Tag Archives: Christianity

A Quiet Place With God- Part 11

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Outside my window tonight the rain is coming down sideways.

A night storm with a morning dove perched her nest.

Protecting her eggs

My stomach lurches.

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I’m involved.

Asking God to hold her steady.

Gazing any chance I can to see if she is at her post.

The challenges and opportunities our children face, develop the gleam in their eye.

A confident step.

They often have circumstances with wind and rain pelting sideways and days the clear blue sky smiles and kisses their lives.

They’ve had to struggle through many surprises and challenges, just like the baby doves will to fight out of the shell.

If we’ve done our job we’ve been close by at our post praying, encouraging, and standing guard, but breaking off that shell is their job.

The shell breaking and the flight that follows is all theirs.

A Quiet Place with God – Part 10

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Later, He appeared to the Eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table. He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who saw Him after He had been resurrected. Mark 16: 14 HCSB

Rebuke.

While hiking I was struck by the tree on the left and how lush and green and full of life.

The tree on the right was dead.

We grow and flourish as we listen to Gods word and take action to change when He convicts us and rebukes us with His Word.

Listen and receive the rebuke.

Most of our family has given up coffee, but I still make it for one.

As the coffee drinker woke late to find no coffee, I simply said “Wake five minutes early and make it yourself.”

 

God immediately rebuked me quietly in my heart and I made the coffee and ran it to my beloved coffee drinker and handed a to go cup through the window.

My day had begun in the Word and contemplation just an hour before, but I had chosen a harsh response.

Conviction comes as we clear our minds and focus on the Word

The Lord will give us the self-control and  Holy Spirit to do His will and be His vessel.
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The rebuke put me back onto His path.

Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.” Proverbs 3:6

IMG_5125Then He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.”

Mark 16:15 HCSB

 

A Quiet Place With God – Part 9

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My fingers snuggle into my fuzzy gloves.

His perfect peace settles my soul.

Crisp, cool morning air and the still darkness calm me. IMG_4930

Bluebonnets patiently await my notice.

A quiet where silence is unsettled only by the wind and bird songs.

Nature is deliberate and impatient.

I called to you Lord in my distress and you answered me and put me in a spacious place.

The Lord is with me I will not be afraid!
Psalm 118 v 5

Driving through a neighborhood near our home we noticed a young, pony-tailed mom plunked down on the sidewalk happily pulling weeds.

My husband  joked that she looks like she’s settled in for the long haul.

What led to her weed pulling?  Why on this cold, wet and dreary afternoon?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s as a good friend’s very active young son regularly tells her, in his moments of exasperation,

“I’m going outside to explode!”

We all need a little fresh air.

 

Quiet waiting before the Lord in prayer will give Him a chance to change your mood.

The situation may not change, but you will have changed for the better in spite of the situation.

Robert A. Cook

Words That Heal – Part 11

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During the teenage years, your presence is terribly important. It’s difficult for you to pass on wisdom in words. I think if you’re going to pass anything on, it’ll be by example, through your behavior- and not just one bit of behavior but consistent behavior over many years.

Emma Thompson

Everyone needs a safe place to share, someone who will hear them, someone who as my husband Todd says, is a faithful presence in their life.

Sharing their story.

Thinking out loud and dreaming.

Knowing you care and you are listening to them with all your attention and with all your heart.

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Some of the most healing words are the ones you speak quietly to Lord.

Pray for His wisdom in their life not yours.

The intelligent person restrains his words, and one who keeps a cool head is a man of understanding, but only a fool wants to show off his opinions.  Proverbs 18:2 HCSB

*More Magazine Interview with Emma Thompson by Leah Rozen, Freelance Writer from NYC,

December 2013/January 2014 page 118

* Artistic Cookies by Colleen Lienhard

A Quiet Place with God – Part 8

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The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the might of the Spirit of God.  

Blaise Pascal

Do you ever feel a bit unglued?

I do.

I teach sunday school, and  we made a project with glitter, rocks and massive amounts of glue.

We even added glue with glitter. The lid fell off and a river of sparkly navy glue flowed over the paper.

A beautiful river of deep blue glue.

All the children wanted on their papers was lots of sticky sparkly glue.

The kind of project that parents never take home.

It just stays in the craft closet at church.

Don’t take your unglued self out.

Kneel down.

Photo by Kelly Bryant

Photo by Kelly Bryant

A few call it child’s pose.

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.     Abraham Lincoln

Now that you are down there, say a simple prayer.

You are my strength, I wait for you to rescue me, for you O God, are my place of safety.

Psalm 59  v.9

Stay there and focus on Him.

A Quiet Place With God – Part 7

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I arrived home from a long day at work to find a strange, small, white dog staring at me in my foyer with a prison orange scarf tied around her neck.

I called my husband “The mobile groomers dropped the wrong dog at our home, it’s a Shitzu, but it’s not ours.”

It was 6pm, our groomers. closed.

All I could do was sit and think of our dog at someone else’s home.

The sun began to set into an array of pinks, lavender, and even orange.

Sighing in the dark the two big eyes stared up at me.

The prison escapee was ours!

What seemed like a disaster to me was great joy to her.

She ran around the house like batman on steroids, or a man freed from jail.

The groomers had completely shaved the hair on our dog, even the tail, face and whiskers were not spared the clippers. Pink skin was peeking out everywhere.  Our dogs hair was normally 6-8 inches over its whole body much like a miniature sheep dog.

Cutting things out of your life gives you instant space and freedom.

More Quiet.

Remove enough encumbrances, not just hair, and it changes who you are.

Throw back the prison doors you’ve closed on yourself.

Sit in Gods glory.

Soak  in His Word in the psalms praising Him.

Let Him transform you as you contemplate His wonders.

Thank Him for all He has done for you.

Space moved into your day allows time for God to cast his vision into your life.

His greater purpose for your day.

Words That Heal – Part 9

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Long holiday conversations give opportunity to affirm others for all the traits you love and respect about them.photo (23)

Some take the dance of a verbal self-indulgence.

A well placed put down lifts their ego.

But at whose expense?

“Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on high ground where you can point your fingers at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. ” (Romans 2:1, The Message)

Give yourself and others a gift this Christmas.       IMG_4481

Bite your tongue.

Choose to give life with your words.

Listen

Let God instruct your words

That which I know not, Teach thou me, O Lord, my God.     Amy Carmichael

Words That Heal – Part 8

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I forgive you.   GOD

Nehemiah 9 verses 1- 5 the people of Israel confess their sin and worshipped for a quarter of their day.

For another quarter of the day they read the Book  of the Lord our God.

They made confession and worshipped.

Moving into a week of Thanksgiving join me in fasting, confession, and worship of the Lord God.

Bless Him, exalt Him and Praise His Name above all names.

Forgive others.

You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it,

the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all of them, and the host of heaven worships you.   Nehemiah 9: 6

Praise Him.                     IMG_3657

A Quiet Place with God – Part 6

10 Sunday Nov 2013

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IMG_4135Watching things grow.

The alien pod plant has sprouted two more fruit.

A clever friend Noelle came up with the name.

As it grows

Exposed to the elements.

It will make known what it is.

Watering possibility.

What are you growing?

Who are you becoming?

What do you water throughout your day.

That is who you are.

The Moms Class will be watering our days with praise.

We will be praising God intentionally all month.

Into a quiet place with crying or smiling babies.

The psalms will be our guide.

A month of praise will change who you are.

Wherever you go.

He will be with you.

God will not move.

You will move toward Him through praise.

A Quiet Place With God – Part 5

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Then He will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful.  Isaiah 30:23

IMG_4135A year ago a shuffle of steps came up my walk and a gushy splat followed, our door cracked to illuminate a trail of pony-tailed girls running and hiding behind a Fiat across the street.

Facebook revealed smashed pumpkins in our neighborhood around ten pm.

We were not alone.

I live with a couple of artists and the previous year we had a watermelon carved like Larry the Cucumber.

Quite popular for photo ops with the under five crowd.

This past year the creativity continued …IMG_2159

A Fiat is not the best place to hide and as I  ran off our porch and heard my family say, “Stop, turn around and get back inside… now!”

How often in conflict, when pressed by a foe, I have fled to my Refuge and breathed out my woe;

How often, when trials like sea billows roll, Have I hidden in Thee, O Thou Rock of my soul.

In Cynthia Healds,  Intimacy With God, she teaches us to take refuge in God.

Our Moms Class spent the last week under her teaching and she emphasizes the Almighty offers the ultimate refuge for any need.

The Lord pulled me into a quiet place with Him.

One year later, the planter next to the crushed pumpkin is producing fruit.

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Cynthia Heald, Intimacy With God, NavPress, P.O. Box 35001, Colorado Springs, CO 80935

Hymn quoted from Cynthia Heald. Intimacy with God, Chapter 5 – God Is a Refuge “Hiding in Thee,” lyrics by William O. Cushing, in Hymns for the Family of God, (Nashville: Paragon,1976), #70