Star-fish

     My husband's recent angina or aching heart led us on quite a journey that ended with him having open heart surgery. It's interesting how doctors can "fix" the physical problems of the heart, but there are heartaches that just don't go away without God fixing them. Those heartaches usually involve relationships with family or friends.      It's been said that spouses die of "broken hearts" after the death of their husband or wife and yet doctors can't find anything physically wrong with them. What causes our hearts to ache? Separation? Devastation? Rejection? Manipulation? Or is it something else? Do we put on others our own feelings, expectations, emotions, responsibilities, or ideals that belong solely to ourselves but we wish another will fulfill them? When they do not live up to our wants and desires in a relationship we feel hurt and our hearts ache. We feel as though this person or group of people should have responded differently, but...

     In light of the state of the world and my husband's recent health scares, it would be easy to get down, to get down on myself, my life, and fall into a "woe is me" mentality. What would work better is for me to "get down on my knees" and talk to God, take my "woes" to Him.      If I turn from my pity party and look to God, I remember He took pity on me. He sent His Son to save me from my sin and the very pit of hell. I have everything to celebrate today and nothing to get down about. Praise You Lord!      Isaiah 6:5  “Woe  to me!” I cried. “I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips,  and I live among a people of unclean lips,  and my eyes have seen  the King,  the  Lord  Almighty.”

     At the beginning of each new year weight loss diets and exercise programs explode on the scene. For me, when I diet the focus becomes food and I seem to gain weight rather than lose it. Daniel had the right idea when the king wanted to feed him rich food, he focused on the Lord and became stronger physically and mentally.       Here's what Daniel 1:8-17 tells us about diets:  8  But Daniel resolved not to defile  himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.   9  Now God had caused the official to show favor  and compassion  to Daniel,   10  but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your   food and drink.  Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.”        11  Daniel then said to th...

      Most Christians know Jeremiah 29:11, " For I know the plans  I have for you,” declares the  Lord , “plans to prosper  you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." But we forget that God has plans for us that may not line up with our own plans. He has not forgotten us in our trials. In fact, He often uses our trials "to prosper" us and give us "a future."       How many of us have learned something important about ourselves or those around us during difficult times? How often do we learn new things about ourselves during good times? One stretches us and the other comforts us, stretching causes growth and change, where as comfort causes rest and renewal. Both comfort and discomfort have their purposes, but both do not put us on the fast-track to our future.        If you've made it through trying times, is it not much easier to have "hope" the next time trouble rears its ugly head? But if you've exp...

     Happy New Year! Wow, 2015 came in like a lion in our household. My husband is recovering from an emergency triple bypass heart surgery. But as always, God has been good during this whole difficult ordeal. Which brings me to New Year's Resolutions…we all think a new year will bring new changes and challenges, but we feel up to them, right? Today anyway.      What if your resolution this year is to live a more righteous life, could you do it? What would that look like for you? Isaiah 64:6 tells us this about human righteousness, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…" The hope we have in 2015 is the prayer Paul wrote in Philippians 1:9 "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus...