The Right Path….

Image from The Passion of the Christ

Grateful today for the Path, and that I never have to walk it alone.
Whatever I do, and however this world may distract me,
My path ends here, and always here at Your precious feet.
The ones that went to the cross for me.
You are mighty to save and you have led me out of darkness into Your marvelous light and I am eternally grateful today….

My path starts and ends here, always here.
In the dust, at the hem of Your Holy garment, at Your feet.
My steps may be halting, hesitant at times, but…”though I stumble, I will not fall, for the LORD upholds me with His hand.” Psalm 37:28

You said……
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21

Yes I am grateful for the path today, Your path that leads to life.

Psalm 16:11
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Counting blessings to one thousand and beyond…..#353 His mercies which are new every morning…#354 The depth of His unsurpassing love for us…..#355 Friends who gather and pray with us….#356 Words that breathe life into our souls…..#357 That He hears my voice….#358 That He is interceding for me…..#359 His Words that come alive….#360 Moments of peace when I least expect it…..

holy experience

A Father’s Love

Photo by Google images
How blessed I am to have felt the touch of a loving father’s hands growing up. They were working hands, strong. Made that way by many hours of county road work, but always soft and gentle with me. I can still remember the way he would tuck covers in around me, or lift me high above his shoulders and then act like he was falling. I was safe in the security of his love and protection and I knew he would always be there just when I needed him.

But others have much different memories of fathers, ones you would just as soon forget. Or maybe you have no memory at all, just a gaping hole where he should have been. Knowing that it was all on you, no father there to set things right or be your safety net.

For all of you I bring you the Father’s love today……for we have a loving father who steps in to be your Dad…..”A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” Psalm 68:5

Maybe you never felt like you were wanted, but know this today, Your Father in Heaven did want you. He wanted you because you are here, breathing life right now. He is longing to wrap His loving arms around you and fill all those empty places in your soul where a Dad should have been.

He can bind up every wound, heal every hurtful memory. He can be all you never had right now.

I pray that Father’s Day be something different this year, a time for embracing the Father’s love, letting go of what could have been, and letting God fill you with everything He longs to give you.

2 Corinthians 6:18 “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Believing is not seeing


“I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.”
Helen Keller

She found the secret of belief. We have a hard time grasping what we can’t see. She couldn’t see at all but felt Him all around her. I guess that’s why I feel His presence easier in the quiet hush of a forest or sitting beside the ocean…..

For we live by believing and not by seeing. 2 Corinthians 5:7 NLT

Lo, I am with you always…


This morning right before I awoke I dreamed I was staring at the sky much like the one above, and as I was gazing at it, a very large hand came reaching down out of the clouds. It was huge, a God-sized hand, the biggest thing I have ever seen in the sky. I gasped and turned around, hoping someone else was seeing it too. But nobody did.

I think sometimes God sends us little messages to let us know that He is with us. He knows we are weak, get tired, lose hope, need our spirits lifted. I know it lifted mine this morning. I don’t think there was any deep message in it, except that God was saying, “I am here.” Maybe this message of hope is for you today.

“The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.” Psalm 34:7 Even Jesus needed angels to comfort Him in the garden before He went to the cross. If He needed their comfort, what makes us think they don’t tend to us as well? I think if we could really see the spiritual activity all around us, it would greatly change how we live from day to day.

Jesus knew of it, and the demons who greeted Him knew of it too, but most of the time we are woefully ignorant. And sometimes, the here and now is painful, blinding us to it even further. All we can see is the hopelessness of our circumstances. Sometimes though He breaks through and reaches us where we are.

I had just lost my husband and I was walking around in a black vacuum. The grand-piano sized grief had settled on my chest and I carried it everywhere. One day I was checking out at the grocery store. As the checker handed me my change and looked at me, I felt some undescribable. It was as if Jody himself was looking out through his eyes saying, “Everything’s gonna be fine.” I have always thought it was an angel. “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1:14
All these years later, the memory has not dimmed. I was shaken by the encounter and rocked by emotion. I fled the store. But at the same time it gave me hope. He was right of course, everything was fine eventually. Everything will be fine for you as well. Whatever it is you’re facing, He is with you!

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand. Psalm 37:23,24

Keep looking to the sky!

Your Redemption Song


It is the most beautiful song of all, and it’s yours! God’s melody written just for you, it echoes throughout the halls of time and space and it will never stop, only increase as new melodies are woven into the Master Song. It is the most beautiful story, the most beautiful gift you can gift to someone else…..Your Redemption Song. All over this world new songs are being written and sung, can you hear them? God does. It is written into the very fabric of creation…… Heads bowed in church, along the side of a dusty road, beside a quiet lake, hands raised, tears flow. New births day by day, minute by minute. Pause and listen.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Romans 8:18-21

Check out Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir’s “Favorite Song of All” here

Fire in the Desert

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1”

The desert is merciless. The sun cracks the dirt into hard baked clay, and in the winter when the sun goes down, the temperature drops alarmingly fast. Only the strongest survive. But the devil didn’t count on the Holy Spirit being there with Jesus for those forty days. He couldn’t lose! God’s fire was with Him.

“For the first 30 years of His life, Jesus led a good “Christian” life, he went to church and made furniture, then the Holy Spirit came.” Pastor Gary Kinnaman, speaking at City of Grace church this past weekend. Yes, then the Holy Spirit came and all hell broke loose. Satan was ticked! “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through the whole countryside.” Luke 4:14 The first time He got up to preach in His hometown, he made the crowd furious and they tried to throw Him off a cliff. Luke 4:28-29

No doubt about it, the Holy Spirit may get you in trouble. Look what happened to the disciples after the day of Pentecost! They went from hiding out behind locked doors to preaching on the street corners, facing off demons, and healing the sick!

Has the Holy Spirit ever led you to do something you never thought you could do? Even something that seemed to make no sense at the time? Called you out of your safe place? He will do that. Sometimes I would like God to be very predictable and manageable. I would like Him to just let me be comfortable. I love safety and comfort. But I need to remember those times when I did let go and say, “Yes, I will do that.” And I do remember, He never left my side.

Lord, help me to be open to what you might ask me to do. Give me the strength to say yes and not cave in to fear. For I know You will never leave me……Has the Holy Spirit led you into the desert? If so and you need prayer, please leave a comment and I will be happy to pray for you.

Blogging Benefits……

There are two ways to live; one as though nothing is a miracle. The other as if everything is. Albert Einstein

Since the day I passed my one year milestone on blogging, I have been meditating on what this whole experience has meant to me, and done for me. I have learned some things about myself. This whole process has taken me by surprise at times, by how much joy it has given me, what a blessing it has been. I get a comment and my heart soars because I know someone understands, someone relates, someone is encouraged. That makes it all worth it. Then there are times of discouragement when I feel my words are falling flat, going nowhere. Why does that affect me so? Should it? I ask myself a zillion questions. I get caught in a self destructive cycle that spins and goes nowhere.

I am awed by so many brilliant, creative talented writers out there, “Real writers,” I call them. I think how much better their words sound than my own. But then God whispers: your words matter too. All of our words are precious to Him. Like your childs first words, perfect no matter how they sound. And when we join our words together, we become one unified voice in praise to Him. All different, all beautiful.

So I draw back, I dip into the Wellspring of His Word, and I am refreshed, inspired, bowled over by God’s love for me. I remember why I do this, I have to share Him.

It is humbling, this process. And that is good for me because it leads me back to Him, back to where I started. Back to knowing that without Him I can do nothing. He is my strength, my song, my hope, and His love never fails. He gathers me in His arms and sings over me with joy and I am renewed again.

So I am celebrating the blessings of blogging today, and want you to know I pray for everyone following this blog, and everyone who may come across it another way. I continue the counting of the gifts today…..#341 He is my shield, #342 my hiding place, #343 my strong tower, #344 my hope, #345 keeper of my dreams, #346 collector of my tears, #347 my strength, #348 my deliverer, #349 my desire, #350 my inheritance, #351 my salvation, #352 my inspiration.

holy experience

Some days……

This was my day yesterday….Mary Engelbreit captures it perfectly with this image!

I left a five dollar bill on the lunch counter after dropping the snack I bought…..luckily someone turned it in to the cashier. Then after work I started to water the roses and forgot the hose was running. For an hour. Someone came to the door and said, “Your neighbor must have left the water running because it is flooded all the way to the clubhouse.” I ran out, ready to check the neighbor’s hose and remembered it was mine. I hung around in back pretending to shut off their water, and I noticed the car wasn’t leaving. As I sheepishly came around front she said, “Oh, was it YOURS???” I wanted to tell her to go home and mind her own business, but I smiled and thanked her. It was just that kind of day!

This is what I needed to tell myself this morning on the way to work!

I was grousing about things, little things….which is kind of unusual for me because I usually feel like this, for the most part.

Then I thought about this little boy that is still missing in Oregon, and his poor parents, the Dad is an Intel employee like me…..all of a sudden my little complaints vanished into vapor….I prayed for them the rest of the way to work. I can’t begin to imagine the agony of what they’re going through. Our world is going on, but theirs has stopped.

I was thinking….


I was thinking about how God must be very hurt, very saddened by the things going on in the world right now. The world was perfect the way He created it, perfectly in balance, perfect in order. I was thinking it must be all but impossible for Him to stay His hand, prevent the cruelty He sees, the whole earth seems to be in travail. How can He restrain Himself? The answer He whispered to my heart……Mercy, child. It is by my great mercy only that my Hand is stayed.

Yes, Lord.

He is not immovable, immpervious as a stone. He has already done all that He can to redeem mankind by plunging Himself right onto the center stage of our drama…..right in the middle of all the much and mire. So that we might live….

Now we all wait…..and He waits too. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

He is not willing that any should perish……He is giving us time.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Rev. 21:4
He is waiting for that day even more than we are….Even so, come Lord Jesus.

The Red Swing


My Mom does not believe in hiding in the backyard. She does not like closed, shrouded windows and shades drawn tight. She once visited me in New Mexico and she almost ran down the street chasing strangers she was so desperate for someone to talk to. It was a “nice” neighborhood but nobody ever went out in the front except for the little girl who brought her guinea pigs out. It really was almost comical, now that I look back on it. It could have been set to music…..everyone came home, garage-doors came up, swallowing entombed drivers and sucking them into the abyss, never to be seen again. “How does anyone expect to get to know each other when they’re all hiding in their backyards?” She has a point.

Back home, life is lived out in the front. There is a picnic table between their house and the neighbors, and it is used by about four families nearby. Mom’s new neighbor sometimes brings homemade scones out in the morning to share. Bible studies have been held on it; and lots of playdough has been pounded into it with little fists, it is also a jumping launch for the kids.

Mom decided she wanted a deck out in front, plunked right on the lawn so she could sit out there. She has a hard time sitting on the uneven ground due to humongous tree roots. So it was built. Then she saw it……The Red Swing. She has been painting everything red for the past few years or so. Her latest acquisition before the swing was the Red Sink which she is very proud of.

My Mom mentioned it to Yvonne, her grocery checker. Now her friend. One day my Mom started talking to her at the store and a spark was ignited, something shared. Something that drew them close as only the Holy Spirit can. She told Yvonne about her new deck and the swing she wanted. Well, it was close to Mother’s Day, and Dad was doomed from the start. Yvonne came by after work with a bouquet of red flowers and made him promise to get her that red swing.

Now everyone uses it. The other night my Mom was getting ready for bed and she heard the neighbor girl singing softly….out in the swing. Another night, some other neighbors were walking, whispering, with another child. Pretty soon, they were quietly swinging as well.

It is a real neighborhood, not without its squabbles, disagreements or differences. But something profound takes place there called life. Community. Shared dreams, heartaches and hopes. When I recently went back, we had a party for my brother’s Birthday. Invitations were sent word of mouth, the best kind. People came bringing food, wine and smiles.

Mom made sure she had her tunes, Big Band blasting forth from the top of the clothesdryer. The firepit was lit….hands were held in a circle of prayer. Grace was there in that gathering of neighbors, and a feeling that we were not just neighbors and friends, but family.

With a red swing out front……