Psalm 91

Psalm 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, "my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust!" For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not approach you. You will only look on with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked, for you have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.

For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down.

Because he has loved me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name. "He will call upon me, and I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him and let him see My salvation."

God is so good!

Lately, I have been trying to do some Spring Cleaning. In a way it is a treat to be able to finally be able to do things that have had to be neglected due to my broken leg saga. But it is also hard work.

One area I have been dealing with is changing out our winter clothes for summer clothes. I have found it to be a bit overwhelming. Dan has so many t-shirts that I couldn't get them all in the drawer! He needed to determine which ones he wanted to keep and which ones to donate to Goodwill. For me, the issue is what I fit into and what I don't. I ended up donating lots of clothes that are the wrong size, some too big and some too small. (I enjoyed finding out that some things were too big!)

We also took some things to Goodwill that had just been sitting in the basement. There is a lot of things that we just don't need anymore now that we are empty nesters.

While we were cleaning things and organizing things, I realized how gracious God had been to us over the years. If He hadn't blessed us with so much, I wouldn't have had to spend time going through things. I also thought about housecleaning and cooking and laundry. For us they are chores and we don't usually enjoy doing them. But, if God hadn't been so gracious and blessed us with houses that need to be cleaned, food that we can cook and enjoy, and clothes to wear, we wouldn't have to spend time on these things at all.

I realized that my daily chores are really a time to be thanking God for all that He has provided for me. So, when you find yourself scrubbing the floor or toilets, take time out to thank Him for providing these things. It is proof that He keeps His promises and delights in giving us good things

Noticing Small Blessings

As Christians, we are daughters of a loving Father who takes great pleasure in heaping abundant blessings on His children. Unfortunately, too often we have very lofty views of what a blessing is and we miss all of the small blessings that are showered on us daily.
I think this is rooted in our lack of comprehension of who God is, of who we are, and of what He has done for us. If we are living in the gospel, if we are reminding ourselves every day that God saved us while we were wretched, loathsome, dead creatures who despised the very One who could give us life, our lives never seem as ‘bad’ as they did before. If we truly see our salvation, the gospel, God as the ultimate and all-encompassing gift then we are much less likely to take blessings from God for granted.
When I drove to Parkside every morning, I passed a long stretch of the lake. I was continually amazed at how different it always looked! Every day was beautiful and unique. I found myself looking forward to that vision each morning, which is saying something since I’m usually pretty grumpy for the first hour or so that I am awake. One day it hit me: God created this lake to glorify Himself. The lake glorified God by its very existence. I was also created to glorify God and I do this by being utterly satisfied in Him. This lake was a blessing. God didn’t have to create it in such a way that it was a unique sight each day. God didn’t have to create it to be beautiful to look at. God didn’t have to have me live in an area that I got to drive past it every day. And here I was, daily enjoying God’s blessing and never once praising Him for it.
It was a true breakthrough for me. Every good thing is from above but so very often we forget to thank God for the good and instead only turn to Him in times of trials and hardships and need. I’ll pray my little heart out if I think I might be late for work but it is not my first thought to thank Him when traffic is good and I arrive safely half an hour early. I might pray for good weather if I wake up to a cold and drizzling day but forget to thank Him when I wake up to sunshine.
Ladies, let us take our joy in our Lord. Let us see all blessings as from His hands.

A Family Vacation

I am very excited! My husband, my children, and I are going to be driving to Utah to visit my sister Charity, her husband Johnny, and their three children. We are really looking forward to seeing them. Here’s a bit of background. Charity is 6 years older than me and we didn’t really grow up together. She joined the military right out of high school (when I was still just 12) and has lived away from Wisconsin ever since. So about 8 years ago, when she and her husband moved from Alaska to Michigan to be closer to her family, we had an opportunity to get to know them both. By this time Ryan and I were around 23 years old with a family of our own. Charity and Johnny were married the year after us and had at that time two little girls (with their 3rd child coming a year later). Spending time with them was a lot of fun and we found that we enjoyed our visits with them immensely. They were not believers and God gave us loads of opportunities to witness to them. Charity came to know the Lord and eventually so did Johnny! What an amazing blessing that is! I am so full of praise that God brought them from Alaska to hear the gospel and to save them and that He allowed Ryan and me to be a part of it!

Fast forward to present day… Charity and Johnny left Michigan and were stationed in Florida. Now their 4 year stint in Florida is up and they have been stationed in Utah, just an hour away from Salt Lake City. Can you imagine being a new believer and moving from a solid biblical church family (in Florida) into the Mormon capital of the world? Well, they have found a bible believing church founded upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they are sticking it out! An older lady from their church in Florida told them (upon hearing of their plans to move to Utah) that there was plenty of opportunity for them to minister where they were going… they just needed to be faithful to the call. And the Lord has been so gracious to fill them with a desire to be faithful and minister there, too! My brother in law is on fire for the Lord! He is growing in faith and knowledge of Jesus so much! He is studying all about how to witness to Mormon’s and has already had opportunity to use what he is learning with some Mormon’s that he’s met. Charity keeps trying to convince us to move out there so that we can be closer to them and we can all find ways to minister in the church and community. (They’ll have to be content with us visiting occasionally!)

As we are planning on going out for a 10 day visit, I am anticipating much fellowship and praise giving to the God who really does work miracles in the hearts of people all around us! I can’t wait for the conversations about God with them both as well as the trips to Starbucks (and late night ice cream shopping) with Charity. I can’t wait for them to take us hiking and exploring the mountains and the valley that they live in. I look forward to visiting their church with them and seeing how my nieces and nephew are growing up, too! I also appreciate that this will be some “concentrated” family time that we’ll have together before Ryan leaves for Cameroon, Africa (a week after we get back to Wisconsin)!

Please pray for us! Pray that we’ll have a safe trip there and back. Pray that we’ll have sweet fellowship in Jesus! Pray that we’ll have a great time and that we’ll see God at work all around us! Pray that we won’t get unexpectedly snowed in while we’re there… (They are in the mountains!). Praise God along with us for His grace in working out all the details and for His work of redemption in Charity and Johnny’s life! And however else you can think to pray, please do!

Blessings From God

Saturday was a bad day for me. I had been up late the night before studying so that I would be able to go to the ladies' book study Saturday morning. After the book study, I headed home to change for work. When I was almost home, a guy drove up next to me and told me that I had a flat tire. Sure enough, when I got home the front left tire was flat. Work Saturday night was a real trial and by the time I got off, I honestly just wanted the day to end.
When I got home from work, my dad asked me how my day was. By this point I was exhausted, my body was aching, and my throat was raw. I basically told him that my day was devoid of any good thing. Unfortunately for me, he had just finished working on his sermon and immediately launched into all these blessings that God has given us and how in the world could I say that nothing good happened all day??
I wasn't in the right state of mind to agree with him right then (although for the sake of not talking about it, I agreed outwardly) but his words stayed with me the rest of the evening, and into the next morning.
We truly do have much to be thankful for. There are some generic things that all Christians can be thankful for: SALVATION, prayer, God's forgiveness and faithfulness...the list could go on and on! And, even though its sometimes hard to think of them amidst trials, we each have many personal things to be thankful for.
Take time to dwell on your blessings - especially when things aren't going very well. God has been very gracious to each and every one of us and it is important for us to remember this. Don't let sin and every day life get in the way.