1st Week of Advent: O Come, O Come, Immanuel

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1st Week of Advent: O Come, O Come, Immanuel

When I was a child, I always loved Advent.  There was a melancholia, a longing...but mixed at the same time with anticipation and hope. How did I get all that as a child?  I'm sure I didn't, except to say that maybe all the sights and sounds and smells...all the scriptures and songs and prayers and stories of the "liturgical celebration" weren't entirely lost on me, nor on many of you.  The reality of our God-Man Jesus has grown in me over the years as I've walked and talked with my Savior.

But whether you have had that sort of background as a child or not, why not journey with us these next weeks.  Take it all in as if for the first time...all the sights, sounds, and smells...all the scriptures and songs and prayers and stories.

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50 Years Ago: a Wedding and a Marriage Revisited!

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50 Years Ago: a Wedding and a Marriage Revisited!

November 27, 1971

Dear John Loyd, Thank you for 50 years together of “married bliss.”

Fifty years of struggling to learn how to do life together… to care for one another … to throw off the lies we believed about what marriage was all about … like those lies of the extreme views of the total headship of the male and the extreme submission of the female — those lies just about killed the love we started out with, didn’t they?

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Thanks-Giving Again

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Thanks-Giving Again

Thanksgiving will not be the same for many of us this year. There have been losses of loved ones and changes in circumstances. And even the thought of it may cause pain. For others of us, things may have opened up compared to last year, and we are grateful for that change.

But a friend reminded me of this song of thanksgiving last year. It applies this year and every year. And so I decided to rest here, acknowledging HIM. I’m letting my heart and mind well up with gratitude for all HIS benefits … no matter what is going on around me.


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Walking Wobbly in this World . . . Again

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Walking Wobbly in this World . . . Again

I had a major vertigo episode late last night, as I was finishing a tutoring session online. I pushed through the last few minutes. But for the rest of the evening and through this morning, I have been nauseated and wobbly and less than stable.

By God’s grace, I fell asleep last night and have been resting ever since. So now I’m revisiting where the Lord took me a little more than exactly two years ago. Why not join me as we hear what HE says about walking wobbly in this “out of kilter world.”

. . . I’m walking wobbly these days. Intermittent vertigo and bouts of mild dizziness have been mine as I go about my daily life — difficult because I never know when it will hit (two times while driving were terrifying).

So changes have been made, especially since the testing determined that a couple of small strokes (past) in the balance area of my brain are likely the cause of my symptoms. Scary but good to know and now to process.

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Learning from the "Littles"

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Learning from the "Littles"

Jesus books . . . one of my most precious treasures (along with my mother’s hope chest). These little books date way back to our son Jeremy’s (1977 +) and our daughter Beth’s (1983+) babyhoods. Little by little, I would add to the collection each time I stopped at the Christian bookstore, first in northern Virginia and then in Dallas.

As you can see from the picture below, they were handled and read with “enthusiasm.”

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Rambling Thoughts about "Receiving" and "Being Received"

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Rambling Thoughts about "Receiving" and "Being Received"

Today I awoke with thoughts about “receiving” one another and “being received.” I remember my mentor/friend/home school coordinator/ Bible teacher Donna saying many times that “such and such a person didn’t receive you, did they?” Or “you didn’t receive that person, did you?”

I remember this always caused me to wonder… what does it mean to “receive” a person? It always seemed like a different/deeper thing than accepting a person or what they had to say, etc.

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Not Just Halloween : Reformation Day for Today!

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Not Just Halloween : Reformation Day for Today!

October 31, 1517… the day that changed the world of Christendom forever. German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. His action launched what came to be known as the Protestant Reformation (Or Protestant Revolt, depending on which side you are on).

Luther never intended to leave the Catholic church, but rather to reform it. But in God’s will, reform and a Biblical revolution began and continues to this day.

Luther didn’t get everything right, but he did get it right that “the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17) and so much more.

And Luther got something else right that helps us today. He got it right about how to live in the midst of a pandemic (the Black Plague) with God’s balanced, grace-filled perspective.

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"Where is the Holy Spirit in all of this?"

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"Where is the Holy Spirit in all of this?"

A mature young Christian woman goes to her regular adult Bible study class. The teachers of the class  are experts in Biblical counseling. Week by week they share from the Scriptures answers to common problems faced by individuals and families in today's culture. One Sunday after learning the "formula" for solving a particular problem biblically, our mature young woman asks, "But where is the Holy Spirit in all of this?" 

A member of a sound evangelical church is a student in a class on Christian church history.  He reads some articles ... 

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There's a Ghost Inside of Me

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There's a Ghost Inside of Me

Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
1 John 4:4 NASB

We just returned from visiting again this year with our grandson Eli and his family to celebrate his “Halloween time” birthday. Predictably, we got to see the neighborhood again filled with ghosts and goblins, scarecrows and pumpkins, punctuating yards all around. .

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Just say, YES!

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Just say, YES!

“Should we knock on the door or just leave them here?” I wasn’t sure which would be best.

John and I were just passing through on our way home from a Bible conference at the Cove in Asheville. And now we found ourselves on the front porch of a perfect stranger in a neighborhood of a city not our own.

Having checked into our hotel, we had walked out the door to build up a few thousand steps on our exercise app. After all we had been sitting in the car for hours. And in the course of our walk we found ourselves walking past some houses in an older neighborhood reminiscent of earlier times in our lives.

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Balancing Acceptance and Hope: How to Make It through a COVID Diagnosis at the Holidays

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Balancing Acceptance and Hope: How to Make It through a COVID Diagnosis at the Holidays

Early in the current pandemic, the Lord spoke to my heart about how to make it through in peace and rest in Him. I took a peek back at a post He gave me early on. I realize this is something we need everyday in every circumstance of life.

Come and revisit this post with me. You won’t regret the few moments to reflect and receive from the Holy Spirit for your TODAY.

. . . The implication was that this same balance can help us survive this present pandemic crisiS. The two things kept in balance are “accepting our present reality” and “holding on to hope” at the same time….

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The Key to the Christian Life

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The Key to the Christian Life

Christianity is a PERSON, not a procedure; the LORD, not a list! Not church attendance, not Christ-like qualities, not good works, not the Christian "to-do list" (which may vary depending on the group and "camp" you are in)...

Not evangelism, not mission trips, not a quality "quiet time," not Scripture memorization or Bible study...

Not spiritual disciplines, not prayer, not fasting, not obedience, not miracle-working faith...

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Attachment: The Secret of Detachment

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Attachment: The Secret of Detachment

Detachment, Relinquishment ... Letting go! No matter how you say it, it is hard but beautiful. And it is needed...needed, that is, in order to grow in the spiritual life. In fact, Jesuit Richard Rohr, says, "All great spirituality is about letting go." (Everything Belongs) Our Lord Jesus was the One truly spiritual Person on this earth. And He was detached in a healthy way. He was detached because He was attached to Another ... to His Heavenly Father. All through the gospels, especially the gospel of John, we see and hear this truth clearly. 

 

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The Secret Place of Communion (with PODCAST)

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The Secret Place of Communion (with PODCAST)

Where do you go to commune with your God? 

Do you go to a chapel or a church?  to a favorite place near a stream, at a mountain retreat, or on a beach? Do you go to a "prayer closet," a special place in your own home?

But maybe you are frustrated because there never seems to be a "place" where you can go. Maybe you're a mom with young children or a special needs child. Perhaps you are a working mom or a worker who needs to moonlight at a second job to make ends meet. Maybe you or a loved one has a handicap or serious illness that takes you to services and medical places that seem to consume your life. Where is the place for you?

I have good news for all of us ... 

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

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

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!

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

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

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.”

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Who Meets Your Deepest Needs?

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Who Meets Your Deepest Needs?

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

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Urgent Prayer Needed for a Dear Sister

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Urgent Prayer Needed for a Dear Sister

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.

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