Do you sometimes just sigh and wonder if all that happens on earth is worth going through?  There are a lot of trials and problems on earth that we often feel as Christians that we should not have to go through.  I could summarize some of the sufferings of the apostles for you so that you know this suffering thing is not new.  Everyone goes through it, but one day God will reveal His glory to us and what a glorious day that will be!  We just have to keep or eyes on the future prize and not the present circumstances.

We are called to think about the things of Heaven that are eternal instead of the earthly things that are passing away.  I admit that this is very hard to do on a daily basis.  As soon as we awaken each day, we face challenges.  For me, the challenge is to have to sit quietly, take my blood pressure and take numerous medications every day.  That has been my routine since my stroke in 2015.  But I know that God left me here on earth for a reason so I follow the doctor’s orders and keep my eyes fixed on why God left me here and what I can do each day to serve Him.  Today, I went to the morning prayer meeting at church and then to a sing-along at the local nursing home.  The residents were thankful to have us there.  After we sang, we walked around and prayed individually with each resident.  It was a pleasure and an honor to pray with these souls who may be suffering and lonely, but they still come to the cafeteria, sing the praise songs that they remember and pray with us.  They are looking forward to Heaven and are an example for me to follow!

 

So what will Heaven be like?  I honestly don’t really know, except I know that the old earth and old heaven will be gone and God will create a new Heaven and earth.  Wow!  God is a creator and I can only imagine what Heaven will be like.  I am certainly looking forward to the time when God will wipe every tear from my eyes, and to a time without sorrow or pain or death.  About three years ago, my daughter was pregnant with our seventh grandchild and we were looking forward to the arriveal of little Tessa.  But at six and a half months of her pregnancy, an ultrasound was done showing that little Tessa had died in the womb.  My beloved daughter had to go through labor and delivery knowing that her baby had already died.  My husband and I left Virginia right away to be with Hope (our daughter) in Pennsylvania  and her other four children and husband.  All of them were grieving in different ways.  Little Tessa Serenity was spoken of in hushed tones.   One day, as I was walking with the youngest two children (ages four and eight at the time), Teryn (age eight) knowledgeably informed me that Tessa went to Heaven.  I agreed with her and waited for more questions or comments.  It wasn’t long before Teryn decided to let me know that since I’m old, I will get to see Tessa before she does.  Her point was that she expects me to arrive to Heaven first and wants me to hug Tessa.  I assured her that she was most likely correct and I would be happy to see little Tessa, but right now God has more on earth for us to do.  So, if an eight year old can look forward to Heaven and seeing her baby sister, how much more should we who are adults know that there is a better place to look forward to?  I should add here that Hope got pregnant again and gave birth to a healthy little girl, named Teagan Noelle since she was born at Christmastime.  Hope calls her a “rainbow baby” because she came from God as a promise.  Isn’t that beautiful?  Hope had the faith to believe that God would give her another child and God blessed her with little Teagan who is so precious to her parents and her siblings and all who know her.  She is such a pleasant and happy child that it is hard not to be happy around her.

So, how am I so sure that one day I will get to see Tessa?  Because I have called on the name of Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  He is the only Way to salvation, and I trust Him completely to get me through the trials of this life and when I am finished with my journey here on earth, He will take me to Heaven to be with Him.  And then I will be with Him for eternity.  If you want to know for sure that this life is not all there is, you have to ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins and ask Him into your heart.  His promises are always fulfilled, so you can count on Him to forgive you, to live in your heart, to guide your steps for the rest of your life on earth, and one day, to take you to Heaven to be with Him.  Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior?  He loves you so much that He died for you.  Can you say a prayer asking for forgiveness so that you are assured of salvation?  God bless you for reading this lengthy post.

When I was a new Christian, I thought of God like a fairy godfather who would just grant all of my wishes if I just prayed for them.  As I matured and started to have a real relationship with God, I discovered that He supplies all of my needs, not all of my wants, and they are very different.  I live in a regular home that needs a lot of repairs, and I live in the middle of what I call nowhere.  There are trees, a neighbor who hates us and a long, pit-filled driveway, then more trees.  What I would like is a home in a neighborhood, with sidewalks and stores within walking distance.  The closest store to us now is a Wal-Mart and it is seventeen miles away.  But God has supplied my needs.  I have a home to live in and a car to use to drive to the store.  See the difference?  I am learning to be content where I am instead of wanting what others have. It has been hard for me because I grew up in one house in Virginia and lived there my whole life.  Then, I got married to a man in the military and we moved twenty-five times in as many years. I got used to unpacking boxes and finding the children’s toys for them and then doing the same thing in another year or two.  We always lived in military housing, which was like an apartment on the base.  So, I didn’t really consider it my home because I couldn’t paint or decorate or even put pictures on the walls unless I was willing to fill in the holes when we left.  Finally, in 1996, we moved to Pennsylvania, which was where my husband was going to retire and I could at last have a home and look for a teaching job with retirement prospects.  We bought a home, and I was so happy to have the feeling of permanence.  I thought God had finally answered my prayers.  Well, He answered one of them.  I had a home, but I could not find a teaching job anywhere in the neighboring school districts.  They would hire me as a substitute but not as a contracted teacher.  At last, one of the principals told me that since I had a master’s degree, I was too expensive for anyone to hire me.  I was crushed!  So, I took a job teaching at a Christian school about half an hour from home.  I was in charge of the high school students and ALL of the subjects they were studying.  I did eighteen lesson plans a day for two years and then decided that was all my body could take.  Exhausted and discouraged, I traveled across the border to Maryland and took a job there.  Unfortunately, the commute was too long, so I had to leave home and establish a new home in Maryland.  Off we went, this time to pursue my career.  But we couldn’t afford two homes and the one in Pennsylvania didn’t sell, so we rented it and found a modular home to buy in Maryland, living in a trailer court for the four years that we stayed there.  When a student at the school there threatened to kill me and took out a contract to do so, I finished up the school year, watched my youngest  son graduate from that school and headed south to Virginia.  We found four acres in a very rural area, bought it and moved our modular home here. I taught here for seventeen years and have now retired. But are all of my wants fulfilled?  No, only my needs.  God is with me daily, in this little house in the woods.  I am learning to seek first the things of God, His kingdom, so that the things that I want line up with what He wants me to have.  My dreams are on a back burner somewhere, not as important as they once were because now I want to help God to spread the Good News about His Son, and my physical residence doesn’t matter as much to me.  Would I like to have a nice home?  Of course!  But the circumstances of life intervened in my plans, and in spite of all that, God has always been with me.  He has always supplied my needs and as long as I stay close to Him, He always will.  Every breath I take is a gift from God.  Every step I take is a gift from God.  Every time I speak to a grandchild on the phone or visit them personally, God reminds me that they are gifts from Him.  My need is to live for God for the rest of my days, and that need God is supplying as He shows me daily how I can help others or be a blessing to them.  Are you living for God?  He will supply ALL your NEEDS when you seek Him and live for Him.  That’s the best way to live, even if it’s not every dream you ever had.  I love the Lord and want to please Him!

Every person on earth has a choice to make, the path to life or the one leading to death and eternal separation from God.  When I was a new graduate from college and had just gotten my first teaching job, I moved away from home into my first apartment.  There was a lady living next door to me who was nice but kind of pushy. We arrived home from work about the same time each day and Verna would always say something about God and Jesus loving me and how I needed to be saved.  Finally, in exasperation, I asked her how to be saved.  She told me to read the Book of John and gave me a copy of a Bible to read.  Well, it was Friday night and my fiancé wasn’t coming that evening, so I settled in to read.  I read until the wee hours of the morning, and about 2-3 A.M., I fell to my knees, recognized that I am a sinner and asked Jesus to come into my life.  That’s where my journey on the right path began, with a talkative neighbor who wanted to make sure that my soul was headed to Heaven.  How many people do we pass on the streets or see in the stores daily or at work who need to know about Jesus?  But we don’t tell them because we are afraid of being rejected.  Well, Jesus was rejected, yet He still died for us.  I pray that God will help me to be bolder and to show others the pathway to life, just as Verna did for me over forty years ago.  Now I know that when I die I will go to be with the Lord. But I want to tell others so that they can be with the Lord, too.  I am a naturally shy person and talking to strangers does not come easily to me, but I want to help others to know the Lord so that they can have a hope for their future, safe in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Savior.  I write this blog in the hope that others will see it and know the love and saving grace of Jesus.  We have to choose the path that we walk on, either one of life or one that leads to death and destruction.  God has shown us the pathway to life and to joy…but we have to take the steps to salvation.  The Roman Road is in the Scripture.  I encourage you to read Romans 1:16, Romans 3:23,  Romans 5:23, Romans 6:23 and Romans 10:10.  Prayerfully consider the life you are living now and the life that Jesus gave so that you could have eternal life. Then say a prayer asking for His forgiveness and for Him to come into your heart.  You can be born again into the family of God.  Why would you choose the path to death when you can choose life?

Visuals are from the You Version App of the Holy Bible.

 

How many times have you been just having a normal conversation with someone and suddenly they insert an expletive?  What is your reaction, especially if what they say offends you?  I don’t think that you can do anything about the speech of others and how prevalent it is in our society today to curse and use God’s name in vain.  But, you can choose what you say.  And I don’t mean just oral speech either.  You can control your speech and your attitude on social media, too.  Think before you say anthing, online or personally.  Is is helpful and positive?  Is it true?  Is it necessary?  So many times, we want to debate and push our view online, with total strangers, so we are not careful about what we write in our posts.  But God, who sees all, is always watching to see if we are consistently a good ambassador for Him.  I am personally appalled at some of the speech online.  And don’t get me started about the TV shows that perpetrate dark humor with a callous disregard for offensive language.  I am of an age that I remember when TV was censored when offensive language was used. That is no longer the case because our society accepts the crass and vulgar language, so it is becoming the norm rather than the exception.  But, as a Christian, I appeal to other believers not to join in with the crowd but to stand apart from them and use language that brings peace, hope and joy.  Do you think before you speak?  Before you post?  Is what you are saying pleasing to God?  We have been given the power of life and death with our tongues.  So, I appeal to you to speak life…in a world full of negativity and insults, be the one who can be counted on to be positive and hopeful, offering the world the option to see what is truly acceptable to a holy God.

This year and last have been hard ones for me.  In July of 2017, my father passed away.  He lived in Florida and I live in Virginia, so I was not able to see him much.  In fact, I had last visited him three years before his death.  I had planned to go to Maryland for a retirement party that my children were having for me and then to Pennsylvania to stay while my husband visited his brother.  My husband would pick me up in Pennsylvania and we would head to Florida soon thereafter so I could see daddy, since I knew he was not doing well.  But he died before I could get there.  My brothers told me it was better for me not to see him in his condition since I had had a stroke in 2015 and they wanted to shield me from the stress.  So I said good-bye to my beloved father via Face Time and Skype.  And God held me close and told me that He would be with me.  Then in October of this year, my best friend went to the hospital again, with an infection that just would not go away and was attacking her spine.  She lives over an hour away from me, but my husband and I went into town weekly, for me to visit Heidi and for him to go to lunch with Bob, her husband.  Heidi was moved to a nursing home, back to the hospital, to a different room in the hospital and she saw numerous specialists.  She was in a great deal of pain, so I held her hand and we did Lamaze breathing together to get her through the waves of pain that engulfed her.   In spite of all the antibiotics and care, the infection continued to spread and I saw my friend start to fade away from me.  She was on painkillers all the time and wasn’t lucid much.  The week before she died we had a wonderful visit, talking about our grandchildren and laughing together as I read to her from Bob Goff’s book, Everbody, Always.  She was the old Heidi that I knew and loved and I was so thankful for that good visit.  The following week, she was in terrible condition again, and my heart hurt to see her like that.  When I hugged and kissed her good-bye that day, I walked out of the room sobbing, knowing that it would be the last time I saw her on this earth.  Heidi passed away the next day.  I was thankful that she was no longer in pain, but selfishly, I wanted her with me so we could talk and go to the beach together as we had planned before she got sick.  Again, God held me close and whispered to me that He was with me.  Two tremendous losses in one year have been almost more than I could take.  But God continues to comfort me and tell me that this mountain is one that I am not climbing alone.  He is holding my hand and we are walking this path together.  I don’t think that I could have made it through this time of grieving without the Lord, and I wonder how people who do not believe in Him survive.  Sometimes, like now as I write, the grief of all I have lost almost overwhelms me.  Father’s Day is coming quickly, and my daddy is in Heaven. But, I know that God is with me, and that helps me to keep going, one day at a time.  I hope that those who read this have the Comforter with them, just as I do.  Through this experience, I have been climbing the mountain of the fear of death and God continues to tell me that no matter what He is with me.  Is God with you, in a way that you know that no matter what or whom you lose, you still have God?  He is my Father and my friend, and I hope that He is yours, because you will need Him to make it to the top of the mountains of life.

One of the first things Jesus told His disciples after His resurrection was, “Peace be with you.”  What kind of peace did He mean?  I think He meant the kind of peace that keeps us from falling apart in the middle of the storm that is our life.  There are so many battles that each of us fights daily.  God wants us to “stay calm” and trust Him to fight our battles for us.  Crowder has a song called “I Am” and the lyrics say that God is holding us in the middle of the storm.  I have had to take a deep breath many times and just calm myself down, telling myself, “God’s got this.  Just let it go and trust Him.”  I have so many regrets about not doing that when I was younger.  I was a very angry young wife because my husband was in the military and we moved a lot, actually twenty-five times.  Each time we moved, I had to get a new certificate to teach in that state and find a new job, and lose whatever retirement funds had been saved in the previous state, if any.  I was bitter because we didn’t have a regular home as I had always dreamed of having.  Even now when I am retired, we are living in a house that is falling apart in the middle of nowhere.  Not my dream at all!  But God has just told me to be calm…wait and let Him fight the battles.  Right now, it seems impossible to move into a regular home in a regular neighborhood.  But, surprisingly, I am not yelling and screaming with frustration over our living accommodations.  I am just waiting on the Lord to move in my life, actually content to wait for Him.  Do you have the Lord on your side?  Is He fighting your battles? Let Him speak peace into the chaos that is your daily life; then go out into the world and share the reason for your peace.

If we can just remember that God is the source of all love and wisdom, then we can face any of life’s battles with His grace and peace.   The Lord is good, even though all around you seems to be changing, and not always in a good way.  God’s love does not change, even though our circumstances do and will continue to do so.  First, we must seek His wisdom, found in knowing Him.  We get to know Him by studying His Word and meditating on it.  Then we can arrive at a place of peace wherein we say to ourselves that no matter what happens, God is love and He is good, always and in all ways. Recently, I have faced the serious illness of some friends from church, and this not long after my best friend succumbed to a long illness complicated by diabetes.  Like many, I want to question God about all this…but I go back to knowing that He is Lord and He knows what He is doing.  I trust Him because He is wise and loving, and He holds my beloved friends in His hands.  It is only be spending time with Him daily that I can trust Him so completely. Do you trust Him, no matter what happens? Do you know that He loves you and desires to give you the wisdom that you need every day for the challenges you will face?

I really enjoyed this book because although it contains a love triangle, it is atypical in that there is an underlying Christian theme.  I liked that New Beginnings, where Marissa worked, was a pregnancy center with the purpose of giving hope.  I willl always remember the way that Marissa handled herself in the face of her husband’s betrayal.  She had to climb a mountain to get there, but she is a good example of how we should behave when others betray us.  It was important that Marissa and Kaitlyn have a strong friendship in order to make the story believable and also to introduce conflict and suspense.  Colin was not a very sympathetic character, but he seems to be a typical man without Christian values, so he is clueless as to how to love his wife and save his marriage.  All readers of romantic suspense will enjoy this wonderful story, and Christians should read it especially so that they can learn the valuable lessons that it teaches.

Disclaimer

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. 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”