Just Keep Praying is the title of my friend Amy’s new blog. Amy has a real heart for prayer. She desires for people to be encouraged in their prayer lives and develop that more intimate relationship with God through prayer. God has given her a real gift in this area. She is very good at coming up with creative ideas and visual aids to illustrate prayer points. I encourage you to visit her blog. She has certainly been an encouragement to me in my own prayer life. Love ya, Amy!

Blessings,

If you haven’t read my post titled “Pink Petunias,” click here to read it and then this post will make a lot more sense.

Tonight I received a phone call from my aunt who said they had just had a very strange visit. When any of my family calls and says something like this, it ALWAYS pertains to my mother. This time was no different.

I mentioned in the previous post that I had sent her a small gift for Christmas. Nothing big, really. Just a bag of lemon drops because they used to be her favorites with a note letting her know I was thinking about her and praying for her. I also mentioned that I had never heard anything from her. That has not changed since the last post…at least not until tonight. Well, indirectly anyway.

My aunt and uncle were at home and thought they heard a noise at their front door. My uncle went to investigate. By the time he reached the door, my mother was leaving their driveway. There, between the screen and interior doors sat the gift….unopened.

Malicious. That’s what it was. She wanted to hurt me. It wasn’t enough to just not open the gift. She wanted me to know that she was rejecting it. This isn’t surprising really. She could be quite mean when I was growing up. I always knew not to cross my mother because she didn’t get mad, she got even.

There is a silver lining in this otherwise dark and dreary cloud, though. Her rejection didn’t touch me today. You see, I had already been dealt the first punch of the ‘ole 1-2 punch earlier in the day. That will have to be a story for another time…perhaps, tomorrow.

But God is ever faithful. He is moving mightily in my life right now. He is calling me to new things, and some of them are starting to come to fruition (yet another story for another day). What this really boils down to is spiritual warfare. Satan is coming at me with both barrels, but when I received the call tonight, God said, “Not this time.” He had insulated my heart. He will be my father AND my mother. I am thankful. Thankful not only that He will fill that void for me, but thankful also that instead of hurt and anger, I feel compassion. My mother is ill, and she is hurting, and for that I am truly sorry. I will continue to pray for her healing, but if that is not God’s will, then at least I can take comfort in the fact that He has her in the palm of His hand, and there WILL be a day when she is completely healed and restored.

Blessings,

My daughter did the most precious thing last night. We were reading our nightly devotional. Each week, the book we use focuses on a particular verse of scripture. It takes that verse and develops a theme for the week, and each day’s devotion pertains to that theme. This week’s verse is John 3:16, and the theme is God gave Himself.

Last night’s devotion focused on the story of the Passover. You can read this story in Exodus Chapter 12. Specifically, the devotion focused on the instructions to the Israelites that each family should slaughter a lamb and take some of the blood and put it on the tops and sides of the doorframes of the homes in which they ate their meals. We talked about how God sent the death angel to kill each firstborn, both men and animals. The blood was a sign that the angel should “pass over” those homes. We then talked about how Jesus is called the “Lamb of God,” and how His death, his shed blood protects us now and forever more.

In the middle of our discussion, my daughter began looking for her stuffed lamb she has whose name is “Precious.” I was a little annoyed because I didn’t think she was paying attention to the story. She assured me she was listening, but Precious had now joined us for the remainder of our discussion. Just as we were finishing up, I noticed that she had her hands over Precious’ ears. I asked her what she was doing, and she responded that she didn’t want Precious to hear because she was afraid it might upset him!

I put on my most serious face and told her that Precious didn’t have anything to worry about because that was the great thing about Jesus’ death and resurrection. We don’t have to offer lambs as sacrifices anymore, nor we will ever have to again, because the One True Lamb paid that price for all time.

Blessings,