Come on out! Some battles are won step by step!

Honesty is the policy today! I awoke this morning far more ready to pull the covers back over my head and hide than to take time to thank God for the new day. If it could go wrong these past few months, it has gone wrong! So, as I lay there in bed today, I had one critical decision before me: was I going to keep my eyes on my circumstances or was I going to turn them onto my God? In keeping with my "honesty policy", I will not sugarcoat this story. No angels sang, and I did not float on a cloud of glory from the bed to my chair for Bible study time. But, with God's help, I did end up making the quality decision to tear my eyes off my circumstances and I did spend time in the Word of God. Listen to what I found there.

In the book of Exodus, I was reminded that just as God prepared Moses to deliver the Israelites, He sent Jesus to be our deliverer. Just as He led the Israelites with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, the Holy Spirit leads us today. The Israelites deliverance was a process, a journey. In most cases, so is ours. God almost always guides us through situations one step at a time, instead of moving us instantly from one situation to the next. That's how we mature--slowly! He used the Israelites' journey to develop the faith, trust and strength they would need in the Promised Land. We, too, grow as we follow God step by step!

Consider one more thing...just as for the Israelites, God drives out our enemies (all the "ites")-- the bad back-ites, the nosey neighbor-ites, the demanding boss-ites, the mounting bill-ites, the business down turn-ites, the children won't do right-ites--little by little until we are strong enough to take possession of what He has for us (adapted from Exodus 23:30)!! So, next time you are tempted to pull the covers over your head as I was this morning, next time you are tempted to let your burdens overwhelm you, DON'T DO IT! Because of God, each of us can throw the covers back each morning and stand firm on the promises that are ours as His children! So step out with me, won't you? Let's stand in confidence and in gratitude each morning! Let's tear our eyes off our circumstances and choose, instead, to look at our God! He's far bigger than any situation in our life ever could be! Let's choose to believe what the Word of God tells us--that He is fighting our battles for us and that something good is coming our way...no matter WHAT our circumstances may look like!!

My Steps & Stops Are Ordered!

The pastor said it yesterday. “My steps and my STOPS are ordered by the Lord!” How very timely! You see, I have just experienced a great big heartbreaking “STOP”!!! It happened last week. Something I wanted so much, something I’d planned for, practiced, worked, prayed, hoped for and dreamed of fell through…AGAIN! I did everything by “THE BOOK!” I sought God before I ever started, and then did everything I could and asked God to do the rest. I prayed God would shower me with His favor. And all of the sudden...STOP!! Things did not go my way. I was so disappointed. Oh let’s just get real, “disappointed” doesn’t begin to touch it…crestfallen, heartbroken, defeated…there, that’s more like it!

But then yesterday, my pastor said that not only are my steps ordered by the Lord, so are my STOPS! He was saying that sometimes there are God ordained delays in my life put there for my benefit! It was a reminder that salved my splintered heart.

Brought to mind one of my favorite Bible stories. Daniel desperately needed an answer to prayer. So he fasted & prayed, and prayed & fasted, and fasted & prayed. On and on and on! Daniel 10:3 says he continued for 21 days! Three whole weeks! And what did he get for all this devotion? ZERO! NADA! Complete Silence! I've got to tell you, that long with no food or drink seems impossible to me. . .but then, I sometimes have trouble focusing during my 15 – 30 minutes with God each morning, let's not even think about throwing fasting into the mix!!

But our man, Daniel persisted! A 21 day “stop” did not bother him one little bit! And here’s the amazing thing! On day 21 an angel appeared to him and said “O Daniel, you greatly beloved man…from the first day that you set your mind and heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come as a consequence and in response to your words.” (Daniel 10:12) Daniel’s prayer was heard and answered the FIRST MOMENT he uttered it! Through persistence, he received God’s answer and strength to go forward! (If you want to know what held the angel up for three weeks, you can read about it in Daniel 10—it's really cool!!).

So, I guess it comes down to this: do I trust God enough to persist? Do I really believe that He orders my steps, and my stops or don’t I?

Twila Paris wrote a song some time ago I love to sing, the lyric of which is truly apt here.

Sometimes my little heart can’t understand, what’s in Your will? What’s in Your plan? So many times I’m tempted to ask You why. But I can never forget it for long, Lord what You do could not be wrong, So I believe You even when I must cry.

Do I trust You Lord? Does the robin sing? Do I trust You Lord? Does it rain in Spring? You can see my heart, You can read my mind, and You’ve got to know I would rather die than to lose my faith in the One I love, do I trust You Lord?

I know the answers; I’ve given them all, but suddenly now I feel so small--shaken down to the cavity in my soul. I know the doctrine and theology. But right now they don’t mean much to me. This time there’s only one thing I’ve got to know…

Do I trust You Lord? Does the river flow? Do I trust You Lord, does the North wind blow? You can see my heart, You can read my mind, and You’ve got to know I would rather die than to lose my faith in the one I love, do I trust You Lord?

I WILL trust You Lord, when I don’t know why, I WILL trust You Lord ‘til the day I die, I WILL trust You Lord when I’m blind with pain, You were God before and You’ll never change, I WILL trust You, I WILL trust you Lord, I WILL trust You!

It is my choice. Through every step, and every stop, I WILL trust Him!

The Pale Pink Lace: God's In the Details!

Note: It's a Two-fer Friday! Here's my second entry for today! A little look back at the past! Hope you enjoy it!!


The moment my mom and dad put down their first moving box in that tiny little house in Flomaton over 50 years ago, the next door neighbors were there with a friendly hello and a piping hot meal to greet them. Thus began a friendship that would span the next 50 years! I was born just 5 short months after my parents moved in. Our two families celebrated together often. It didn’t matter what. Everyday accomplishments, good grades, birthdays, and as we children grew there came larger celebrations: graduations, weddings and then, the births of our children! We supported one another through the bad times too. It was a friendship God made to last! This is a story that begins during one of those early birthdays, carries through the sadness of death and comes out in joy on the other side!

My mother was not well for much of my life, “Aunt Nell”, as my neighbor loved to be called, often filled in, making birthday cakes, and helping out with birthday celebrations! On my 7th birthday, Aunt Nell made a cake and in the center placed a ballerina. She was a little girl’s dream! Her porcelain skin was radiant against her golden hair. Her arms perfectly poised as she twirled on her little stand. And her lace tutu . . . oh that pale pink lace tutu! It stood out from the porcelain figurine just like a tutu should! It was the most graceful, gorgeous thing I had ever seen in my young life! As I blew out the candles and she cut the cake, Aunt Nell told me the beautiful twirling ballerina was mine to keep! I treasured her! I played with her daily and when playing with her became “childish,” I placed the lovely ballerina in a place of honor in my room. But with time, the delicate lace of her tutu tore. It came loose from the porcelain. After a while, it became so tattered that it came off entirely. So, I finally put my treasure away, but with the hope that I would someday find the perfect lace that would make her as good as new. I loved that ballerina so! From time to time, I’d come across her, packed away so carefully, and I’d search for the lace so I could restore her to her former glory, but I never found it.

That is, until one Saturday almost 40 years later!

My husband, John and I had a big Yard Sale that day. We had cleaned out the last items from my parents home who had long since passed away, and were finishing up the second yard sale with those items. Amazingly, folks had passed over the big basket of my Mom’s sewing notions all day long. I was looking though it one last time before sending it on to a local charity. There, at the bottom of the basket was a beautiful and somehow vaguely familiar looking pink lace. I didn’t know why, but something made me put the lace in my pocket for later. The next day, once again, I came across my now long “tutu-less” porcelain ballerina! And slowly the miracle began to dawn on me.

Before her last stroke, mother must have found the perfect lace for my ballerina’s tutu. She just had not been able to get it to me before she died. As we packed up the items in mom and dad’s home after their deaths, the lace simply became mixed in with all the other sewing notions mom had there. I became overwhelmed with the magnitude of finalizing mothers affairs when we found out Daddy had terminal cancer. After his death, I still had not found the lace. But God, willing to spare nothing to show His love, in means as huge as His Son dying on the cross, or as tiny as finding a way to get a yard of pale pink lace to me, found a way for that basket to sit unsold through not one but two yard sales!

Now, the pale pink lace is where it was meant to be since the day my sweet Mom bought it--safely glued onto the beautiful porcelain ballerina. I’ve put her back into a place of honor and have looked at her no less than a thousand times! I suppose I am as much a little girl today as I was the day Mom and Aunt Nell walked in with that cake on my 7th birthday, because I think that ballerina is a lovely now as she was then! Maybe I just love the happy memory! Either way, I am more in love than ever with a God who would go to such elaborate lengths to make sure I got the perfect piece of pale pink lace, even if it did take 40 years to make it into my hands! Truly, God is in the details!!

The Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking and longing] to be gracious to me. Blessed are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]! Isaiah 30:18

I am convinced there is NOTHING in our lives that does not concern Him!!