I have been walking through an intense season of trust over the last year. My husband was laid off from a very well-paying construction job last June. It threw our already troubled finances into a tail spin. On top of all of that, we were in the process of losing our home. We tried for a year in every way imaginable to work with our mortgage company so that we could keep our home. In the end, we had no other choice but to short sale in order to avoid foreclosure. As we sat last week and signed the papers, I did not really feel anything except numbness. I am still working on allowing God to let me "feel" certain emotions, but that is for another post.
Despite all of these seemingly bad circumstances surrounding my family, I have learned to lean on the Lord more heavily in this season, leaving ...
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My mother has given me some great advice over the years. But the one piece that I remember the most—and the piece that I put to use with the most frequency—is something that she probably doesn’t even remember saying at all. It was one of those times when she was trying to console an upset teenager (me!) and attempting to use that segment of time as a teachable moment.
“Sometimes, Staci, you just need to get in the car and go through a drive-thru for a Coke.”
I’m not sure how much stock I put in that nugget of information at the tender age of seventeen, but I do know how wise I’ve come to view those words as I raised my own children and maneuvered through a myriad of life’s complex twists and turns.
Sometimes we just need a time out--a few minutes to back up, regroup, rethink, and recharge.
“Casting all your ...
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He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Psalm 1:3 NIV
Faith walked in the door with her arms crossed, and I knew there was a problem. “How was the second day of first grade?” I asked. “Well, we can only have our water bottles at snack time,” Faith complained. “When I come in from outside, I’m so thirsty, and I wanted to use my water bottle, but the teacher told us we could only have them for snack. After playground, we are supposed to use the water fountain instead.”
I tried explaining to Faith that each teacher has their own set of rules concerning water bottles, and she would learn to deal with it. But the more I thought about it, the more I could see Faith’s point. She told me she wasn’t ...
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Written on
August 31, 2010 by
Gina in
Blog
"But Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 9:14
When my daughter Grace was 4 1/2, I recorded a conversation we had about sin and heaven.
It's amazing how God can work on the hearts of little ones, and how God's teaching me even now to pause and rest, and catch Him working in these little moments... and in his little people!
This is the conversation that Grace had with me about sin.
Grace (4): "Sin is really bad."
Me: "Yes, it is."
Grace: "What's sin?"
Me: "Remember in the garden of Eden when Eve ate the apple she wasn't supposed to?"
Grace: "Yes."
Me: "That's sin. Sin is when you do something wrong. Like when you're mean to your brothers."
Grace: "Yes, that's sin." She thought for a moment, then, "What about doing what I'm supposed to?"
Me: "Now that's ...
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I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19
I've been thinking about this verse lately. You see, about four years ago my husband came down with a very serious virus that attacked the lining of his heart. It took more than a year for his doctors to determine a diagnosis, and then months of deciding what course of treatment to follow. During those many months the lining of his heart thickened, hardened, and adhered to the heart muscle, shrinking it to fifty percent of its normal size and working capacity. As he became more and more ill, it was finally determined that our only hope for his survival was to have the lining stripped from his heart slowly and carefully, bit by bit.
His surgeon spent six hours with his ...
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My son is going through a hard time at night. He is suffering from typical childhood fears- the dark, noises, zombies. When he suffers, I suffer. He wakes me up and sleeps in my room. He makes lots of noise. I don't sleep well. It could be easy to be frustrated instead of being patient. But, I know his fears are real to him.
And sometimes, I am afraid and don't sleep well also.
I'm not afraid of zombies. But, what about bills to be paid? Family members who are sick and may not get well? Fear of failure? Those things often keep me awake at night.
Reading through Psalm recently, I found a Psalm that I am going to claim and share with my son- Psalm 121:
1I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from ...
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This summer, my husband, kids and I attended our annual family reunion on my husband's mom's side of the family. My husband's grandparents gather us there together every year. Each year, we play a game to help us understand and remember Grandpa and Grandma's background and the decisions they made to get them where they are today. Many of those decisions included Grandpa's proposal to Grandma (despite the fact that she was engaged to someone else), the cars they bought, and what led them to sell the dairy farm they owned for many years. (Many more family secrets that I shall not divulge :))
One of the things that struck me this year is that we all were sitting there in that room because of their choices. There were about 15 of us gathered there, all because of the choices that Grandma and Grandpa made throughout their ...
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"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." Psalms 119:105 NIV
One writing weekend away from home, I woke up at 8:30 am and switched on the TV to see what I was missing at home not having cable. I settled on a political news program about the anniversary of Katrina. After heating up my breakfast sandwich in the microwave, I turned on my computer anticipating a peaceful writing morning.
I started by reaching for the Gideon's Bible in the hotel drawer.
I assumed it would be there, and it was.
I read a couple of Psalms, but my mind was distracted. Nothing really sunk it. As I sat there, I thought about the fact that I was reading a Bible in my hotel room placed there by the Gideons. I wasn't reading any other religious book. I thought of all the rooms in the hotel ...
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Genny Heikka
