I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in my recliner, since I was told to rest following my surgery. My recliner happens to be adjacent to the laundry room so I have had the “privilege” of listening to all of the cycles of the washing machine in the last couple of weeks. Fill with water, wash, spin, rinse, spin, spin harder, cut off. That brought to mind the fact that I think that life is a lot like a washing machine. We go through different periods in our lives, sometimes blessings and sometimes troubles, but no matter what, we keep going. Just like a washing machine, we keep chugging along until our job is done. I thought when I went into surgery that my job might be all done, but God said otherwise and kept me safe through the surgery. That means He isn’t done yet incorporating me into His big plan.

Sometimes, things are going really well for us; we have hope that all will continue to go well so we rejoice. Then…boom! There is an interruption in our cycle. A sock gets stuck or something equally devastating that stops our performing well. Now we have more difficulty moving, speaking, reading our Bible and praying even. But we have to be patient. We are still chugging along, waiting until this heavy load part of the cycle is over. Whatever is going on in our lives, we are called to always pray. It’s our connection to our source. If the washer is disconnected from the electrical outlet, it won’t work at all. If we are disconnected from our Source, we don’t function too well. Since I have decided that life is like a washing machine, I wonder if I’m in a spin cycle sometimes, spinning in circles and not really going anywhere. But I realize that I am not always supposed to be going somewhere. Sometimes, God wants me right where I am until He tells me to move on. I’ve been reading the Old Testament lately and I’m reading a lot about the Israelites in the wilderness. They spent forty years there! The route to the Promised Land wasn’t really that far; I had a pastor tell me once that they kept circling Mount Sinai because God would not allow them to enter the Promised Land due to their disobedience and unbelief. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be in the spin cycle of my life for forty years. I want to finish the work He has prepared for me. Thus, I am trying to rejoice when things are going right, wait patiently for things to change when things are going badly and pray no matter what is happening to me. This is the lesson that God is teaching me. What is He teaching you? Again, I refer to a pastor we had, in South Carolina, I think. He said that you are either moving forward with God or you are going backward because life with God isn’t static.

Which are you doing? Which cycle are you in? Blessings that you complete this wash cycle that you’re in and that you’re all prayed up and ready for your next “load of wash”. One final reminder, the load that God gives you is never meant to be too heavy for you.

Photo from Inspire21.com

I have known the truth of this title for a while now, at least since the first time my husband was deployed and I was left alone in a strange place, and pregnant. I am certain that I pray more during times like these, but there is always the thought in the back of my mind that God is with me. This truth was brought to the foreground of my mind during yesterday’s devotional from “Devotionals Daily.” I want to give credit where credit is due, so please check out the book by Ann Spangler, Praying the Names of God.

Here is the image that she had in her devotional yesterday. I do not know Hebrew, but I just thought that this was beautiful and worth sharing.

Jesus has always been our rock, from the first day that we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. For me, He has been my rock, the One who doesn’t change or doesn’t move. He is the One to whom I turn when I am am lonely, afraid, hurting, sick, or feeling hopeless. All of us have gone through a period in our lives when life is rough. I’m going through that now with my health issues. I am beyond sad that I cannot attend my youngest granddaughter’s first birthday party next weekend because of those health problems! But Jesus is with me during my sadness and sends me smiles to get me through. Last night, I was feeling low. I was hoping to be able to FaceTime with my son and his family, but Steven was flying back from Boston so that wasn’t possible. Suddenly, the thought came to me to call my daughter Hope. I did, and we ended up FaceTiming. I got to see her two-year old cutie little daughter and talk to her. She kissed the phone to give me a kiss and lay her little cheek on the phone to hug me. So precious! See…Jesus was being my rock again, showing me an alternative to my plan and one that brought me a smile and a chuckle.

I was lonely the other night and feeling a little sorry for myself since there is a lot that I would like to do and I’m not allowed to do it. So, in the midst of my “pity party” the Lord told me how much I was loved and reminded me by having a fellow church member call to check on me. Small thing? Maybe to some, but to me, it was a really big blessing! You see, the friend who called to check on me has Stage IV cancer, yet he called to check on me.

When my children and I moved to South Carolina to await our family orders to Iceland, we had no idea that we would be there for over a year, alone without my husband. It was supposed to be a few months, but there was no base housing and no place to live off base that we could afford, so the decision was prayerfully made that Harry would stay in Iceland on a remote tour for a year and I would be with the children in South Carolina. One big problem soon reared its ugly head. Each child had a couple of toys and only summer/fall clothes since that was when we had arrived. Winter was approaching quickly and I could not convince the military to release boxes of winter clothes and some toys for us. All of our household goods and clothes had been packed up into a huge wooden crate for transfer overseas, but we weren’t going to Iceland now. Nevertheless, I needed things for our three children, ages, 9, 6 and less than a year old. I called everyone I could think of. I prayed. I had members of the church praying. I had my husband pray. And then, I relaxed, with the thought that God would have to work something out because I just couldn’t. That is when a friend, a commander’s wife, called and told me that I should contact the base chaplain for help. I did and less than two weeks later, we had boxes everywhere. They couldn’t deliver everything because that included furniture that I didn’t need in our furnished apartment, so I had to pick and choose boxes randomly. Ideally, the boxes would have been labeled with contents on the list. But that was not how the military movers did things at that time. I had a list of boxes labeled kitchen and others labeled miscellaneous. So, once again, I prayed and asked God for help. Guess what? I got winter clothes, winter coats and toys for our children! I also got table lamps and some other unnecessary items but nothing that I couldn’t fit into our small temporarily abode. God came through for me again! Just when I was ready to go out and put all kinds of charges on a credit card to buy warm clothing and some toys for our babies! God has never, let me repeat that…NEVER…allowed me to go through something without reminding me that He is there and will take care of me, no matter what.

God is my rock and I hope that He is yours, too. I have a list of the Names of God and the accompanying Scriptures in the front of my Bible. I plan to add Yahweh Tsuri to that list and the verses like the one above that tell me that God is a rock, to all who will believe this awesome truth. Blessings!

As you can imagine, I have not been able to do a lot of physical activity lately, so I have been watching more news on TV than usual. Normally, by about 11 A.M., I am done with the news! So over it! I know that you are aware already, but there is so much evil in the world that it seems to be overwhelming us. Part of this is because it’s just what sinful men do. Part of it is because we, as Christians, have stepped away from our responsibility to our world. Thus, I was driven to check out what the Scriptures say about evil and their end.

First of all, we are told not to get frustrated over all of the evil in the world. We should keep in mind that they will all die away, and unfortunately for them, for all eternity. The grass is turning green now outside the window by my chair. There are some patches of brown still, but soon it will all be green and the man who comes over to mow our grass will be here again. We are supposed to look at that grass and realize that though it seems to be plentiful, it won’t be there forever. Neither will evil.

Our job is just to be still, to patiently wait for the Lord. His judgment is coming, whether it be at the death of the wicked or at Judgment Day. Yes, the wicked schemes seem to be succeeding right now. The college admissions scheme absolutely infuriates me because each student admitted wrongly kept out one who had tried the right way. But, guess what? They were caught and I hope the consequences are severe. More, I hope that they repent before the Lord so the consequences will not be eternal ones. The lack of justice in Chicago makes my blood boil, almost literally. Honestly, every time the news mentions Jussie Smollett, my blood pressure rises. As far as I’m concerned, if I were the judge (thank goodness that I’m not), he would be in jail for one year for every time he repeated his lie about the attack. But, again, he seems to be getting away with it. But the Bible says although he may succeed here, he won’t succeed when he stands before the Lord. Think about it. Will you or I be standing before the King of Kings and tell lies and he will say to us that it’s all good, we can get into Heaven anyway? Of course not! Judgment is coming…perhaps not now, but definitely later.

I want to be like the Lord and be able to laugh at the wicked, knowing that their day is coming. But I can’t do that because my heart aches for them and the fact that they are lost and don’t know it. They will be lost for all eternity if they don’t repent and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, turn from their wickedness and walk the road of salvation and repentance and peace. What are the chances that this will happen? I have no idea, but now as I write, I am determined to pray for each wicked person that the news reports about. They need Jesus no less than I did and He showed mercy on me. I pray that is what God will do for them and all others who flaunt their wickedness for the world to see. I’m sure that God’s heart breaks over the evil in the world, too. Have mercy, and save them, O Lord! I hope that many of you will join me in this prayer so that together, our prayers can be an instrument of change in this wicked world. Blessings for a wonderful day and weekend!

Have you ever heard the old saying about staying somewhere too long? Most hosts don’t mind having you as a guest for a few days, but after that, they want you to move on, to let them get on with their regular routine. Some of us get stuck in a rut, that is, we stay too long in a place. Oftentimes, we are staying somewhere that God told us to move out of. I was stuck in this rut for many years. My rut was called bitterness; I was very bitter and angry with my husband for moving me so many times that by the time we settled down, the children were all almost adults and all of the childhood memories that I wanted to have of their being in one home were not possible. Thus I went through my days barely speaking to my husband and holding a grudge for many years. Then the Lord spoke to my heart and told me to move on. I couldn’t go back and re-do the past, but I could change my reaction to it and move forward into the future that God had for me. And that future has been a good one! I have grandchildren to spoil and more love than I thought possible from the man that I disdained for years. God doesn’t want us to stay in one place, especially if that place is not a good one for us to be in. He wants us to pull ourselves out of that ditch, that rut, that mountain that we think we cannot get over; He desires for us to move on!

Since God spoke to the Israelites and told them that they had been at that mountain long enough, don’t you think that He would likewise speak to us to move on? I think that there are many of us who get stuck, mired down by what we want and not looking for what God wants for us. Believe me, I speak from experience when I say that God’s plans are much better than your own and He will bless you as you move into His will and let go of the old, embracing the new. I hope someone needed this today. I know that I needed to remind myself of how far God has brought me. Blessings!

I’m not just saying this on my own. God’s Word has a lot to say about it, in that the Creator gives life and is also the One who should decide when or if a baby dies. That’s right! A baby! NOT “just a fetus.” NOT “just a bunch of cells.” God created that fetus and bunch of cells and gave them life. I applauded the governor of Kentucky this week when he decided to sign a law making it illegal to abort a baby with Down’s Syndrome. Of course, the ACLU is getting involved to protest the new law, but that’s the way things go in our country. Since I wanted to find out what the laws of the different states are concerning abortion, I did a Google search and came up with the following statistics. These are from Guttmacher.org.

If you want, you can go to this site and check it out yourself. You can also sign up for updates on the laws. I also recommend that you sign up on LifeNews.com for the latest information on laws and the abortion controversy.

Why am I so adamant to continue to beat this same drum? Because the little ones in the womb have no drum to beat! They are innocent little lives, dependent on adults to support and defend them. I choose to do so because I read my Bible and know that life is sacred to God. He gives the breath of life to each individual and we are all created in His image.

None of us totally understands how life happens. Yes, we know cells divide and reproduce and voila! A little human! Before the “voila” is our God who breathes life into this tiny one. I believe that with all of my being and will defend their right to life until the day that God decides that it is time to call me home.

I just went through a very scary major surgery and I’m in recovery now. Just as God created me, He is working on healing me. I am getting better daily, and I thank God that He chose to keep me alive after this ordeal. But more, I thank God for each tiny life that has a heart beating and feels pain and I want them to have a chance at life, too. I went into surgery knowing that I have a lot of health issues and might not make it through the procedure. Nevertheless, I prayed and trusted God and here I am. My prayer is that those considering abortion will consider the life of the baby and not their own desires and will hear the Lord telling them that He created that life and it is His little person, created to serve Him all of its days.

Blessings to each of you, especially to those who prayed for me during my surgery. Continued prayers are appreciated as I am healing.