As the spouse of a retired member of the military, I loved the realistic details in this book! The author has captured how the spouse feels during deployment, when the spouse is killed and how a spouse suffers through PTSD. The active duty military members are thoroughly engaging characters, with their weaknesses exposed as well as their strengths. The main character, Harper Lee Wilcox, is a magnetic portrayal of a spouse who gives her all to being a military wife and mother. Her friend Allison Teague, with three small children, was the one with whom I connected, since I had three children when my husband was deployed. Wow! The memories that this book evoked were amazing! For those who are not military spouses, this book offers a mesmerizing look at what it’s like to be a military wife as well as active duty member of our armed forces. The story is one of hardships, struggling though the hardships and survival. I fell in love with the characters and the story and look forward to book #2 in this series!

Disclaimer

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions 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 Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

This fantastic book will be available on February 5, 2019 from your favorite retailer. Some sexual scenes, so if I had to rate it, I would rate it PG.

I remember not that long ago when I was getting up early to go to work and would groan that I had to get up so early and prepare for another day teaching teens who were less than enthusiastic about learning. I remember that in high school, I was happy to get up early and head to school to see my friends. You see, it is just the perspective that we have. Do we have something to look forward to each day? Now that I have reached my “silver years” I am still an early riser, but I don’t get up complaining about a new day. I am happy to have a new day to face, no matter what the challenges are. They say that with age comes wisdom; with my aging has come the acknowledgement that I need to appreciate life because it is fleeting. I recall being a military wife and moving to one base after the other, facing the challenges of finding schools for the children, getting a new teaching certificate and looking for a new job. So many challenges! And, yes, I remember complaining and wishing that my husband’s career would just be over. Did I really know what I was wishing for? Of course not! I just wanted what I thought would be an easier life for me. But wishing for things that are not likely to happen is a waste of time and not focusing on the present. Alice Morse Earle said it this way: “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” More and more, I am seeing each day as a gift from God and looking around to open that present and what He has in store for me.

We are to take delight in the entire day. Yes, there will be bad things that come along, but the Scripture says that mostly they are just smoke. Do you know what happens to smoke? It’s there and then it just disappears as if it were never there at all. My fretting about my upcoming surgery isn’t going to change anything. Unless God steps in and miraculously heals me, the surgery is inevitable. So, I am taking each day as it comes and thanking God that I am still alive to enjoy the day, the time with my children and grandchildren, even if it’s only via videos, pictures and texts. Oh, how thankful I am for technology since I am at a distance from many of my loved ones! I am happy to get up early and to start a new day, knowing that God has something special in that day for me to do or to learn, maybe even for me to reach out to someone else. I am choosing to be delighted in each hour that I have, not complaining about what I have to go through, but rather looking for the good in it. If God wants me to have surgery, then I am confident that He will be with me the whole way. This surgery is a major affair, so I am not taking it lightly, particularly since my friend at church went through the same procedure in December and ended up passing away after a week in a medically induced coma. Of course, Barbara’s demise is on my mind, but I am choosing instead to focus on the present. Today is the day that the Lord has made! I want to be the best that I can be for Him today, because He is always there for me, every hour of every day.

When Morning Gilds the Skies

I was reminded of this old favorite hymn in my devotional this morning. Each day is a new day to praise the Lord, so no matter what we face, we have been given a new day. Each new day is a gift. Open it, and see what the Lord has for you this day! Blessings!

Yesterday was a very busy day because I had errands to run before my swim aerobics class. So I did my usual devotional, listening to my praise songs as I read, prayed and worshipped. One of the songs suddenly caught my attention, so I wrote it down to come back to it later. It is speaking to me again, today, and I hope that it will speak to you. Each of us has a story to tell, a life that we are living to the best of our ability. But the real story is what Jesus has done in and through us. Glory to God!

“My Story” by Big Daddy Weave

Image from me.me

How can I be braver, stronger and smarter? Because I know the Lord as my Savior. He is the only reason that today is better than yesterday and tomorrow holds the promise of being even better.

Image from quotefancy.com

I do thank God daily that He is changing me to be more like Him, to make choices that line up more with His Word. If you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior, today is the day that you can start a new life with Him and start to write a better story. You can’t save yourself, but He already did. I ask you to think about one question today. Since Jesus died for you, what have you done for Him? He only asks one thing of you.

Following Jesus is a lifestyle choice. It means asking daily how you can serve Him that day and then doing it. It means stepping out of your comfort zone and speaking to strangers about your story. It means eternal life with Him in Heaven. I hope to see you there some day. Why don’t you start to write a new story with Jesus as the central character in your life? Blessings and prayers for a Jesus-filled day!

Please click on the link above to hear the song that touched my heart, “My Story.”

All of my life

I confess that I have struggled with feeling valuable. As a child growing up, my mom told me more than once that she had never wanted me and that I was ugly. So, I grew up with a real lack of self-esteem. I was shy beyond belief, talking only to my close friends and struggling to participate in my classes, although I was a very good student. When I went to college, I continued to struggle with my self-worth, trying to find where I fit in. I moved into the Spanish House my sophomore year so that I could be with other like-minded people, those who were learning to perfect conversation in Spanish. The smallness of the house helped me to make friends and to feel more accepted there. My junior year, I was encouraged to apply to be a junior counselor in a freshman dorm, so I did and amazingly I was accepted. That was a strange year for me, the first year I really dated anyone in my whole life (yes, I was 20 at the time), and I actually enjoyed my time with the freshmen on my hall, helping them to overcome homesickness and problems with classes. Then my senior year, which was really only one semester because I had attended summer school in order to graduate early, I returned to the Spanish house and was elected president of the house. What a surprise for me! But I still didn’t feel very valuable; I was convinced that I wasn’t much in this world. I had met my future husband and we were dating, and even though he told me he loved me, I didn’t trust his love. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the relationship to end. I finished my studies and returned home to apply for jobs teaching Spanish, something which was hard to find in the middle of a school year. Nevertheless, I was determined to find a job and escape the taunts of my mother who was once again telling me that I was not going to be able to succeed. I did find a job in a small county in Virginia at which the teacher had gone on maternity leave, so I took her place. As it so happens, that location was close to my fiancé and it was where I met the neighbor who first introduced me to the Lord Jesus. Following my acceptance of Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I began to feel valuable, not because of anything that I had done but because of His great love for me. I began to see the world differently; I accepted the love of my fiancé and the friendship of people at church, virtual strangers who shared a love for God just as I did.

I thanked the Lord then for His righteousness which He had imparted to me through the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn’t understand how my salvation came to me, but I was thankful for it and for the fact that I was not living under a cloud of unworthiness any longer. I knew in my heart that the Lord had made me righteous, that He had made me worthy.

An added benefit was the love that He poured out on me. Yes, I had been loved by my earthly father. He frequently told me and showed his love for me, but He wasn’t home much since he worked about seventy to eighty hours a week, so I didn’t see him much to get the affirmation I needed. However, once I became a Christian, I walked in the knowledge that my Heavenly Father really loved me and that there was nothing I could do to lose that love. He opened up the pipeline from Heaven and poured His love into my heart. For the first time in my life, I felt valuable. I was overwhelmed with this great love. So, what do you do once this love is poured out in you? For a long time, I just quietly cherished it, holding it close to me, hardly able to believe that the God of the Universe loved me…me, the ugly duckling who was never really accepted at home by my mother, thus setting the course for my life of self-loathing. But I turned away from that when the Lord gave me His love. And, more importantly, He taught me, and is still teaching me, that He didn’t love me so that I could hide that love away. He loves me so that I can use that love to reach out to others. No, it is not part of my natural makeup to reach out to anyone. But God can, through me. I have found myself speaking to total strangers, ministering in any way I can to show them that they, too, are valued and loved by God. I haven’t done a lot in my life that I can be proud of, but I am very happy with the fact that I am able to show others that they are worthy. Have you felt God’s unconditional love in your life? No matter how you have failed or how weak you are feeling, God’s love can be poured out into your soul, into all of the dark places that you have kept hidden because there was so much hurt and injury there. His love has been enough to get me through many hard circumstances, and since God treats all people the same, He is reaching out to you today, too. Do you feel valuable? You are a treasure to God, one worth sending His Son to die for. Let Him into your heart today and let Him begin the work of pouring His perfect love into your life. This is my prayer for you today, that you would truly know how much God loves you and that you would use that love to reach out to others.

Do you have a house of a friend or family member that you can go into at any time, without knocking, just knowing that you will be welcome? That used to be my grandparent’s house. I grew up in the same town where Nanny and Pa lived and my siblings and I went there frequently. After all, they were less than a fifteen minute drive away. We just had to open the door and say, “We’re here!” Then we would be welcomed with, “Come on in. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” Of course, we had snacks there, and that was nice, but what I really remember is that I could talk to them and Nanny and Pa would listen. They were never too busy just to listen, no matter what was going on in their own lives. That is how our Heavenly Father is.

Because of Jesus’s blood and sacrifice, I can go into God’s house at any time. I am in awe of His love and care for me. I just read a devotional by Joyce Meyer about how sometimes we forget to be thankful because we start to take God’s amazing love for granted. He is still working in our lives daily; salvation was just the beginning, and I never want to take Him for granted. Today, I was thinking about each of my grandchildren and their special qualities. They are all different, with their own talents and abilities. And I realized that is how God sees me. I am not just part of a crowd of people who accepted Him as my Savior on February 28, 1973. He sees me as an individual with my own talents and abilities. He also sees my weaknesses and accepts me just as I am. I bow down before Him not because of what He has done for me (and He has done a lot in the last four and a half decades), but I revere Him because of Who He is. He is Jehovah, the God of the entire Universe and yet He takes time to speak to my heart, to calm my fears and to lead me daily to the springs of living water that will refresh me. I hope you know this God that is my Father. I hope that you can enter into His house. It won’t be locked, and He will always say, “Come on in. Are you hungry?” And then He will just listen to me as I tell Him my frustrations and fears and just about my day. If I’m quiet, He will talk to me, too. If you need a friend, He is the best that there could ever be! He’s just pure love and acceptance; yes, He corrects me when I need it, but He does it so very gently. Then, he continues to feed me from His Word so that I am ready to go out and tackle the rest of my day, knowing that He has my back. The God of all the world has my back! Knock and go on in. He’s waiting for you.

Once again, I was frustrated yesterday because the surgeon is insisting that I have yet another test and the hospital can’t fit me into the schedule until January 15th. So, now I have a pre-op appointment on January 21st and surgery scheduled (finally!) on February 6th. It all seems to be moving so slowly for me, particularly since my diet is very restricted now. However, God still speaks words of encouragement to me. Yesterday morning when I awakened, my first thoughts were about how broken my body is: so many parts falling apart one part at a time. God’s answer to me was from His Word.

It is my Spirit that is important, that matters to God, and my Spirit is being renewed daily. How does that happen? Through His Word, through listening to Him speak to my heart and through the worship time that I spend daily listening to worship songs and sitting quietly before Him.

I am thirsty. Are you? I want more of God, more of His love and knowledge and wisdom. The water of life is free to anyone who wants to accept the salvation that the Lord freely offers. You only have to ask Him to live in your heart; then the waters of life start flowing within you and out to others. That is our purpose for living, to be a spring of life that flows to others. I confess that lately I have been so self-centered, thinking about all of my health problems and the medical tests that are less than comfortable. But I am re-focusing, centering myself back on my Savior and Lord who gives me life and renews my Spirit daily. He is worth it! My prayer is that as I go through my days and meet and talk to more medical personnel that I will be a good representative of Christ to them. Reaching out and touching the lost is my goal. I hope that it’s yours, too. Blessings for a good and renewed day for you!

Hearing The Holy Spirit- This is How To Get The Holy Spirit to Talk To You

https://myinspirationhub.com/hearing-the-holy-spirit-this-is-how-to-get-the-holy-spirit-to-talk-to-you/
— Read on myinspirationhub.com/hearing-the-holy-spirit-this-is-how-to-get-the-holy-spirit-to-talk-to-you/

As I talked to receptionists and nurses repeatedly yesterday, trying to straighten out this one last test that is required and to make it happen sooner rather than later, I got really discouraged. I thought it was done…I was ready to face surgery. But, alas! One more test! So this morning in my devotions, the song that keeps repeating in my head is to “Keep Fighting the Good Fight.” God has promised to see me through to the other side of all of this and I’m holding on to His promises.

Keep Fighting the Good Fight

God knows that I am feeling weak these days. It’s not just all the fish that I’m being forced to eat, either. It’s just the fact that once again I am feeling like my body is broken, defective. But God reminded me of several things this morning that are in His Word, and His Word is true.

I am made exactly the way God wanted me, with one kidney, extra ribs, a damaged brain from a stroke and now an extra large hernia. Nothing that is happening in my body is a surprise to God. I’m claiming that this surgery will be used for His glory and that I will be able to witness to the nurses and doctors with whom I come in contact. I know that God can use my weaknesses for His glory, and that’s the road that I am striving to walk on right now.

I am not at the point where I am taking pleasure in what is happening to me. In fact, it is hard on a daily basis for me to accept all of it. But, God has been gracious and merciful to me, so I am strong in Him,not in myself and all of my infirmities.

My Lighthouse

God is leading me safely to shore. Right now, my boat is rocking around in the waves, but I am determined to keep my eyes on Jesus and to ride this boat to the safe shore, wherever that may be. I hope that all of my readers know the peace that comes from knowing that God will lead you safely home, to the shore where your family is or to Heaven where your loved ones wait. There is no fear with God, only the peace of knowing Him. Reach out to Him and pray for that relationship and that peace that comes with it. Prayers for God to bless you and your day!