September 17, 2021

Penny's Post: All to Jesus, I Surrender!

September 17, 2021/ jan

I am more than excited and honored to share my next Guest Branch, my dear, dear, dear friend and sister in the Lord, Penny Mandeville. Penny and I have been friends for many years — through the weddings of children, our launch into grand parenting, and through the up’s and down’s of life.

Penny very often would open her home to our ladies’ Bible Study group. So we have studied the Word of God together for a long time. I’ll never forget Penny’s comment one Bible study morning— “God’s Word is so delicious!

September 15, 2021

Continued PRAYER for our PEGGY who Shares Her "Journey with Jesus Poetry"

September 15, 2021/ jan

Many of you dear “PRAY-ers” responded so generously with love and prayer when I posted our sweet sister in the Lord PEGGY’s urgent need for prayer. See her story here: Urgent Prayer for a Sister.
Well, Peggy is still waiting for her canceled but needed surgery to replace her fractured hip. And of course, as some of you may remember, she is grieving the sudden recent home-going of her beloved Ernie.

Peggy says, “ I have no idea when or if they will schedule my surgery. I am getting so very tired at this point, I can hardly stay awake much of the day. I’m beginning to wonder if I will be strong enough if I do get the opportunity for surgery. I’ll probably try it anyway, living with this amount of pain for the last 3+ months is intolerable.”

September 09, 2021

Who Meets Your Deepest Needs?

September 09, 2021/ jan

We humans in our humanness are weak, dependent people. Some of us are weak, and we know it. Others of us are weak, and we don’t know it. And this latter group may be the weakest and most helpless of all.

Jesus said,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3 NASB

September 04, 2021

[Revised] Christian, Are You Selling Your Soul?

September 04, 2021/ jan

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? [your life, self]
Is anything worth more than your soul?
Matthew 16:26 NLT

This was my waking thought today.

August 27, 2021

Urgent Prayer Needed for a Dear Sister

August 27, 2021/ jan

Dear Praying Readers,

There is an urgent need for prayer on behalf of a dear sister in the Lord.

Peggy is almost 90 years young and has experienced the sudden and deep loss of her husband. And this has come in the midst of a long period of personal physical pain. The surgery that was to be her only option to fix the fracture in her hip was scheduled for mid-September. But it has now been cancelled indefinitely because of COVID.

Dearest friends, would you beseech our God on behalf of this dear one whom Jesus loves. Rescue, deliverance, healing in Jesus name.

August 24, 2021

The Bully of Bullies -- in the midst of Anxiety

August 24, 2021/ jan

In the midst of anxiety and panic, we can be sure that our Enemy is alive and well.

And so in our last post (When Anxiety Assails), I shared 1 Peter 5:8-9

8 Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith…

You can be sure that when God is doing something in our lives, the devil is always helping the weakness of our flesh to draw us in the opposite direction.

August 21, 2021

When Anxiety Assails Again

August 21, 2021/ jan

Feeling overwhelmed and defaulting to tears …needing to return and so I’m sharing just in case you need this too.

When I get really afraid, I come to you in trust.
I’m proud to praise God; fearless now, I trust in God.
What can mere mortals do? Psalm 56:3-4 MSG
I’ve always been prone to anxiety. As far back as I can remember, I have been nervous about all kinds of things — quizzes, tests, performances of any kind, up coming unfamiliar events, putting my face in water, amusement park rides, and other “stupid stuff.”

August 13, 2021

Respecting the Holy Spirit in Other Believers, including (or maybe especially) Older Believers

August 13, 2021/ jan

This past Sunday during worship, I was arrested by the final stanza and chorus in one of our worship songs:

My final breath shall be forever Jesus
When shadows lengthen before my eyes…
And I thought of the beautiful group of online sisters I lead on Tuesday evenings — most of us in our 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and even very close to 90! We are in various areas of the country, though mostly in Ohio. And we share so many things, mainly our love for Jesus and each other because we are sisters IN HIM!

August 04, 2021

Respecting the Holy Spirit in Other Believers...including (or maybe especially) Children

August 04, 2021/ jan

During these closing weeks of the summer, many of us are focusing especially on the children in our lives. School is starting (or has already started), and we are longing for a rich year of learning, love, and acceptance...good friends, caring teachers and adults in their young, vulnerable lives. And our wish list for them and prayer list on their behalf go on and on.

So whether a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, teacher or caring friend, this is for you. I know it can be easy to discount or forget the glorious potential in those little lives that we love and care about.

August 02, 2021

What if we saw each other in the family of God as we really are?

August 02, 2021/ jan

I’ve been thinking a lot about this question lately. We conservative evangelicals (and I’m sure others) have been really good at judging one another lately and attributing motives to one another (both publicly and privately) that we have no way of knowing. Why? Because we are not God, and we have not walked in our brother or sister’s shoes.

And as much as I have been grieved to see and hear this all around me, I have been grieved to see and “hear” this in myself.

July 19, 2021

Unhappy in my Happy Place? Not for Long!

July 19, 2021/ jan

We just returned from my lovely place…my refreshing place … my longed for place …. my happy place — the beach/ the Jersey Shore/ Long Beach Island and Belmar, NJ.

And we went this year for the epitome of reasons — to celebrate John’s and my 50th wedding anniversary and to have a family reunion of sorts with our kids, grandkids, my siblings and families (aunts, uncles, and cousins to our kids), my 95 y.o. godmother-aunt and my cousin.

And it was much anticipated and planned for over the course of the previous year.

But for me, it began with struggle and stress and hidden tears …. until the Lord met me very early one morning, thankfully at the beginning of the week.

July 18, 2021

Beauty & the Beach...in the Winter of Life

July 18, 2021/ jan

Even though it is summertime, taking a look ahead toward winter can virtually cool us off and calm our souls. And it also causes us to remember a loved one in those later stages of life and treasure the beauty in a life well lived. May we do the same.

So I am looking ahead and also remembering …

Beaches are beautiful, no matter the season...and that even includes winter-time. There's a calm...an aloneness (not many brave the cold and wind)...a beautiful bleakness!

The winter beach is a silvery wonderland at times

July 14, 2021

Ocean Sunrise in Scripture & Song

July 14, 2021/ jan

For several years before my mom went to Jesus, I spent lots of precious time with her on the coast in New Jersey. One of the highlights had always been my early morning walks along the beach at sunrise.

I’ve just returned to Ohio from our awesome trip this summer to the Jersey Shore. But before I begin writing fresh posts, I’m returning to this blog that I wrote after a sweet summer with my mom at my sister's house in Belmar.

July 02, 2021

Virtual Ocean Vaca: Senses Come Alive

July 02, 2021/ jan

When my mom moved to the beach in New Jersey many years ago, I was able to spend many early morning hours on the beach.

I am basically an intuitive, rather than sensory, person (a la Myers-Briggs). But I've found over the years that my senses come alive at the beach.

July 01, 2021

A Branch in the Vine is Going "Down the Shore"

July 01, 2021/ jan

We are skipping town to head to my Happy Place, the Jersey Shore.

Why?

To celebrate John’s and my 50th wedding anniversary with our kids grandkids, siblings and families, cousins and whoever would want to join us there.

June 28, 2021

A Spiritual Father: Abba's Child

June 28, 2021/ jan

We are not cowed into timidity by death and life. Were we forced to rely on our own shabby resources we would be pitiful people indeed. But the awareness of Christ's present risenness persuades us that we are buoyed up and carried on by a life greater than our own.

The Christ within who is our hope of glory is not a matter of theological debate or philosophical speculation. He is not a hobby, a part-time project, a good theme for a book, or a last resort when all human effort fails. He is our life, the most real fact about us. He is the power and wisdom of God dwelling within us.

June 25, 2021

A Spiritual Father: Bread for my Soul's Journey

June 25, 2021/ jan

One of my spiritual fathers was still alive on this earth when I first "met" him. Henri J. M. Nouwen (January 24, 1932 – September 21, 1996) was a Dutch Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books on the spiritual life.

Our "meeting" came in two ways. A mentor friend of mine pointed me to Nouwen's classic work, The Return of the Prodigal Son. This is an amazing book based on meditations on Rembrandt's painting by the same name.

June 24, 2021

A Spiritual Father: Abiding in Christ in Faith-filled Surrender

June 24, 2021/ jan

How do I abide in Christ? How do I live the Christian life if it's by faith and not about "doing?" What is faith? These were questions that circled around, on and on in the midst of my confusion...that is until I "met" Andrew Murray. Actually, I had read him early in my Christian walk, but that was during the time that "faith formulas" and "to do lists" and "theological systems" were more the answers to my quests than was Christ Himself (although I didn't realize it at the time).

June 22, 2021

A Spiritual Father: a Modern-day Prophet

June 22, 2021/ jan

My husband John and I were students at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago in the mid-1970's. It was during our student days at Moody that we were introduced to A.W. Tozer. My impression of Tozer at that time was that he was a somewhat controversial Chicago pastor of recent years who had a unique gift for being very sound biblically but at the same time shaking up the conservative evangelical "troops." I bought a set of his volumes entitled, The Tozer Pulpit and enjoyed his fiery words. He said such things as...

One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. . . .

June 16, 2021

I Have a Father

June 16, 2021/ jan

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. …As we come up to Fathers’ Day, I’m remembering this song. Its a heart-warming reminder of my True Father, and it grabs my grieving soul with its moving music and lyric.

You see, the beautiful person deep inside my earthly father had been often obscured by the abuse of alcohol that trapped his soul and body. (Remembering My Dad)

Oh how sad and painfully tragic! Oh how I miss the real Daddy whom I truly loved yet often “hated” at the same time.

A Branch in the Vine

A Branch In the Vine