My Fathers Grip….
This week has been a great week for prayer. Funny thing is that I am speaking at a retreat this weekend and the topic chosen for me was prayer.
I would not consider myself a prayer warrior but just someone who is always praying about something. There is always the occasional health issues, children, working full time and still maintaining a strong home life and the dailies of life….I find myself in, “sentence”, prayers all the time.
This week my youngest son, who has some learning disabilities, had some trouble at school, that we needed to work out. We had to follow up with two of his Doctors. I was trying to prepare for a retreat and keep a very busy work schedule and home schedules in check too. In the midst of this a family member called me and needed money wired to them for an emergency situation. Then another close friend who we really consider family had several situations creep up on him that he needed to come to grips with and sort out.
My heart was heavy and prayers just seemed empty at this time. I had gone to a prayer meeting that morning with our staff and right across from us, was another small group of women praying. In the next room was another prayer meeting taking place as well. I had to stop in my prayer time that morning, and thank the Lord for prayer and what an encouragement to see all of this taking place, at one time.
The next morning, again, feeling empty to pray…I was asking the Lord for wisdom or something to hold on to for the day…something to get me started. As I was leaving to head to work my husband was asleep in bed and our youngest son was lying on the floor next to him. He reached up and grabbed his daddy’s hand and looked upward toward him with such trust in his eyes. That was it….as I say, “A Post card from Heaven”…..yes that was it…..a child reaching upward to his fathers hand and just trusting in him.
Ok I got it that time….Lord you want us to reach upward in times of trouble and happy times as well, always to You our heavenly father. What a simple example of a childlike faith and; what an example that God allowed me to see.
Today reach up and grab hold of the hand of our Heavenly Father and just hold on and trust HIM.

Lynn Wilson serves as a Guest Services Representative at America’s KESWICK. If you are considering a place for your next retreat, give Lynn a call at 800-453-7942. She’d love to share with you why America’s KESWICK is the place you need to be!

Humility and the fear of the Lord

By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life. Proverbs 22: 4

Humility~~ painfully difficult to obtain (requires death) and maintained only by the sovereign hand of God. To be genuine, humility must be a reflection of God in us. We can act humble without being humble. When that is the case, it is more manipulation than sanctification.
Genuine humility does more to thwart and resolve conflict than making one’s point.
What keeps humility from being manipulation and making it genuine? The fear of the Lord. When humility ceases to be self-centered and becomes God-centered it moves from being an action to being a motive of the heart. It moves from something we do to something we are.
Diane

A hug from heaven

Earlier this year I wrote a devotional called “The Ministry of a Hug.” There was a great response to it because I really do believe that hugs can be a ministry in a sense by being the comforting arms of the Lord…and we all need a hug from time to time. When someone is hurting, either emotionally or physically, a hug, a prayer and a kind word are priceless gifts.

I recently received my priceless gift when I needed it most and it come from a very small package. For the past two months my son Daniel, his wife Liza and our grandson Elijah (3 years old) have been living with us while their house grows along with their family (their second baby boy is due January 7th). I can’t tell you what a joy it has been to have them with us…I haven’t played so much in years!

I had been feeling sad and whatever…on this one particular day recently. Liza and Elijah were leaving for the day and so of course Baba had to have her hugs and kisses. After receiving them Elijah ran out the door waving bye-bye. He stopped…turned around and ran back to me, “I need to kiss you Baba” and I got a great big kiss! Off he went, only to run back once more, “I need to hug you Baba! I love you.” If ever a hug came straight from the arms of the Lord, I believe this one did! Did the Lord prompt Elijah’s little heart? I like to think so.

Would you or I be so quick and willing to respond to God’s little nudge to give someone a hug? There wasn’t a great “crisis” going on in my life, just a disquiet spirit. I wasn’t crying or moping around…yet somehow this little one’s spirit sensed his Baba “needed” a hug and a kiss.

Be the arms of Christ today…someone may just “need” a priceless gift that only you can give…a hug from heaven.

Proverbs 17:6 Grandchildren are the crowning glory of the aged; parents are the pride of their children. (NLT)

Mary Ann

Mary Ann serves in our Women’s Addiction Recovery Ministry program and is a biblical counselor. Part of her ministry now includes overseeing the intakes for the Colony of Mercy.

Cultivate the heart

As I sat a listened to Steve McVey last summer during our summer conference season, it was as if I was waking from a long winters nap. About 10 years ago, during a particularly difficult time in my life, I was counseled to grow in grace and my understanding of my identity in Jesus Christ. It hugely impacted my life and ministry. Over time, without active pursuit, these truths started to gradually leak out of my heart and mind until the point that they were nearly gone completely in any real practical sense.
As I listened to Dr. McVey, I sensed a growing excitement as I realized I knew this but had lost it and I wanted it back!! As I spoke to Steve after one of the sessions, tearfully sharing how hindered I felt to really soar in these truths, he very kindly looked at me and said, “Nurture your heart in grace”.
Nurture: to supply with nourishment, to further the development of (Merriam-Webster Online 12 21 07).
As I have been considering that thought to “nurture your heart” it occurred to me that there is an intentional sense about our Christian walk. Another word that comes to mind is to cultivate. Just as we cultivate a garden we can cultivate God’s truth in our hearts. We can plant seeds of truth (by reading the Scriptures); water the seeds (through Church attendance and participation); and fertilize the truth (with Christian fellowship and outreach). We can encourage growth and Biblical change in our lives by cultivating and nurturing God’s truth in our lives. As He supplies the power through the infusion of His Holy Spirit, we grow and flourish in spite of the circumstances or barriers that may otherwise impede progress.
How are your actively nurturing your heart with Truth today?

Diane

MEMORIES THAT WON’T NEED TO BE REMEMBERED

There are certain times of the year that bring beautiful – and often painful – memories to my mind. There are birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and sometimes just plain old “ordinary” days that for some reason have special significance to me because of a special event that may have occurred on that day.

I was in my office this morning, talking with a fellow staff member, and we got to talking about Thanksgiving. Now, for me, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because I so closely associate it with family and friends and just wonderful times of fellowship with my mom and dad and best friend (actually more like a sister), Susan. Turkey and all the stuff (pardon the pun) that goes with it is not necessarily part of the picture. In fact the most joyous Thanksgiving I spent in recent years was in the St. Louis airport sharing a ham sandwich with my mom as we waited to board a plane to come home to New Jersey. You see my mom had nearly died a week earlier and had just been released from the hospital that morning so we could return home.

It didn’t matter that we weren’t seated at the dining room table set with her best dishes or that we weren’t eating turkey, mashed potatoes, and her famous oyster dressing. What mattered was that we were together, and that God had chosen to deliver her from the pneumonia and congestive heart failure, and was giving her the strength to come home.

Even now as I write this, I am crying because the memories are so bittersweet. But there will come a day when I will no longer need to remember, because the memories will not be, in effect memories, but eternal reality. The tears I am now shedding will disappear as I join with my mom and dad, and so many other dear Christian friends in rejoicing in the very presence of God and praising Him eternally for His awesome majesty and sovereignty. No more tears shed as we dwell in the eternal present filled with His presence. He has prepared a place for me (John 14:2-3), where I will dwell with Him forever.

Even Christ’s words from I Corinthians 11 regarding the remembrance of His death and resurrection won’t be necessary any longer since we will be living in His presence and remembrance will not be necessary.

So the tears I shed now are tears of sadness and of joy – and yes, tears of hope, too – as I KNOW that some day my memories will no longer be necessary. Dwelling in the very presence of God and knowing that I am there for eternity – can I comprehend it? No, not really. Do I believe it – absolutely positively! Praise the Lord.

Lynn Randall

Siesta Time with Jesus

Are we honoring Him, who is our peace and our rest, with our all our heart soul mind and strength?

Some of us (most of us) do that very well with our busy beaver, busy as bees “doing.” And praise the Lord the “doing” is a good thing. There is no condemnation in it -not even a little bit.
My sincere heart question is; “Are we honoring Him with our ‘being’ as well as we are with our ‘doing’?”

My co-worker and I were just talking about the tradition and practice some countries have called siesta. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation and it won’t likely be the last. We can’t help it. Partly because we are both busy most of the time and think it would simply be neat to pause in the middle of our day for some R&R. The other part of it is — we really do need to pause and since we don’t, our souls do the longing for us and we, well, we talk about it.

Just for fun I did an internet search and here is what I learned: Siesta is a Spanish word and is defined as “a short nap taken in the early afternoon, often after the midday meal. Such a period of sleep is a common tradition in hot countries. The word is from a Latin word meaning “the sixth hour” (counting from dawn, therefore noon, hence “midday rest”). The original concept of a siesta was merely that of a midday break. This break was intended to allow people time to be spent with their friends and family.”¹

I don’t know about you, but I’m jealous for this “siesta time” in my own life. More and more I am longing to be with Jesus, just resting at His feet and being still.

Dear sisters, just in case you didn’t know, being still is not a dirty word and I can’t put it any better that Jesus did when He mildly rebuked Martha in Luke 10:41-42. ²

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

The Lord Jesus said as plain as day, “Mary has chosen what is better.”

My encouragement and my challenge for all of us today is, at the very least, begin to think about the pattern of our lives. Are we so busy doing that being, simply being alone with Him is a foreign concept? For a long time now I have wanted “more.” Well, now I want “better”. And not “my better”, but what Jesus calls “better.”

Stephanie

God never gives you more than you can bear…

If someone would have asked me several months ago if this came from scripture, I would have said yes…or at least that it was a biblical truth. I have even said it many times, and tried to find comfort in that statement for myself. And yet it seemed as if what I observed all around me was the exact opposite. So what is the truth?
My eyes were opened during a recent Bible study called “The Grace Walk Experience” by Dr. Steve McVey. We were asked to examine 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (Emphasis mine)
It’s all in there…the truth about the trials and suffering that comes into our lives. I would never compare the hardships or trials in my life to that which the Apostle Paul endured but I’ve had some hard times that have taken me into the pit. In these verses, Paul tells us the hardships that he and his companions went through were just too much for them to handle…it went far beyond what they could physically, mentally and emotionally endure. They couldn’t bear the strain and the pain. It was so bad that they really just wanted to die so that they would escape the unbearable circumstances. But why would God allow them to get to this unbearable state?
Paul and his companions came to a place where they realized it was all in the hands of God, their very lives had to be surrendered into the hands of God. There wasn’t anything they could do to save themselves or ease their suffering. And that was where God wanted them to be…the place where they would give up their self sufficiency and rest in His sufficiency.
God tries to get our attention. As I look back on the trials that I went through, I see that God was trying to get my attention but I kept on trying to control and handle everything on my own. It was only when I came to the end of my self sufficiency that I was able to see that is was all about God’s sufficiency and not about mine.
No, I don’t believe the statement anymore “God never gives you more than you can bear.” It’s a bit scary I have to admit. But I have seen in my own life that…I can’t…but He can. Instead of relying on my self sufficiency (really non existent) I need to rely totally on His sufficiency.
I’ll just trust God…how about you?

MaryAnn