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.
I’m especially happy today because I’m going home for a couple of weeks! Even if that were not the case, it is the season for joy. Because Jesus came, we can have joy in our hearts regardless of circumstances.
Happy Third Sunday of Advent and remember that Jesus is the ONLY REASON FOR THE SEASON!
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.
I used to watch Fred Rogers with my children and then repeats of the show with my grandchildren. He always had such an optimistic, encouraging attitude and with his soft voice, he would tell the children to “look for the helpers. They are always there.” I think that someone who is an encourager is a helper, in one of the best ways possible.
I have had many encouragers in my life, mentors in my Christian walk as well as friends and medical professionals. There are some who stand out in my memory and I am so thankful for them.
My mentors in my Christian walk have been ladies of the church that I was attending who saw my youth and inexperience and encouraged me to dig deeply into God’s Word and to pray daily. I enjoyed Bible studies with them, long discussions about what I believed and why, until ultimately, I was better able to understand what I was reading and to mentor others. They led me to the understanding that I may not have a lot of knowledge to share, but I had some and I just share that seed so that other seeds would then be sowed into my life. It has always been in reaching out to others that I am touched myself. After all, this is the principle of reaping and sowing that God taught me in His Word and that my sweet mentors demonstrated for me.
I haven’t had a lot of friends that I would say are extremely close to me or me to them because I am such an introverted person. But the friendships that I have formed have been with people who spread positivity and encouragement in front of the path that I am following. One such friend was Heidi. She became a mentor to me at the high school in Virginia where I taught for twenty years. She opened her door and her heart to me, answered all of my questions and just spent time reassuring me that I was going to be okay no matter what the parents and the administration threw at me. We laughed a lot as well as cried a lot together. Heidi had a really rough life for a long time, with a philandering spouse and a friend who betrayed her, but she never once made me feel that I was encroaching on her time. I learned from her how to love life and live as though every moment matters. Heidi passed away in 2017 after a long illness and to this day, I can still look at her photo across the room from me and hear her laughter and see her smile that reached all the way into her eyes and never failed to make me smile in return.
Finally, there are all of the medical challenges that I have faced and the encouragement that I have received from various medical professionals. None stands out more than my physical therapist. I met Tim after my knee replacement surgery in 2004, many years ago. My rehab was extremely painful because I am allergic to opioids and could not take pain pills before the exercises that I had to do to get my knee moving properly again. My husband would drop me off early in the morning before I went to teach since Tim said that at the end of the day, my knee was too swollen to exercise well. Then my husband would leave because I literally screamed in agony as Tim manipulated my knee to bend and flex. All the time Tim was working, he was speaking quiet words of encouragement to me, “You’re almost there! You can do it!” Over ten years later, after my stroke, there was no one I wanted to go to for PT except Tim. He assured me that he would do the best he could to help me with occupational therapy, which I needed in addition to PT, but that was not his field of expertise. Tim purchased a white board for me to practice writing on and had me practice daily. I had lost my ability for language when I had my stroke, so I stuttered and stammered and forgot words frequently. I also forgot how to read with comprehension and how to write. Tim set up exercises for me specifically to work on the skills that I needed to recapture. I am thankful that when I was melting in pools of frustration, Tim always threw me a lifeline telling me that he had confidence that I could do it.
I would be completely remiss if I did not mention the greatest encourager in my life, my daughter Hope. Anytime I need prayer, she is right there, on the other end of the phone. When I had my stroke, she left her four children with her husband and a list of who was doing what for each child on each day and then Hope drove over nine hours alone to be with me. She encouraged me to try to live my best life, to walk and talk and to read even when I had difficulty doing those simple tasks. I didn’t like eating because it tired me, and the food was not tasty since I wasn’t allowed salt. She taught her dad how to cook tasty meals for me that had soft foods that were easier for me to swallow and plenty of protein that I needed. She took me to the grocery store and patiently walked beside me as I slowly made my way around and she instructed me where to find the foods that I can still eat. In short, she encouraged me to want to continue to live, even though my life had radically changed. She also encouraged her dad in ways to help me to learn how to be independent again. The result was that in three months, I was back at work part time. Of course, God had a lot to do with that miraculous healing, but I also credit Hope and Tim for the encouragement to embrace my new life.
My encouragers have inspired me to try to be more of an encourager myself. I look for opportunities to sow positive seeds into people’s lives, going against my old nature of being negative and deliberately thinking of positive things that I can say instead.
There are a lot of disheartened people in the world today, and some of them are in my world. They need my encouragement, just a word or two that acknowledges that they are important and that whatever they are going thorough is not a surprise or too big a challenge to God. I am sure that you can find someone to encourage in your daily journey through life, too. The cashier who is weary, the waiter who is overworked and overwhelmed, the young mom with crying children who just needs a smile and a word that she is doing a fine job with them.
All of the encouragement that I have within me to give to others comes from the message that Christ has written in my heart, one of love and gratitude.
I leave you today with this verse of encouragement and pray that the God of all positive things will walk close beside you today. He is and always has been our greatest cheerleader and our hope.
Many years ago, my husband and I attended a Bible training school called Youth with a Mission. I don’t recall a lot that we studied there, but at least one truth we learned and book that we studied stuck with me through the years. The title was THE INTERCESSOR by Norman Grubb and it relates how to be an Intercessor like Rees Howells, a man of God who made a difference by praying for others. If you want to perhaps purchase the updated version, here is a link to do so:
The reason this book made such an impact and stayed with me is that this true story of a man who believed in prayer and made a difference with his petitions to God was amazing to me. Since then, I have strived to be an Intercessor for others, but I have never reached the heights of Rees Howells, not even close.
Today in my devotional, the verse that jumped out at me was about Jesus’s being my intercessor.
I cannot imagine Jesus sitting at God’s right hand and speaking up on my behalf, but that is what the Holy Bible says that he does. The tense used is one of the present ongoing tense, not past, not done, but rather still happening. I remember when I was a child that my father was my mediator with my mom. She had a heavy hand of punishment and I seemed to be always in trouble for one infraction or another. It was my father’s soothing voice that calmed her down and prompted her to think before she dealt out severe blows to my legs. I still got punished, but the punishment was not half as severe as when daddy wasn’t there to intervene. Now, I can put that into the context of Jesus speaking to God on my behalf and letting the Father know that I am His and the price has already been paid for my salvation. Yes, I still mess up, and there are consequences to actions, but Jesus’s intercession is there and the Father has shown me mercy and grace over and over again.
If you get a chance to read THE INTERCESSOR, remember to put it into the context of Jesus interceding for you, on a daily basis and every time you need it. He is right there, always ready to go to bat for each of us because He loves us so much. Yes, He is the King of Glory, He is the Lion of Judah, and He is also the Great Intercessor who speaks to the Father for us, always operating with unfailing love and forgiveness. I want to be like Jesus, in Intercessor for others, and I am thankful for His example and His sacrifice that makes Him the Intercessor for me and for each of His children who know Him as Savior.
Many years ago, my husband and I attended a Bible training school called Youth with a Mission. I don’t recall a lot that we studied there, but at least one truth we learned and book that we studied stuck with me through the years. The title was THE INTERCESSOR by Norman Grubb and it relates how to be an Intercessor like Rees Howells, a man of God who made a difference by praying for others. If you want to perhaps purchase the updated version, here is a link to do so:
The reason this book made such an impact and stayed with me is that this true story of a man who believed in prayer and made a difference with his petitions to God was amazing to me. Since then, I have strived to be an Intercessor for others, but I have never reached the heights of Rees Howells, not even close.
Today in my devotional, the verse that jumped out at me was about Jesus’s being my intercessor.
I cannot imagine Jesus sitting at God’s right hand and speaking up on my behalf, but that is what the Holy Bible says that he does. The tense used is one of the present ongoing tense, not past, not done, but rather still happening. I remember when I was a child that my father was my mediator with my mom. She had a heavy hand of punishment and I seemed to be always in trouble for one infraction or another. It was my father’s soothing voice that calmed her down and prompted her to think before she dealt out severe blows to my legs. I still got punished, but the punishment was not half as severe as when daddy wasn’t there to intervene. Now, I can put that into the context of Jesus speaking to God on my behalf and letting the Father know that I am His and the price has already been paid for my salvation. Yes, I still mess up, and there are consequences to actions, but Jesus’s intercession is there and the Father has shown me mercy and grace over and over again.
If you get a chance to read THE INTERCESSOR, remember to put it into the context of Jesus interceding for you, on a daily basis and every time you need it. He is right there, always ready to go to bat for each of us because He loves us so much. Yes, He is the King of Glory, He is the Lion of Judah, and He is also the Great Intercessor who speaks to the Father for us, always operating with unfailing love and forgiveness. I want to be like Jesus, in Intercessor for others, and I am thankful for His example and His sacrifice that makes Him the Intercessor for me and for each of His children who know Him as Savior.
How many of you love to take tests? When I was in school, I used to almost have a panic attack each time I had to take a test. It wasn’t because I didn’t study or wasn’t prepared. I just always had test anxiety. That lasted all the way through college. After college, I accepted Jesus as my Savior and continued my studies with a Master’s Degree from Oral Roberts University. When I took those tests, I was calmer and was able to focus more because I always prayed before my tests. I recall our young son in kindergarten and his attitude towards testing. As I drove him to school one day, I asked him if he had studied his spelling words for the test that day since he had not asked me to call them out as usual. He calmly told me that he had not studied, but it would be okay because he planned to pray before the test, and Jesus knows his “abc’s and 1-2-3’s”. That’s a good thing to remember, isn’t it? I chided him, though and told him that God wants us to put effort into the work that he has given us to do and to always do our best. I’m not sure my lesson to him really had any effect on him since he got a perfect grade on the spelling test that he admitted he didn’t study for.
Sometimes as I ride next to my husband down the road, I get frustrated with the other drivers and will say things like, “That foolish person is going to kill someone if he isn’t more careful!” My husband reminds me to pray for his safety. And God reminds me that I need to do a self-test and check out my attitude.
No matter what circumstance I find myself in, I am carrying Jesus around in me and like a battery that needs to be checked occasionally to see if it’s fully charged, I need to check and make sure that I’m “in the faith” and not “of the world.” When I respond the same as others would with churlishness or selfishness, I know exactly where I am and that I am not passing the self-test. Time to reign myself in and get myself under the control of God again!
The good news is that once we have examined ourselves, we have the opportunity to take the test again and pass the second time around. Same test, same questions, same everything. But passing is possible the second time because my heart has changed and I have plugged back into the Lord and His view of the situation instead of my own.
Jesus is not ever going to leave me hanging, without hope and without knowing for sure that He is still working in me. That’s why the Word tells us to examine ourselves, to test ourselves and see whether what we are doing or how we are acting lines up with God’s Word. I don’t get nervous when God reminds me to do a self-check because I know He is reminding me of how much He loves me and how He wants me to become more and more like His Son by making the choices that are best for me and others. When Jesus returns, all of the testing will be over, but in the meantime, I have to examine myself daily, sometimes more than once a day and sometimes over and over again, to make sure that what I am doing and saying passes the test of representing Jesus to a world that needs to see Him and His love, not His judgment.
It has been seven plus years since I grabbed a salt shaker and liberally sprinkled it on my food. Any food I ate was doused with a few shakes of that magic shaker that made things taste better, even brussel sprouts. But, alas! After my stroke, my sodium intake is restricted, so I don’t add salt to anything these days. In fact, I read labels to make sure that there is little sodium in anything that I eat or drink. It makes for a bland palate sometimes but it is also keeping my blood pressure down and hopefully saving me the grief of another stroke.
On the other hand, I am called to BE salt, and so are you. I never realized how much flavor salt added until I wasn’t allowed to use it. So in being salt, you don’t know what you are adding to the world because you are just there, doing what you are supposed to do, sprinkling the presence of Jesus into the lives of those who need to see Him.
We are called to show others Jesus’s love, mercy, grace and encouragement. In so doing, we are liberally sprinkling Jesus from our hearts to the hearts of others, hoping that change will happen in their lives. Just as you sprinkle salt on your food and it “magically” tastes better, so your salt in the lives of others should be making their lives better in some way. A smile of encouragement, a thank you that is heartfelt, a blessing in the lives of people who go unnoticed from day to day and have lost their sense of purpose in life. We are the ones Jesus told to “go and be”. He did not say to stay at home and hope that everything turns out okay for the rest of the world. Each time we go out into the world, we are supposed to sprinkle it with truth, love, hope and His greatest attribute of forgiveness. Think about it. What can you do to be more like salt to a dying world? They are dying from spoilage, the spoilage that comes from having sin take over their lives. Whether you call it being “woke” or whatever, the same fate awaits them. They will die in their sins without the hope of salvation unless the salt that we are meant to be sprinkles the truth and stands firmly knowing that we are changing the world, one dash of salt at a time.
My blessing for you today:
As a former pastor used to tell us at the end of each message, “May the Lord bless you real good.”
Just about everyone is seeking some kind of treasure, a way to be rich without having to work hard. Whether it’s by pursuing sound investments, flipping houses or waiting impatiently for an inheritance, we want what we want and we don’t want to work for it. The truth is that we already have a treasure, but some of us don’t recognize it.
This treasure is the truth of God’s Word that we are supposed to freely share with others. It is the gift of eternal life that was freely given to us by the sacrifice of Jesus. We did nothing to deserve it and yet sometimes we just carry it around in our “jars of clay” instead of sharing it with others. Our jars of clay, that is our human bodies, are decaying daily, but the treasure of eternal life that we hold is renewing our inner soul in a way that is unimaginable for us finite beings.
Instead of always wanting more of the goods that the world has to offer, we should be content with the treasure that God has given us, a treasure that is so plentiful that we could share daily with multiple people and never deplete the supply. The truth about Jesus is not a lake but an eternal fountain, one of life and restoration.
I know that I know that God is working things out, but like other humans, I have a tendency to keep pestering Him and asking that old question, “When, God? How long is this going to take?” I have learned that what I should be asking is “What lesson can I learn from this?”
As some of you on the prayer team know, our grandson was severely injured in an accident on his one-wheeler last week. He was rushed unconscious to the ER, underwent numerous tests and is banged up pretty good. His diagnosis is concussion, fractured clavicle and ruptured ear drum. I was blessed to hear that he had no brain damage and was happy that he could go home, be watched by his mom and go see specialists this week. Well, yesterday, he went to the ENT and it seems to be a “hurry up and wait” scenario since he was sent home to wash out his ear with hydrogen peroxide since there is too much blood present for the specialist to see well inside his ear. He goes back next week for another exam. Meanwhile, he is wearing a sling for his broken clavicle and has an appointment with Ortho on Thursday. Tempted to ask how long my beloved grandson must suffer before the healing comes, God has slowed me down and reminded me to ask what I can learn from this situation. For one, I am learning to pray and trust and to know how quickly things can change. I am learning that God knew what happened long before I did, had His hand on Tyler and is continuing to heal him, even if I don’t see much progress. Finally, I am learning that not all healing that has to be done is happening in Tyler. All of the family was affected by this accident that suddenly disrupted our lives, so I am learning to pray for each family member to get the takeaway that they need from it.
The Lord was not caught unaware or surprised by this event. He is always the same and continued on in His calming and loving way. He embraced us in our panic, gave us Scriptures to quote, friends to pray with and an overwhelming sense of peace because He is in control. Always in control and always working. That’s my God!
Many decades ago, my grandmother collected green stamps in a little booklet. I enjoyed helping her lick the stamps and place them in the booklet in the correct spots so that when she had enough booklets she could go to the green stamp store and use them to redeem something she was saving for. I don’t remember everything she got, but I do recall the ice cream maker, with the nice sturdy crank, that would make yummy goodness after a few hours of cranking, adding salt and ice. Those little booklets weren’t worth anything until Nanny took them to the store to exchange them for a prize.
Jesus is my redeemer. I didn’t have to save up stamps or go to a special place. He just gave His life for me because He knew I needed to be redeemed, to be exchanged for a better version of me, one that is all cleaned up and ready to stand before the Father in His righteousness. No stamps, nothing I had to do except confess, repent and live for Him. In exchange, I get to spend eternity with Him. It amazes me that Job, one of the men most likely to turn from God turned to Him and recognized this truth, long before Jesus came as a baby in Bethlehem. Job knew with whom his salvation lay, in spite of all he had to go through. I know with whom my salvation lies, and I am thankful for Jesus and His sacrifice every day.
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 