I’ll be taking a little time off to be with my family during the holidays, but I wanted to wish each of you a merry Christmas! Praying your holidays are full of God’s grace and love!!! See you in the New Year! Blessings, Laurie
Archive for December, 2012
There is an account found in three out of the four gospels. It is the story of a woman who endured a discharge of blood for twelve years. One thing we must understand is that a condition such as this rendered the woman “unclean.” She would have been a lonely woman, devoid of touch or much companionship at all. Come with me for a moment and imagine…. You are this woman. You cannot touch others, and others cannot touch you. You’re outcasted. Desperate, you spend all your financial resources going to doctors. One after another. But they’re no help. Instead of seeing improvement, you only worsen. Can you relate to this woman in any way? Quite possibly, in some area of your life, you need help. You seek help––help that promises a solution to your problem––only to find yourself right where you began, or perhaps even behind a step or…
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18 What do we do when 20 little children and 7 adults are slaughtered before our eyes? How do we respond? No words of mine will ever do justice to this tragedy. To say it was a heinous act is an understatement. Terrible. Wicked. Evil. Horrific. None encapsulate the gravity of what has happened. Having been on the receiving end of tragic news, I still have no words of comfort for those affected by this tragedy. To tell them I know what they’re going through can oftentimes be a slap in the face. I remember many––with good intentions––tried to comfort and console me after my dad’s murder with their own stories of loss. I hate to admit this, but those who attempted to comfort me in this way only made me angry. They don’t know what I’m…
Stories are never one sided. There are multiple perspectives to each story, and I believe it’s important to understand each perspective in order to gain greater understanding of the story itself. A while back, I asked Anthony, the man who murdered my dad, if he would be interested in sharing his testimony on my blog, and he agreed. He told me in the letter including his testimony, “I chose to concentrate on our journey because, well, it’s been the most important event in my life since coming to Jesus.” I would have to agree. Our journey toward forgiveness impacted me and my life in more ways than I can count. Second to coming to Christ, it was the single most defining moment of my life. But enough about me. Here is Anthony’s story. … I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior on Father’s Day in 1996. Changes started happening. I…
God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us. – Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel My two little girls eagerly stood at our glass sliding door last night; a playful neighborhood kitten named Fred was on the other side. Each of the girls held out a string, bouncing it up and down in front of Fred. They would giggle as he pounced time and time again toward the allusive string on the other side of the glass. The scene lasted for quite some time. Bouncing. Pouncing. Giggles…. Pure delight. To be honest, I’m not much of a cat person, but I couldn’t help but smile and giggle, myself, as I watched the scene unfold. Moments like these can be found around us all the time. They’re the moments that can bring us pure joy, show us beauty in the small things (or the big things), and bring us…
If you’re completely honest with yourself, there is tension between who you want to be and who you currently are. [Tweet that] The whole world currently exists in the already but not yet. Jesus already came. He died for our sins. He resurrected, conquering death, sin, and Satan. We have already been redeemed by our gracious, loving God. But we have yet to see Him make all things new, which He will do upon His second coming. We have already been saved but not yet perfected. We are already saints by identity but not yet by deed. This can be a frustrating place to be. In Romans, Paul, himself, experienced this tension. He says: For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I…
