WALKING THROUGH THE COVID-19 VALLEY

Looking for a peaceful place to land?

We are living in most unusual times.

Frightening times. Unsettled times. As we all learn to cope in our own way according to our personal situations, our level of faith, it seems at times that this season just keeps dragging on so slowly, as if it would never end. But, as the title of my post says, we are walking through this valley. And like any other valley in our lives, we will come to the end and find a mountain to climb into a fresh and life-giving atmosphere.

Some of us have lost much through this time. Others not so much. Some are walking in sorrow through this valley as you have lost loved ones, lost employment, have become confused and may be feeling way too confined to suit your emotional needs. But we have a choice. We can continue to walk on, trusting the Lord to bring us out in victory. Or we can sit ourselves down in the middle of the valley…to read more, click here 

WHAT IS SUCCESS?

The question was asked in one of my FaceBook groups the other day: What are you doing towards your success?

My answer probably looked atypical, because I do not view success as most business people do. For one thing, even though I was in business for years, I do not consider myself a businesswoman. I realize that, as an author, I am in business. I am in the business of selling books. At least, that is how the public sees it. It is also the way other business people see it. But I consider what I do more as a ministry than a business.

My answer went something like this: If even one person is helped, encouraged, finds hope from each of my books, I will consider that success. If I reach and help many people, I would not consider that more of a success than helping one person.

What am I doing towards success? I write the best I can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that which the Lord inspires me to write. I hope to share the gospel and the love of God with my readers in such a way as to inspire them to better things, to a closer relationship with the Lord, to a deeper desire for the things of God. I share my books on my blog, on social media, with friends.

What more can I do? I can pray. And that leads me to my newest book, It is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God. It should be published by the end of this week. Along with the book is a Study Guide to be used either personally or in a small group study. Two journals will accompany these books, one a Thanksgiving Journal to be used for a challenge I have put forward in the book, the other a Study Guide Journal for extra notes for those who choose to use the Study Guide. Together, I pray that my readers will find their way into a brand new place in prayer for the first time, or into a fresh, dynamic renewal of prayer in their lives.

I will be back to let you know when the books are available on Amazon.

Announcement! The books are published and are now available on Amazon. Check my post here with links to each book on Amazon.com.

---

Have a wonderful day and be blessed.

PRAYER AND EDITING

Sounds like a strange title for this post, no doubt. But the two words do have more  in common than you might think. If you are a regular reader here, you will know that I have written a book about prayer and am in the process of doing some final edits. If you are new here, now you know too.

It has been a little bit tedious as this current edit is to check all of my Scripture references and make sure they are correct. A good thing, too. I have found a few typos which created references which do not even exist, such as 1 Samuel 49, which should have been 19. I had also included a few which, on reading now, could not figure out why I had even chosen them. Out they went. I have another 30 pages to go to finish this edit.

Then comes the next edit. All of the concordance references. That, too, will be rather tedious as there are a lot of them, and footnotes are in smaller type so not as easy to read. But better to make sure now that they are correct than let them go through the publishing stage to find there are a bunch of mistakes. I’m sure I won’t get it perfect, but I do want it as close to perfect as I can come. It can be frustrating to read a book, check a footnote or Scripture only to find it doesn’t make any sense.

Next I will probably read the whole thing over again to check for any other type of errors. I have someone who has agreed to read and endorse the book, so I will probably send it to her before I do the that particular read-through. We can do that simultaneously. Since I have been working on this book for years—more than a decade—since before I even considered turning it into a book. Originally it was just a list of prayers I would pray on a semi-regular basis. I had no idea it would turn into a 350-page book!

When I read/edit, I always do it out loud as I find I can pick out errors much easier than doing it silently. Otherwise I can skip over without even seeing extra words, typos, missing words. I find these audibly much more quickly than visually. I think I tend to almost become hypnotized and sleepy if I don’t verbalize lit.

When I thought further about prayer and editing, it came to me that sometimes we need to actually edit our prayers. There is a possibility that we could be praying wrong prayers. We may be inserting too much of the flesh and too much of what we consider the answer should be. Perhaps we are analyzing the situation from a worldly standpoint and not praying according to the will of God. It’s time to edit.

Not that we want to get too tied up in knots as to how we pray. The exact words are not of such importance as the attitude of our hearts as we come to the Lord. But it never hurts to check our prayers from time to time to see if they line up with God’s heart and word in the situation or for the person we are praying for. Or if we are seeing ourselves rightly before the Lord. If our spiritual vision is twisted or clouded, our prayers will be the same and we will not see the answers we hope for. So an edit might just be appropriate from time to time to make sure we are still in alignment with God.

Prayer is our communication line with heaven and with our heavenly Father. You could call it a life-line. Without it, we have no connection to the source of life. So we need to be sure the lines are clear. This particular book is all about how to pray using the word of God. I have often been in prayer meetings where the leader would ask someone to take a particular verse and pray into it. I discovered that many people do not know how to do this. They will read the verse, but then seem to be at a loss as to how to turn it into a prayer. So my book was born partly for this reason. Then it expanded to a teaching on the different types of prayer we find in the Bible. It kept growing, together with personal anecdotes, until it is now almost ready to publish. I hope it will prove to be a useful tool for many people to enhance and deepen their prayer life.

So there you have the story, in a nutshell, of It Is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God.

Stay tuned for future announcements when it becomes available on Amazon.

Thank you so much for stopping by to read my post. I would really appreciate it if you would consider leaving a comment in the box below before you leave. And feel free to browse other posts here as well. If you are not already following me, please take a moment to click on the “Follow” button to receive e-mail notifications of each new post. I would also love it, if you are new here, if you would tell me a little about yourself and how you found my blog. It would be a great help to me.

I pray you will have a wonderful weekend. May God bless you abundantly.

HAPPY SUNDAY

Just a short post today to say, “Happy Sunday”. I hope you are enjoying the spring weather. I was beginning to wonder if we would ever get a real spring day, but today, though a little cool, is just perfect.

As I drove to church and back this morning, I so enjoyed the flowers filling gardens and the blossoms on the trees. It is a beautiful time of year. Another thing I love is to hear the birds singing and filling the air with life.

I also wanted to share with you some of my recent artwork. My photo cut off off a little of the chickadee, but I hope you enjoy the colorful birds. I don’t know if I have ever done drawings of birds before, but I had fun doing them in colored pencil.

From top to bottom: Cardinal, scarlet-bellied mountain tanager, red-breasted grosbeak, chickadee and American goldfinch.

I hope this has brightened your day a little. Thanks for taking time to stop by. I hope you will leave a comment in the box below before you leave. I do look forward to your comments. And if you are not following my blog, please take an extra moment or two to click on the  “Follow” button at the top. You will receive e-mail notifications for every new post.

God bless you and may you have a wonderful week filled with joy and peace and love.

SPRING INTO NEW LIFE

Spring. A time of awakening. A time of new life beginning. A time of the sprouting up of plants from the earth. A time of opening of buds and blossoming of flowers and greenery. A time of change from the often dreary, dark and cold days of winter into the warm sunshiny days which promise to follow.

Although spring is not my absolute favorite time of year (that would be summer), I love this new stirring of all nature as it prepares for the maturing of summer growth and, eventually fall harvest. This means increased rains in many areas as well as milder temperatures and sunshine (unless, of course, you already live in a tropical or semi-tropical area). I am fully aware that the rain is essential to spring growth, for is it not April showers that bring May flowers? Yet I am not fond of day after day of rainy and damp weather. That’s why I prefer summer–most years.

Spring is a time, also, for the stirring of hearts, the renewal of hope and faith. It is a time of the blossoming of love. Countless weddings take place in the spring months, and particularly in June. Weddings speak of new beginnings, the promise of blossoms and new life to be produced through these new relationships.

What has seemed dead for so long has come to life again in nature. This brings hope to heavy hearts that life can once again return to them. Senses are reawakened by this breath of life. It is time to shed the spirit of heaviness and receive the garment of praise from the Lord of all life. To allow His rain to shower us with blessings. To allow His love to soften the hard places in our hearts. To allow His joy to awaken new senses. To allow His peace swallow us up in His presence.

A time of renewal. What needs to be renewed in your life? Do you need to work on your prayer life? Your relationships? Your spiritual walk with God? Or do you need to review and revamp your business? Your career? Your job? Your marriage? Perhaps even your geographical location? Regardless of where your particular need lies, spring is a great time to make any changes necessary to improve life in any and every aspect. 

Do you have a dream to awaken? Do you know what steps you must take in order to see that dream come to fruition? Is there something you have set aside for whatever reason that you know now is time to bring it back out of storage? There is no time like the present. There is no time like springtime.

Let’s together do a life-check to see if spring has come into our lives again this year. Let’s check where we need to do some weeding, fertilizing, watering, new planting, tilling of the soil of our hearts and lives. Now is the time. Now is the hour. Let’s be busy on improvements wherever we can. 

What is the Lord saying to your heart? Stop. Sit still. Listen. Ponder. Act.

I’m not sure what prompted me to write this, but here it is. I hope you have enjoyed reading it and I hope it has spurred you on to find your place of reawakening and blossoming so that, in the future, your life will provide a great harvest for the Lord.

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading. I would love it if you would leave a comment in the box below before you leave. And if you are not following me, please take an extra moment from your busy day to click on the “Follow” button at the top. You will receive an e-mail notification of each new post as it is published. Oh, and do feel free to browse previous posts.

I pray that you have been blessed with your visit and that you will come back soon. Please share with your friends on social media and/or through e-mail or word-of-mouth so the blessing can spread. I pray that you will have a blessed day and week filled with encounters with God.

AROUND THE WORLD AND BACK AGAIN

Anyone here ever heard of Kiribati? Have you ever been there? Neither have I. In fact I had never heard of it until a couple of years ago. And when I searched a map for it, it turned out to be on the tiniest island, only a dot, in the middle of the ocean, in the South Seas. No bigger than a pinpoint. Actually it is on Canton Island. And I have a strange “connection” with Kiribati.

December 23, 2010, I placed an order of skin care products from a company named L’Bri Pure N ‘Natural. I had been a distributor for this company for a few years, and this was the last order of that year for me. Actually it turned out to be the last order I ever placed as within a couple of months I could no longer keep up with the annual doubled quotas that were being set. The order did not arrive. I cannot now remember if I had them reship or if I may have even forgotten about the order. Probably not as some of the products would have been for customers, and I imagine the company resent the order to me eventually.

But where did that order go? Well, I would not find out for seven years. One day in January or February of 2017, the postal delivery buzzed me to come down to the lobby. He had a parcel for me. It surprised me as I did not recollect placing an order for anything. Down I went, and the first thing the postman said was that it looked rather battered. And it did. I should have taken a photo of it. But from the box I could not learn where it came from. Upon opening it, I saw the products, one of which had broken and leaked all over everything else. I checked the Customs declaration. It had come by Priority Mail. I looked more closely and discovered that, instead of being sent to London, Ontario, Canada, it had been addressed to London, Ontario, Canton Island (Kiribati). It had the correct postal code even. And the postal code is supposed to be enough for the parcel to be directed correctly.

But what happened between 2010 and 2017? I guess I will never know. But how it ever eventually arrived at my door is an even greater mystery to me. I really wish I could have traveled with that carton to see some of the places it went. The only explanation? You can see it on the label: Missent to Kiribati.

I think there is something to learn from the spiritual standpoint from this story. We must be directed to the right location. Are you heading for heaven? If not, you need to find out how to redirect your life onto the right route to get there. If you are expecting to get there whatever route you take, you may find out you are too late. The story in Matthew 25 about the 10 virgins confirms this. Five had enough oil for their lamps to last, but the other five had not taken extra. By the time they had gone out to remedy that situation, they returned to find out they were too late. How disheartening those two words would be. “Too late!” I want to make sure my life is directed to the right address. I don’t want any delays or detours or wrong destinations to jeopardize my arrival in heaven when my life here is completed. Check the “shipping address” on your life. Do you need to be redirected to the right location? It is simple enough to do. Just ask Jesus to forgive your sins and ask Him into your heart to take over the direction of your life. All it takes is a sincere heart to reach out to Him. Take a moment to check the address marked on your life. Where are you headed?

I hope you enjoyed my little story. Thank you for taking time to stop by and read it. I would very much appreciate it if you would leave a comment in the box below. Have you ever had anything similar happen to you? Please tell me about it. If you are not yet following me, please click on the “Follow” button at the top and you will receive e-mail updates when I publish new posts.

Have a wonderful day and a wonderful Mother’s Day this coming Sunday. May the God of all peace bless you with the peace that passes all understanding. Put your hand in His and let Him lead you.

IN THE SECRET PLACE OF THE LORD

I have a secret to tell you.

Since I have been sharing some of my book, Shadows In My Valley, I have been thinking about the importance of spending time in the secret place of the Lord.

 

As I look back, I can see that I was searching for that place all the way through the valley. But I wonder now if I really knew what that even meant. Yes, it is a place apart where we can talk to the Lord and wait for Him to answer us, a place of solitude and sometimes even silence. But I think the secret part entails more, much more than I could have realized at that time.

 

What does secret really mean? My Gage Canadian Thesaurus says that, in part, it is “confidential, discreet, hidden, secluded”. Shall we look at these individual words to shed a little more light on the subject?

Confidential. When I think of this word, I think of something which should not be revealed to anyone else. Someone tells us a secret. They make it clear that it is to be kept secret. In other words, we must never even hint at it to another person. If we do, we have broken confidence with that person. We may be the cause of hurting others. We may be labeled ‘untrustworthy’.

Discreet goes along with confidential. The one telling the secret must be very cautious about who he tells the secret to, and the one receiving the secret must also be very careful to act with discretion. These things are to be kept hidden.

What do these things have to do with being in the secret place of the Lord?

 

• Sometimes the Lord speaks His secrets to us, for our ears only. I remember years ago listening to a radio program and the preacher made a comment I have never forgotten: If you reveal something too soon, it could abort God’s purposes. I know I do not want to be guilty of doing that.

• It may be that the Lord reveals something to us through the Word about someone with a particular need. What do we do with this? We pray. The Lord will show us whether and when we should share it with the person involved.

• The Lord may choose, by revelation through the Holy Spirit, through dreams or through visions, to use us, in prayer, to help another person in an area of difficulty. Do we immediately run to that person and tell them about it? Usually it would be best to pray about it in the secret place until the Lord releases us to share it. There may never be a time to reveal it, or it may be some time in the future. If the Lord indicates it needs to be revealed right away, He will show us in some concrete way that we should do so.

• Sometimes a friend will entrust us with a personal prayer request which they wish to be kept secret. We must honor that and keep it to ourselves, not with not even a hint to others about it. 

• We may discover something about a person through their actions, attitudes or words. Unless there is cause to report something which may be of concern regarding the situation  to church leadership, we should keep these things between us and the Lord. That person may never know we prayed, but that does not matter. What matters is our faithfulness.

• Perhaps someone comes to us for counsel. What they tell us must be kept confidential. Think how we would feel if we spoke our need in confidence, trusting the person we shared with, only to discover it had been passed on or even hinted at to others?

We must keep these things in the hidden place. We speak to the Lord about them in the secret place as we spend time in prayer. We seek Him in the seclusion of our prayer closet for revelation as to how to counsel, how to pray for specific needs, how and when to share with the person involved.

What made me think about these things just now? Well, if you read my post “The Story Behind Shadows In My Valley”, you will remember the woman I called Mary. If you haven’t read it yet, click here for part 1, here for part 2 and here for part 3. Mary had a habit of telling me and others about how the Lord would wake her up in the night to tell her terrible things about certain people. She stressed the terrible part a little too much. She always noted that it was so she could pray, but I questioned her motives nonetheless. I did not need to hear anything about those things. They were secrets the Lord had shared with Mary, if indeed they did come from the Lord and not from her own knowledge or imagination. It always bothered me when she did this, but I did not have the boldness to confront her about it. I think it was a lot to do with her pride, some need to be looked at as holding some special position with God.

It did teach me a lesson, though. When I was a young Christian, I did not always use discretion by keeping things to myself as I should have. I had not learned that yet. Occasionally, I would ‘innocently’ share, usually with only one person, a prayer request intended to go no further than my ears. It seemed a good thing. After all, I was recruiting extra prayers for the person in need. It took me a while to learn my lesson, that the point was not to get others praying, but to be trustworthy in my lifestyle. But I did finally see the necessity to change. The Lord convicted me and I recognized that for Him to trust me with His secrets, I must be faithful to keep the secrets of other people. And I did want to be found dependable in God’s eyes. And so I learned to keep secrets. I learned, because of Mary, that it was not acceptable to even hint that a secret may have been shared with me. Nothing is gained by doing so, and trust and friendship may be damaged or destroyed in the doing. 

And so I chose to be faithful to the Lord, to be one whom He can trust with any secret. I pray I will never disappoint Him in this.

I hope you have enjoyed my musings tonight. Thank you for stopping by and reading my post. I would really appreciate it if you would leave a comment in the box below. Don’t be shy. I will respond to your comments. And if you are not already following me, please take a moment to click on the “Follow” button at the top to receive e-mail notifications of new posts. I promise I will not overload you. I try to post one or two articles a week. Please feel free to share my posts on your social media and with your friends.

I pray that you will have a wonderful day and a great week. May the Lord bless you and keep you and give you great joy and peace.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I can’t believe we are at the end of another year. It seems that every year longer I live that those years travel by me all the faster.

2018 has been, in some ways, a hard one. It has also been a good one in many aspects. God has blessed me in many ways. He is always faithful.

Many people make resolutions as the new year comes, but often they are all broken by the end of January. I find it a futile effort.

Our church will be starting the annual 21-day fast this coming Sunday. This is a wonderful way to begin a new year, to seek the Lord for His leading for the weeks and months ahead. Fasting can make us more aware of spiritual things, and provides us with more time to spend in prayer. That means more time to hear from God, too.

What will you do to begin the new year? Do you have any special plans for the coming year? What are your hopes and dreams for 2019?

I pray that you will all have a prosperous and healthy 2019 and that you will find great satisfaction in God and in what He has destined for your life. The happiest years we can have are those in which we are obedient to the Lord and learning to know Him better. The most satisfying years we can have will be in serving God and serving others in whatever capacity He leads. I pray for each of you the fulfillment of God’s plans for your life and a deep satisfaction in serving Him.

Thank you for stopping by. Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below. If you are not yet following this blog, please click on the “Follow” button at the top to receive e-mail notifications of new posts. Have a wonderful New Year’s Day and may God bless you abundantly with His love, joy and peace.

WHAT DOESN’T GO IN CAN’T COME OUT

The ability to love and the need to be loved is inherent in every human being from birth. Like the baby bird waiting in the nest with its mouth wide open for the next morsel of food from its mother, so from the time we are babies our souls are wide open, waiting for that love to be poured in.

But what happens to that little bird if the mother doesn’t return to the nest? Quite obviously it will die in the safety of its home in the tree. The safe place cannot help keep it alive. So with humans. If love is not poured in on a constant basis, the soul withers. Something dies within. It happens in that place called home where safety and protection is expected. When love is wanting, life is wanting. Where love is not experienced, love cannot be given. As an empty glass is not a supply for a thirsty person; an empty soul cannot give out what it does not have within.

Where children are dearly loved by parents, an inner confidence takes root, a sense of completeness, a feeling of worth develops. When we are loved, we are able to love in return. What comes in can also go out. To love others brings great joy. To be loved is to be blessed beyond measure.

Is there hope for the unloved? Absolutely. Just look at scripture. There is not one person on whom the Lord does not pour His love. Whether we realize it or not, even if we are completely alone in this world, we are loved. But we have to open our hearts to this love if we want to benefit from it, if we desire to ‘feel’ loved. We must open our whole being to the Lord Jesus Christ and allow Him to have the ownership of our lives. As His love pours into us, we can, in turn, pour out that same love to others.

Let love, the agape love of God, flow like a river into your spirit and out again. You will find fulfillment and satisfaction in healthy living by allowing His love to wash over you, fill you and flow out to envelop all with whom you come in contact.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed my blog. Please leave a comment in the box below and let me know your thoughts on this subject. If you are not already following me, I hope you will take a moment and click on the “Follow” button at the top to receive e-mail notifications of future posts. I appreciate you taking your time to visit here. Please drop by again. Have a wonderful day. May you be blessed of the Lord.

MOANING AND MOURNING

You know the type. Woe is me! They moan and groan that nothing works for them, no one ever does anything for them, they’re so ill-used and nobody understands how they feel. I’m sure you’ve met them. Nothing is ever right. The world, in their opinion, owes them something and is not handing over what it owes. Complaints are the main course of dinner, and for dessert there’s criticism sometimes topped with a few expletives. These people do little and expect much in return.

After “dinner” comes the mourning. They mourn lost opportunities, past failures, unfulfilled dreams. These folk specialize in negative words, probably know more of them than the average person. Death spews out of their mouths like water out of a fountain. Selfishness and self-seeking and ownership issues are at the root of it. And often just pure laziness.

The wisest man that ever lived said, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (King Solomon – Proverbs 18:21). If only they knew it, these ‘downtrodden’ souls are killing themselves. Their words bring death every time they open their mouths. If only they could see things as they really are! From God’s viewpoint. Then they would say with David, “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent.”

We need to be constantly on our guard where our mouths are concerned. If we recorded our conversations, I wonder how often we would catch a negative statement or even just a word. How many times would a negative attitude be evident? I cry with David, “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3).

Instead of mourning what can never be or what has been done in the past that can’t be undone, let’s make a decision to live this moment with a positive attitude, think positive thoughts, speak positive words. Let’s mourn for our past negative attitudes, repent and put them behind us, then get to work making a permanent change. Let’s determine to bring life, not death, wherever we go–to ourselves and to others.

It’s never easy to overcome negativity. I know–I’ve had to do it myself in some areas of my life. For years I lived with an inferiority complex. I thought I would never feel any other way, but with the Lord in my life, it has been conquered. I think less and less in the negative, more and more in the positive. It’s freedom! It’s believing God who will never fail rather than myself with all my failures.

With a positive attitude, we have the whole world in our hands.

Now I don’t look at those failures. They’re in the past. Gone. Done deals. Can’t be changed, so I’ll leave them there while I extract the lessons I have learned. Not to say I’ll never fail again, because I will, but I don’t focus on the possibility of failure. I have this new, fresh moment to live and I will live it for the Lord. My health and happiness depend on my positive attitude. I desire to live unselfishly, giving to others, giving to God without looking for anything in return. In this is blessing. And in this, in the long run, there will be great return. The ROI (return on investment) is out of this world. I’m looking forward to claiming it, but in the meantime I’m looking forward to each new moment the Lord gives to me. My mourning has been turned into dancing. No more moaning; no more mourning. Just dancing, singing and praise. (Actually, the dancing is just in my spirit. I have never been an actual dancer though I love to watch others dance.) We will have the world in our hands. Now that’s what I call a recipe for a healthy lifestyle!

I hope you have enjoyed your visit. You are most welcome to come back any time. And I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment in the box below and let me know what you think about the post. Do you have anything to add? Anything to share? I would love to hear from you. And if you are not already following my blog, I hope you will take a moment to click on the “Follow” button at the top to receive e-mail notifications of new posts. I have been busy getting my books published over the past month or so and have not written many new posts. They are now both on Amazon just in time for Christmas giving. I will try to be a little more consistent again. I wish you joy and peace and love every day, but especially during this Christmas season. May the Lord bless you abundantly in every way.