DebraJ
COVID-19 Update
Things have changed so drastically, so quickly in recent days. The novel coronavirus outbreak came on us as fast as an early spring storm: clear blue skies one moment; dark rain clouds storming down on us the next. Our regular-everyday-freedoms have been replaced with stay-at-home-isolations and quarantines. To protect the most vulnerable from COVID-19 our needed hugs are no longer safe and social distancing is imperative. Yet this loss of human contact creates a huge hole in each of our lives.
As we navigate this storm together, I am thinking and praying for you, your families and loved ones. May God impress on each of you that we are NOT alone. Let’s reach out to those around us through phone calls, texts, emails or social media, offering or asking for help and encouragement. As uncertainty surrounds our health and financial futures, I am asking God to provide for each of us according to His boundless resources. He is our Good Shepherd; we don’t need to worry. May He to bring healing to the nations.
Each of us can only do a small part, but together, and with God’s help, we are like a mighty army. We will get through this together and be stronger as a result. Please comment, or click “contact” on the menu, if I can pray for you for anything at all.
Psalm 23: 1 – 2 (ESV) “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”
Philippians 4: 6 – 7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Click here for more information from the CDC: https://www.coronavirus.gov/
Thoughts to Begin a New Year
I’m praying through several scriptures that the Lord laid before me, to set as my scripture focus for 2020. I’ll be choosing one to memorize and focus on throughout the new year, although I would love to memorize them all. See if any of these touch your heart as something the Lord would have you ponder throughout the year ahead.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” Psalm 139: 23-24 NLT
“So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold – though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” 1 Peter 1: 6-7 NLT
“You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy…” Psalm 16:11 ESV
“Be still, and know that I am God…” Psalm 46:10 ESV
I love all four of these passages, but with the crazy chaos in our lives these days, I think the Lord is telling me it’s this last one I need to focus on over and over: Be still. Be still and know. Be still and know that He is God.
Yes, in these days and for whatever may lie ahead, this is where I need to land.
Love you all, my friends! May you have a blessed and Happy New Year as the Lord leads you each day of 2020!
The Wonder of It All
Nothing puts my heart in proper Christmas perspective as does hearing Mannheim Steamroller’s “Stille Nacht“. Always a beautiful song of the season, “Silent Night” has been arranged in so many different ways – but this version always reduces me to tears: When the fullness of time had come (the gong of the grandfather clock), the God of all creation came to earth as a tiny Baby (the playing of the toy piano), through an act of His powerful Spirit (the sound of the mighty rushing wind).
Waiting, working, caught up in the hectic pace we’ve made of this Birthday celebration, I’m so easily distracted. I wonder why I’ve allowed myself to become consumed by consumerism; taking what used to be a time of love and joy, and making it into a season of chores to check off a list (that never seems to end). Little by little I’ve allowed wrong attitudes to chip away at the intentions behind my rushed activities until they’re nothing more than things on a list I have to get done…
Until I hear again “Silent Night” and all becomes calm and bright ‘round the virgin mother and Child…
Until I again worship the newborn King, whom the angels proclaimed to the shepherds…
Until I join the wise men, led by a star to the place where He was born, in awe of the purpose for which He came…
Redemption. Salvation. Life. (Not what we humans have made it, but Real Life.)
Joy; full joy. Forgiveness. Peace.
Lord, I bow and worship with awe-filled wonder as You fill my heart…every part of this world…with Your redeeming grace. Help me to be still and live in the wonder of it all!
Silent Night! Holy Night! Son of God, Love’s pure light, Radiant beams from Thy Holy Face, With the dawn of redeeming grace. Jesus, Lord at Thy birth. Jesus, Lord at Thy birth.