Corona Devotionals

We have friends that are going through a difficult time.   Friends ?  The truth is, we have been (only) acquaintances for the past ten years, but in recent months, I have fallen in agape (unconditional, unselfish) love with their family.  We rarely speak in person, but I love them and pray earnestly for them often. ~~~ We have friends that are going through a difficult time.   Difficult ?  The reality is that they are going through the rapid and active decay and death of a loved one.  It is more than difficult, it is impossible.  Life is slipping away from one of them at a pace much too fast for understanding or acceptance.  I cannot imagine the emotional and spiritual questions and attacks that they are undergoing within the walls of their house and minds, while a separate battle is waged on one of their bodies.   My heart breaks for them.  There are no words.  There seems no appropriate comfort.  I want to help . But I cannot.   When life is progressing to death so quickly, there

Jesus is just  who we've been looking for.   He is everything that we have been seeking, desiring, and looking everywhere else  for.  Jesus embodies the qualities that we've sought desperately and even lusted-after improperly as we seek wholeness in this life.  Life-choices, daily decisions, parenting-help, marriage-advice, career questions, care-giver quandaries: Where-to-turn?!    We need wisdom .  We desire understanding , and  Jesus is  just  who we've been looking for. Out of the stump of David’s family   will grow a shoot—   yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. (2)  And the Spirit of the  Lord  will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding ...  ~Isaiah 11:1-2 Jesus was in the lineage of David, and the Israelites had been through a l-o-n-g dry spell of wandering without guidance.  Like us, they had questions.  They lacked direction.  They needed wisdom .  But who could understand them? Only One could look into their hearts and ours with a Spir

What's going on in our lives today?  God is doing that!    Good, bad, positive, challenging… God is working in all things, and through all things in our days, in what we are experiencing, and possibly in why we are experiencing.   And we know that in all things God works for the good  of those who love him, who  have been called  according to his purpose.  ~ Romans 8:28 But--Are we noticing (God)?  Or are we taking our own credit (if life's good) or making our own excuses (if life's hard)?   Could there be more to what's happening with us?  Could God be speaking/moving/working/(trying) to get-our-attention about our pride, or His plan for us, or both ? The Bible shares a clean-cut account of two sets of people--both of whom were "missing" out on what God was doing.  One group (the Assyrians ) were experiencing victory, but they were pridefully mistaken in thinking that  they deserved the glory (God was doing it!).   I am sending Assyria against a godless n

Can you make out this picture?   It's us .   Or--it's how God wants  us to be.   Side-by-side.  Connected in spirit...but also in physical location and bond.  Together.   Not alone.  I saw these birds all gathered on a wire the other day and I wanted to gather.  I rarely feel more filled than when I make time/find/time/purpose time to gather  with others.  We were meant  to do life in the company of others, so why don't we get a date on the calendar to do so? And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ( 25)  not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.  ~Hebrews 10:24-25   I was blessed to have coffee and some sweets with friends yesterday morning.  Different women, different walks, different struggles, different victories, but we're all birds on the same wire and what a privilege, blessing and encouragement to be together with them!   J

I got side swiped last week. Not in my car--in my life.   Blindsided.  Worked-over.  Manipulated.  And pressured.   And it's one thing when the world/our enemies/our opponents and our competitors try to bulldoze us into something.  But it is a whole different story (and wound) when a friend ( even a brother or sister-in-Christ)  purposely sets-us-up or targets us for a desired result.    We feel a bit shocked.  It hurts.  There might be some righteous anger bubbling within us.  We feel a bit betrayed. Do you know how it feels to be bulldozed by a brother?  David did, and he wrote to God about it.  It is not an enemy who taunts me— I could bear that.   It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me—   I could have hidden from them.  ( 13)  Instead, it is you—my equal,  my companion and close friend.  (1 4)  What good fellowship we once enjoyed  as we walked together to the house of God.  ~Psalm 55:12-14 If David experienced betrayal...and I did...maybe you did too, or maybe you are 

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; b ut for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.   (21)  And the   Lord   God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;   (22)  And the rib, which the   Lord   God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.   (23)  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.   (24)  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.  ~Genesis 2:20-24 ~~~ I went to a bridal shower the other day and one of the "games" was to look at photos of the bride and groom on vacations at different destinations, States, and countries--and try to guess by their surroundings where they were.  Whoever guessed the most correct locations of the couple w

This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord.  ( 2)  I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows.  ( 3)  Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know  ( 4)  that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell.   (5)  That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses.    ~II Corinthians 12:1-5 ~~~ Mysteries of faith and "secrets" of faith: T hank you, God, for marvelous (unexplainable) spiritual experiences.  Moments, revelations, encounters--that are just between us and You. We can't explain them fully to others (it's too astounding ). And words don't do justice ( cannot be expressed in words )  if we have had a similar  emotional/physi