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.
They are words of priestly blessing, for it is part of the work of priests to bless the people: “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites’” (Num. 6:23). One thinks of Melchizedek as he blessed Abraham and of our Lord himself, “a high priest for ever, in the order of Merlchizedek” (Heb. 6:20). “Today,” says Andrew Murray in a memorable comment, “He comes to meet thee, as thou returnest from the battle weary and faint. Bow before Him, and let Him bless thee!”
It is frequently the privilege of Christian ministers to utter these words of blessing – their privilege, but not their sole prerogative, for we believe in the priesthood of all believers. Let them give the words their full meaning, and then the blessers and the blessed will be able to sing.
My Thoughts
I am blessed to be a blessing and thank God daily for His love for me. I saw my nephrologist on Monday and he did the usual lab tests to check my kidney function. I was delighted when the report came back that all of my numbers are in the normal range and my kidney is stable. What a blessing that was to me! And what a blessing each of you who reads my daily thoughts is to me, also! I pray for each of you to know the unfathomable love of the Father and that you, too, may know that you are blessed to be a blessing.
My husband constantly reminds me that I am a “detail person.” I notice things that others might not notice, like one thing out of place in a room full of things. He says I am a Type A personality and he is probably right. I think of it as modeling God because God pays attention to details. If you don’t believe me, read the description that He gave to Moses about how to prepare and set up the tabernacle.
Notice that word “exactly.” God had a plan and he trusts Moses to carry it out, exactly as He has shown him. God has a plan for each of us, too and we have to ask for directions daily about what we are to do that day to carry out His plan for us.
We are the Lord’s dwelling place here on earth, and just as He has exact plans for the tabernacle, He created each of us in a unique way and just the way He wants us to be. I used to question God’s wisdom in giving me defective lungs, one kidney and an extra rib. But I got over that a long time ago. What a blessing it is to be able to share with people that I didn’t even know I have a single kidney until I was in my 50’s. That single kidney has continued to do its job well, even though the doctors say I am in Stage 3 kidney failure. I go to see my nephrologist every few months (today is the day again!) who does lab work and encourages me to eat the foods my kidney will process and omit the foods that it can no longer handle. So, my diet is low sodium because of my stroke and low potassium and low nitrates because of my kidney. Do I miss not being able to have foods like potatoes and bananas and few carrots and salad mix? Honestly, not so much anymore. But when I first had to give them up, I was not a happy camper. Now, I am used to it. And I don’t think God made a mistake in creating me this way. It’s my “thorn in the flesh” that lets me be a better witness for Jesus. God is a God of details and the fact that I was born with one kidney was not a surprise to Him. When my kidney started not working as well, God didn’t say, “Really? That’s strange. I never expected that!” God knew that detail already and was prepared to bring me down this path of life, holding my hand and leading me the whole way, even during my whining phase.
I may not be 100% the way I would like to be, but I know that I am perfectly made in God’s eyes. Just as He told Moses how to make the tabernacle, God had a plan for how I would be made and it has been a good one for over seventy years. As I told my children, I am not leaving this earth until God tells me it’s time. He created me, established my number of days on the earth and my various health issues don’t change His plans for me.
God is not a mediocre Creator who halfway does His job and then sits back idly waiting for bad things to happen to what He created. Not at all! God pays attention to every detail and is an excellent and loving Creator. Much as I notice small details in rooms I have visited before, God notices every detail of our lives. He created each of us and called that creation. “Very good.” I want to use all of the time that He has given me on earth to glorify Him, giving Him praise for the wonderful work He did when He made me and the continued good work that He is doing daily in my soul as He reaches out to me daily and gives me His loving wisdom from His Word. May each of you remember to praise God today, thanking Him that you are His living tabernacle!
I think of the word “when” as almost like a promise. My mom used to say to me, “Your father will take care of you when he gets home!” Rather than be terribly frightened at the punishment that I knew would come, I was happy to know that daddy was coming home. That was because he was generally my defender and intercessor with my mother. He could calm her down, and although I might be punished, the punishment would fit the offense rather than the outrage of my mother.
The Bible has a lot of “when” in it. Here are two I found recently during my devotional.
Hidden within the context of this verse if the idea that I will get anxious. Never mind that the Bible also admonishes me not to be anxious, but to always pray. Never mind that I know that God is always with me. Sometimes situations cause me anxiety that seems to overwhelm me. I was once diagnosed with agoraphobia and spent months talking to a therapist so that I could go out into crowds again. Yes, I was a Christian then, but all of the therapy and the self-talk in the world could not convince me that it was “safe” for me to be among a group of people, particularly strangers. How did I overcome this disability? I recited Scripture, with my eyes closed. Then I would open my eyes and see things the way God saw them…just fellow travelers in a world that is not our home. I am thankful that God is always there to console me and remind me from His Word that He is there and will take care of me until it is time for HIM to call me home. I sometimes still have episodes where going into a room with strangers, or even on a highway filled with cars, I get anxious. God is faithful to remind me that He has never let me down and He never will.
I think this verse can be taken literally for me as well as spiritually. The joke in our household is that if there is one spot of ice, my foot will find it and I will slip and fall. In fact, I may even fall on dry ground. I sometimes fall for no reason at all. The last time I had a big, scary fall was several years ago. I was just walking from one end of our house to the other, and suddenly I found myself face down on the ground. Praise God that I didn’t break anything! I was quite bruised and very sore, but no broken bones. God took care of me even when I literally fell on my face. The spiritual part is when I start doubting; I consider that my foot slipping. Instead of being firmly planted on my rock of faith, I move and then I start asking questions. But God supports me even then, with His love and reminders of all He has brought me through and all we have to look forward to in the future, together.
So, it’s not an “if” for me…it’s a when. And I am grateful that God continually whispers His sweet words of comfort and reassurance for me when I am anxious and when I am falling. He lifts me up and sets me right back where I belong, on the solid rock of His love and grace.
If you think about your life and how God has been leading you, what comes to mind? For me, I have a lot of questions about why God led me to certain places instead of others. For example, we had orders to go to Japan. The children were excited, my husband was anxious to get there and start his new responsibilities, and I was resigned about moving again but looking forward to a new adventure in a foreign land. We had sold our car, packed up all of our belongings and the military movers had come and put everything into large crates to be shipped overseas. Then, the memo came from command; my husband and children could go to Japan but I was not allowed to accompany them because of my health issues. The closest hospital to our new base was too far away for them to risk sending me there. So, prayer and discussions followed, and my husband reluctantly turned down the orders. That is how we ended up in northern Maine. Let me tell you that this southern girl thought I had died and gone to hell and it was a cold and barren place.
On the way to Limestone AFB, I was driving one car with my daughter and my husband was leading us in the front car with our sons. He says jokingly that you can see the brake skid marks on the pavement all the way from the south up Interstate 95. To say that I was an unwilling participant in this little adventure is putting in mildly. The highway ended an hour from the base, so on our journey into what I considered a wilderness of trees and cemeteries (honestly, that was the view for miles and miles), we had to stop for gas. When my husband came to my car window to ask how I was doing, I remember his asking me how I was doing. He had a big smile on his face, and I burst into tears. Having passed numerous cemeteries, I sobbed,”The only reason people come here is to die!” He talked quietly to me, comforting me and letting me know that God was with us.
When we arrived at our duty location, it was the beginning of September, and it started to snow. I got the kids settled into their new schools, worked every day on unpacking boxes and making our base housing as familiar to the children as possible, with all of their favorite pictures in their rooms. As I did this, I kept looking out the window and it kept snowing. After settling in, I started looking for a teaching job. Certified in Spanish and history, I was not too hopeful that I would find a job in the one high school in Aroostook County, but when I applied, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the one Spanish teacher for the county was retiring at the end of the year, so I applied. And I ended up getting the job.
My next obstacle was driving in the snow. I am from the south, and where I came from, there is no school when it snows. An inch? No buses would run. In Maine, we had almost two hundred inches of snow the first winter I lived there. In fact, I could reach out our second story window and touch snow, not drifted snow, but snow that had freshly fallen and that’s how high it reached. The children were adjusting well, with gym classes featuring skiing and snowmobiling, and they were loving it. I, on the other hand, was terrified to drive in it. So, I prayed and asked God to help me be safe and not hurt me or anyone else. My husband’s one piece of advice was not to touch the brake. Knowing that I had signed a contract and would be teaching in the fall, I started to venture off the base and drive a little. One bright sunny day, I went to the Ames Department Store. It was about half an hour away, I didn’t see any chance of snow even though it was March, so I was confident that the roads would be plowed and safe. I had finished my errands in town and started to get into my car when the snowflakes started falling. The March snow in Maine was often a wet snow, heavy and very slick. Before I could get halfway home, the roads were covered and I was a nervous wreck. I remember heading downhill on the road and the car started to slide. I had no idea what to do, but I remembered my husband’s admonition not to touch the brake. So, I took my foot off the pedals, my hands off the steering wheel and prayed, “God, you need to take over because I have no idea what to do.” Guess what? I slid nicely to the side of the road into a snow drift and the car stopped. After I cried and thanked God, I backed up very slowly and went home very slowly praying the whole way, aware that I was a menace to others who knew what they were doing.
Was my Maine adventure a pleasant experience? Not at all! But I made good friends there with other base wives, used my crocheting skills that the wives at the Arkansas base had taught me, and I learned to lean into God. He kept providing for me in situations that seemed hopeless. One of our neighbors, a nice older lady named JoAnn, was teaching math at the same school where I taught. She offered to drive me to school every day so I didn’t have to be so stressed about winter driving. Another new friend named Joyce invited me to her house at least weekly just to get out and have coffee or tea. We even went to Canada together one weekend. (Canada was actually the closest place to shop for decent clothes for our children.)
Why am I telling you all of this? Just to let you know that I learned a lot about myself and my relationship with God from my “wilderness” experience in Maine. God did not take me immediately to the place I wanted to go (South Carolina), but I did get there eventually. Maine was a long way from home, but the four years I spent there were a school for the rest of my time as a military wife. I learned to use resources that the base provided, not to be afraid to tell people that I needed help and to always have an attitude of prayer because I never knew when the snow might start falling again.
Moses did not get to go right to the Promised Land using the shortest route possible. Instead, he went through the wilderness. And when the Israelites disobeyed and rebelled, they ended up spending forty years there, even though the journey was really only a few weeks. Paul did not go straight to Rome. Instead, he was taken prisoner, shipwrecked and finally ended up where he wanted to be all along. We have a lot of epistles penned by Paul that tell us about his experiences getting there.
My point is that we don’t know what God’s plan for us is, but He does. We don’t know why things happen the way they do, but He does. In trusting God in the wilderness, I have found that He is with me in the oases, too. He walks with me on the mountaintops and in the valleys. I’m not fond of the valley experiences, but I have learned to depend more on my Father in heaven and know that whatever I am going through will not be forever. He may be taking me the long way, but I can trust that He is always leading me in the right direction, home to Him.
Hope is everywhere we look, but many of us are looking in the wrong place and to the wrong person for hope. For me, hope is found in the sparkling eyes of our grandchildren. They are hope for a bright and promising future. Hope is found in the rose bush that is currently dormant. It will bloom again in the spring, but right now it’s just waiting for its time. Hope is in the cardinals that hop around outside my window. They trust in their Creator to provide for them, and sometimes we help out by putting out bird seed for them. Hope…it’s in the trusting and waiting that hope is really found.
God is the God of hope. As we trust in Him, then we can have hope and the bonus of joy and peace. Thursday was a hard day for us here at the Watts household. We were awakened before six with the carbon monoxide detector beeping because the electricity had gone off. We waited quietly in bed for a few minutes, hoping it would flash back on, but since it didn’t, I got up and called Dominion Virginia Power. I went through a bunch of automated hoops and was ultimately told that I was the first one to report an outage and there was no estimated time of restoration. Knowing it was in the low teens outside, I fed our cat and went back to our warm bed. About nine, I got up again to a much colder house (it was about 58 degrees at that time, according to our thermometer on the wall of our bedroom), so I got my phone and checked the outage map. No info there, so I called Dominion again. This time, there was a technical issue, so I got to talk to a live person. She was very considerate and kind and said she did not know an estimated time of restoration but there were others out in our area. A few hours later, I checked the outage map again, found out that in our rural area, there were 160 people without electricity and the technicians were out trying to find the problem. The estimated time of restoration was by one o’clock. So, I bundled up and sat in my chair to take my blood pressure so I could take my morning meds. That done, I took my bundled self back to bed, with the temperature in the mid 50’s in the house now. I fell asleep for about an hour, got up and checked the outage map again. It had changed slightly. Now, only 111 were without power, so some had their problem fixed, just not us. I contacted the people in our small group from church and asked for prayer. Harry had surgery on Wednesday and was not feeling well enough to venture out to someplace warmer. So, we stayed in and bundled up as much as possible. One friend from church offered to let us come stay with her, which was very kind and offered hope (just in case Dominion couldn’t get the power back on that day). I was sitting in my chair with four layers on (blankets and jackets plus clothes and winter underwear) when I suddenly saw our digital frames come on. Then, I heard the heater start. Praise God! Our electricity came back on at almost exactly one p.m. Wonder how Dominion did that? So, I waited until the house got over 60 degrees and started to shed layers. I turned the breaker back on for the water heater. (Did you know that when the electricity goes off you are supposed to turn off the breaker for the water heater so the element doesn’t burn up? A good plumber friend told us that long ago when we first moved into our countryside dwelling.) Anyway, by 3 p.m., the house was warm, the hot water was restored, the electronic gadgets had been reset and I was finally able to do my online devotional. The plan is always to do my devotionals first thing in the morning before I get distracted or busy, but Thursday was a crazy day. Taking care of Harry, electrical issues, electronics issues and the cat kept me busy for a while. So, what does all of this have to do with hope? I HOPED that the power company would get the electricity back on soon and be safe as they worked. In fact, I prayed for the safety of the linemen that were out in the very cold weather trying to help me and 159 other families. I had HOPE that if our electricity did not return before dark, we could go to Bonnie’s house, about fifteen minutes away, and have warmth and light. Through it all, I had HOPE that God was with us and would keep us safe. And He did! We were not particularly comfortable in our many layers, but we were safe and warm enough that we could fall asleep in the middle of the crisis. I have to confess that I was not feeling especially joyful, but I didn’t feel frantic or out-of-sorts which is my usual go-to mood when things don’t go as planned. Instead, I felt peace, knowing that God was in control, of the weather, the electricity, the linemen and us as well as all the others in the same powerless condition as us.
Once the power came back on and I was doing my devotional, a truth struck me. We are all powerless without God, unable to function as we should and to carry on with our daily life because we aren’t plugged into our power source. He is our only source of hope in a life that has some unexpected surprises sometimes.
I say that I have faith, but I have to confess that sometimes my belief wavers. I have faith that God loves me, sent His Son to die for me and that one day I will go to heaven to be with Him forever.
But when we are barreling down the highway at seventy miles an hour, my heart pounds and I am barely able to keep my eyes open when the trucks pass us. That is when my belief wavers. Is God really big enough and powerful enough to keep me safe in those situations? How about when my husband goes to visit his brother and I am all alone in the middle of the big woods? Every little sound sends me scurrying to turn a light on and to cuddle my cat. What happened to my belief then? Is God with me in the scary times, too? Or when one of my children or grandchildren is facing a battle against an injury or disease? How big is my belief then?
I came to understand this morning while reading my devotional that Abraham had faith, but he also still had doubts. God told him that he would become a great nation and Abraham’s response was that his servant would be inheriting everything. That sounds a lot like doubt to me. But God assured him that the son that he himself had with Sarah would begin a lineage that would bless the whole world.
I don’t often, maybe ever, get such an assurance from God about His promises, not audibly anyway. But I do read His Word daily and glean a lot of promises from that. Last time we were racing down the highway so fast that my heart started pounding, I remembered Ps. 121: 7-8, a verse that I memorized last month. “The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.” Thus, the Lord really did speak to me. My heart slowed down, my breathing became normal again, and I was able to have a conversation with my husband. That may not sound very amazing to you, but it really was to me!
I am learning that my belief is in direct proportion to the word that I have hidden in my heart and that I can access whenever I need it. I am on week 14 of memorizing a scripture verse each week. It’s not a great accomplishment, but I am sticking to the plan and the plan is a good one. At least, it has been for me. My verse for this week is Isaiah 46:4. “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you, I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” That’s quite a promise when my bones are creaking and each movement feels like the floor is coming up to greet me. God is taking care of me every minute that I am still on earth, and I am grateful for that assurance.
Do you have any favorite verses that help you to believe when times get hard? Or even when things are regular but not exactly the way you wish they could be? Please share in the comments.
Speaking of comments, I just discovered that many of you have been commenting and I didn’t see them until yesterday when I accessed Word Press online instead of on the app. I am not sure why that is, but I went to the comments section online and forty-seven comments popped up. I will try to do better about checking that so I can respond. I sincerely appreciate your kind words, your advice, and your friendship.
I will leave you with the scripture verse that began my journey of memorizing, Isaiah 43:2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
Have a blessed day, filled with awe, wonder and belief!
Knowing God is trusting God to do what is best for all, not just for me. I confess that there have been many times when I did not understand God’s will and why things were happening. My trust faltered, and in my weakness, I would find myself crying out to God and asking for reassurance that He is still in control. One such time was when our daughter miscarried when she was almost seven months pregnant. We had just spent a week together in a cabin, enjoying games, outings, food and fellowship with her and her family. The last days we were there, Hope stayed in bed, saying she wasn’t feeling well and just needed to rest. When she and the family left, she told me that she felt fine and was eager to get the sonogram done early that week that had been scheduled for a while already. My husband and I were still at the cabin, this time with our son and his family taking their turn with us. Then the phone call came. Hope was sobbing and I could barely understand her words. But they became plain soon enough, “She’s gone. The baby died.” I don’t know if I have ever felt such heartbreak before. Our beloved daughter was feeling so lost, and we were well over a day’s travel away. We hastily explained to Scott what had happened, packed up and went home (three hours away) and then re-packed and headed to Pennsylvania, praying for God to be with Hope and Aaron and the four children as they grieved. When we arrived the next day, we found that the obstetrician had Hope go through labor and give birth to the deceased infant. Tessa was perfectly formed, but tiny. Tests showed that she had a tumor and died from it. The family was in shock and inconsolable. My lighthearted and faith-filled daughter was silent and sad. My grandchildren didn’t understand how such a tragedy was possible. We went through the days following the loss trying to help Hope cope with the loss and to choose to move on. She was convinced that this was her last baby and she had lost her. Tessa Serenity was never going to walk the earth. I took walks with the younger children around their large property and we talked about where Tessa was now…in the arms of the Lord and happy to be there. But the sadness prevailed. Hope mustered her belief in a good God the best that she could and went on with life. Two summers later, we met at a shopping center on our way to the beach for a trip together again. I had kind of dreaded the trip because the last time we had been together for a vacation had ended in such heartache. When Hope got out of the car, she had on a shirt with a rainbow that said something like, “God keeps His promises.” She then told us, right there in the parking lot, that she was pregnant and that this baby was a “rainbow baby”, a gift after the loss of a beloved child. We cried together and rejoiced in God’s goodness. Less than five months later, little Teagan Noelle was born. I guess I should add here that Hope and Aaron name all of their children with the letter T and online she calls her children T1, T2, etc. The latest, little Teagan, is not called by a number because it was too difficult to skip the number 5 that belonged to Tessa and Teagan and the other kids didn’t understand the number 6. So Teagan became “sweet Tea” and that’s her nickname to this day. She knows that she has a sister waiting for her in heaven who was to be number five. And we all praise God for the blessing that she is. She just turned eight, a precocious and loving child who is the delight of all in her family. So why did Tessa have to leave this life so early? I don’t know and probably never will. But these events led me to lean hard into God and to trust His sovereignty even when I don’t understand it.
From the YouVersion Bible App Devotional, “Daily Power by Craig Groeschel, Day 4”
Years ago my wife Amy’s brother, David, was very sick. He was in the hospital, so we had everyone we knew praying for him—for his health, for healing, for a full recovery. For weeks and weeks, we prayed and prayed. But after several months, God healed David in a way we hadn’t planned. My brother-in-law, who was only thirty-four, left this earth and joined God in heaven.
My wife lost her only brother. My in-laws lost their only son. We were devastated and it was hard not to wonder, “Where was God in that? Why did we have to lose David?”
I helped do the funeral, and I invited people to know the Jesus who had changed David’s life and set him free from the bondage of a dark past. That day so many people said yes and invited Christ into their hearts, including Uncle Blue, a great guy and one of our family’s favorite people.
Recently Amy and I were reflecting on the positive ripple effect we could see in so many lives—all because God did not answer our prayer the way we wanted. “Would you trade everything that’s happened to get your brother back?” I asked. Without hesitating, she said, “No way. What God has done through our loss is greater than anything I could imagine.”
God’s will matters in the midst of our prayers. You don’t always get what you want when you want it. But you can always walk by faith and trust in God’s will.
Power Lift: Dear God, there’s so much I don’t understand about your ways. Today help me walk by faith and not by sight, trusting in your perfect and holy plan for my life.
Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane should be our prayer daily.
When we remember the story of Jesus’ birth, it’s easy to focus on the manger, the wise men, and the ornate gifts. We imagine the bright star the wise men followed and the peace, joy, and anticipation they must have felt.
If we’re not careful, we can forget about some of the influential events that were happening at the same time.
Scripture tells us that as the wise men were following the star, they stopped to talk with King Herod. The men asked him, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” They learned that according to the chief priests and teachers, the promised Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem.
King Herod asked the men to report back with Jesus’ location. After the wise men made it to Jesus, they returned home on a different route because of a dream warning them not to go back to Herod.
Jesus and His family fled to Egypt to seek refuge from the schemes of the king, who had plans to harm Jesus. When the king heard, he was furious and gave orders to kill all the young boys in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas.
During this time, these communities and towns would have likely been scared and overwhelmed. Peace was probably the last thing they were thinking about or experiencing.
This year, the same might be true for you. Peace might feel impossible. Life circumstances, world events, grief, and relational tensions can all take the front seat. If this season is difficult for you, or if peace feels out of reach, remember you’re not alone.
Through Jesus, we have true peace—a state of wholeness, calm, and renewal between God and His people. At the time of His birth, people were expecting the Savior of the world to be a fierce warrior who would use violence to bring justice and rescue God’s people.
While Jesus brought about justice and rescue, it was through love and compassion. And instead of being a source of violence, He allowed Himself to be crucified on a cross to save us from our sin. He received all of the hate and pain the world had to offer. With His resurrection, the power of violence, hatred, and division suffered a fatal blow.
Jesus’ life brought us peace that only God can give, and He shares it with us. In John 14:27 NIV, Jesus says:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
The peace Jesus gives us isn’t fake or fabricated. It’s not ignoring the problems around us. And it isn’t disengaging with people who might irritate you.
The peace Jesus gives us is a true gift that brings us closer to people around us. It steadies our racing minds, it calms our inner turmoil, and it reminds us who is in control. When we fix our eyes on Jesus, remembering that He is in control this holiday season—and always—we experience the deep peace He promises to provide.
Pause and Pray
Gracious Father, thank You for bringing Your Son to earth all those years ago as a way to make peace between one another and with You. Please help me to be a peacemaker who reflects Your patience, kindness, and compassion to everyone I meet. I want to be someone who brings a sense of wholeness, calm, and renewal to every situation and relationship in my life. In Jesus’ name, amen.
My Thoughts
I really need some peace today! It’s not that my day is going badly but that I am anxious about a visit to my sister next week. In fact, I got good news from my nephrologist this morning. For the first time in several years, my kidney function improved…only slightly, but I will take it!
Now, about my visit. My sister is a diehard Democrat, and for her anyone who voted for Trump is a traitor to the nation and to her personally. She has decreed that after the inauguration, if President Trump does as he says and goes against all she believes (like transgender surgeries and abortions and all of the other liberal hoo-hah), then she will no longer have anything to do with any of us who voted for him. That seems a little radical, right? And not exactly a peaceful move. Nevertheless, I hope to use my visit to practice being a peacemaker. I never argue with her about her views when she lectures me about why she is right. I just sit silently. I hope that the topics don’t come up, but she usually brings them up when we are eating together. So, this year, I hope to use scripture to explain why I feel the way I do and voted the way I did instead of giving her a silent pass. I want her to know that I love her but Jesus is the only way to peace, no matter who is in the Oval Office. He is in control, even in the tumultuous times of liberal media overload about how bad the next four years will be. That’s my plan and I pray it will works out. I leave on Monday and return on the Saturday before Christmas. Prayers appreciated, my friends. And one more praise for a good kidney report! Thank you, Lord, for that unexpected surprise!
From the YouVersion Bible App Devotional, “Advent, Day 5”
3 Practical Ways to Find Hope
In the Bible, hope is the wholehearted, evidence-based conviction that God is making the future better than the past or present.
Hope isn’t a vague positivity or a naive optimism. Instead, true hope acknowledges the pain, problems, and dysfunctions of our world. Hope knows the worst life has to offer yet still believes God can and will create a better future.
Hope is like a lighthouse on a dark, stormy night. It doesn’t make the waves go away, but it does offer you direction and a reason to keep going.
The Bible has quite a few stories about light and darkness. Early in the Bible, God leads His people through the wilderness using a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of smoke during the day. These people had been slaves, and now they were walking across a barren desert. Yet they could have hope because they knew God was leading them to a new and better future.
But what about today? We don’t have divine pillars of smoke or fire to follow when we’re low on hope. So where do we look to find hope?
1. We find hope in friends.
When we’re feeling hopeless, we can turn to trusted people who can lend us their hope. So if you’re searching for hope, include others. Their words, stories, and guidance could be exactly what you need to renew your confidence in God’s plan.
2. We find hope in our stories.
Look back to who you were before you knew Jesus. What’s different about you? How do you live, think, and act differently? Avoid letting exceptionally bad days define your journey with Jesus. Instead, try to see the big picture. Reflecting on God’s work in your past can give you hope for your future.
3. We find hope in God’s story.
The Christmas story is one of the main events in God’s big story. In the story, we see Jesus, who is God, choose vulnerability and humility to show us His love. So when you feel hopeless about the direction of the world or the direction of your life, remember that God will do whatever it takes to make all things new.
Of course, none of these three ways to find hope are quite as dramatic as a divine pillar of fire, but they can serve the same purpose. They remind us God is present, even when life is hard. And they help us keep moving forward with confidence, no matter what storms we’re facing.
When we cling to others, reflect on our stories, and explore Scripture, we can expect to find hope. But hope can also come from unexpected places. So keep your eyes open for hopeful moments all around you.
Pause and Pray:
Lord, please be a light to me as You were to Your people in the wilderness. Thank You for dying for me while I was still a sinner so I could be united with You. Help me to set my hope on You. In Your name, amen.
My Thoughts
I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have God going before me in a pillar of cloud or fire. I suspect that I may have been so awestruck that I would not have been able to move at all unless someone else prodded me to do so.
Since we don’t have God visibly present in this way, we need to tune our spirits to see Him in other ways. We can see Him in others, in our own testimony about the past and in His Word. I think that I mostly depend on God’s Word for assurance and hope for the future. I do have friends, but most don’t know me intimately and I am not in frequent contact with anyone except our daughter. I do know that contact is important because God created us to be social beings. Thus, when I need that personal contact, I reach out to others with a phone call or a text. I have members of our small group from church who check on me and my husband often, just to make sure that we are okay and don’t need anything. And we do the same for them. It’s all about connections, isn’t it?
That’s why it’s important to connect to God and to stay that way. We shouldn’t be wandering off into the wilderness of life without Him right there with us.
Now, another prayer request. My daughter’s friend Desiree is in the hospital in Pittsburgh. She discovered this week that she has a large mass in her brain. She had brain surgery yesterday and the doctors think that there are other “specks” that they weren’t able to remove. She is having tests today. Please pray for Desiree, her husband Joel and their four children. The youngest is only eight and the oldest is fourteen. If you follow me on Facebook, I posted a GoFundMe photo of them all together. The youngest child is the most distraught and Hope, my daughter, says she is crying a lot or screaming in frustration because she wants her mommy. Joel is with Desiree, and his mom is taking care of the kids. I know that this situation didn’t surprise God, but it certainly surprised this young family, and they need as many prayers as they can get. Thank you in advance for remembering them. Please pray that God will be close to them all and give them hope.
Over forty years ago, something so totally unexpected happened in my life that not only was I not prepared for it, I still look back on it and ponder how in the world I survived the events. One day, I was a young mom celebrating with my husband that our baby was about to turn a year old. Then, the phone call came. In the middle of the night, of course. My grandmother in Virginia called and said my entire family was packing up and leaving Virginia and if I wanted to tell them good-bye, I needed to get to Virginia right away. Well, I didn’t understand what was happening, but I told my husband and he helped me to calm down enough to pack our things and get ready for the seven hour drive to my hometown. Unfortunately, when I got there, my family was gone. My mom, my dad and my three younger siblings…gone. I was greeted by the sheriff’s department who were investigating my father and told that I could get personal items out of the house, but nothing else. The home I had lived in most of my life before marriage was going to be auctioned. I was in a cloud of confusion and despair, hoping to hear from my parents that they were just on a trip and would straighten everything out soon. My husband had just separated from the military as we prepared to attend Youth With a Mission in New Jersey, and we had a few months before our school started. So we spent that time first staying with my grandparents and then in a long-stay motel while we waited for our new life in NJ to begin. Meanwhile, I was dealing with the grief of losing my family, the overwhelming grief of my grandparents who had always had my mom in the same town with them, and a change in life’s circumstances that meant we had no viable income but were depending on God. Everything was changing, and I am not one who likes any change at all, much less change that turned my world upside down. But God was right there with me and He had a plan. The experience with YWAM was not one I would want to repeat, mostly because they were not set up for young families, even though there were half a dozen of us attending this session. I had to relinquish my young daughter to their daycare early every morning and did not see her again until after evening classes, sometime around dinner. It was breaking my mamma’s heart not to be with Hope, but I dutifully did what the leaders said to do, attending classes, working a job off campus to pay off bills to the school and studying God’s Word diligently. It was in burying myself in His Word that I found the comfort that I needed. After all, it had only been a few short months since my family disappeared and now I was in a new state, living in one room, eating barely recognizable food (we had chicken fly soup a lot…because we said the chicken flew over it but never stayed there), and expected to do the menial labor of cleaning houses for just enough money to pay to do our laundry. I was desolate and felt abandoned by all but God. My husband was preparing to go on a missions trip and I was working extra to help pay for that adventure for him. He, by the way, was all in for YWAM, and I was the reluctant participant. I saw my husband less than I saw our daughter, but that was okay at the time because God was with me. Every spare minute I had was spent in God’s Word, praying for my family and desperate to hear from them. The only people I heard from was the FBI…no, really, the FBI was involved and kept trying to get me to tell them where my parents were. Thanks goodness, I honestly did not know! Anyway, in the darkest, bleakest days of my life, God was right there. He held me in the long nights as I cried out my grief and despair. He comforted me with His Word and reassured me that He was right there with me.
We completed our classes at YWAM and my husband and I decided that since I was pregnant again (in spite of using birth control), he would go back into the military to support our small family. After two years, I unexpectedly got a letter from my mom. The family was in FL and was safe but I couldn’t tell anyone where they were. Eventually, a couple of years later, I was able to visit them because daddy did some kind of deal with the authorities and they knew where he was then. Two years without knowing where they were…two more years before seeing them again. My five year old sister was nine, my brothers were almost grown. In fact, one had quit college and given up a full scholarship to go with my parents when they fled Virginia. They were working and barely surviving, but they were alive! My grandparents, by the way, never got to see them again. They were too frail to travel to FL and my parents could not return to VA (or wouldn’t…I’m not sure). They did talk on the phone, but that was before technology allowed for video calls, so it wasn’t the same as having them less than fifteen minutes away. Anyway, that’s how I know that the more you need God, the more present He is in your life. I would not recommend YWAM to any young family, but for me, at that time and under those circumstances, it was the best place for me. I was filled daily with God’s Word which was the exact nourishment I needed to face each uncertain day.
My parents are both dead now. My siblings have their own families, two in Fl and one in CO. We are all close to each other, clinging to the relationship we have together and all with a faith that one day, we will get to see our parents again in heaven. Whatever the future brings, I have full confidence that God and I can handle it together. My saying to myself and others who wonder at my strength during tragedy is,” Nothing will happen today that God and I cannot handle together.”
Closer Than You Think
In one unsuspecting moment, everything can change.
A relationship can shatter, a dream can suddenly end. Your heart can break for a million different reasons: grief, rejection, loneliness, uncertainty, tragedy, betrayal.
When something terrible happens and the world makes zero sense…
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
Psalm 34:18 NLT
David, the writer of Psalm 34, preached what he lived. He experienced some intense highs and fierce lows, but he recognized God’s presence in the midst of his circumstances. He knew that God was near, and God could change any situation in an instant.
Is your heart broken? Is your spirit crushed?
God is near.
He hasn’t left you to fight for yourself.
He sees you in your heartbreak.
He meets you where you are.
He has not forgotten you.
He has not abandoned you.
This doesn’t mean you won’t face hard things. But even when your mind races and your heart doubts, God offers a peace and an intimacy that cannot be fully explained.
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we now have constant access to God’s presence through His Holy Spirit. There are many places in the Bible where the Holy Spirit is described as the Comforter—ready to soothe, guide, counsel, and encourage.
The comfort we receive from God is a gift from His Spirit who is always with us. So if your heart is breaking and your spirit is crushed, know that you are in good hands. God is near, and He will not abandon you.
Today, take a few moments to name anything that has crushed your spirit. Then, give yourself permission to just sit in God’s presence for a few moments. When you’re ready, consider memorizing today’s verse and meditate on it throughout your day.
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 