beside you and longs to comfort you with His loving presence.
Worship the Creator
There was a lot of buzz this week about the appearance of the strawberry moon for the first time since 2006, an anomaly that we won’t see again until 2043. Naturally curious, I looked up information about it and when to best view it. During the best time to see it, we had dense cloud cover, so I couldn’t see the moon at all. But I did capture a shot of it as we returned from Bible study Monday night.
It was supposed to be most visible on Tuesday night at dusk, but our cloud cover interfered. So here is a photo from http://www.flicker.com that shows the strawberry moon over water.
Here is a second photo that my husband took from our front yard on Monday.
Why all these photos of the moon? Am I directing your attention to the created things? Absolutely not! I want everyone to understand that the Creator of the Universe makes all things beautiful for us to enjoy. He put the moon there and even created special views like a strawberry moon.
When we are gazing at the sky, at least we are looking up. While our eyes are focused upwards, let’s remember to give praise to the Creator for all the wonder He has made all around us.
To God be the glory, always and in all ways for all things!
“To God Be the Glory” by Fanny Crosby
May this old hymn speak to your heart today and give you peace as you reflect on all that God has done and is still doing for you. I am thankful for all of the safe trips we made and the blessings of seeing grandchildren graduate, my brother and his family from Colorado and our daughter and granddaughters from Pennsylvania. Here are photos to show you the graduates, my family members and happy, blessed me!
What We Can Learn from Turtles
I am fairly certain that at some point in your life, you have seen a turtle meandering across the road. Perhaps you even put on your flashers and got out to help it. What I am amazed at is the advice that if you move a turtle, you should move it in the direction it was headed. Turtles have a compass. One really good site I found information about this is:
https://www.turtleguardians.com/2020/07/turtles-know-where-they-are-going/
Quoting from this article:
If you are familiar with turtles and practiced in the art of helping them across roads, you are probably aware that turtle conservation groups and experts urge rescuers to move turtles across the road in the direction they are facing when found. Why is this? When you find a turtle crossing a road coming from a lush wetland, heading towards a dry rocky outcrop, doesn’t it make the most sense to turn it around and place it back in the wetland? Even though your natural instincts might tell you to turn a travelling turtle around and put them in a more “turtle-friendly” habitat, this will actually result in the turtle having to cross the road again when they inevitably turn around to head back the way they were going. To understand why turtles will turn back around if you take them off course, you need to know how turtles navigate.
Turtles are excellent navigators within the areas they are familiar with, ie. their “home ranges.” These home ranges include their yearly nesting site (if female), their overwintering grounds, and the wetlands they frequent during their active season. In the early years of their lives turtles will create ‘mental maps’ of their home areas, and it appears that as turtles age they lose this ability to create new mental maps (Caldwell and Nams 2006). Adult turtles tend to rely on their internal compass to navigate through their home range that they know well and have previously “mapped.”
So what do turtles’ mental maps and internal compasses have to do with always making sure to help them across roads in the direction they are facing? Well, everything! Because turtles are such good navigators, when you find them crossing a road, they are heading some where specific – don’t think for a second they are just wandering or confused!! They know where they are going – even if they are heading somewhere that seems to you like poor turtle habitat.
Now, let’s apply the turtles’ mental compasses to our lives as Christians. We can certainly learn from them how to keep our lives on course and keep traveling in the right direction, even when a well-meaning person (or even a temptation) gets us off course by moving us away from our destination. Our journey is one that does not take a few hours and one in which we can put the address into our GPS and just follow it. No, our journey is a spiritual one and to arrive at our ultimate destination, i.e. heaven with our Father, we have to stay focused. Our compass is God’s Word and the more we have it inside of us, the more likely we are to stay on course and not deviate from God’s plans for our lives. Like the turtle, others may try to “help” us and give us advice that is not Biblically based, so it is not sound advice that we should be taking. They are trying to move us in a direction in which we should not be going. So, what are we to do? Stay in God’s Word! When in doubt, pray and consult God’s Word. God is leading us in the right direction if we just follow. He has gifted turtles with the ability to know their home range. He has gifted us with His word so that we can stay on track and keep moving towards our eternal home.
Sunday Prayer
My thoughts on this prayer are yes! and amen! I am not a bold person, but with the Holy Spirit’s help, I can be. I love that I can fight fear with faith. That is what I leaned on while we were traveling so far these last few weeks. I leaned hard into the Lord and he calmed me. I even fell asleep in the car yesterday, and I never do that (you can ask my husband). I’m usually so anxious about traffic and weather and the car in general that I just can’t relax. But I actually snoozed. Thank you, Lord! I needed that!
I am praising God that we are home for a while now and we can both rest and recover. Our daughter is traveling home today, my brother and his wife are going to see my sister in NC and then home to CO, so I am still praying for them and their safety.
Have a blessed Sunday and a faith-filled week!
Sing Praise to the Lord
I am praising the Lord for a wonderful time with my family as many of us joined together in SC this week. I got to see my brother (we see each other every couple of years), his family from Colorado, including his new grand baby Juni, and our daughter from Pennsylvania and her granddaughters. We enjoyed meals together, swim time, game time and a lot of laughs. So, praise God!
Think about this verse. We imagine, and God does more, so much more!
Review: The Summer that Changed Everything by Brenda Novak
About the Book
ISBN-13:9780778387688
Publisher:MIRA Books
Publication date:06/03/2025
Pages:368
It’s been fifteen years since Lucy Sinclair saw her father. Fifteen long years since she sat in a courtroom and watched him sentenced to life in prison. He murdered three victims—all people she knew—which ruined her life at just seventeen. But now she’s back in Virginia to talk to him, wondering if there’s more to the story of what happened that fateful night.
An old flame, Ford Wagner, makes his own return to North Hampton Beach, fleeing a marriage that seems destined for divorce. He’s wary of Lucy and her digging into the past, but the more time they spend together, the closer they get and the more he finds himself reconsidering the truth behind the death of their mutual friend that summer. Problem is, there are plenty of those in this small coastal town who would prefer things stay quiet…
My Thoughts
The newest book by Brenda Novak combines the fun of a getaway to the beach with a murder mystery that is riveting and suspenseful. Lucy returns to North Hampton Beach to prove that her father, a man convicted of three murders, did not actually kill a young teen named Aurora. Once at the place she had previously called home, Lucy is assailed with memories and also faces a great deal of opposition from the local residents. They don’t accept her theory that her father is innocent of Aurora’s murder and seem to resent that she is trying to prove it. Lucy appears to be alone in her battle until her former high school boyfriend Ford shows up to support her, both mentally and physically. Together, the two of them make a good investigative team, especially when Ford hires a private investigator to unravel some on the mysteries involved in Aurora’s death. There are some twists and surprises along the way, although the killer’s identity is actually revealed early in the story. It was interesting to read how Lucy and Ford were able to follow clues to reveal the killer to the town as well as pursue a secondary mystery. There are also some steamy scenes as Lucy and Ford reignite their former attraction. Family drama is a central part of the plot, too, since Ford’s family does not approve of his choices and Ford’s estranged wife wants to hold on to him and holds what seems to be a winning hand. This is a fast-paced and engaging read with the signature style and brilliantly woven complex plot by a master author.
Disclaimer: I voluntarily received a complimentary copy from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own.
About the Author
Brenda sold her first book OF NOBLE BIRTH, and the rest is history. Many of her novels have won or placed in contests such as the Rita, the National Reader’s Choice and the Bookseller’s Best, and she now runs a warm and enthusiastic book group on Facebook with over 17,000 members.
Brenda and her husband, Ted, live in Sacramento and are the proud parents of five children—three girls and two boys. When she’s not spending time with her family or writing, Brenda is usually raising money for diabetes research. Her youngest son, Thad, has diabetes, and Brenda is determined to help him and others like him. She also enjoys traveling, playing pickle ball, hiking and biking — she rides an amazing 20 miles several times a week! Website: http://www.brendanovak.com
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