Picture DEES~~~~~Two Spots

Recently in our weekly prayer session a devotion was given on Elijah from 1 Kings 19:1-8. Elijah exhausted from his travels and the task he was doing came to a broom tree. He was down to nothing but God and his grace. In utter despair with no where else to go he sat down at the foot of the tree and prayed to God that he may die. Instead of granting him his request God strengthened him instead.

Too often when we come to that point where we are down-to-grace we come to that tree and want to hang ourselves rather than wait for The Lord to replenish our strength. This is what the foot of the tree has to offer, maybe a place of momentary rest but a place of despair, weakness, and pain.

The foot of the cross offers us strength, grace, mercy, love and so much more. The spot at the foot of the tree can be gone the first good storm that comes its way where the spot at the foot of the cross remains forever.

So when we find ourselves down-to-grace we need to decide which spot we want to be. The tree of no hope that offers only temporary solutions and emotional despair or the spot at the foot of the cross where hope and the ability to go on is found.

Meet me at the cross. You'll never regret it.

Rainbow cloud

As I listened to my radio in between the music they were playing the conversation the disc jockey brought up caught my attention. He mentioned a rainbow he was seeing in the clouds that looked unusual. Calling his wife he asked her if she had ever seen anything like that before.

Curiosity and the love of rainbow stories brought me out of my chair in hopes of seeing what they were seeing. Living 26 miles north of where he was I held out hope that it was in a position where I could see it too.

Sure enough hiding in the clouds were the markings of a rainbow, the colors stood out on top of the clouds just waiting to come out. As much as I wanted a good picture of it the bright sun directly above it shining into my camera made it difficult to capture the moment on film. However, it wasn't hard to capture this moment in my heart, a place of storage that will outlive any picture I could have taken of it.

On the disc jockey's side he got the full view of the rainbow with the cloud behind it. For me I got the cloud with the rainbow peeking out from the top of it. To me it was the view I needed at the time as it made me think of life and how we find ourselves surrounded by storms, clouds of clutter, winds of change, and showers of unpleasantness.

In spite of the clouds and storms around us if we go looking there is a rainbow to be seen peeking out. At the time I took this picture I did so because of my love for rainbows but now that I look at it, it was a sticky note in the sky from God. The cloud with the rainbow was directly over my parents' house. Later the same day I took this picture my dad got news that his lab work from his annual physical came back abnormal. Still waiting to talk to the doctor I already have heard from God that my dad is going to be ok. There is a rainbow hiding in the clouds for him and my mom. I just need to watch for and be ready to capture it when it comes by.

To My Granddaughter Marissa who I nicknamed Rainbow:
I love you my sweet, on this same day I took this picture of the rainbow I knew you were having troubles with your friends but everything is going to work out fine. There is a rainbow hidden in the clouds for you showing you God is there, watching over you and things will work themselves out. Turn to the substance that will help you the most, Jesus Christ and go Rainbow hunting in the sky.         Luv forever, Gma

A lesson from my garden

Several weeks ago in the middle of the night we had a wind storm go thru our garden with winds up to 60 miles per hour. The next morning when my husband went outside to check on the animals he noticed something different about the garden.

 

Walking over there to explore what it was that was different he noticed the corn was totally flat. It wasn't only flat but halfway down the rows of corn there was a circled spot where it was beyond just flat. It almost looked as if that was where the wind tunnel originally touched down. Running into the house he got me to go and take a look. "Wow!" I said. I had never seen anything like that before. The entire crop of  tall stalks of corn over seven feet tall was lying flat on the ground with the remainder of the garden and yard untouched.

 

After marveling over the loss of our corn crop we went to work. I figured I would get a picture of this later and share it with my friends on Facebook. That night when I got home from work it was dark so I planned on taking a picture of the corn the following morning on Saturday once it got daylight. Much to our surprise come Saturday morning, almost two days after the corn was flattened, we woke up to a big surprise. The corn was standing upright!

 

How could it be? One day it was flat on the ground and now it was standing once more. Was it really going to be okay? Would we ever see a kernel of corn off of them? Well it's been over a month now and the corn remains standing and is producing terrific corn.

 

As I stand and look at the corn as it stands tall in the garden I think of the lesson we can learn from it. Often in life there is something that touches down in our lives that knocks us down flat. We have the choice to stay down there or get back up and keep moving forward. God has equipped us to be able to do that no differently than the corn stalks He created. We should use that which God has supplied us with and pop back up in an upright position so quickly that world around doesn't even have a chance to notice we are down.

 

I don't know what it was that made the corn come back up but what we have is the Holy Spirit within us to help pop us back up. We have God's written word of encouragement and directions to help as well. Recently when a devastating thing struck my family, as my youngest granddaughter cried I told her we need to just trust in the promises of God. That is what will help up stand upright once again is trusting in the promises of God thru any storm.

 

Another lesson from my garden is the one from the sunflower that is standing near the corn. The lesson I learn from it is the fact that every morning it faces the morning sun and follows it thru the day. It would do us well to begin and end our day the same way, facing the rising Son, Jesus Christ. Truly this is another way that will help us to stand upright when life knocks us down.

 

Thank you Lord for the lessons learned and the beauty You have created in my garden both physically and spiritually. You are the best Gardener there is! I love you.

 

 

Kid DEES---Navigating the Storms in life without capsizing

We need to know how to navigate the storms in life without capsizing


Have you ever been in a storm? I’ve been in a few that sent me quietly and fearfully to a corner somewhere in my house to ride it out. No matter how terrifying they can be storms eventually end. What we do during these storms is important.

In life we see many storms. Such as the storms caused by a family breaking up, an unexpected illness such as cancer, a sudden accident, or other circumstances. As people give lessons on what to do during an earthquake we need to know how to navigate the storms in life without capsizing or turning our lives totally upside down.

The best thing we can do is not panic. Don’t take matters into your own hands by trying to run away, turning to things such as alcohol, drugs, or sex. When we do these things it’s like suddenly standing up in the boat that is rocking in the ocean. One sudden move and we throw it totally off balance. The end result is the boat will capsize or turn over and we wind up soaking wet.

No, what we need to do is put our trust in the Lord and decide to sit quietly until the storm passes. It’s scary but it’s possible to endure. The wonderful thing about God is the fact that He has more faith in us than we do in ourselves. God is the skipper, we are the passengers. How we navigate or find our way through life’s storms is by having faith in the One we have placed in charge of our life boat, Jesus Christ.

WTLB~~Don't Let Outside Storms Become Inside Storms

I have to begin today by asking a question. The last time I did this I asked if you ever had the joy of sweeping a floor. Today’s question is a little different but just as simple. Have you ever been caught in a storm whether it was a thunder, rain, snow, hurricane, twister, or dust storm? During the storm would you ever open up the house door and let the outside storm come in? No way! That would be crazy wouldn’t it? I’ll answer that question for you….yes it would be stupid.

Well just as stupid is allowing the outside storms of the world, things like bully’s at school, parental issues, family upsets, sibling trouble, friendship mishaps that all can cause tremendous storms on the outside to become inside storms. Inside storms meaning having our spirit inside of us stirred up so badly that our lives are affected by it.

Once we allow this to happen depression sets in, some take on anger, others become so upset deep within themselves that they want to harm themselves or others. Like a computer that comes equip with a firewall that keeps any outside sources from accessing your computer through the Internet we need to put up our own firewall in our heart. Using it to stop the things on the outside from stirring up inside storms in our spirit.

Satan already is working hard at stirring up these “inside” storms or turmoil’s that we find ourselves fighting against such as the emotional waves of anger, jealousy, low self-worth, rebellion, disobedience, fear, and uncertainty that he doesn’t need our help. It’s up to us to be firmly grounded in God’s Word, trusting in His promises that we don’t allow access from outside influences to do damage from inside our spirit. We can stop this from happening by trusting and relying on Christ and the Holy Spirit using them as our firewall the protector of our soul, the keeper of our spirit.

Copyright 2008 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing