Beauty from Ashes - A Continual Process

The sun is shining in Kentucky this Labor Day weekend.  But it doesn't feel like it to some.  Do you see them?  Are you that person? "Do you know someone who needs encouraging in their faith today?"   The reply  of  the unknown reader was "yes, me."    I froze for a moment. I have been there, have you?  That place where you can't encourage your own heart?  You are too numb to think.  You pray to God, you read His Word, you listen to worship, and yet it's so dark.  You're screaming, but it's silent..., you feel no one would want to hear it. It's just not true.  We care, there is someone ready to listen.  We are meant to be here for each other, to help share the load, better yet, to shift the load to God's shoulders. "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.   But exhort one another every day, as long as it is...

A Messy Tale... Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (What Joseph told his brothers who sold him...) May 2013 Yeah, so that was the title page of my "book" back in 2013.  After years of journaling,  I looked back and thought, "I think this could be a book."  But I see now, God was having me journal so that in the future, (NOW March 2019), I  could literally look back and see His foot prints, or stones of remembrance in my life... So in the "book," I had cut and pasted from July 2011, November 2012, and January 2012, June 2010, November 2006, July 2011, January 2013, and April 2010 to be in the "sections 15-19" below on meditations and peace. Because I just needed to re-read and absorb, I'm leaving them unedited, just as I found them on pages 103-114 of my "book."  My first post in this blog is titled"Th...

We all have seasons that take us to our knees in prayer.  But oh, to be steady there forever on my knees.  That is my prayer , and that is why I share.  Because I can never find peace on my own, with all my fixes and doubts.  "I’ve stood tall and I have crumbled in the same breath" are lyrics that jumped out at me yesterday from the song As You Find Me , by Hillsong United. It's by God's grace that I can look back and see the lengthening of seasons of peace as the seasons of despair shorten.  There is grace for that.  But there are things that come along that break my soul in pieces, and it is there that grace waits to catch me.  It's there for you too. Until our journey on earth takes us to Heaven, we will face mountains that seem to separate us from the love of our Heavenly Father.   But the truth is that He has the purest love a Father can have.  His love is strengthening His children during the hardest of times because  He...

Most days I ask God to place people in my path, Divine appointments.  I'm pretty sure that more often than not, I miss those Divine appointments by steeping in my own thoughts.  Do not over-steep the tea or it will become bitter. I get tired of my own thoughts!  That is why I find so much refreshment in the book of Psalms and Proverbs.  The verses relate to where my thoughts often start, but they take me to the place I want them to land...in the hands of Jesus.   2 Corinthians 10:5 even warns us to keep our thoughts in check, "... take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  As God's children, we fight our battles with His Divine power, as talked about in the verses leading up to verse 5.  So why do I often wield my own sword?! During my deepest grief I had a counselor who wisely suggested that I read Psalm 119 because it is so repetitive with truth - 176 verses!  It would prove to help me jump off the "merr...

It has been a quiet year of blogging.  If I write at all, it has always been for the hurting.  I am not expert, just a sojourner sharing what God lays on my heart.  This is my sweet sis and my brother.  We will carry on and share God's light.  That is what Joel would've wanted, that's what God wants. I keep having this thought that seems like its a nudge from God to write.  And I keep telling God I have nothing to write.  As you know its been a hard year, and 2017 does not mark the end of the year for me.  March 17 will be one year since my brother took his life. The new year verse that popped up on my Bible app was Isaiah 43:19, "For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland." The moment I read this verse I sent it to my immediate family, hoping to show that mom is not in the dry wasteland, and God is doing a ne...