Posts from 2019
Thanksgiving
In the Chilean village of Chungungo water is a valuable commodity. The area is very parched, forcing villagers to truck in water from miles away, with most people only able to afford 4 gallons a day. Bathing became a luxury!! Scientists began to experiment with a new water collection system involving finely woven propylene netting. The nets were set up in the mountains and designed to sift water from the numerous clouds that swept in from the Pacific Ocean. Each…
The Power of a Story
Dr. Paul Brand was speaking to a medical college in India on “Let your light shine before men that they may behold your good works and glorify your Father.” In front of the lectern was an oil lamp with its cotton wick burning from the shallow dish of oil. As he preached, the lamp ran out of oil, the wick burned dry, and the smoke made him cough. He immediately used the opportunity. “Some of us here are like this…
Walk in the Light
One of the things many people love about Florida is the great amount of light we receive in this part of the world. The Sunshine state averages 268 sunny to partly cloudy days per year. We’ll take that, especially during the winter months! The theme of light is prevalent in the Bible. John reminds us “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us…
Celebrate Freedom!
Conflict between the colonies and England was already a year old when the colonies convened a Continental Congress in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. In a June 7 session in what would be Independence Hall, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a resolution with the famous words: “Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection…
More than Enough
“Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who has loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the lower ranks of evil angels nor the higher, neither things present nor things future, nor the forces of nature, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which rests upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39 (WNT) My…
A Way in the Wilderness
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19 (NIV) When I was born, my mom and my dad were not together, so my grandmother pretty much raised me until I was seven years old, and she got murdered. Then I went to live with my mom and my stepdad. I was not very welcome because…
Grace Upon Grace
“Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” Acts 20:32 (New International Version) When I was coming up, every summer there was a JTPA Summer Youth Program at the River Park projects to help kids twelve to sixteen from low-income families get work. They hired me at VoTech to be a secretary four summers in a row. The…
The Cross on the Hillside
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55 (NIV) Weary, I picked up my daughter and headed home as my work week drew to an end. With a nagging head cold, I wanted nothing more than to put my feet up and have a nice hot cup of tea, but I didn’t have time to relax. I was throwing a surprise fiftieth birthday party for my friend Jeanette. All our friends…
Jesus Will Rewrite Your Story
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13 (NLT) I was in a dark depression. I could not even go get groceries. I just wanted to smoke my cigarettes and drink my coffee and be in my room. I put dark towels around my windows so that no light could come in. My family planned out a surprise party for my birthday. In the middle of the party, I turned to…
The Fruit of My Womb
For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb… Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:13,16 (TEB) My husband and I were in Jamaica on vacation, spending time talking with friends one evening when one of them, a medical doctor, began to stare at my neck. “Don’t you see that you have a goiter?”…