When the valleys seem deeper, longer than the heights, depths of our mountaintop times, He is here. If we could see Him we would break into shouts of joy. He is here. He is here with His itinerary that makes Satan’s schemes look like child’s play. Satan doesn’t want us to see him, doesn’t want us to sense him, doesn’t want us to “consider it pure joy when we suffer trials of all kinds.” We’re not ignorant of his devices. We know he has a plan with our screaming pain to… reawaken unforgiveness, inflict fear and anxiety, load us with …
Can-Do Attitude
The power of positive thinking jumps to a whole new level when we add the Christ-factor. “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” Phil 4:13 When we’re in His will, He strengthens us to do everything. What could be more positive? Some say, “I know He wants us to love all people, even difficult people, and to praise him in the midst of all circumstances, even crazy family circumstances, but do you really think it’s possible to stay Christ-like, self-controlled and patient when life falls apart?” As a sensitive, easily-rattled person prone to ask this herself, …
The Big Fail
“Simon Peter followed Jesus, as did another of the disciples. That other disciple was acquainted with the high priest, so he was allowed to enter the high priest’s courtyard with Jesus. Peter had to stay outside the gate. Then the disciple who knew the high priest spoke to the woman watching at the gate, and she let Peter in. The woman asked Peter, “You’re not one of that man’s disciples, are you?” “No,” he said, “I am not.” John 18:15-17 The “other disciple” is said to be John, the one writing this gospel. John took advantage of his acquaintance with …
A Time To Die?
Leaves litter the ground, reminding me how seasons bleed, one into the next, as quick as a blink, while God waits for us to catch new vision. I kick back on the swing, crunching my feet in fresh crisps of color as I mull over memories of my dear Aunt Shirley. How strange I can’t call her anymore. As sudden as a Minnesota temperature drop, her brain aneurism leaves my own brain reeling. I crumble squeeze a bright orange leaf, blink away pictures of us splashing together at her cottage, of us wizening from sun and water, coming out smelling …
Dear God, Why Can’t I Have a Baby?
One in six couples suffer with infertility, feeling ostracized and alone. “Too make matters worse,” says Janet Thompson, “few churches offer support groups to counsel this large overlooked group.” After surgery for a ruptured ovarian cyst at age twenty-one and newly engaged, the doctor told Janet that her ovaries were cystic and looked like those of a 90-year-old woman. “Sorry, you’ll never be able to have children.” Three years into marriage, Janet was miraculously pregnant with her daughter Kim! Still, Janet couldn’t shake the worry that maybe Kim would have trouble getting pregnant too. Years later, her fears proved …
Prayer & Angels
“For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” 1 Peter 3:12 Stuff happens when we pray! If we could draw back the spiritual veil, our jaws would drop to see God commissioning His angels to action for us! “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1:14 Satan, mad at being kicked off the angelic prayer loop, resorts to age-old schemes. Threatened by our faith-expressions, he tries to distract us from …
The Beautiful Choice
Choices…. [box] God could have made us robots, marching to His heart, forced to love completely, obeying from the start. Instead He made us separate, with built-in modes for choice, so love would prove more precious when we finally hear His voice…[/box] I wrote this as a young teen in the trenches of a choices… I was the girl who believed if someone didn’t like her, there was something terribly wrong with her. Have you ever met someone who was so insecure about relationships that she sometimes controlled, manipulated, and strangled them? Love, by nature, can’t be forced; it necessitates choice. …
Secrets & Mysteries
I love talking to God in the morning when everyone’s asleep and it’s quiet, except for my husband’s snoring, (which reminds me how much I need to talk to God in the first place! <grin>) You can’t put a price tag on prayer. We get to connect with the God of the universe ~ the mysterious Father who gave us the Son who gave us the Spirit so we can connect back with the Father! “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?” Job 11:6-8 Millions of books have been written on God, …
In My Distress
[box] “In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.” Jonah 2:2[/box] Jesus Whispers: Your troubles are safe in My ears. I don’t always answer the way you expect, but I answer. When people hurt you, don’t carry the burden of judge and jury. That’s my job. I’m the only who sees the heart. Pray for your enemies, leave room for my discipline, and allow my grace to flow through you. Freely you have received; freely give. When you’re …
The Empty Fix
Lord, I marvel because… You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar… Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Psalm 139:2,7 Jesus whispers: I am your greatest fan, but I do more than cheer you on, more than weep with your tears and shout with your victories. I celebrate you. When the world tries to empty you dry, I bathe you in living water, reminding you that in Me, you posess everything. I was stripped of My glory so you could wear My righteousness. In my …
Most Important Prayer For Leaders
In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I shall give you.” And Solomon said to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to David my father, and have made me king in his place. O Lord God, let your word to David my father be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?” God answered …
Beside My Cross
In truth, be rooted in Easter Love today, light and free as a tree bud, purposed and held together by Divine dwelling in your small, simple swelling. You’re your Branch’s crowning hope-jewel, Heaven’s waving, waiting, merry-making tool. The Easter Seed broke to tell your glory story, singing you to fullness, clothing you in new, death-defying nature, securing all you could ever want to be, simply, in Me. Nothing speaks of our potential and value to God like the cross. The cross is why we have a glory story. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, we can wholly lean into grace, …
Relax When People Are Dying?
“The perseverance of the saints consists in ever new beginnings.” ~ Alexander Whyte Staring like a morning zombie at the last bucket-sized mound of Minnesota snow in our backyard, I collapse on our family swing and enjoy the budding trees and chorusing birds. Ah, yes… Finally the semblance of spring! Why can’t every day be a bird-chirping, sit-in-the sun kind of day? Who invented stress anyway? How’d you do it, Lord? How did you bear the weight of the world, the sentence of shame and death, a teacher’s worst time-line (three years to turn your disciples into world-changers), without taking …
A Word to the Dying
Cindy Finch Suffering from roller-coaster emotions? I wish I could tell you some sweet little words that would make it better. But I can’t. You are on a long, hard journey. But you are not alone. When you’re reduced to nothing but grit… and even that is diminishing, God promises to hold you in His tender care and stand tough on your behalf. Watch His light shine brightest in your darkness. To the Terminally Ill: Hold hands with God; He knows the way. Do everything you know to do; then leave the rest to the all-powerful One. Let Him choose …
King of the Sewer
Crisis When my friend, Cindy Finch, was pregnant with her youngest son, Brandon, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. “You’d be dead in a few weeks if you didn’t come to see me,” her oncologist told her. When doctors gave Cindy the most aggressive cancer treatments available, they said, “they’ll either kill you or save you.” Cindy became sick beyond functioning; but by a miracle of God, the medicine worked! Five years into remission, Cindy was thrust in another test: The treatments had caused her to develop serious heart and lung failure. Open-heart surgery removed the damaged …
Touching Invisible Places
To be loved and understood is the cry of the human heart. Someone knows you inside in out, remembers what you’ve been through, and how it affects you today. He hears your silent prayers, and knows when your cherished dreams are dashed against a rock. At a women’s missions event this summer, a woman from the next table motioned me over. She was crying. She told me she’d just read “In Tune” from one of the postcard poems I’d placed on each table. I learned that the woman propped up in a wheelchair beside her was her daughter. She had …
When Misjudged
How would you feel if you embodied perfect love towards the people you created, and instead of them acknowledging you as God, they judged you as satanic? How patient would you be? Wouldn’t you want to get ‘em – or at least sit on their lunch!? That’s not what Christ felt, yet He was disrespected like no other. In response, He kept to His mission of loving, serving, dying and saving…. to make us more like Him. Did you know that you’re on a mission to make a world difference? If you bear the name of Christ (Christian), it’s not …
Pain’s Window
Writing this poem, I pictured a hurting woman staring out her hospital window while Christ stood protectively over her. She couldn’t see him, but He was crying too, His hand resting on her shoulder. I could tell Jesus ached for her to see Him, to feel Him. I remembered His words as he stared over the ancient city, expressing his brokenness: “Jerusalem Jerusalem… how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” Mathew 23:37 The woman at the window felt hopeless, forgotten and alone. Her …
Come Thirsty
When my stepdad visited last week, he told us a story about how as a little boy he liked to feed his calves fresh milk from buckets. The eager calves would stick in their heads so deep that they’d come out covered and dripping. Isn’t that the kind of dramatic effect we want when we plunge into the Word of God? We want our countenance to drip with so much of God’s love and light that others recount His wonders. Eternal Lord, help us assimilate Your Word so it becomes us. Moisturize our dead, dry parts. Restore our spiritual youth …
Why Read the Bible?
My child, I’m with you, waiting to lighten your day with Truth. Open yourself to freedom, joy, hope, health, & soul rest. Bathe in My pages that spear each test. Lean on Me when you can’t see. I’ll help you over-stand. Soak in grace. I was poured in your place! Truth seeps in the secret places, mending, brightening. I stumbled through wrath to make your path secure. Tiptoe close. Absorb My sweet-somethings in your ear. As the flower turns to the sun, or the dog to his master, so the soul turns to God. – William Temple To him who …