Hope in God.

Dear friends, I want to thank you for your prayers for Faith. I wrote on my other blog how she is finally no longer afraid of the wind. She is able to go out more and enjoy life. She had lost all hope; that is what I wrote about before on this blog. I am so thankful to God that the doctors were right that she would get better. I am thankful God was with her and us through this hard time. Of course, she may always have some problems, we don't know, but the worst of her illness is over.

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Hope  in God, for I will again praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 43:5

God has made us creatures who need hope. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

As I read this verse I was struck with how important hope is in the eyes of God. He is even called, "The God of all hope." And he wants us to overflow with hope.  The commentary says God inspires and produces hope.

What is the opposite of hope? Despair. God is not the God of despair - that is Satan's weapon against us. So, let us all pray for hope when things look hopeless, because with God no situation is ever without hope.

Forgetting God.

"Can a young woman forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number." 
Jeremiah 2:32

If you are a married woman you probably remember how carefully you selected your dress, veil, shoes and jewelry. There were pictures taken and mementos kept in a special place. You don't forget your wedding day.

Israel was God's bride and yet they had forgotten him.

"Be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."
Deut. 6:12

But even after all God did for them, they did forget him and it hurt his heart.

"Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits."
Psalm 103:2 

Years ago, sometimes I would go through the day and realize I had forgotten to take time with God that morning. I had forgotten to pray. I started asking God to remind me and he did. Sometimes now, if I am reading or blogging, I hear his voice in my heart asking me to spend some more time with him. I'm thankful for his prodding and thankful he helps me remember. I never want to forget God or his benefits for even one day.

Jake the Dog.

Every morning, if I wake up at 7:00am, I can hear the dog next door howling. His owners have gone to work for the day and Jake the dog knows he will be alone for at least 8 hours. He is sad. He is calling for them. He is lonely and I feel for him.

After creating Adam, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."

"It is not good for the man to be alone." Obviously, we were created to be with people. Loneliness is not a good thing. Something must be done if we are lonely.

Two years ago, when I wasn't home-schooling my granddaughter any longer, I became lonely. Everyone went off to work for the day. My granddaughter Faith slept all day because of her illness. I was like Jake the dog. Lonely and bored.

I prayed to God and asked him to help me. "Please give me something to do that means something to me. Please fill my empty life with something." Then I did what Joyce Meyer said to do  - believed God was working for me. I said, "I believe," and I waited to see what God would do.

God sent me to Blogger and through that he sent me wonderful friends. I am busy reading and writing and now drawing a comic strip. God has filled my days with fun and interest and I thank him so much. Ask and believe he is working. What he does for us is sometimes surprising!

Jeremiah - His Call From God.

Jeremiah was a young priest in the Land of Benjamin. Suddenly, the Lord appeared to him and said, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born I consecrated you a prophet to the nations."

Because God is all knowing and can see the future of  us all, he knew what kind of person Jeremiah would be and that he was a man God could use to speak to the world. He knew Jeremiah would be a mighty prophet for him 

Jeremiah was a humble person which is shown by his answer, "Alas, Lord God! I do not know how to speak because I am young."

But God said, "Don't say, 'I am young,' because everywhere I send you, you shall go. All I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you."

God would not accept Jeremiah's fear and dismay. He knew Jeremiah could do it with his help and strength.

"Then the Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth..."

Age and experience means nothing to God. He often uses the very young to do his greatest work. But in order to speak for God we all need his hand to reach out and touch our mouths. May God help us and show us what to say to those who need him.

The Paths of the Lord.

Proverbs 4 has many verses in it that speaks about keeping our feet on God's path.

"I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble.

Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way.

The path of the righteous is like the fist gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.

Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the left or the right; keep your foot from evil."

I have walked the worldly path. When I walked it I had no peace of mind.

I love the paths of the Lord.

These first quotes are from C.S. Lewis:


God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.



Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ.


Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. (This was written when his wife died.)



I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.


Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.


This quote is from Carl Jung- a Christian psychiatrist.


I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.


All quotes from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/c_s_lewis.html#ixzz1ofnErDVq

The Brokenhearted.

"The righteous cried, and the Lord heard and delivered them out of all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him from them all."

Psalm 34:17-19

The word 'heartbroken' in the Hebrew means 'broken to shivers or splinters'. Something that is broken into pieces that small is irreparable in this world. Not so with God. He can repair a broken heart. He is especially close to those who are hurting.


Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Many are the afflictions of the righteous - This is not intended to affirm that the afflictions of the righteous are more numerous or more severe than the afflictions of other men, but that they are subjected to much suffering, and to many trials. Religion does not exempt them from suffering, but it sustains them in it; it does not deliver them from all trials in this life, but it supports them in their trials, which it teaches them to consider as a preparation for the life to come. There are, indeed, sorrows which are special to the righteous, or which come upon them in virtue of their religion, as the trials of persecution; but there are sorrows, also, that are special to the wicked - such as are the effects of intemperance, dishonesty, crime. The latter are more numerous by far than the former; so that it is still true that the wicked suffer more than the righteous in this life.

http://bible.cc/psalms/34-19.htm