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.
Unfortunately for me, I have spent most of my life trying to be a “people pleaser.” That means that I want people to accept me and what I do, so I try to make choices to please others. Sometimes, my choices are not the best ones for me, as I have learned from experience. However, I have learned and I am learning that I need to be able to totally trust in God who knows what is best for me and loves me just like I am. I don’t have to do anything to impress him or to earn His approval. I already have that. Being able to trust in His unfailing love and acceptance has freed me greatly from the bondage that is wrapped up in man’s opinion. I am learning that freedom. I confess that I am not there yet and that I have to work on it every day, but I am learning and that is good enough for now. I trust that God understands my struggles and meets me right where I am. He is such a good God and I am thankful that I can completely trust Him!
May each of you find the freedom that comes from trusting God’s opinion of you and not that of man. The Lord’s opinion, after all, is the only one that counts. Have a blessed day!
No, I am not having a pity party, and no, you are not invited to join. I am thankful for grief because of the memories it brings. Thanksgiving is a hard season for me although I will readily admit it has always been my favorite holiday. But twenty years ago, my mom died the week of Thanksgiving, shadowing the holiday in sorrow and grief that seemed to overwhelm me at times. My mom and I had a difficult relationship and as I have aged, I have come to the conclusion that we had trouble relating to each other because we are so much like each other. I like order, organization and plans. So did mama. I like to be quiet and reflective and read. So did mama. I tend to explode when things happen unexpectedly. So did mama. And on and on it goes. Thus, each Thanksgiving season, I ponder why I never felt really loved by my mother. She used to tell me how ugly I was (I look a lot like she did), told me I had to go to college and pay for it myself so I had better study hard in high school, and told me that I would have to work my whole life because no man would ever want me. Yes, mama was cruel at times, but I think it was because she was judging herself. I have a tendency to do that, too, but I hope and pray that I am not harsh as she was. When I find myself about to speak harsh words, I remember how deeply mama’s words cut me and try to control myself and my speech better. The long and short of it is that I am thankful for grief because it also brings healing from wounds that have festered for too long. I had to come to a place of forgiveness for my mom before I could really grieve for her. Now, each Thanksgiving, I realize that it is another year without her and I miss her smile and know that she would have loved being a grandmother because that is a great joy in my life. I’m sorry that her life’s choices led her to miss out on this part of her journey.
God’s love is always compassionate. He understands loss and grief. It was not His plan for man to die at all. That came from poor choices in the Garden of Eden and poor choices ever since, too. We are now all sinners saved by grace and each of us has to die. Each of us will grieve at some time in our lives, and I sincerely believe that God grieves with us, holding us close and comforting us when the grief rolls over us like high tide during a full moon.
One of the strange things about grief is the everyday tasks that suddenly and without any warning turn into tears streaming down the cheek. I can be in the grocery story getting ingredients for one of my favorite dishes and recall that mama used to make the same dish and tears come to my eyes. I see a grandchild do particularly well in an activity and tears spring out because I think about all that mama has missed. It’s a strange thing to go from happiness to grief in a split second. But just as quickly, the Comforter comes and reminds me of His love and grace and mercy and that He is always with me. Others may leave and I will never see them again on this earth. Just as one phone call shattering my night ended my earthly relationship with my mother, so sudden and unexpected is death. I want to leave behind happy memories for my children and grandchildren. That has been my goal since that Thanksgiving twenty years ago. I want them to remember the good times and rejoice that I have a relationship with God that gives me eternal life and them to, if they make that choice. God doesn’t love me or you any less than anyone else. We are all the same and He truly desires that we find out the truth about grieving. It is a process, part of our journey on earth, that we all must go through.
May your day be blessed with fond memories and sweet times with your family and friends as you create new ones together!
Most times when I was disciplined as a child, I learned something. Hard lessons to learn about not lying, not rebelling, not taking things from others. But I learned that I would be punished. Nowadays, I am thankful for God’s judgments because it is from Him that I am learning to be more like Jesus.
I continue to pray for all who face the final judgment of God, and I am well aware that we learn the lessons about righteousness that He is teaching now or we will live eternity separated from Him because we didn’t accept and learn from Him.
Have a blessed day and look forward to God’s teaching us righteousness. It is for our good always.
Here is a quotation that seems fitting for today:
“A. W. Tozer wrote, “The only safe place for a sheep is by the side of his shepherd, because the devil does not fear sheep; he just fears the Shepherd.”
In this season of Thanksgiving, many people who do not regularly thank God take the opportunity to acknowledge that what they have in their lives is from a “higher power.” Others continue on with their lives and call Thanksgiving Day “turkey day” or some other name that means that they are all about themselves and their own ego trip, refusing to acknowledge the Creator and the Savior. I call it Thanksgiving, it’s one of my favorite holidays and I am thankful for all of God’s gifts.
Of course, the first gift that comes to mind is His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ, without whom I would not have a relationship with the Father. I am also thankful for the Holy Spirit, the One who guides me and helps me to stay close to the Lord and to understand His Word. Ultimately, I am thankful for all of God’s creation: the beauty in the changes of season (we saw snow yesterday!), the rare beauty that is all around us if we just look for it (like the cardinal hopping in the snow) and the beauty of the children and grandchildren that I am blessed with. God is so good to His children. It seems to me that we need more than one day to be grateful for His gifts, for all He has done and continues to do for us. The season is one of Thanksgiving and I am thankful to be counted among His children because of His grace and mercy.
May the Thanksgiving season be the start of thankfulness in your heart and life. Every gift is from God! Have a blessed day of counting your blessings.
I am so thankful that God is always patient with His children. He doesn’t rush us into situations but rather waits for us to make choices, gently guiding us in the right direction. Many today are looking at what is happening in the world and declaring that it can’t be long now before Jesus returns. Maybe that is true. But, just maybe, God is being patient, waiting for as many as possible to turn to Him before Jesus returns and His judgment and wrath are unleashed on an unbelieving and unrepentant people.
God is not being slow or hesitant about the end of the age. His timing is perfect, His plan is in place and He is as ready as we are for this sinful world to end. But He is being patient because there are many who still need to come to Him. I know more than a few myself, and I am sure that you do, too. So, although I am awaiting with great anticipation the coming of the Lord, I am so very thankful for His patience. Maybe one of those He is waiting for is someone close to my heart, too.
May the Lord bless you and your day with good thoughts, good things and the patience to wait expectantly for God, knowing that His timing is always perfect.
If anyone had asked me when I was a child if I was thankful for being disciplined, my immediate response would have been, “Of course not! It hurts!” But nowadays, I am thankful for God’s discipline because it shows me how much He loves me and wants me to be more like Him.
When God stops me in my tracks and gently chides me and disciplines me, I am not always happy at the time. But when I reflect back on the chastisement of the Lord, I always realize that it was for my good and because He sincerely loves me.
My parents, especially my mom, hardly ever convinced me that her discipline was from a heart of love. However, God has me completely captivated by His love, which includes His discipline. He loves me enough to discipline me, to make me more and more His disciple, so that I can share in His holiness. I am not perfect and have not arrived yet. I would not be walking on the earth still if that were true. Thus, God disciplines me and gets me back on the narrow path towards holiness so that I am pleasing to Him and being the witness He desires me to be for Him.
I cannot say whether I have always experienced a harvest of righteousness following God’s disciplinary action, but I can say that in my heart and soul, I feel closer to God and more ready to take on the next challenge in my life. I don’t cower away from God’s discipline but rather I welcome it as a part of my necessary growth and maturity as a Christian.
May you be blessed with the understanding that God’s discipline is always for your good and will always result in your becoming more like He wants you to be.
As a child and young teen, I used to watch old westerns with my grandparents. Frequently, if not every show, the good guys (wearing the white hats, of course), called out to the villains who were hiding in a dilapidated building, “Come out with your hands up! There is no escape. We have you surrounded.” That led to the inevitable conclusion of the show with the good guys always winning. That being said, I am thankful to be surrounded, without the pressure that comes from wanting to escape.
You see, I am surrounded by God’s love, mercy and grace. I am surrounded by His total peace and the security that comes from being encircled by His loving care. I have already surrendered to Him and know that He is there to protect me from harm and sometimes from my own foolishness.
May you know the peace and security that comes from being surrounded by God’s presence in your life.
“Dear Izzy—I feel certain there’s a book-loving man living relatively nearby waiting to speak bookish to you ’til death do you part. You just haven’t met yet.”
Izzy Edgewood is a wannabe bookstore owner, quote queen, and Lord of the Rings nerd who has been waiting for Prince Charming to sweep her off her sneakered feet. But it’s hard to meet people when you spend more time with fictional humans than real ones. Which is why her pragmatist cousin Josephine decides to take Izzy’s future into her own meddling hands and create an online dating profile for the hopeful romantic.
To Izzy’s shock (and suspicion), Josie’s plan works. Soon, she’s dialoguing with a Hobbit-loving man named Brodie who lives in a small town an ocean away from her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But is their shared love of books, family, and correspondence enough to overcome Izzy’s fear of flying and the literal distance between them? And is a long-distance relationship even worth considering when a local author has been frequenting the library where she works and is proving to be a perfectly fine gentleman?
In this epistolary novel from award-winning author Pepper Basham, bookish dreams and happily-ever-afters collide to create a beautiful sort of magic that’s even better than fiction.
My Review
I was enticed to read this book by a fellow book blogger (thank you, Nicole) and I am so glad that I did! This is a book just made for book lovers like me. Written as an epistolary novel, this is a fairy tale type love story with characters that you just want to embrace. Izzy is looking for love and in a hilarious way seems to find the bottom of the barrel offerings first. When she starts communicating with a too-good-to-be real man from an island that no one has heard of before, then the real fun starts. The emails between Brodie and Izzy show a developing interest in each other and a lot that they have in common. I really enjoyed their quotations from great classics, especially their references to “The Lord of the Rings” and their use of the characters’ names to describe themselves and others. I especially enjoyed the unwelcome and unsolicited advice that Izzy’s well-meaning family members gave her. Levi’s advice was humorous, Penelope’s was wise and cautious, but Josephine’s advice was the best. Josephine was determined that Izzy should be with boring and one-note Eli, but Izzy knows that Eli is a passing fancy and her reaction to Josephine’s advice is priceless. This is a book that uses words well, with tongue-in-cheek humor and not a little bit of a Cinderella focus. I enjoyed seeing Izzy mature through her correspondence and become more like the person she was always meant to be. The pacing is moderately fast and entirely enjoyable. This is an engaging book, perfect for fans of stories with happy endings and a little drama to get there. Disclaimer Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson Publishing via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”
Many thanks to Thomas Nelson Publishing and to Netgalley for the ARC to read and review. And a big shoutout to Nicole at http://www.christianfictiongirl.blog for her recommendation!
First of all, I had to get over the idea that joy is simply happiness and a smile on my face. According to the site http://www.biblestudytools.com, joy is “extreme happiness as the believer contemplates salvation and the bliss of of the afterlife.” It is described as rejoicing over unexpected benefits. And very importantly, joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit. So, I am thankful for joy and for the discovery that it’s not just a feeling but it is so much more. It is a constant sense of knowing that you belong to the Father and therein lies great joy. I have discovered in my aged wisdom that joy comes from within. Things, people and places don’t give me joy. It resides deep in my heart and is indeed a special gift from God. I may fleetingly be happy but I can always have joy if I choose to acknowledge that it’s a gift from God and not just a feeling. Joy bubbles up inside me at the most unexpected times. I may be thinking about a friend who has passed away or a circumstance that seems overwhelming. And suddenly, there is the joy bubbling around inside me as I contemplate the good times I had with my friend or the fact that circumstances change but God doesn’t.
Crying and weeping are a part of the natural order of things in life. We get sad due to circumstances beyond our control or due to our own poor choices. But joy is there, always waiting for us to recognize that it never left us; we just had it on “simmer” for a season. I look forward to the day when there is no more sorrow or weeping, but until that day, I am thankful for joy and the fact that I can acknowledge that God gives me joy just as He gave me His Son as my Savior and His Spirit to guide me.
