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.
For almost four decades, I was in a classroom teaching children. Sometimes I taught younger children in a Christian school, but mostly I taught high schoolers in a public school environment. No matter where I taught, I rarely heard the words, “I don’t know. Teach me.” The problem seemed to be that the students didn’t know what they didn’t know so they didn’t know to ask to be taught. That is also my problem when I approach the throne of God. I don’t know what to pray. But today’s Scripture verse addresses this dilemma.
This is ultimately what I need to be taught, to do God’s will. He is my Lord and Savior and He constantly leads me on safe ground so that I will not fall or stumble. I can trust Him to teach me to do His will while I am on earth, to follow Him as a sheep follows its shepherd’s voice. I have to learn the lesson of letting go and just following where He leads. Is this a lesson you need to learn, also?
Have a blessed and glorious day in the Lord! He is worthy to be followed and He will never lead you on a wrong path.
These verses were in my devotional this morning and they are so appropriate that I just have to share my testimony about what happened at the retina institute yesterday. As I wrote previously, my ophthalmologist had diagnosed me with dry macular degeneration. My sister has the wet kind which leads to blindness and insisted that I go to see a retina specialist since mine is just starting. So, I jumped through all of the insurance hoops and three months later (yesterday) I got an appointment at the Retina Institute of Virginia. I had to be there alone because of restrictions about patients only, so I was really nervous. Where was my faith? It was still there, but the real me was anxious to find out what was going on with my eyes and what the solution would be, if any.
The first nurse was very nice, jovial and encouraging and explaining all the drops that she had to use in my eyes and how the ocular thing worked with pinholes in it. Then, I sat in a dark room for about ten minutes waiting for my imaging. The next lady was quite rude and impatient, but I prayed for me and for her to get through that part of the test and eventually we did. Next step, a dark room to wait to see the doctor and get his diagnosis of my condition.
I was there long enough to start being assailed by doubts and fears. Of course, it didn’t help that my sister has told me repeatedly for the last three months that I’m going to be blind. (She is not just a cup half empty person; her cup is also cracked and leaking.) Anyway, my answer was to pray and ask God for His presence to be really near me. I cannot say that I heard an audible voice but I did hear God speak to my heart to hold my hand out and He would hold it and be with me. Honestly, I have no idea what I was thinking, but I put my hand out on my lap and the Lord spoke to me and told me He had my hand and I was not alone and all would be okay, no matter the verdict from the doctor. I prayed quietly, thanking God for His comfort and calming presence. I can’t say that I felt the Lord holding my hand, but I felt comforted and knew He was there with me.
When the doctor came in, he showed me the photos of my eyes and told me that my left eye has a trace of macular but my right eye has no signs of it at all. He finished his exam and told me that he would see me in a year, that he’s pleased with the radiograph and the photos. My response was to thank him and to thank God, of course! He had me all along, even in that dark room where I was feeling so alone and frightened, He took my hand and spoke words of encouragement to me.
Naturally, when I called my sister to tell her, her response was negative. She informed me that the disease will get worse, there’s no cure, it will go into my right eye and I will go blind, just later instead of sooner. But you know what? I didn’t argue with her or point out to her that God is taking care of the whole situation for me. I knew that in my heart, but she doesn’t know or accept God and His truths, so I wanted to just hold His love for me close to me and enjoy it rather than listen to and accept her harsh words. Shortly thereafter, my husband arrived to take me home and my trial was over. I shared with him what had happened and he was like, “That’s good. That’s really good news.” The best news is that my faith was renewed (again) because God showed me not only that He is powerful but also that He cares about the tiny details in my life. Since I needed someone with me, He was that someone for me. Always there, never intrusive, always willing to console and encourage. That’s my God! I’m ashamed that I needed to be reminded, but I wanted to share my humanity with you all. I don’t have it all together all the time, but God does and knows just what I need and how to meet those needs.
May you be blessed today with the certain knowledge that God is with you, helping you and protecting you in all circumstances.
As a new Christian, when I read this verse, I was overjoyed with the thought that whatever I asked for, God would make it happen. Five decades later, I know that the verse is true but my heart had not yet been trained for what it really means. First of all, delight means extreme satisfaction or pleasure. Do you feel extreme pleasure in the presence of God? The second part of that sentence in the verse says God will give you the desires of your heart. The thing is, as I have grown closer to God, my desires have changed. The physical wants that I thought I one time I just had to obtain have been replaced with spiritual needs that I yearn for. My greatest desire is to be close to God and to hear His voice as I go through my day. Along with that is the desire to see loved ones in a relationship with our Father in Heaven. Does that mean that I have stopped wanting nice things? No, but they are no longer a priority.
The other important word in the verse is commit. It means to devote yourself to a person or a thing. Are you devoted to God? Is He the most important person in your life? When the path we want to take is devoted wholly to the will of God, that is when He acts on our behalf and brings our prayers to fruition.
God is not a genie in a bottle that we say the magic words, He appears and takes care of all of our problems, answering all of our prayers just the way we ask them. God is the God of the Universe, making decisions that are right for all of mankind, not just for me or for you.
I’m praying today for a good visit with the retina eye specialist. A few months ago, I was diagnosed with dry macular degeneration. My sister has been undergoing treatment for the wet kind for several years, going every 4-6 weeks to get shots in her eyes. Having accompanied her to those visits, I am not excited about the whole process. Nevertheless, I continue to believe that nothing will happen today that God and I can’t handle together. I don’t know what the doctor will say, but I already know what God has said to me. He speaks softly to my heart and tells me He is close by and that it will all be okay. And it will, because He is my Father and will never leave me.
As you ponder the verse above, please consider how close you are to the Living God and how close you allow Him to be to you. What are your expectations of God for your life? More importantly, what are His expectations for you?
Have a wonderful and blessed day, devoted to God and committed to Him. May your paths be straight and your way brilliantly lit so that you do not stray from His will.
There are storms all around each of us daily, the storms of life and change and just surviving sometimes. How we react to those storms tells the world a lot about us as a person.
I have had two huge storms circling around me for months. The first was our grandson’s enlistment in the USN and leaving for boot camp. As my husband and I visited with him weekly, the fact that he would depart at the end of April was always at the back of my mind. Then, it happened. Our last lunch. Our final outing with Isaac, and the next day, he left. I have a deep ache in my heart because I miss him, but his leaving moved me closer to my Father in Heaven, the One who knows how deep the pain is and also how change is a part of life.
The other storm is raging around me as the sister who has lived near me for the last two plus decades prepares to move away. Her daughter, my niece, says that she will come to Virginia to get me for visits, but I know it won’t, but I know it won’t be the same. I’m just praying that different will be better. She leaves the end of this month, another departure of someone I’m close to. Again, I run to my shelter, the Lord who never leaves me no matter what changes the storms may bring.
I am hurrying to my shelter each day, many times a day, actually as the grief of separation overwhelms me. I am trusting God to take care of each of them, both Isaac and Ann, in their new places in life. I already know that He has me hidden in His hand, holding me close. When tears threaten to fall, He is comforting me with the promise that He will always be there for me and I will indeed see my loved ones again. I’m sad for those who don’t have this hope, the shelter on whom I depend so much when the storm is raging all around me.
He protects me from the worst of the storm, saves me from its power that could upend my life and grants me the safety and security of being in His presence, calming down my storm-tossed emotions.
My prayer for each of my readers is to know the safety and refuge that comes from being with the Lord. He is dependable and always ready to hold out His hand to help and comfort. His Word is a shelter, too, a tower and shield against all of the depressing thoughts that could come if it were not for His presence. Seek His love, His comfort and His presence and you will find it. He is just there, next to you, waiting for you to call upon Him.
Love those who may be the most unlovable because they need to know the power of love the most.
Have a blessed and glorious Sabbath Day! Remember to look for those who need you to show them love and don’t be afraid to reach out. Be the hands of the Lord today! Live, laugh, love!
Throughout life, we each take a path that we think will lead to future happiness and success. For me, it was to go to college and become a teacher. I never expected to get married and have children, but that was part of God’s plan for my life. Each of us has choices and our choices make a difference in our own life as well as in the lives of others.
This has really been brought home to me recently because I have been at my sister’s house this week helping her pack up to move to a different state. She is a year older than I am, and she is not in particularly good health. Because she has macular degeneration and is slowly losing her vision, she cannot really live alone for many more years. For that reason, when my niece and her family decided to move, they also chose to move her mom with them. That is a very kind gesture that shows the love she has for her mom. However, my sister has had little choice in the matter. A house was purchased next door to them for my sister to live in. The fact that she is leaving all that she has ever known is not a factor in this decision at all. There have been spontaneous outbursts of tears and more than a few arguments (all caused by stress, I’m sure) between my sister and her daughter since I have been here. My heart goes out to my sister and I long to comfort her, but the best I can say is that she knows she can’t take care of herself and that in the long run, this was an unselfish and caring thing for her daughter to do for her. Nevertheless, it is not a path that she would have chosen, but it is done now and she leaves the state she has lived in for almost all of her life and moves to a new one.
I would like to share this Scripture with my sister but she refuses to listen to anything I have to say about God. Her current reason (she has had many excuses over the years) is that a friend of hers was recently diagnosed with cancer and how can a good God give people who are good such an awful disease? She expanded on that philosophy ad nauseum the other night when we were resting from a long day of packing. She says she knows that I believe in God but she just can’t believe in a God who does such horrible things to people. I tried to tell her that God didn’t do it, sin and evil in the world did. But she tuned me out and said she doesn’t believe in sin and evil. Are you kidding me?!? How can anyone not believe in the evil that is rampant in the world, threatening to overtake us at any time? And if it were not for God’s love, mercy and grace, we would all be destroyed. I spoke for a few minutes before I was interrupted, but she just would not hear me. My heart is broken for her because of her move, her leaving all behind here but mostly because she doesn’t have the hope that lives in my heart. Yes, bad things happen to good people. But God is still on His throne and still in control. I sincerely believe that He has everyone’s best interests at heart and that God’s heart is hurting when people suffer, from cancer or from heartbreak, but especially from unbelief and turning away from Him.
God literally showed me the truth of this Scripture back in the 1980’s. My husband was a fairly new officer in the USAF (having left his enlisted position in the USN) and we had been stationed in a very small town in Arkansas for four years. Preparing to move overseas, we were all excited about going to Japan. Alas! The military carefully scrutinizes medical records of all family members before they send you overseas and they decided that my health was too bad to go to a military base without an appropriate military medical facility. So, our things were all packed in crates and awaiting our final orders to Japan, but those orders had been canceled. My husband talked to the scheduler about where he could go and they came up with Iceland. Again, I could not be approved to go there, but I could be on base as the caregiver of our children and they would take care of me medically if needed. Harry asked me where I wanted to be while we waited for base housing to be available and I told him South Carolina since I had lived there for eight years at various times during our military moves. He went to Iceland, the children and I found a small apartment in South Carolina near our church and settled in to wait for our stay in Iceland. It never happened! Once my husband arrived, he was told that the wait for base housing was at least two years, a remote tour was one, so he opted to stay there for one year alone while the children and I lived in South Carolina. I was beside myself with anxiety and grief, but I did what I do whenever I’m caught in a situation that I can’t control. I prayed. I knew that God had me there for a reason, so I asked him to reveal the reason to me and let me be calm and nurturing for the children. Not long after my prayer, the Christian school in which I had taught each time we were in SC called and asked if I would be willing to step in for the teacher for grades 6-7 since Harriet had been diagnosed with cancer and was dying. The students knew me and needed a familiar face at this time of grief for them. My youngest son was only two, so I prayed about it and asked the principal if I could come in for only half a day and if they could accommodate Steven in their daycare. Both worked out, and I was there in SC for a classroom filled with students whom I had known since they were in my third grade class. They were disoriented and confused about why God would take away their beloved teacher, so I spent a lot of time comforting them and reading Scriptures like those above. God had me there for a reason even if I did not understand it when I got there, and even if I had other plans that just didn’t come together.
God always has a plan and it’s always better than the one that I have. That’s what my experience with faith has taught me. I wish I could impart that knowledge to my sister. Instead, I’m packing boxes for the last day and going home this afternoon to prepare to teach Children’s Church tomorrow. God has a plan and I will continue to intercede for my sister as she goes on this totally unexpected and new path. I hope that some of you will join me in prayer for her.
Thank you for your prayers and have a blessed day, yielding your will to God’s and thus being on the path that He has prepared for you.
What does it mean to be redeemed? I am old enough to remember when my grandmother and mother saved S & H green stamps. They got them from the grocery story after each purchase and had little booklets that they kept them in. When they had enough little booklets for what they were saving for, they would go to the S & H redemption center and turn them in for an item on their wish list, like a new toaster. I used to enjoy sticking those little stamps in the books for my Nanny. They didn’t taste good but I felt like a was contributing to a new thing that would appear in the household soon. You gave the stamps and you got a prize, something worth much more than a booklet of stamps.
Jesus says that He has redeemed us. What does that mean? Like the book of stamps, Jesus has patiently put us together into something that has value and can be traded for something of greater value. What is the value? Eternal life with God! What was traded? Jesus’s own life at the cross. We did not do anything to earn salvation. We are saved by His grace and mercy alone.
There are about twelve different definitions for redeemed in the Merriam Webster online dictionary. The ones that have to do with our redemption are: freed from the consequences of sin, to release from blame or debt and to buy back. We have reaped the benefits of Jesus freeing us from eternal separation from God because He has released us from our debt to sin and has purchased us back for God with His own shed blood. Think about that for a moment. Jesus did it all for each of us because of His great love for us!
Image from Pinterest.com
This verse is a beautiful word picture of what Jesus has done for us. But notice that we have a part to play, too. We have to choose to return to Him, confessing that He has done exactly what He said and that He is our Lord and Savior. There is absolutely nothing that we can do to be in right standing before God unless we have Jesus as our intermediary. He paid the full price for each of us and in His sacrificial death, He swept away all of our sins. Believe, confess, repent and live for Him. The steps to salvation are not hard but they do require reflection, an honest appraisal of life as we have been living and a desire to turn onto a new path with the Lord.
My prayer for each of you today is a renewed fervor to serve the Lord who redeemed you and to make each day count for Him.
May you be blessed with the knowledge of His sacrifice and His cleansing that makes you white as snow. May each of you truly return to Him and be redeemed!
There’s a really important word in this verse, “whatever.” It doesn’t say some of the things you do or say or most of the things you do or say. It says “whatever.” The last few years that I taught high school, this was a popular word for the teens to say when you asked them to do something they didn’t like and they knew that they were going to end up having to do it anyway. Their tongue-in-cheek response was always, “Whatever.” What they were really meaning was “not if I can help it.” But the “whatever in this verse means everything that you can possibly think of doing or saying, remember that you are doing it as a representative of Jesus Christ. That means our attitude has to be right so that our actions will follow. As I go into town today to help out my sister, this verse is perfect for me. I usually get along with my sister, but we are like oil and water. I am a Christian and she is a self-proclaimed agnostic. I have three children, she has one and she only acknowledges one of mine. (Because he is very liberal just as she is.) I’m a Bible—believing conservative and she is not. You get the idea. But I’m going to help her and I’m determined to do my best to fulfill that job, doing it as a service to the Lord, as if I am His hands reaching out to Her. I pray that my words will be words of life and encouragement, just as His would.
May your day be blessed with opportunities to show Jesus to the world around you and may you shine forth His light as a good representative of our Lord!
I am a person who thrives on routine, the same thing day in and day out. In situations where others might be bored or craving something new, I want the old and familiar. That is just me and it’s also why I’m having a hard time right now.
For the last ten months, my husband and I knew that our oldest grandson had made the decision to forego college and join the military. Recruited by the U.S. Navy, he has been a member of the delayed entry program for all of this time, waiting for his specific specialty to have an opening in a school for him after boot camp. Well, the day is almost here for his departure and this Nanna is just not ready for this change. Harry and I have driven over an hour one way every week in order to take Isaac to his meetings with his recruiter and to take him out to lunch so he gets out of the house for a few hours. His parents both work, so we took on that pleasurable responsibility. In fact, when I found myself in Maryland taking care of the grandchildren there, Harry and I prayed about it and opted to be separated from each other so he could continue to spend time with Isaac. Today is the day we say farewell because tomorrow he reports to leave for Great Lakes Boot Camp. My heart is heavy, not because I don’t want him to succeed or because I don’t believe he can, but because I will miss him so. I have all these photos of him as a small, trusting child and pictures in my mind of when he spent weekends with us when he was younger. There is something so vulnerable about him, a neediness to be accepted. So my heart is heavy because I just want him to find his place in this world and find a journey and peace that only God can give. So, change. I just don’t like it, but I know it’s part of life.
Also this week, tomorrow in fact, I am going to my sister’s house. She lives about an hour away and because of health problems, she has to move to be with her daughter in North Carolina. My sister and I don’t see eye to eye on many things, but she has been a constant in my life since I came to Virginia to live almost twenty-three years ago. In fact, she is one of the reasons that I looked for and found a new teaching job her in Virginia, because I wanted to establish roots near family. Anyway, I am going to town to help her sort and pack her books. We both share a love of reading and she has thousands of books (literally) to go through. Because of her limited vision, she can’t do a lot of the sorting and because of her physical limitations, she can’t pack. But I’m convinced that I can help, so I volunteered. What I did not consider is the emotional toll on me of helping my sister to pack to move away. Change. Again, I don’t like it, but it’s part of life.
This morning, after less than stellar sleep last night, I arose seeking the Lord as I generally do. Of course, He met me at the place where I needed Him and pointed me to scripture verses to comfort and lead me through this new part of my life. I’m sharing them with you so that you, too, can take comfort in a God who is merciful enough to provide just what we need just when we need it.
So, I’m off to have a blessed day, taking our grandson to lunch and praying for his success and God’s blessing on His new life. He is looking forward to this new chapter and as the Scripture says, I plan to trust God and be faithful to Him, knowing that Isaac is in the palm of His hands.
Have a blessed day, filled with peace and the knowledge that although all around us may change, God does not change and is always there.
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 