When Life Throws You A Curveball

Please, Make It Stop

Have you ever said that?

I have.

Recently, in fact.

It’s actually funny now, looking back.

My husband and I decided to buy a new car. The SUV that I was driving was a gas guzzler and difficult to get into the garage.

life throws you a curveball

After some searching and a couple of test drives, we finally found the right car.

I couldn’t wait to pick her up.

After filling out the mounds of paperwork, the salesman and I got into my new car so he could brief me on her finer points.

I loved the fact that she would remember my seat setting.

How convenient is that? No waiting, just get in and go, go, go. 

It’s Time to Set the Seat

Here’s where it got interesting.

With the salesman beside me in the passenger seat, he told me to get into a comfortable position and then hit “Set” and “1.”

That signal didn’t quite get to my brain in time because I hit the  “1” before I was supposed to.

please make it stopWhat I didn’t know was that someone, I believe who is about four feet tall, had already set the seat to “their” comfortable setting.

All of a sudden, the driver seat started rising fast, pushing me forward into the steering wheel. I couldn’t stop it!

“Make it stop!” I said to the salesman who was laughing out loud at my dilemma. 

After some button-pushing, we finally got the seat back down to the right setting.

I’m happy to say that I survived.

I was turning new shades of red, but I survived.

Life can get that way too, sometimes.

The pressure mounts and all you want to do is “make it stop.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a stop button to press when life gets out of hand?

When Life Throws You A Curveball

When life throws you a curve ball, please don’t despair and for heaven’s sake, don’t lose your faith in God.

Pray, and then pray again. Ask God for strength and peace.

*12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. – Romans 12:12, ESV.

Read Your Bible

If you don’t know where to start, try the book of Psalms. Let the Word of God remind you that He cares deeply about you.

In an article located on the desiringGod.com website, author Matt Brown offers a brilliant, unforgettable statement that has stuck with me since I read it.

Don’t say God is silent when your Bible is closed.
– Matt Brown, evangelist and author.

Ouch!

Guilty.

If that isn’t convicting, I don’t know what is.

Use Social Media

Use social media to ask for prayerDon’t be ashamed to turn to fellow believers and ask for prayer for your situation.

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you ask for prayer on Facebook, your friends will respond and offer their encouragement.

It helps to know that people care.

God bless you this week.

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*Scripture quotation from the Book of Romans is from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2016 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Sharing Your Testimony

Sharing Your Testimony To Bless Others

Have you ever thought of sharing your testimony?

Sharing your testimony on your lunch break

There are so many ways you can do it, whether it’s in a conversation with a friend, at your job during a lunch break, or on a Christian blog like mine. Those are just a few examples.

How about adding your written testimony to your Estate Planning documents as a personal memorandum?

Wait, what?

Sharing Your Written Testimony in Your Last Will and Testament

Why not?

What a wonderful treasure and keepsake for your family members to hold onto once you pass from this life. It’s your personal account of when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. That’s good news to share. 🙂

Is it hard to compose a written testimony?

Not at all. There are no hard-fast rules.

Pray about it and write from your heart. Start with a few paragraphs about your life before and the life-changing that happened afterwards. You can emphasize how His grace sustained you through difficult times.

Getting Your Wills Done is Not a Scary Thing

In my often-adventurous and varied career path, in and out of media, I also worked in a few law firms throughout the years. The corporate attorney at my first legal job hired me for my writing skills. Oh, I have read and summarized many a deposition!

When I transferred to working for Estate Planning attorneys, I met many clients who feared the whole process of making a will, considering it morbid.

It isn’t.

Authentic Christians know where we’re going, praise the Lord!

But, in the midst of all the deciding of who in your family gets what, consider adding a written copy of your Christian testimony in your document folder. You never know if the story of God’s grace in your life will bless someone.

Sharing your testimony of faith

God bless!

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Opening photo credit: Duboix at Morguefile.com.

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The Good News – Joy is Free

Here’s Some Good News to Shout From the Mountain Tops

Our joy is free

Joy is FREE.

If you have friends who believe they have to earn their salvation somehow, please tell them the good news!!

The time is now.

There is absolutely nothing any of us can do to pay the debt for our sins.

As our Savior, Jesus paid our debt in full.

Jesus promises us in Scripture that if we follow Him, we will have eternal life. 

He wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true, but we have to seek Him.

Tell the World That Joy is Free

We simply can’t keep this divine promise to ourselves. We must tell the world why we have joy and we should look for those opportunities to do so.

That’s love.

Our joy is free

Delight in God and Your Heart Will Soar

Fellow Christian Writer, Sara Daigle, wrote an excellent article about this very thing. I wanted to share this encouragement with you. God bless!

Joy is Free
by Sara Daigle
08/02/16

Life is not so much about being loved as it is about loving.

Not so much about being admired as about praising the One worthy of all admiration.

Life is more about filling our hearts with worship than it is about filling our lives with people who make us feel great about ourselves.

Life is good when we realize that joy is free; that happiness is not owed us by others, but joy comes when we realize we get to have it no matter what.

Because our hearts are made to soar.

A gift is always free. We see suffering people full of grace, and blessed people living in misery. If joy wasn’t free, only those with seemingly perfect lives would get to experience it. If joy wasn’t free, others would get to steal it from you. If joy wasn’t free, we would keep trying to hold all things unpleasant at bay. We would succumb to grasping for happiness instead of receiving joy.

Because joy is free, all of us get to share in it. All of us need inner peace, and we all need to be redeemed from things that drag us down and would destroy us.

Life is not so much about surrounding ourselves with happiness as it is realizing that joy surprises us at every turn once we finally cease trying to perfect everything (and everyone) around us so we get to live a happy life.

We begin finding pleasure in the smallest things. We sigh with contentment even though others would wonder why.

Life is rich, life is full once we cease grasping, and accept the gift. Your friends or spouse are free from your expectations to bring happiness to you. No one earns this for you. Jesus hands it to you as from Himself.

This time you won’t bob up and down the waters of your own fulfilled and unfulfilled expectations.

Because in your hands, you will hold your own gift which neither you or others earned for you. And when you feel its worth, you will be loathe to part with it just because something (or someone) failed to make you happy. You are worth more than that, and so is your gift.

Joy is a gift (regardless of circumstances) because the infinite does not rest on the finite.
The finite was created within the infinite. How then can we breathe so deeply of things created and so little of the Creator?
When we are absolutely taken with what always was, presently is, and always will be, we are set free to enjoy the beautiful.

Joy is entirely different than the happiness one might feel from a great circumstance. Happiness fades; joy abides through thick and thin.

Joy is the soul enamored, enraptured, and set back in awe of a Being Who spells INFINITY.
The finite rather melts in light of all He is to the heart. When the Infinite abides, the finite finally sinks to where it belongs and makes way for the soul to rejoice in the higher, greater, better, wiser, and always good.

Yes, this is God, and the joy He brings is enduring, not contingent on people, places, or things. Hold it, share it, feast on it!

Article url: http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=185180

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In the Palm of His Hands

The World Is Weightless In The Palm Of His Hands

In the palm of His hands

How powerful is God?

His strength is beyond what our minds can even imagine.

The whole world is weightless in the palm of His hands.

Weightless!

Here’s the gold nugget to all of this:

The world is weightless, but not worthless.

God loves and delights in us so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ.

We must put our faith only in Him.

20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20, KJV, in the Public Domain.

Finding Comfort in the Palm of His Hands

Have you ever tried to pick up something heavy, whether it’s a big box or a piece of furniture?

You approach the object, get yourself in place, bend your knees, then try to lift up.

Aye yai yai! That hurts.

You may get the object to move a little, but more times than we’d like to admit, we drop the object on the floor and call out to the closest person with muscles we can find.

We cry out, “Help!!!!!”

But God.

God is invincible; He doesn’t need any help. He especially doesn’t need any help from us!

God doesn't need our help

That’s comforting to think about when it seems like the world is spinning out of control.

I can’t bear the headlines sometimes, but God has us in the palm of His hands, and He goes before us, no matter what or how bad the circumstances.

As humans, we get so caught up in the “what if’s” and the discouraging details.  We can’t see the forest for the trees.

We often miss the big picture, but God never does

God has the big picture in mind, and someday, we will all understand how He has woven together the circumstances of our lives into something beautiful.

There’s a song I’ve loved for years now, sung by one of my favorite vocalist/musicians ever – Alison Krauss. She had a birthday recently, and I remember listening to this song again and appreciating the Godly values in the lyrics.

Faith can see right through the circumstance,

 

sees the forest in spite of the trees,

 

Your Grace provides for me.

 

– “In The Palm Of Your Hand.” From the album, Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection. Ron Block, songwriter, January 13, 2015.

God bless you this week!

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A Woman of Grace

Have you ever met someone you would describe as a woman of grace?

I am blessed to say, “Yes!”

This extraordinary woman was my mother-in-law, Jane.

She’s in heaven now, but my husband and I think about her a lot. I have so many fond memories of visiting my in-laws at their home in California.

Bird of Paradise flower

Whenever I see a Bird of Paradise flower, I think of those fun visits. My in-laws had several blooms planted near the front steps of their home.

Speaking of beautiful, we have a gorgeous, smiling, picture of Jane in her wedding dress featured on a wall in our home. By all standards of beauty, my mother-in-law was a knockout, but her beauty was more than skin-deep as she was also one of the kindest women I have ever met.

To me, Jane was the epitome of grace. Her strong faith spoke volumes to me as I began my faith walk so long ago. She truly knew how to delight in God.

I came across a lovely poem recently that reminded me of my mother-in-law. These meaningful words celebrate ALL women living grace, and I couldn’t wait to share it with you.

Please enjoy.

A Woman living Grace

by Elizabeth Hexberg
01/22/12

May I be that ray of sunlight,
when the sky is overcast.
A petal from His Roses,
with fragrance made to last.
A hint of coming rainbows,
in the darkest Winter Storm,
and the softest pink horizon
to remind you of the Dawn.

Seeking out the wonderful,
with laughter on my face.
But most of all I pray to be,
A woman living Grace.

A child of God.
Friend to all.
Ever Loving heart.
Live my life with courage,
My God how Great Thou Art.
Dance to every melody.
Sing to every song.
Be the one to help you know
He Loved you all along.

Someday to help you see it too,
find a safer place.
But most of all I pray to be,
A woman living Grace.

May I be the one who never said,
‘I told you so my friend’.
May I be the one who always cared
beginning to the end.
The one who saw the good in all,
walked the extra mile.
Saw the Magic of His Plan,
and never lost her smile.

A hand to hold, when life grows old,
to finish up this race.
But most of all I pray to be,
A woman living Grace.

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