Walk Boldly With Jesus

Today’s Witness Wednesday is about my trip to Ecuador. Let me explain in a bit more detail how and why I decided to go to Ecuador. My brother-in-law, Daniel’s best friend, has been in the hospital for a month now. He had a heart attack and then a stroke. Daniel sent me a message asking me to pray for his friend Anival. I then sent this prayer request out to all those I know who could pray for him. Everyone started to pray for him, and I asked Daniel for an update. He said he was still in a coma and they were waiting for him to wake up so they could do the CT scan. However, they were decreasing the sedation, and he wasn’t waking up.Then Daniel asked me for more prayers as they did the CT scan, and it said that there was more damage than they thought. It showed that he still had oxygen bubbles in his brain. When I got this text message from Daniel, I relayed it to all those who were praying for him, as I feel the more specific we can pray for someone, the better, as it shows all the more glory to God when he answers our specific prayers. Then I got another message from Daniel a week or so later, saying that Anival got worse and they need him to start breathing on his own so that he can start eating, as he is not getting enough nutrients.When I got this message from Daniel, I also felt like I got a message from the Holy Spirit asking me to go to Ecuador to pray over Anibal in person. I thought this sounded a bit crazy, so I did what everyone should do when they feel like the Holy Spirit is telling them to do something that seems crazy. I discerned it with my spiritual director. I told her what I thought I heard, and I asked her to pray about it and see what the Holy Spirit says to her about it.She said the first thing she heard was “go” and then she asked Him to confirm it for her. The way this usually happens for her is that she sees the word she heard other places throughout the day. In this instance, she saw what looked like “go” on two different license plates throughout her day. She felt that was the confirmation she was looking for. As I was walking into the prayer group on Thursday morning, I asked the Lord to let me hear something at the meeting that confirmed that He wanted me to go. I was surprised because I didn’t really hear anything during the meeting. Then, at the end, while we were cleaning up, one of our members, who just went to the national conference for Charismatic Catholics in the United States, said, “The main message of the entire conference was to Go Out. Don’t just stay in the comfort of praying within your prayer group, but be bold and go out into the world and pray with others.” I took this as the confirmation that I had asked the Lord for.Now it was time to talk to my husband about it. It was not a good time for me to go to Ecuador, as he works for the government, so he is not getting a paycheck right now. Also, he was going out of the country to visit our son Noah since he is away in Scotland for school and happened to have a week off for his Birthday. Tony is not working and has a free travel credit. They were staying with a friend, so it would not be an expensive trip, and the timing was great for that trip. Another reason the timing wasn’t great for this call to go to Ecuador is that in order for me to go with my sister, Daniel, and their daughter, I would have to leave before Tony got back. This isn’t a big deal, as our kids at home are 17 and 21. They would be fine without us for a night, but it would have been better if we didn’t have to leave them alone for a night.Anyway, I talked with Tony about the trip, and he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me going, especially since he is not getting paid and we would both be out of the country at the same time. However, he didn’t say I couldn’t go, and I felt strongly that I was supposed to go, so I looked at getting a ticket. Before going to dinner, the tickets were $576. When I got home from dinner and tried to buy the ticket, it had gone up to $698. I went back and forth between Expedia and Travelocity, and I couldn’t find a ticket for less than $600 now. I sent my sister a message explaining that the tickets were too much, and so I didn’t think I could go. Then, I had a chat with God. I explained that there was no way I could spend $700 on a ticket when Tony wasn’t thrilled about me going in the first place. I told him that if he wanted me to go He was going to have to do something about these ticket prices. I switched back to Expedia one last night before giving up for the night, and there was one ticket for $540. Thank you, Jesus!! I bought it and was excited that I would be on my way to Ecuador in just one week.There were lots of things that were trying to get in the way of my going on this trip, which is another way I knew I was supposed to go, and that God was going to move powerfully. Whenever we are about to do some amazing work for the Lord, the enemy tries to put up a million roadblocks. I fought through each one of them

Praise Series #13 Let’s Have A Conversation With Our Heavenly FatherPsalm 145:8 “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”I heard this as the verse of the day on KLOVE radio, and I instantly knew it was one I wanted to talk about because I have been thinking a lot about God lately and who we think He is. I have heard several people say lately that they think of God as a task master in the sky who is watching us carefully and is just waiting for us to mess up so he can punish us. I can’t say that I ever thought of God in this way. However, I used to think I needed to do the right thing or say the right thing in order to make God happy, in order to earn his love or his approval. I can also see how one can look at God like He is up there waiting to judge us. I mean, we are taught to fear God, and yet I don’t think we are taught what that actually means. When it says we should fear God, it actually means to have reverence for God. Our fear of God is not negative but a positive attitude of reverence that helps us ascribe to God His due: Omnipotence, Sovereignty, and Supremacy.I now think God is Love. I know God loves me. I know He delights in me and that He is pleased with me. I know I am His beloved daughter. I know I don’t have to do anything to earn these feelings; they are freely given. I know he is not up there waiting for me to mess up so that he can punish me, although he is waiting with open arms for me when I mess up so that I can come back to Him. When I try to think about how I know this, I am not too sure. When I was on the Big Life New Year’s Retreat, I was reading one of my journal entries to two of the ladies there, and I felt like the Holy Spirit said to me, “This is how you know. This is where your confidence in yourself and in my love for you comes from.” I took a minute to think about it, and I knew He was right. I mean, He is the Holy Spirit, so of course he was right. But I could see how He was right. I learned about writing letters to God in my journal and then asking Him to write back to me using my pen in 2019, when I was learning to be a life coach and a spiritual coach. I started doing this regularly sometime in 2020. I was listening to the Bible in A Year Podcast, and Father Mike was talking about how if we want a more intimate relationship with God, we could start by speaking to Him more intimately. I don't know what he said exactly, but that is what I heard. I started writing in my journal as if it were a letter to God. I began addressing it, Dear Father, because Dad felt too informal, and I wanted to make sure I was being reverent. However, over the days to come, I experimented with other terms: Dad, Daddy, Papa. It felt strange at first, but the more I did it, the more comfortable I felt with it. I was growing closer to Him. I went back and looked in my journal. I am not sure which journal I used before this one, but his one starts May 1, 2020. I was writing pretty often during this time. That is probably because it was during COVID, and so the world kind of slowed down, and we had more time. The first time that I can see in this journal that I asked God to answer me through my pen was June 2, 2020. This is what I felt He said to me:“Dear Holy One, I love you! I do not feel you lack trust. You are a good and faithful servant. Thank you for getting the prayer group online. I missed you, ladies, and the praise and worship. I am here for you, lean into me. I love you, my daughter. I love what you are becoming. I will mold you if you let me. Help the leaders of the prayer group, as the leaders are tired. You can bring new energy into the group. The workshop is a good idea.”Can you see how hearing words like this from your heavenly Father would help you see that God is love? How would it help build your confidence and help you better understand who He is and who you are in His eyes? It is not always super positive. It is not as if the letters are always filled with compliments, and that is it. Sometimes we need correction and guidance, and sometimes we don’t want to hear that. However, when it comes from God, correction is given with love and grace. When you spend time listening to what God is actually saying, you realize He is not a mean task master waiting for us to screw up. He is a loving Father who wants to help and protect us. Here is an example from June 24, 2020. This is the second time in this journal that I have asked to hear from God. This is just a portion of what I felt He was saying:“You will do a great many things. I will show you when you are ready. Stay the course. Your work pleases me. Your effort pleases me. Notice the good more in Tony. Point out the light you see. Live by “will this matter in 5 years?” Help bring more light into your family, not darkness. No sarcasm, no teasing, just building each other up. You are better than that. Be a good listener, put first things first. You are doing great, keep going. I love you, my da

Praising Through Hard TimesMatthew 10:29-31 “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”It is essential to praise God in Hard times. I recall a time when I was going through a particularly challenging period, raising my boys, and in my marriage, and I found solace in praising God. It was a powerful reminder that my problems were not insurmountable and that God was with me. It is important to praise God even when we don’t feel we have any reason to. One of the most important reasons to praise God in a difficult situation is that it puts the focus back on God rather than on our problem.One piece of advice I love is: “Instead of focusing on how big our problem is, we should focus on how big our God is.” I have never forgotten this, and it is so true. God is bigger than any problem we might be facing. There isn’t anything too big or too hard for Him. When we praise the Lord, we bring our focus back to Him.Also, when we praise God, we are reminded of all the things He has done for us in the past. It reminds us that if He did it for us before, He would do it again. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) If we are in a difficult situation, we can look back to other times when we were struggling, and we can see how God helped us out of or through that situation. Sometimes God helps us out of a problem we are in. Sometimes, He helps us through the situation. What I mean is that he doesn’t remove us from the situation; he gives us all we need to get through it. He gives us the strength, perseverance, and peace to get through each day.While studying about praise from my mentoring group, I read an article that mentioned something I hadn’t really thought of before. It said that praise reminds us that God is in control. While reading this article, I came across a line that made me laugh. The article said, "As I praise God during the difficult times, I am reminded that God is still in control. God is never surprised by the things that come into my life. God never says, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming. I hope Billy makes it through this.” This made me laugh because it is so true, yet we don’t really think about it. We can praise God in the difficult times because He knew we would be in this season of waiting. And because He knew we would be in it, He has a plan to get us either out of this season or through it.It is funny to me that we would think we could ever catch the Lord off guard. It’s weird to think something could happen that He wouldn’t know about. Jesus says in Matthew 10:29-31 “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” God knows everything about you. He knows about your situation and what you are waiting for.Praising the Lord during a hard season is telling Him that we trust Him and know He has a plan for us. Our job is to wait and to keep trusting that God is in control. It is hard for us to let God be in control. We want things done our way and in our time. I saw a video on Facebook the other day of a woman who was showing what it is like when we try to let God be in control. She was all excited and told Jesus to take the wheel. However, she wasn’t happy when He didn’t take the exit she wanted Him to take. She wasn’t pleased when he wasn’t driving as fast as she wanted him to. She tried to stop and pull over for a snack, but Jesus wanted to keep moving. Then she finally said, “I just thought that when I said Jesus take the wheel, we would take turns. You know, you would drive a little, I would drive a little. I thought this would be a little more collaborative.”It is hard to let Jesus take the wheel. It is hard to let God be in control, but it is always worth it. Have you ever tried to take the wheel, tried to run things your own way, and then had it not turn out so good? Abraham and Sarah tried to take things into their own hands, and Sarah had Abraham sleep with her handmaid so they could have a baby. It worked, and then Sarah got jealous of her handmaid and sent her away. God told them He would give them a baby, but Sarah got tired of waiting. We get into trouble when we grow weary of waiting and take things into our own hands.This is why praising can be so beneficial. While we are waiting, we praise God for all he has done in the past, all that He has planned for our future, and all that He is in control of, so that we don’t have to be. When we praise God, we keep ourselves busy, focused on God, and remind ourselves that God is in control.The article I read had some practical suggestions for praising God in difficult times. Here they are:It may not seem natural, and you may feel uncomfortable, but go ahead and praise God. Don’t fake it, be

Why Praise Is So ImportantPsalm 103:22 “I will bless and praise the Lord with my whole heart! Let all his works throughout the earth, wherever his dominion stretches—let everything bless the Lord!”My top 3 favorite topics to talk about are praise, forgiveness, and God’s love, not necessarily in that order. These are my favorites because I think they are some of the most important. God has really been showing me over the last few years how important praise is to Him. He often gives us a word of prophecy at our prayer group that talks about how much He loves that we come together to praise Him each week. Here is one example from June 2025: “Praise me with your whole heart and soul. I long to know you from the depths of your very being. Sing praises to me, for I am your God who loves you.”He has also been telling me over the last few years that praise is a big part of the reason I have been able to grow in my faith so much and that I am able to trust so much. When I ask what I am doing differently, He tells me that I am praising more. I am praising God, not just when I feel like it, and not just when all things are going my way. I am praising God every single day, whether it is a good day or a bad day. I actually praise Him more on bad days sometimes because listening to praise music can help me change my mood.If you have not discovered any really good praise music, go to Spotify and search through Christian music. My mentor, Pamela Crim, put together an awesome playlist called The Big Life Mornings playlist. It is a public playlist on Spotify, and if you type "Big Life Mornings" into the search, it will come up. I also have one called “Walk Boldly With Jesus Favorites,” which you can also find on Spotify. Some of my favorite artists, in case you are not into playlists, include for King and Country, Lauren Daigle, Elevation Worship, Phil Wickham, TobyMac, Cory Asbury, and so many more on that playlist. There are several reasons that I recommend you find some great Christian music that you like.First, listening to Christian music has helped me learn even more about how much God loves me. I have included some of my favorite songs in various episodes over the years. However, if you have not heard the song Reckless Love by Cory Asbury, you are really missing out. If you do not use Spotify, you can check out YouTube as well. There is actually a playlist on my channel, “WalkBodlyWithJesus”, on YouTube called Prayer Group, and it is a great list of praise songs. It would be a great place to start. Whether you are on Spotify or YouTube, you can save songs to a playlist and listen to it whenever you need to.Another reason I recommend you find some good Christian music is that it can change your mood or your focus. Anytime we are anxious, angry, scared, mad, frustrated, or any other feeling, it is because of the story we are telling ourselves. If we are anxious, we are probably focusing on what may or may not happen. If we are angry or frustrated, we might be looking at a situation we can’t change. Listening to this music can help shift our focus from our problems, our worries, and our situation to our God. There is a saying that says that instead of looking at how big our problems are, we can focus on how big our God is. Music can help us do this. If you are listening to songs about how God is a miracle worker and a way-maker, it shifts your focus and helps you praise God in tough times.A third reason I recommend listening to praise music is that it fills your head with God. God will be on your mind more because the things you listen to become the thoughts in your head. Have you ever noticed that when you hang around someone a lot, you start to talk like them? This is because you spend so much time with them and constantly hear how they talk, so your brain picks it up. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what they are saying. When I first learned this, I was discouraged because the people in my house, with whom I spent the most time, were very negative and used very bad language. I did not want to start talking like they did. I needed to figure out a way to surround myself with different voices. This is when I started listening to Christian podcasts and found more Christian music. Imagine if you were listening to songs each day that talk about how much God loves us, how much He forgives us, and who God is. If you are hearing this over and over again, these will be the thoughts that fill your mind, and these will be the thoughts that come to your mind in times of trouble.I feel I could go on and on about why I love listening to praise music. However, I will end with this last point. Praising God helps us become more grateful people. I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like we have much reason to praise God. It is not as if my life has been perfect over the last few years; that is why I have been able to praise God. I have had some really difficult times over these past few years, actually over the past 20

Why Take The Longer Path?Exodus 13:17-18 “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest the people repent when they see war, and return to Egypt.” But God led the people round by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the sons of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle."I was listening to a sermon on the Elevation podcast. The pastor of Elevation church, Steven Furtick, gave a great sermon called “This May Be Plan C.” When I heard him talking about one part in particular I felt like the Lord wanted me to share it with all of you. There were many things about the sermon that stood out to me but it was almost an hour long so I can’t go into all of it. However, I do recommend you check out the whole sermon as it was really good. I am just going to talk about the part that has to do with this verse.Pastor Steven was talking about how God didn’t take the Israelites on the shortest path out of Egypt. The verse says, “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near.” This makes us think that there was a way to the promised land that was shorter. And if God is explaining why He didn’t take them that way, then that leads us to believe that way would have made more sense. If we are taking the quickest, easiest way, we usually don’t explain why we are going that way. Everyone knows why. However, if we are taking an unexpected path, or one that is longer, we might explain why.So, why did God take them on a longer path? The verse says, “Lest the people repent when they see war, and return to Egypt.” God knew the people were leaving Egypt but if they ran into trouble and had to fight their way out of Egypt, they might turn around and go back. Also, God knew that the Pharaoh was going to change his mind and come after them. God knew the way of the Philistines would lead them into a situation they were not ready for yet. He also knew what was coming after them and He knew that they would need the Red Sea.I wonder if you have had a time, or maybe many times in your life when you felt like God took you on the round about way to get to where you were going? You feel like there must have been an easier and quicker way to get to where you ended up. What if we trusted that God knew what He was doing? What if we look back and try to see how God might have been protecting us from taking the easy or most quickest path because we might have encountered something we weren’t ready to encounter? What if God took us the way He took us because He knew we would need something from that journey or that other path.Pastor Steven talked about how sometimes the problem we are trying to wish away is actually the answer to our prayer we have be asking from God. When the Israelites got the the Red Sea, I am sure they thought it was a problem. I am sure they saw the water on one side of them and heard the army coming up behind them and they questioned why God would lead them to this body of water when there were other paths they could have taken. I am sure they were wishing they were anywhere but in front of the Red Sea at that moment. Yet God used this perceived problem to answer their prayers. He parted that sea and allowed them to walk across it on dry ground. And then he used that water, the one they thought was a problem, to swallow up their enemy.Do you have any problems in your life that might be the answer to your prayers? It may not look like it at first. You may just look at the problem and see it as a problem. However, what if you looked at it and explored how it might be an answer to your prayers? What if you look at the path that the Lord has taken you down and try to see why that path makes sense? Is there a reason God didn’t take you down the quickest easiest path? Is there something you needed to go through so that you could be the person He created you to be? Is there something you needed to survive so that you could show others they will survive it too? Was there something on that other path that the Lord knew you weren’t ready to face yet?When I asked the Lord what He wanted me to teach today this is what I felt like I heard, “Teach them about how they may not be where they thought they would be. They may not have taken the path they thought they would have but if they keep walking with Me and trusting in Me then they will get there in the end. Show them I am walking with them and leading them. There is a reason I led them on the path they are on. I will help them get to where they are going. It’s never too late for Me to grant your heart’s desire. Don’t give up asking for what you truly want. I do hear you. I am working all things for your good.”I know some of you are disappointed with the way things in life have turned out. I know some of you have been asking for some pretty big things for a long time. I know some of you really need a heali

Witness Wednesday #187 Summoned to PrayToday's witness is from Chicken Soup of the Soul, A Book of Miracles by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hanson, and Leanne Thieman. The title of this story is Summoned to Pray.Matthew 11:28 “Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.”“Honey, I'll leave as soon as duty is over. That should be right after midnight,” my new husband promised. I hung up the phone, a newlywed anxiously anticipating our every other weekend reunion. At that moment, I questioned the sanity of our decision to spend our first year of marriage apart as I completed my teaching degree at UT Arlington, and he completed his last year of service at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.I straightened up our tiny one-bedroom apartment, then went to bed to await his arrival. In spite of my anxiety, I still managed to fall asleep, dreaming about our weekend together. Suddenly, I was awakened from my sound sleep with a summons to pray, as real as if it had just been delivered by a mailman.It was accompanied by an urgent knowledge of what to pray for. My husband's immediate safety. I thought back to another instance just the year before, when I had felt an urgent need to pray for Jim in Vietnam.Later, I received a letter he wrote, telling me about a late-night trip back from taking a shower when he nearly stepped on a bush viper. Miraculously, he had seen it just in time. He was not wearing his glasses at the time, and the only light was from a friend's tent where a prohibited candle burned.I wrote back telling him about my urgency to pray for him on that very same night. We both knew it was the Lord's doing. So now, I fell out of bed on my knees. I cried as I prayed to the Lord. Then, as quickly as the summons had come, it was gone. My tears dried, and I fell back asleep, remarkably peaceful despite the traumatic awakening.The last thing I remembered was glancing at the clock on the nightstand. It was 2.50 a.m.There was a knock at the door. I sat up in bed and looked at the clock again, 6 a.m. I thought to myself, Jim must not have been able to leave when he originally planned. Then I remembered the urgent call to prayer. I rushed to the door, opened it, and there stood my young husband, a bit disheveled, his right eye covered with a black patch.He quickly answered my questions. A car going only 30 miles per hour, with no lights, pulled out of a bar onto the highway just outside Fort Worth. My husband was driving 70 miles an hour on the highway, and there was a collision. Our new car was totaled. The officer at the scene said the other man had been drinking. The only injury was broken glass in one eye.For some reason, I felt that I needed to buckle my seatbelt right before getting to Fort Worth, Jim said. He'd never done that before. Back then, in 1969, there were no seatbelt laws. Thank God I gasped, hugged him tighter. What time did this happen? I'd just checked the time. It was 2:50 A. M. By: Sharon L. Patterson.I thought this was a really good Witness Wednesday for today because I know a lot of you get woken up in the middle of the night, and you're not sure why, and you're not sure what to do. So I just wanted to share this with you and to tell you if you do get woken up in the middle of the night, ask the Lord if there's something specific or someone specific He wants you to pray for. Your prayers could make all the difference in the world. And thank you to Sharon for sharing this story in the book so that we can all learn from it. www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Are We Underestimating Praise?2 Chronicles 20:21-22 "After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”In this chapter of Chronicles, God’s people have armies coming to attack them from three different places. Things were not looking good. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel, son of Zechariah, as he stood in the assembly. He told the king and all the people of Judah that they shouldn’t be afraid because this was not their fight. It was God’s fight. He told them to march down against the invading armies, but that they would not have to fight the battle. This is where the verse picks up. “After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: 'Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”Jehoshaphat and his army were headed into what seemed like a hopeless battle. There were three different armies waiting to destroy them and take their land. You would think they would have the soldiers lead them in this battle. Even if they trusted God, you would think that just to be on the safe side, you would have the soldiers go first. However, King Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise Him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out to face the armies. “As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”Did you catch that last part? It doesn’t say that once they started fighting, the Lord gave them victory. It doesn’t say their enemy was defeated by their mighty hand. It says that as they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against their enemy, and they were defeated. They didn’t even have to fight a single person. They didn’t have to lift their hands at all in this fight. They just needed to lift up their voices. Do you have enemies that you need to defeat? Are you praising God now while you are in the middle of it, or are you waiting until you get out of it?Sometimes we are trying to fight our enemies on our own. We know we need God, and yet we ask Him for so much that we feel we should try to do this one on our own. Yet, instead of leading with praise, we lead with anger, frustration, sadness, jealousy, and whatever other emotions we are feeling at the moment. Can you think of a time when you have charged into a situation with your emotions leading the way? How did that work out for you? For me, it never works out. When I go into a situation on my own without inviting the Lord to come with me, it never works out as I intended it to. However, when I do think to praise the Lord while I am in the middle of a difficult situation, it always turns out well. There are times when we think God has abandoned us. We are praying and it does not seem like He is with us. Maybe we are the ones who have abandoned God. We may be praying, but are we praying with a hopeful heart? Are we trusting God will come through for us when we pray? Are we praising God for all He does for us? God is working in our lives every single day. Are we praising Him for that? I talk a lot about gratitude because I think it is so important to go through life being grateful for what we have. I think when we are grateful for what we have, God blesses us with more. Being grateful is also a great way to shift our mood if we are feeling sad or having a bad day. Sometimes, all it takes is a perspective switch, and we can turn our whole day around. Praise is different from gratitude. Sometimes, we can be praising God for what we have and what He has done for us, and yet praise is so much more than that. We can also praise God for who He is. Sometimes we are in a situation where we may not want to or be able to praise God for the situation. For instance, in this verse God’s people were not praising God for the situation they were in. They were not grateful they had three armies coming after them. They were praising God for “the splendor of His Holiness.” They were praising God for who He is. He is the Fountain of Life. He is the great “I AM.” He is the Just One, and He is the King of kings. He is the Lord of Lords, and He is the Light of the world. He is the Lord our God. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. How often are you praising God for simply being God? How often are you spending time in prayer thanking and praising God for being everything you need Him to be? Maybe the next time we are in a hard situation, instead of charging into the situation with our guns blazing, we can lead with our praise. Instead of leading with our anger, frustration, and

Praise Series #9 Praise & Thanksgiving Psalm 145:1-3 “I will proclaim your greatness, my God and king; I will thank you forever and ever. Every day I will thank you; I will praise you forever and ever. The Lord is great and is to be highly praised; his greatness is beyond understanding.”I read this and thought it was a great verse for this series. I was talking to a friend on the phone, and she mentioned that she was talking to a family member and they had a great discussion on gratitude. She said they talked about being thankful for this day, the sun, and all the little things. She was explaining to him how important gratitude is.I was talking with another friend after mass, and she also happened to mention gratitude. She suggested picking one night of the week and having the kids think of at least one thing they can be thankful for and then talking about how important gratitude is. There are so many benefits to gratitude and no downside. One benefit of gratitude is that it can help you shift your mood. You can take any circumstance that you are in and find something in that moment to be grateful for. No matter how bad the situation is, if you can find something to be grateful for, then it will help shift your mood.For example, if you have lost a loved one recently, you can be grateful that you had that loved one to lose; some people don’t. If you broke your arm, you can be thankful that you still have your arm, or that it will heal eventually. Some people lose their arms and have to figure out how to live life without them. Although even in that circumstance, you can be grateful that you didn’t lose more than your arm, or you can be grateful that although you lost your arm, at least you didn’t lose your life. These are examples of how you can find something to be grateful for in any situation, even the bad ones. However, what about the good times? It is important to be grateful in the good times as well. Sometimes, when things are going well, we don’t take the time to stop and be grateful for it. Why is this? Is it that we are just too busy? Is it that we don’t think of it? Is it because we don’t want to jinx it? I’m not sure why we don’t do this more. Maybe it is a combination of all those reasons. The reason why isn’t really important. What is important is that we start doing it now. If we want God to trust us with more, then we need to show him that we appreciate what we already have. What can you be thankful for today? Can you pause this episode and list five things that you are grateful for today? They don’t have to be big things; it could be as simple as the changing of the leaves or the snow falling. I find myself so much more grateful this time of year. I drive around in awe of God’s magnificent beauty, and it makes me so grateful to be alive. What makes you smile, brings you joy, and makes you grateful to be alive? Have you thanked the good Lord above for it yet? Why not? You wouldn’t have it without Him. “I will proclaim your greatness, my God and king; I will thank you forever and ever. Every day I will thank you; I will praise you forever and ever. The Lord is great and is to be highly praised; his greatness is beyond understanding.” I just talked about gratitude and how we should be grateful to God for all that we have. Now, I want to talk about praise. This is why I read the verse to you again. It is so beautiful. I will proclaim your greatness, my God and king, I will thank you forever and ever. Do you see how the two sentiments go together so nicely in this verse? First is the praise, talking about how great the Lord is. Then it ends with I will thank you forever and ever. The author is taking time to stop and thank the Lord for all that He has done for him. Then it says, Every day I will thank you; I will praise you forever and ever. Do you see how both of these things are so important to the Lord? He wants us to thank Him every single day and also praise Him forever. Praising the Lord can be something else that we forget to do. We don’t usually forget to pray to the Lord when we need something; however, praising him is not something that we think to do. What if you started adding praise into your prayers? What if, at the same time as you are asking God for something, you were also telling Him how great He is? For instance, “Dear Lord, I ask that you be with my son as he has a contest at school today. Please help him to be calm and remember what he has learned. Please help him to be gracious, whether he wins or not. Lord, you are truly amazing. You do so much for us, and we are so very thankful. I love you, Lord, and I ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen. Did you see how easy it is to praise the Lord? It could be as simple as adding a line or two to the prayers you are already saying. Another time we seem to forget to praise the Lord is after He has answered our prayers. This may sound strange, as you would think the first thing we would do when our

Praise The Lord, Both Now And Forevermore Psalm 113:1-2 "Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, you his servants; praise the name of the Lord. Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forevermore.”This verse was given at the prayer group last week, and when I first looked it up, I was hesitant. I had a little conversation with God about how I have already talked about praise a lot and that maybe I should use a different scripture. I still think it is so crazy how I always try to talk to God about how my ideas might be better than His, or try to tell him something like He doesn’t already know everything. Anyway, while I was trying to convince God about how I wasn’t sure praise was the topic I should talk about today, he reminded me of what I learned while listening to Father Mike’s Catechism in a Year podcast. This podcast is so great. I know I have talked to several of you who started it and couldn’t really get into it, and so you stopped. I just want to say that I get it. It was not super interesting like the Bible in a year was when it first started. Now, I love it. I thought it was going to be just a litany of rules that I didn’t really want to listen to, but that I would because I want to be able to defend my faith to others, especially my loved ones, and also because I truly want to know why Catholic’s believe what we believe. I was so wrong. It is not at all a litany of rules. It is an explanation of so much. It talks about who God is, who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is, and who they are in relationship to one another. That part was beautiful. Recently, we have been talking about the mass and why, where, when, and how we meet. I had no idea about most of the stuff he was talking about. It helps me to see the mass in a whole new light. A much-needed new light. I have always liked being Catholic. I mean, I didn’t always love going to mass every single week, even when on vacation. I didn’t love getting picked up early from a friend’s house so I could go to mass. However, I did like the mass. I like how I know what to expect; I like how every mass is the same all over the world. I love that we have the body and blood of Jesus at Mass. I love all the prayers and sacraments. I love being Catholic, and yet after listening to the Catechism for a year, I am falling even more in love with our faith. It is not just about our faith, either; it is about so many things. I thought it would be a bit like the 10 commandments, a list of what we can do and what we can’t do. However, it explains in so much detail not only what we believe, but why we believe it, and where in the Bible you can find reference to it. It has been amazing.This week was about the mass, and it was talking about praise, specifically praise music. The church says that out of all of the art, out of all of the things that can help us pray well, singing and music are of inestimable value, greater than that of any other art. That is from CCC #1156. The reason music and praise songs are so important is that they combine sacred music and words. Many praise songs use words right out of the Bible. I remember when I first noticed this, I was so excited. After I went to a retreat with the Military Council of Catholic Women, I picked up a CD of Anne Trufant's music. I had no idea that Christian music was a thing. I mean, I knew we sang songs at church, but I didn’t know there was a Christian artist in all genres of music. It was the greatest discovery ever! While I was listening to this music all the time and starting to learn the words, I would then begin to see or hear the words when I was reading or listening to the Bible, or when I was in church. Over the last few years, when I talk with God about the growth in my prayer life, the deepening trust I have in Him and His plan, and the calm I am able to have in the storm, He repeatedly tells me it is due to my praise. I truly feel praise can deepen our faith more than we know. The more we praise, the more we can see the amazing things God does for us, even in the hard times. When we are focused on praise, we are focused on finding the good, even in a bad situation. Praise can be hard at times. There can be times when we feel as though we don’t have any reason to praise God. There can be times when it feels like everything is against us, and everything we try fails. When it is hard for us to praise, I think this is a sign that we need to praise all the more. The good thing about praising God is that you can do it through listening to music. You don’t even have to say anything if you don’t want to. You can let the words of the music just wash over you. The songwriters and singers of Christian music do such a good job of praising God. They have taken lyrics right from the Bible and put them to music. Not only is this good because we get to hear God’s words, but also because it helps us learn them. Matt Maher took the Our Father prayer and made it into a song with a nice beat. He did this because one of hi

Praise Series #7 Great Is The Lord, and Greatly to Be Praised Psalm 145:1-3 “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.”This is a great verse. I think if you know me at all by now, you know that I love to praise the Lord. I think He is truly amazing, and I think it is so important to tell Him that. Our Lord does so much for us every day. He gives us so much mercy and so much grace. He forgives us again and again, even though we don’t really deserve it. His love is unconditional and unending. How many people can you say that about? He performs miracles for us, just to make us happy. He doesn’t need anything from us in return. Again, how many people can you say that about? How many people do you know who will do things for you without expecting anything in return? I hope you do know at least one, because there are people out there like that, but they are certainly not the majority. This is why I love praising the Lord so much. There is little that we can give God to repay Him. There is nothing He needs from us. He is complete and totally perfect just as He is. Even though He doesn’t need anything from us, He does like it when we praise Him. Praising the Lord is something that costs us nothing but our time and is easy to do. Once you start to incorporate praising the Lord into your daily routine, you will wonder why you weren’t always doing it. It feels so good to say thank you to God for all that He does for us. The more you praise Him, the more you realize how amazing He truly is. When I attended a Life in the Spirit seminar, they gave us praise sheets so that we could participate in the praise part of the meetings. You do not need a praise sheet to praise the Lord. There is no right or wrong way to do it. However, if you are new to praising the Lord, it may feel intimidating, especially if you are in a room full of people who have been doing it for a long time. If this is your first time intentionally praising the Lord, it may feel strange. That’s normal, just keep doing it. If you are like me and most people who have never really spent time praising the Lord before, you are not really sure what to say. I understand this. I had no idea what to say at first, and even though I have been doing it at least every Thursday for the last 3 years or so, I still use the praise sheet. I like the things that are written on the sheet. I do praise on my own, with my own words at home sometimes, but I really like using the sheet. Here are some of the things that are on the praise sheet I was given.Praise you our Lord and our God, Praise your holy name, we rejoice in your presence oh Lord, Jesus you are my strength, Jesus you are my rock, Jesus you are my fortress, Jesus you are my deliver, Jesus you are my refuge, Jesus you are my shield, Jesus you are my strong hold, Jesus you are my salvation, Jesus you are my healer, Jesus you are my teacher, Jesus you are my savior, Jesus you are my advocate, Jesus you are the great amen, Jesus you are the author of life, Jesus you are the beginning in the end, Jesus you are the blessed and only ruler, Jesus you are the breath of life, Jesus you are the captain of salvation, Jesus you are the good shepherd, Jesus you are the healer, Jesus you are hope and glory.You are the Messiah, you are the fountain of life, you are the vine keep us attached to you Lord, you are the holy one of Israel, you are the Christ, the power and wisdom of God, you are the Lamb who was slain you are the word made flesh, you are the holy one who sits up on the throne, you are the living word, you are Emmanuel, you are the son of God, you set my feet are dancing, you are truth, you are loved, you are power, you are wisdom, you are the faithful one, you are our redeemer, you are the great “I AM” The list goes on, but those are several examples of the kinds of things you would find on a praise sheet. There is a great little book called “Opening The Gates of Praise” by Father John M. Capuci. The reason I say little book is because it is just 38 pages long. However, in this book, Father talks about five things. First, why do we praise? Second, what are our obstacles to praise? Third, ways to praise. Fourth, how to develop a spirit of praise. Fifth, He takes you through the steps so you can write out your own string of praise. This was a great book for explaining praise. In this book, Father has 10 great reasons why we should praise God. I am not going to read them all to you, as it is not my book; it is his. I will list a few that you may find surprising. One that I didn’t know is that praise breaks down the walls that are barriers to God’s grace. Father Capuci says, “When we praise, the walls of arrogance, self-hatred, and low self-esteem begin to be broken down. God begins the healing process in us as we go before Him, praising His most aweso

Today I have two witnesses or you. One is from a friend of mine that recently went on a vacation to see her daughter and she shares how the Lord was with her the whole time. The second one is from Matthew West’s website, called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose one testimony from the Anxiety/Depression Category. I know so many people who are struggling with anxiety and depression right now. Suicide seems to be increasing as well. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. When we hear how God worked in their situation, it gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray that when you hear these testimonies, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, too. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your anxiety and depression, He can help.First up, my friend from the prayer group.. She realized once she got to FL that she had lost her passport. She didn’t really have any other current form of ID, and so she had no idea how she would get on her plane back to MA. This is the message she wrote after she got back from her trip.I want to thank everyone who prayed for me during my trip to Florida. God showed me that He was God and that He was taking care of me. I was not supposed to board the plane without my passport, but I did. My daughter Maria and I arrived early at the airport on Monday, 11/24/25. I had a late flight. The plane was supposed to arrive at Logan at midnight. We went directly to security. When I saw the security officer, I immediately asked the Holy Trinity to soften his heart. He took my expired license. He photographed me and then let me go. He asked Maria to obtain a pass so she could stay with me. JetBlue changed my flight to an earlier one and upgraded my seat to 6F. A male passenger helped me with my bags until the wheelchair assistant arrived to help me. He brought me directly to where my ride was parked.The perfect moment arrived when I listened to my phone messages on my landline. I heard JetBlue say, "We have found your passport. Please call us at this number. I could hardly believe it. I had to set up a FedEx number so JetBlue could mail me back my passport. I received a phone call today regarding the tracking number. I should get my passport back this coming Monday. While I was in Florida, someone charged my credit card for an unauthorised transaction, but my bank caught it and prevented it from going through. They froze my card. I had to go to the bank yesterday to obtain another credit card. I can testify that the Lord is taking excellent care of me!I was mostly sick throughout my trip, but I will always be grateful to God for showing me His love and care.Brianna: From the age of 10, I was stuck with the label “child prodigy,” winning piano competitions, featured in local newspapers, and recognized as a passionate, fiery recitalist. Yet, even as a youth, I was severely depressed. I was insecure, seeking affection, and perpetually in pursuit of attaining “good enough.” Right before my 16th birthday, my world suddenly turned upside down. In an unexpected turn of events, I faced a close encounter with death, had my innocence taken, and watched helplessly as my mother’s health began to rapidly fail. Too ashamed to ask for help and blaming myself for the situation, I despairingly turned to self-harm, eating disorders, and eventually, planned my own suicide. One day, I heard the song ‘Broken Pieces’, and I found something onto which I could cling to – Truth, even when I could not feel it and it failed to make sense.Through involvement with an organization called Csehy Summer School of Music, I came to personally know Christ. For the first time in my life, I experienced peace, hope, and true joy. Dedicating my life to God, I went back home with a different perspective. My life was still intense – balancing high school and conservatory studies, living between home and the hospital, while being a full-time caretaker for my undiagnosed mother. By the grace of God, I managed to graduate as Salutatorian and get accepted into music school. However, shortly before college began, my mother passed away.I started my B.A. in piano at Charleston Southern University, using every spare moment to pour my heart out into the keys as a wordless prayer. Yet, a lingering pain in my right hand soon became constant. A few months after my mother’s funeral, I was diagnosed with severe damage in my right hand, incited by the physical strains from being a caretaker. The only option left was surgery, followed by excruciating therapy, without a guarantee of returning to the keys. My doctor strongly advi

Praise Series #6 Praise the LordPsalm 117: “Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.”Praising the Lord is so important. It is important not only when things are going well, but when things are not going so well. God can and will use all things for your good. It may feel impossible to see that when you are in it, but he will take what the devil means for harm and use it for good. I was going to say that praising God when things are going well is easy. But actually, that is not always true. A lot of times, when things are going well, we don’t think about God. We are busy just living our happy lives, and unless something comes into our lives to upset the good things we have going, we often don’t think of God.I don’t think the problem is that we don’t want to thank God for all the good he has given us; I just think that it doesn’t occur to many of us. We think more of God when we need something. When things are bad, we are quick to blame God, or to ask Him why this is happening, but when things are good we don’t think to ask God why it’s happening. What did we do right to deserve all this happiness? Why did God allow the great things to happen? Those are not questions we usually ask Him. However, he is the first to be blamed when things go wrong. Why is that? Why do we give him none of the credit when things are going right and all of the blame when things go wrong? God is there in the good and in the bad. We would be nothing, have nothing, without him. It would be so great if we could learn to praise in both good and bad situations. That probably sounds strange, praise Him in the bad situations? What am I supposed to say, thank you so much that my baby boy is sick? No, that is not what I am saying. You don’t have to thank him, but you can praise. You could say something like, “Lord, you are all-knowing, you are the great physician, and I know that you can heal my son. You are all-powerful, and your ways are better than my ways. I don’t know why this is all happening, and I know I may not understand this side of heaven. What I do know is that you love us and you want the best for us. We ask that you heal our son. We thank you so much for answering our prayers. As you have said in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given, seek, and you will find, knock, and the door will be opened.” So, Lord God, we are grateful for your hearing our prayers and answering them. We thank you for the strength you have given us, the strength to get out of bed in the morning. We love you, Lord, and we praise you for being you.” Do you see how there are ways to praise God even in an impossibly bad situation? There are plenty of bad things that happen. God does not want all these things to happen; they are not his perfect will. I don’t know why he allows bad things to happen. However, I believe, if we start praising God more in our own lives, then we will see fewer bad and more good things happen. If we can learn to praise God when we are struggling, and also remember to praise him and thank him when things are going well, I truly believe that is the way to a happier life.I have been listening to Father Mike Schmitz read the Bible in a Year podcast. We have spent quite some time now listening to the story of King David. Actually, David was discussed long before he became king. When he was just a young boy, he took a slingshot and four flat stones and defeated the giant that no one else would go near. The whole army was afraid of the giant, Goliath, but David knew God could do anything, so he was not afraid. David had a complicated life. He did so much good, and yet, he also did some really terrible things. One thing that David did really well was praising God. He thanked God when he was being blessed. He remembered to thank God when things were going well. He pointed out to all who would listen that God was the reason for his success. However, even when things were bad, he praised God. That doesn’t mean he didn’t question God. He definitely did that. He definitely asked why he had to go through things, why God was allowing them to happen, and how long the hard times would last. Then, after questioning, he usually ended up praising. The Psalms in the Bible are full of David’s praises and his questions to God. In one minute, David will be asking God how long he will have to endure this suffering, and then in the next verse, David will be praising God and thanking God for all that He has done to bless him and provide for him. I think when we start praising God more, we start to see more good things happen. I believe this happens for two reasons. First, I think God blesses us more when we remember to take a minute to thank Him and praise Him for all He has given to us. Second, I think we see more because we are looking for the good. When we stop to praise God when something good happens, then we are taking the time to not

Praise Series - Praise Is The Way Out Of The DarknessPsalm 150 “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his exceeding greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with timbrel and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud, clashing symbols! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”There is so much power in praising God, and the enemy knows that. One day, I was talking with some of the ladies in my Encounter class about dryness in prayer and when we feel we are in the darkness. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt like you are doing your part, praying to God, and yet you can’t feel Him, you can’t seem to find Him? Have you ever felt like He has abandoned you? You are not alone; this happens to everyone at some point. We had a speaker at our conference who said that when we feel like God is pulling away, that is not a bad thing; it is actually a good thing. Damian Stayne said during his talk that when we feel like God is pulling away from us, He is actually just stretching our heart muscle. If we want to grow in our faith, in our trust, in our love of God, our heart muscles must grow too. God is helping it to do that by gently pulling away at times and then coming closer. During a discussion with my friends and classmates, we talked about what we do in the dark times. One woman said she just had a few days where she felt alone. In the previous days, she had felt very close to the Lord, and it felt amazing. Then she entered a few days where she couldn’t feel the Lord. She felt alone. She said she remembered hearing somewhere that when you are in the darkness, you should praise the Lord. She decided, even though she didn’t feel like it, she would praise the Lord, and in a few days, she came out of the darkness.I may have mentioned this before, but in case you haven't heard it, Mother Teresa was known for her love of Jesus. She had a very personal, intimate encounter with Jesus on a train once, and it fortified her faith beyond words. She loved Him. When others met her, just by being around her, they came to love Jesus too. Her love for Jesus was overflowing. Mother Teresa also went through a dark time. She would go into prayer time, and she couldn’t pray; she didn’t feel God anywhere. There were times when she questioned if He existed. She knew He did, because she had seen Him, yet she didn’t feel as if He existed. This dark period for her wasn’t just a year or two; I believe it was more like 50 years. I saw one place online that said, “For nearly 50 years, Mother Teresa endured what the church calls a 'dark night of the soul' — a period of spiritual doubt, despair, and loneliness that many of the great mystics experienced, her namesake St. Therese of Lisieux included.”Can you imagine that? Fifty years of spiritual doubt, despair, and loneliness, and those around her did not know. She did share this information with her spiritual director, but most of those around her would have said she was a happy person, so full of the Light of God. She smiled often and spread God’s joy to many others. It makes me sad to think she didn’t have that joy inside of her. I pray that none of you listening to this podcast have to endure 50 years of suffering as she did. You will probably have to endure some times of darkness, times when you feel lonely, you think God has abandoned you, and so on. When this happens, remember this episode and praise God through it.I believe that praising God more is the answer to so many questions. It is the solution to so many of our problems. I was praying one time while I was out for a run, and I asked God to tell me what I was doing that was different than others. I asked Him to tell me why I was able to have such a deep trust in Him, and I really felt like He said it is because I praise Him so much. I love to listen to praise and worship music. Ever since I discovered Christian music, I have been in love with it and listen to it whenever I get the chance. Spending all this time praising God has definitely increased my faith. I have also had a practice of daily (or as close to daily as I can get) gratitude. This has really made a difference, too. I think both of these help train my mind and keep it focused on the things that are important. They keep pointing me back to Jesus.If you find yourself enduring what the church calls the “Dark night of the soul,” try praising God through it. I don’t know a lot about the “Dark Night of the Soul,” but I don’t think it is typical for it to last as long as it did for Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I believe Damian said his lasted about 10 years. However, you can also have dark periods of isolation that last just a few days, as my friend had a few weeks ago. The timing of it all is up to God. God has a purpose for this period of isolation, a

Today’s Witness Wednesday has two stories I read on Facebook. They are stories of people giving of themselves when they didn’t need to. The first one starts with one young girl's selfless acts and ends with a whole lot of people. The next one is about a man who made a lot of mistakes and yet at the end of his life does something remarkable for a little girl he didn’t even know. I pray that when you hear them, you can see God moving in the world. I pray that when you hear them, you can see that yes, there are a lot of bad things going on in the world, but there is also a lot of good. We need to focus more on the good.”My name's Walter. I'm 69. I'm the night custodian at Lincoln Middle School. Been mopping these halls for 11 years. Most folks don't even know my name. I'm just "the janitor guy' who empties trash and fixes broken lockers.But I notice things. Like locker 247, every morning, I'd find food wrappers stuffed in the vents. Candy bars, chip bags, cracker boxes. At first, I thought it was just messy kids. Then I realized someone was hiding food.One night, I stayed late. Around 8 p.m., I heard the side door creak. A girl, maybe 13, sneaked in with a backpack. Went straight to locker 247, stuffed it with grocery bags, then left quickly.The next morning, the food was gone.I didn't report it. Instead, I watched. For two weeks, the same pattern. She'd stock it at night. By morning, empty.Finally, I left a note in the locker, "You're not in trouble. I just want to help. -Walter, the custodian."The next night, she came to my supply closet. Terrified. "Please don't tell anyone," she begged. Her name was Sarah. She'd been sneaking food to three younger kids, brothers whose dad worked double shifts and forgot to buy groceries. "They're too embarrassed to ask anyone," she whispered. "So I use my lunch money and... borrow from my mom's pantry."My heart shattered."What if," I said slowly, "locker 247 just... had food in it? And nobody asked questions?"Her eyes went wide.I started small. Spent $30 of my paycheck on peanut butter, bread, juice boxes. Left it in the locker overnight. By morning, gone. So I added more. Granola bars. Apples. Crackers.Then something unexpected, I found money taped inside the locker door. $5 and a note, "I'm a teacher. I know what you're doing. Here's for more food."Then $20 from someone else. "My kid graduated from Lincoln. This school saved him. Keep going."Within a month, other staff knew. The nurse donated. The librarian brought canned soup. The gym teacher left his Costco card. "Buy in bulk," he said. "I'll cover it."Locker 247 became legendary. But quiet. No announcements. No assemblies. Just... there. A place where hungry kids could take what they needed without shame.Sarah graduated last year. Came back to see me during finals week. "Walter, I'm studying social work now," she said. "Because of you. You taught me something. Hunger hides in plain sight. But so does kindness."She handed me a photo. Locker 247, but at a different school. Across town. "My college volunteer project," she smiled. "We're putting them everywhere."I cried in my supply closet that night. Sixty-nine years old, crying over a locker.Now? Seventeen schools in our county have them. They call it "The 247 Project." Stock the locker. Ask no questions. Feed the invisible kids.I'm just a janitor. I mop floors and unclog toilets. But I learned this: Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is notice. And then quietly make space for dignity.So look around. At school, work, your neighborhood. Someone's hiding their hunger. Their struggle. Their shame.Leave something behind. Food, money, hope.Locker 247 isn't just metal and paint. It's proof that caring doesn't need permission. Just action.And it starts with seeing what everyone else walks past."Let this story reach more hearts....Please follow us: AstonishingBy Mary Nelson The Death Row DonorAt County General Hospital, 6-year-old Maya's kidneys were failing. Nine months on the transplant list, and her rare blood type meant no matches. Her tiny body was shutting down.Two hundred miles away, Marcus—a number, not a name anymore—sat in a Death Row cell. Twenty years he'd been there, waiting for an execution date for a crime that destroyed lives, including his own.In his cell, he kept one possession: a faded photo of his daughter, who died at six from sudden illness. That was 25 years ago, before everything fell apart.When the prison chaplain mentioned a public plea for Maya's rare blood type, Marcus recognized it immediately—the same type he and his daughter shared. He volunteered for testing, knowing it wouldn't change his fate. The prison board suspected manipulation. The media called it a publicity stunt.He was a perfect match.After brutal legal battles, officials approved the donation as his "final act." Yesterday, handcuffed and flanked by guards in his green jumpsuit, they brought him to meet Maya before surgery.The little girl, told only that this man was "her hel

Praise Series—God Provides In Mysterious WaysPsalm 145:14-18 “The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”There are so many good things in this passage. “The Lord lifts up all who are bowed down.” How often do we need the Lord to lift us? It is so great to know that the Lord lifts us when we pray to Him and ask Him to. When we are bowed down to the Lord, we are praying and worshipping Him. When we spend this time with Him, He can lift us. This verse helps us to see the power of praise. When we praise and worship the Lord, He lifts us to higher heights. I heard a saying once that I absolutely love and placed on the door in front of my treadmill. It says, If you complain, you remain. If you praise, you will be raised.I have seen this time and time again. I have seen the difference between people who sit and complain about their circumstances and those who can be grateful. Those who spend all their time thinking about what they don’t have and those who focus on the little that they do have. We have a choice in every situation. Are we going to turn to the Lord? Are we going to ask Him and rely on Him for all that we need? Are we going to be grateful for what is going right or focus on all that is going wrong? I promise you, if you start to focus on the good. If you start to praise the Lord for what you do have, you will get more of it.Next, the verse says, “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.” This one is a hard one for many of us. We do not want to wait for the proper time. We want things to happen on our timeline, or maybe we think our timeline is the proper time. Then we struggle when God disagrees. My dad told me a story once that shows how God will give food to those who look to him at the proper time. My mom & dad have 11 children. They also had a friend who had several children, I think at least 7. This friend called up and asked my parents if they could watch their kids, as something important had come up. My parents said yes because they were always there for those in need. However, my parents had just been talking about how they had no idea how they were even going to feed their own children dinner that night, and now they had seven more mouths to feed. So, they did what they always did in these situations: they turned their eyes to God and asked Him to provide.Shortly after their prayer, they received a knock at the door. It was a neighbor holding bags of groceries. It turns out the neighbor's father had to move in unexpectedly, and they needed to combine his father’s household with his. They had just gone grocery shopping, and so they did not have room in their cabinets for all the food from his Dad’s place. So, they asked my folks if they could use any of the food. My parents graciously accepted. When looking through the bags they notice that there was plenty of pasta. My parents prayed, “Lord, if we only had some meat, then we could serve spaghetti to all these kids.”Guess what? There was another knock at the door. It was a different neighbor. He had a cooler full of meat. He said that he and his friend had been hunting and they had too much meat. He explained that he and his friend had already stuffed their fridge and freezer, and still they had no room for this leftover meat. Again, my parents graciously accepted. Then, when they looked in the cooler, there was ground meat for spaghetti. They were so thankful. This was not a one-time thing for my parents. My parents were faithful in their prayers, not just when they were in need, but even when things were going well. God was faithful in answering them. My parents did not have a lot, and yet I didn’t hear them complain a lot. My parents knew that God was their provider. They knew that all they had came from Him, so they praised Him and thanked Him for all He gave them.Next, it says, “You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” This is another great verse. I believe that God puts our desires in our hearts. I am talking about our deep desires, not the desire to eat ice cream at midnight. The desires I am talking about are the desires to have a specific job, the desire to be married and have children, the desire to sing, or act, or whatever it is you feel you are called to do. As this verse states, God wants to satisfy the desires of every living thing. I know this can be hard to believe if you have a desire that you have been waiting for God to satisfy. Maybe you have been waiting for the right man/woman to come along so that you can be married and have children. I know it is hard when we want something, and we have to wait a very long time. Isaiah 55:9 says, “As the heavens are high

Praise Series- Praising in the WaitPsalm 40:1 “I waited and waited and waited some more, patiently, knowing God would come through for me. Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry.”My friend gave me this verse above, and I instantly loved it. I love that it captures our reality at times and also captures the love of the Father. Sometimes, we feel like we are asking and asking the Lord for something, and yet we wait and wait and see no answers to those prayers. Have you been in a season of waiting? Have you been asking the Lord for something, and yet you are still waiting for the answer to those prayers? This can be really hard. We pray to the Lord, and we want Him to help us right away, or at least I do. I really struggle at times with waiting to see the results of my prayers. This is especially true if I am praying over someone for healing.I struggle because I know how powerful God is, and I know He can heal anyone at any time. I struggle because I don’t believe he wants to see anyone struggle, and yet He doesn’t heal everyone, and He definitely doesn’t heal everyone the second we pray for healing. So, we end up doing what this verse says: we wait, and we wait, and we wait. Sometimes we wait patiently, as this verse says, and sometimes, not so patiently. It all depends on our circumstances at the time. One thing I like about this verse is that it says I waited patiently because I knew God would come through for me. This is important for us all to remember. God will come through. It is also important to remember that His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.If I can remember this, I could wait more patiently. I need to remember that God knows what He is doing and that His plan is better than my plan. He is the creator of the Universe; of course, His plan is better than my plan. If he is not healing someone right away, there is a reason for it. I don’t have to know that reason, I just have to know that He has one.One way to remind myself that God has a plan and to trust that God will come through is to think back to all the times He has come through in the past. When did the Lord come through for you? When in the past did you wait on the Lord, and then he answered your prayers? I know for me, He has always come through, and sometimes I ask for some pretty big things. When I asked the Lord to heal my niece and let her live, He did, and we didn’t even have to wait very long. Well, I am sure it felt like a long four months in the hospital before she could come home. When I asked him to help my son get off of drugs, He did. When I asked Him to take away my dad’s pain, He did. When I asked Him to take away my sister’s pain, He did. When I asked Him to save my marriage, He did. God has come through for us more times than I can count, and this is why I can wait patiently. I know He will always come through for me. He will always come through for you, too! We just have to wait longer than we would like at times.I love that this verse says, “Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry.” I love this because it shows the Father as a loving father. It shows that He cares about us. It doesn’t just say they finally heard us. I love that it says he bent down and listened to my cry. What I picture is a loving Father who bends down to listen to me cry. He doesn’t just stand there and let our cries go up to his ears. He bends down to show us we have His attention. I picture Jesus; since we don’t really know what God looks like, bending down, and I picture us as little children whispering our requests into his ear. It's almost like we are telling Him a secret, one that no one knows.I love to picture the Father like this. I think if we read more verses like this, we begin to see God as our loving Father rather than a stern Father figure who is judging us and just waiting to call us out on everything we are doing wrong. God loves us, and He wants to answer our prayers. However, like a loving Father, He also knows that when we ask for something that is not good for us or that we are not quite ready for. He knows this, so he either gives us something else or waits until we are ready. God is so good!One thing that I have found really helps in the waiting is praising the Lord. If we are going to have to wait anyway, then how are we going to spend that time? We could spend it complaining about the wait and how miserable we are, or we can spend it praising the Lord for the good He does every single day and for the good we know He will do when He answers our prayers. Which would serve you better? Which would be a better way to pass the time? God is good. If you look back over your lives, I am sure you can see many ways in which He has come through for you. It might not always be exactly how you would like or when you would like, but He does always show up.If things have been bad for a really long time and you honestly can’t think of a time when God has come through for you, then praise Him for w

Praise Series — God Is Not Punishing You!Psalm 103:8-10, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”Praising the Lord when we are in a good place is one thing. It is a completely different story when we are struggling. One reason is that we might think we are going through this hard time because God is punishing us. I was praying for someone who was suffering from tinnitus. While I was praying with him, he mentioned that he thinks he has tinnitus because God didn’t want him to listen to so much music and wanted him to pray silently more. If you lose your job or even if you lose a loved one you may believe that these bad things are happening because of something bad you have done in the past. We are all sinners and we may feel like God is punishing us for our sins.I want to reassure each of you that God is not punishing you! I am 100% sure of this! God does not punish us. God is only good. If you want proof that God does not punish us, you can look at today’s Psalm. Psalm 103:8-10, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” God does not create the bad things that are happening in our lives. You did not get cancer because you had an affair. You did not have a miscarriage because you don’t go to church. God is not punishing you. God did not do this bad thing to you.God is all-powerful and all-knowing. If he wants you to learn a lesson, he can teach it to you in a million different ways. He doesn’t have to have you get sick before you turn to Him. Just because God can use this awful tragedy or the illness for your good doesn’t mean He gave it to you. God does not create illness. He is a healer. God is love and mercy. God blesses people; He does not curse them.If you need another scripture verse, look at Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Condemnation (punishment) is not for those who belong to Christ. God does not punish His children—He saves and restores them. John 3:17 states, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. The central message is that Jesus's mission was not to judge and punish humanity, but to offer a way to be freed from sin and its consequences.It is easier for many of us to believe that Jesus wouldn’t punish us, but harder for us to believe that God does not punish us. God is a good and loving Father. Regardless of what our own father was like, God is always good and always loving. It is hard for us to believe things if we have no frame of reference for them. I think part of the reason I can believe that God is a good Father who loves me and doesn’t want to punish me is because my own father was a good example of God’s love to me. I am not saying I never got into trouble as a kid. I did occasionally do things that weren’t ok. I did get in trouble. But my parents did not condemn me or make me feel shame for what I did. They gave me consequences so I would learn not to do it again, but they didn’t punish me.I know that I am lucky and that so many kids don’t grow up with a loving, caring example of a Father. In the United States, 1 in 4 kids grows up without a dad in the home. That means 25% of kids in America are growing up without a dad. In the 2020 Census, there were 18.4 million kids who were living without their biological dad. It is easy to see how the view of God got so distorted. We are living in a world of broken people. We are all just doing the best we can, and yet the best for so many of us is not good enough. These are just the kids who grow up without a dad. We also have the kids who grow up with an abusive dad. If so many people have no reference for a father who loves you unconditionally and who would never hurt you, then how are they supposed to understand that God could actually love them like that?If none of those other scripture verses convinced you that God is not punishing you, hopefully this one will. Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”Jesus took the full punishment, so we don’t have to. What we receive now is peace, not wrath. Do we deserve to be punished? Absolutely. Every single one of us has done something wrong, deserving of punishment. However, that is why God sent Jesus to us. Jesus came to save us from the punishment we deserved. "Jesus died the death we deserved, so we might live the life he earned.”Why would God send his only Son to earth to die a gruesome death if he was just going to punish us for all we did anyway? If God is punishing you for your sins, why did J

Praise Series-Sacrifice is the Heart of WorshipPsalm 95:6-8 “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!”This verse was received at the prayer group yesterday, and when I read it this morning, I thought it would be a great one for today’s devotional. It talks about worshiping the Lord and hearing the Lord’s voice. These are both things I love to talk about, so it seemed perfect. I also think they are great topics to end the week with. I believe the world could be a much better place if more of us were worshipping the Lord instead of all the things in this world that we worship.I was listening to Father Mike Schmitz's sermon from Sunday, October 27th, yesterday on Spotify, and I really enjoyed it. He talked about how the heart of worship is sacrifice. He said you can tell how important something is to someone by what they are willing to sacrifice for it. I thought this was interesting and also challenging at the same time. Everything involves a sacrifice or at least a giving of something. For instance, if you want to eat healthily, you need to give up your soda, your junk food, and your comfort foods. If you want to watch TV, you need to give up that time that could have been spent doing something else. If you want to worship God, you need to give Him your time.Father Mike talked about one of the most important times to worship the Lord in Jewish culture: Passover. He described how the Jewish people would sacrifice a lamb to the Lord at Passover. However, they wouldn’t just buy a lamb and then sacrifice it. They would buy a lamb the Sunday before Passover, and they would bring this lamb into their home. They would live with this lamb for a week. They would begin to care for this lamb, and they may even love this lamb by the end of the week, as they have just spent the week taking care of it. Then, they would carry this lamb upon their shoulders and bring it to the temple to sacrifice it to the Lord. They would do this every year. All this talk about sacrifice being the heart of worship really challenged me. It challenged me because I am in a season where sacrifice is hard for me. Well, true and meaningful sacrifice is hard for me. These days, it seems I am all too happy to sacrifice my productive time so that I can watch TV. However, what am I getting from the TV? What is that saying about what I am worshipping? I am really struggling with sacrificing for the Lord. My heart wants me to fast, and my brain finds all these reasons why I can’t. My heart wants to spend more time alone with the Lord, and yet I find myself watching TV instead.I am not sure why sacrifice is so hard for me right now. Sometimes, it comes much easier. I used to be pretty good at fasting or not watching TV. I am not sure why it is more of a struggle these days, other than the fact that life is not always linear. I heard this term when I was teaching about the dark night of the soul, and I think it not only applies to that, but it applies to all of life. Sometimes, we can think that life is like a mountain we are climbing, and we climb this mountain slowly and steadily, and then we reach the top. However, have you ever really climbed a mountain or seen someone climb a mountain? Yes, slow and steady is a good pace, but you aren’t always moving forward. Sometimes, you slip and fall. Sometimes, you catch yourself right away, and other times, you slide down a bit before getting back up again. Sometimes, there will be a big cliff you can’t climb directly, so you need to take another path, which might not be headed up the mountain, but rather around the mountain until you find a safe way up the mountain.Do you see how walking up the mountain is probably not just a straight path up? Life is like this. It is not linear, meaning we go from one step to the next to the next. Sometimes, we go to the next step, and then we regress back three steps, then we take the next right step. Life is a process. It is one we all go through, and I am sure if you look over your life, you will see that it didn’t always feel like you were moving forward. Sometimes, it felt like you were moving backward.I think going into this weekend, we can remember what Father Mike said about the sacrifice being the heart of worship. How can we worship the Lord better this weekend? What can we sacrifice in order to show our love for the Lord? If we look at what we are already sacrificing in our lives, that will show us what we are worshiping right now in our lives. What are you worshiping? For me, I think it is food and TV, but I wish it was the Lord. This weekend I will spend some time talking with the Lord and seeing what He thinks I should be sacrificing.Which brings me to the second part of this verse. The last line of this verse says, “ For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his han

Today’s Witness is from a very dear friend of mine. It is her testimony of how she forgave someone who did the unthinkable to her. She is a wonderful woman who has such a strong love for Jesus. She is a mother of two kids and a wife. She is a photographer, a karate champion, and so much more! You can hear in her voice just how excited she is for this breakthrough. God is so good! We have all seen God working in our lives. However, we might not all be aware it is God working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience of how God has worked or is working in your life, please email me at [email protected] or click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. Music:"Adding the Sun"fine us. It is not fun, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com CLICK HERE TO DONATE CLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emails CLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily life CLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Matthew 18:21-22 “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”A few of the ladies from my prayer group and I attended a bootcamp to teach us about the unbound method of deliverance. Unbound is a method of setting people free from the things that weigh them down. Sometimes we open doors to the enemy in ways we didn’t know and Unbound helps us close those doors. There are 5 Keys in the Unbound program. The five keys are: Repenting of sin and expressing faith in Jesus; forgiving oneself and others; renouncing the lies, spirits, and tactics of Satan; taking authority over the works of Satan; receiving the Father's blessing. When you go through an Unbound session you meet with someone and they walk you through each of these keys. In our first night of training we covered an intro and then we learned about the first two keys. The first one was repenting of sin and expressing faith in Jesus. We all sin, it is a part of our daily life, and yet when we sin in hurts our relationship with God. When we sin we are opening a door for the enemy to come in. Repentance for our sins is a big part of our freedom. If we truly want to be free we can’t have our sins hanging over us. One way our sins can invite the enemy in is because He will then use that sin to make us ashamed of what we did. Shame is straight from hell, it is not from God. Once we start to feel ashamed then we pull away and we tend to isolate because we feel as though we aren’t worthy of anything. Once we repent we bring our sins out of the darkness and into the light and they no longer have hold over us. The second key we talked about is forgiveness. This is the one that left the biggest impression on me. This is the one that I don’t think we realize how important it is. I remember when I was at a Bible study and they were talking about forgiveness. We were talking about Matthew 6:14, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” When they said that God forgives us the same way we forgive those who trespass against us I was so surprised. I had no idea what they were talking about. Now, I have been a Catholic for my whole life and this was only about 10 years ago. I have probably said the Our Father prayer more times than I can count and yet I never really put two and two together. Have you ever had a time when you heard something or realized something and it was life changing for you? I can remember two times this has happened for me with scripture. The first one was when I discovered Romans 8:11, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” When I discovered we have the power of the one who raised Jesus from the dead, the same power Jesus had, that was life changing for me. The second time was when I discovered what I am really saying when I say the Our Father prayer. “Forgive us O Lord as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Did you know that is what you are saying? How many times do you say that prayer, have you said that prayer? If you say the rosary every day you have said it at least 6-5 times daily. When I heard this I was determined to learn how to forgive better. I was determined to not hold things against people. I have done my best to do this. Over the course of the last 10 years have a learned quite a bit about forgiveness in my quest to become better at it. First I learned what forgiveness is and is not. Forgiveness is making a decision that you are no longer going to give the thing that happened any space in your brain anymore. You are not going to think about it and you are not going let it dictate what you do and how you act. Forgiveness is an act of the will, it is not a feeling. You can, not feel like forgiving someone and yet you can still forgive them. You can forgive someone and yet not feel like anything has changed. Forgiveness is not saying the thing that the other person did was ok, it was not. When you forgive you are not letting the other person off the hook and condoning their behavior. Forgiveness is making a decision to turn the judgement over to God. Forgiveness is making a decision that you are no longer going to let the unforgiveness eat you up inside. The person you are refusing to forgive probably has moved on and your unforgiveness is not bothering them at all. The analogy that I have heard time and time again about forgiveness is that it is like taking a little sip of poison every single day with the expectation that the other person will die. I know you are angry, hurt, sad, I am sure you have every right to be and also, as long as you keep thinking about it and refusing to forgive, you can’t really heal. I talk to people I know about unforgiveness all

Come As You Are Series -- MaryLuke 1:38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.”I have been hesitant to talk about Mary in our Come As You Are series. I am not sure why. Part of it was that there was so much you could say about her. Another part of it was that we may feel we can't relate to Mary. She is amazing and so brave, and is the Mother of Jesus. What could we possibly have in common with her?I went online to learn more about Mary before she became the Mother of Jesus. Scripture does not tell us a lot about her before the Angel Gabriel visited her. There are a few things they do tell us and then there are a few things that we can learn from historical context. We know she was a woman living in her time.Here are a few things we know about Mary.1. She lived in NazarethLuke 1:26 says the angel Gabriel was sent “to a virgin in Nazareth.”Nazareth was a tiny, poor, obscure village — maybe 200–400 people.Nothing “good” came from there (John 1:46 “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”)This tells us: Mary was from a humble, ordinary, overlooked place.2. She was a virgin engaged to JosephLuke 1:27 “to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.”Engagement (betrothal) in Jewish culture was legally binding — more serious than a modern engagement.This tells us: She was likely between 13–16 years old, a normal age for betrothal.3. She was deeply faithful and knew ScriptureMary’s song, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), is filled with: Quotes from Psalms, Echoes of Hannah’s prayer (1 Samuel 2), Old Testament theology about God’s mercy, justice, and covenantThis tells us: She had a heart soaked in God’s Word long before Gabriel appeared.4. She was humbleHer response to Gabriel: “I am the servant of the Lord…” (Luke 1:38)Her song: “He has looked on the humble state of His servant” (Luke 1:48)This tells us: Humility wasn’t something she learned after meeting Jesus — it was already who she was.5. She found favor with God before she was chosenLuke 1:28: “You are highly favored.”Luke 1:30: “You have found favor with God.”This tells us: She already lived a life that pleased God — long before she carried Jesus.Now that we know a bit more about Mary, we can see that there may be some similarities.Here is a summary of the things we know about Mary. She was a young teen, living in an obscure, poor town. She had little earthly status, but had a deep love for God. She was humble, faithful, and obedient. She really knew her Scripture. God already favored her at a young age.Some of this we might relate to, and some of it we might not. Many can relate to growing up in an obscure place or feeling out of place in our community. We talked about this when we talked about Gideon. He was a man from the weakest clan in Manasseh and, by his own admission, the least in his family. Yet the angel of God called him a “mighty warrior.” What about you? What do you call yourself? What does your family call you? Do they see the amazing person that God sees, or do they just see you as a friend, a mom, a dad, a sibling? I know my kids are always surprised when I know something they don't think I should know. To them, I am just mom. They don't see me as someone who has her master’s degree or someone who has written books and started her own business. They just see me as mom.I doubt many people from Mary’s town would have looked at her and said, “She is going to be the mother of our Savior one day.” I doubt they looked at her and saw anything special. If the days when she lived were anything like when I was young, then she was probably an outcast, as those who love God tend to be outcasts. People don’t understand why we love God so much. They don't understand why we would choose Him over all the “fun” things to do in this world.I was told by a priest one time how Mary and Joseph got engaged. He said that Mary had made a vow to the Lord to remain a virgin. The unmarried men in the area gathered to see who would marry this young woman who wanted to remain a virgin. They all threw their staffs in a pile, and when Joseph threw his in the pile, flowers grew out of it. This is why you will often see Joseph depicted with a staff with flowers growing out of it. When I looked up this story online, I found that this story is from the apocrypha (ancient books not considered reliable enough to be included in the Bible). There, the Protoevangelium of James claims that when young Mary wanted to dedicate herself as a perpetual virgin at the Temple, the high priest prayed for direction. An angel then told him to gather all of the unmarried men of the area, and have each one bring his rod (generally thought to be a walking stick or staff) to the temple “and to whomsoever the Lord shall show a sign, his wife shall she be…and Joseph took his rod last; and behold, a dove came out of the rod, and flew upon Joseph’s head. And the priest said to Joseph, ‘

Though We Stumble, We Shall Not FallPsalm 37:23-24 “Our steps are made firm by the Lord, when he delights in our way; though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong, for the Lord holds us by the hand.”I have read that verse several times today and yet this time when I read it I got the image of toddler walking along the sidewalk while he is holding his daddy’s hand. When we are just learning to walk we definitely stumble and sometimes we even fall. We fall because we are learning something new. We fall because we are letting go of the safety of the wall, couch, or coffee table and venture out on our own. It is not a bad thing when we fall as long as we get back up and try again. It is expected to take time to learn something new. It is part of the journey. If we never let go of that safety net we will never learn what we are capable of. What I love about this verse though is that it says we will stumble, but we will not fall because God hold us by the hand. God allows us to venture out into the unknown, but we are not alone. He doesn’t send us out alone, he holds our hand. He allows us to stumble, but we don’t fall headfirst into the ground. We stumble and He steadies us. To me that is a great image. The beginning line of this verse says, “Our steps are made firm by the Lord, when he delights in our way.” I found the word “when” an interesting addition to this sentence. I was wondering why it was there. I know the words in the Bible are chosen carefully so what does that first sentence mean? The first thought that came to me was maybe when our steps are unsteady and weak, we aren’t doing what the Lord wants us to do. Maybe we are like a child venturing out on our own. We aren’t waiting for the Lord to hold our hand, we are just heading out without him. Have you ever done this? Saw something you wanted and went after it. You didn’t stop to ask God if it was right for you? You didn’t stop to weigh the pros and cons, you didn’t really give it much thought at all. It all seemed too good to be true and so you ran after it. Yep, me too. How did it work out for you? Was it all you thought it would be? The thought that keeps coming up in my mind is, “Not every opportunity is from God.” If something feels too good to be true, this is a great time to pause and examine the situation. I am definitely an optimist so you won’t find me raining on your parade. Maybe it is exactly what you have been praying for. Maybe God gave this opportunity to you as an answer to your prayers. God does do amazing things. Often times God’s plan do seem too good to be true. This is not me telling you if it seems too good to be true it probably is. What I am saying is if the opportunity is from God He won’t mind if you pause to consult Him about it. He will like it if you take time to pray about it. Even if that time is 5 minutes. A job may come up and you may not have a lot of time to consider it, that’s ok. Take a few minutes, catch your breath and ask God what He thinks. Ask Him for guidance and see what he says, or how you feel about the job after you have talked to God about it. Have you ever rushed into the perfect opportunity because you thought it was the answer to your prayers and it wasn’t? This can happen when we don’t stop and invite God into our decision making. For instance, we have been praying for more money and then a promotion becomes available. We decide, without talking to God, this promotion is the answer to all of our prayers. However, when we get the promotion we find out it has a lot of travel attached to it, or longer hours and now we never get to spend time with our family. Not every opportunity is from God. Sometimes the enemy offers us things that seem like what we want but aren’t actually good for us. For instance we want to be rich and powerful and we achieve it and yet we are not happy. These opportunities, or maybe the desires, might be from the enemy. We live in a fast paced world and sometimes it seems like we have to do everything so quickly. We feel as though we don’t have 5 minutes to stop and think. If you don’t have time to pause and consult the Lord then I don’t believe that opportunity is from the Lord. I think that is the enemy trying to get you to make decisions based on your feelings instead of your thoughts. Our feelings can betray us. When we are acting solely upon our feelings we are letting go of God’s hand and telling Him we can walk on our own. We are telling God we don’t need Him. Our feelings don’t have our overall best interest at heart. Our feelings are based on our temporary happiness. Their goal is to make us feel good in the moment. For instance, we might eat some macaroni and cheese for dinner because are feeling sad today and want to feel happy. However, how is that macaroni and cheese going to make you feel when you no longer fit into your clothing. We might take a job that seems good and pays a lot of money because we feel scared that we won’t have enough money to pay the bills. Ho

Come As You Are Series - The Woman Who Anointed Jesus’ FeetLuke 7:47 "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”I usually don’t have a scripture verse for these episodes in advance. I usually ask God to give me one right before I write it, or I look in my Encounter Ministry notes, or my prayer group notes. However, yesterday, when I was listening to another podcast, this story from the Bible came to me clear as day. This is not necessarily strange because, as you know, I sometimes get my episode ideas from other podcasts like The Big Life Devotional, Elevation, or Father Mike’s podcasts. However, this time the podcast I was listening to was not talking about this story at all. The story just popped into my head, and I felt as if that was definitely the verse I was supposed to use today. I chose Luke 7:47 as the main verse because that was the main point I felt the Holy Spirit emphasized when I got the verse; however, it probably won’t make any sense without the context of the whole story. The story is called “Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman,” and it is found in Luke 7:36-50. “When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now, which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”Actually, now that I am writing, I see why this came to me while I was listening to the other podcast. The Big Life Devotional Podcast with Pamela Crim was talking about loving other people yesterday. As soon as she said Do we love others, this story came to mind. I think the point the Holy Spirit wanted me to make is about forgiveness. In this verse, Jesus is forgiving this woman of her sins. The reason she was crying and was washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointing them with perfume is that she knew all of her sins. She didn’t come into that house pretending to be anything different. She knew she was full of sin and that she was in the presence of the Lord. She knew she had a lot to repent for, and she knew Jesus could forgive her sins. She wasn’t afraid to approach Jesus. She didn’t let her sins keep her from coming into the presence of God. She approached him, bowed at his feet, and washed his feet. She humbled herself with the faith that she would be forgiven. Today’s verse says, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” The person who owned the house was thinking in his head that Jesus didn’t know all of her sins. He was thinking if Jesus were a prophet, he would know her sins, and he would not let her touch Him. What Jesus is saying here is that if she weren’t a great sinner, if she didn’t really have many sins, she wouldn’t have humbled herself, she wouldn’t have sat at his feet and washed them with her tears. She loved Jesus so much because she knew how much sin she had and how great a thing it was for Him to forgive it all. She loved Him so much because she had so much sin. What the Holy Spirit was saying to me yesterday was that we should be more loving to others because we have been forgiven so much also. I feel like I am struggling to get you to see what the Holy Spirit was showing me, and yet I am trusting what He wants you to hear; you will hear. What he showed me was that we struggle to forgive

Today's Witness Wednesday is from Chicken Soup for the Soul "A Book of Miracles" 101 True Stories of Healing, Faith, Divine Internvention, and Answered Prayers by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and LeAnn Theiman. Today's witness is about a woman who found out she had 5 weeks to live and yet God had other plans. We have all seen God working in our lives. However, we might not all be aware it is God working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience of how God has worked or is working in your life, please email me at [email protected] or click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. Music: "Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com CLICK HERE TO DONATE CLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emails CLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily life CLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Words Have Power to Bless or to WoundJames 1:19 “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”This verse really hit home with me this morning. It was the subject of the daily devotional I am reading, “Jesus Calling.” Actually, it wasn’t even today’s message. I am behind because I was on vacation and I wasn’t doing my normal morning routine. This morning I got up and decided I would do two devotionals so I can try to catch up to where I should be. This book is so good. I always really enjoy the devotionals. The reason I say this morning's devotional hit home for me is that I know how important words can be, and I know how much what we can say can hurt others. I just got back from a family vacation with my husband, all three of our boys, and my husband’s whole family, his mom and dad, his brother and his wife, and their two girls. This is one of our favorite times of the year. It is so nice to get to spend a whole week with family. We get to hang out and talk. We get to play lots of games, especially with his mom and dad. My youngest two boys love to play with their two girls. They play all different board games and card games. It is music to my ears to hear them talking and laughing. The place we go to is a campground in Maine. We stay in a cabin with no internet. There is internet at the lodge, which is open 8-7, but not in our cabins. There is a TV, but it doesn’t have cable; you can just watch movies on it. I love this because it means we have so much more time to talk and to visit. However, as you can imagine, my kids do not love this. Two of them really enjoy playing games with their cousins, playing chess with their Pop (Tony’s dad), and playing Parcheesi with both Tony’s parents. They also really enjoy it when we rent a boat and they get to go out in the boat and go fishing, or when we pull them behind the boat on a boogie board. However, that still leaves a lot of time when they are bored. They do not enjoy the fact that there is no Wifi. They miss talking with their friends on the computer and playing video games with their friends. Also, this year was super hot, and the cabins are not air-conditioned. Since our house is air-conditioned, they are not used to sleeping in such hot temperatures. Some parts of the trip were difficult for them.Our oldest really did not enjoy the vacation. He really liked spending time talking with Tony’s brother, and he got to play chess with Pop a few times, but most of the time, he was unhappy. I did go out and get him a fan at one point, and he was much more comfortable after that, but he still was very unhappy. He is the reason this verse hit home today. When he is unhappy or angry, he says things he doesn’t mean. He is really struggling right now, and being away from his friends and his work for a week was more than he could take. Each day, at least once a day, he would start to say very unkind things. Not because he really thinks those things were true, but because he was upset, and that is how he acts when he is upset. I don’t know why he does this. It is not something new; he has done this ever since he was little. In the moment, when he is angry, he does not care what he is saying or who he is hurting. However, afterwards, he feels really bad about it. I wish he could hear this verse and adopt this principle. I am going to write it on a sticky note for him, because I know he doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to feel this way; he doesn’t want to say unkind things and then feel bad about it later. He needs help learning to control what he says, and it is not human help he needs. He needs the Lord’s help. I know my son is not the only one who says things they don’t mean when they are angry. We have all done this before. I thought I would read you the devotional I read this morning because it really explains this verse well and how important it is to watch our words. “Watch your words diligently. Words have such great power to bless or to wound. When you speak carelessly or negatively, you damage others as well as yourself. This ability to verbalize is an awesome privilege, granted only to those I created in my image. You need help in wielding this mighty power responsibly. Though the world applauds quick-witted retorts, my instructions about communication are quite different: “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” Ask my spirit to help you whenever you speak. I have trained you to pray – "Help me, Holy Spirit" – before answering the phone, and you have seen the benefits of this discipline. Simply apply the same discipline to communicating with people around you. If they are silent, pray before speaking to them. If they are talking, pray before responding. These are split-second prayers, but they put you in touch with my presence. In this way, your speaking comes under the control of my spirit. As positive speech patterns replace your negative ones, the increase in your joy will a

We Are More Than Conquerors Through Him Who Loved UsRomans 8:35-39 “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”This scripture verse is letting us know that there is nothing that we can do that will separate us from God’s love. It is also telling us that we should not interpret the bad things that are happening in our lives as proof that God has stopped loving us. God will continue to love us forever. There is nothing that we can do to change this. The verse is asking us if hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword will separate us from Christ. This is a tough question because these things can separate us if we let them. One really important part of this verse is when it says, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Do you need to hear that again? “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”If this is the case, then why do we feel so defeated at times? Some of the things listed above can absolutely separate us from Christ if we let them. Have you ever gone through a hardship and instead of feeling closer to God, you felt farther away? Have you ever struggled to see where God was in all of your pain? This can happen to a lot of people. I just heard about a couple that lost one of their 6-month-old twins. Loss of a child is something that can really strain your relationship with God. Losing a loved one is always hard. However, losing a child has got to be one of the hardest things to understand. It makes no sense to us. Why did she have to die? Why would God do this to their family? Why wouldn’t God heal her, as we know that He can? When we are hurting, we tend to lash out and we try to find someone to blame. God is a good candidate as He is strong and He can take our anger. God doesn’t mind when we yell at Him, as He understands what we are going through. The problem is when we don’t process our anger and our grief, and we stay mad at God. If we are able to lean into God instead of turning away from Him in anger, God can give us the strength to get back up again after we have been knocked down. God can ease our pain and help us to get out of bed in the morning. God can help us find a reason to go on. We can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us. We can defeat the grief we feel if we turn to God and ask Him to help us. The same is true with any hardship you are going through. Maybe you have lost your job, and you don’t know how you are going to provide for your family right now. Turn to God, and He will help you provide. He will provide for you if you ask Him to. He is amazing!What about persecution and famine, could that separate you from Christ? I can see how it could. If you are being persecuted for your beliefs, you may start to hide your beliefs more so that you fit in with the crowd. You may even compromise your beliefs just so that you do not get persecuted anymore. Today, when I was listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, Father Mike read from 2 Maccabees 6. It told the story of a wise old man named Eleazar. The Greeks were trying to get the Jews to become more like the Greeks. They were trying to force Eleazar to eat pork, which was against Jewish laws. His friends were telling him that it would be ok, he could eat whatever meat he wanted to eat, but it would look like he was eating the pork. The Greeks wouldn’t know the difference, and Eleazar wouldn’t have to die. However, Eleazar refused, saying that if people saw him eat the meat and thought that he had gone against the Lord’s law, then they too might sin, and He couldn’t do that. Eleazar was able to withstand the persecution, but what about those who didn’t? Persecution and famine can definitely mess with your head. Most of us don’t want to die, especially if that dying involves torture and a painful death. We also don’t want to starve to death. When you don’t have anything to eat and you haven’t had anything for a very long time, you will do something that you normally wouldn’t. The same goes for how you act when your life is on the line. These things don’t have to separate us from the Lord. If we turn to Him and ask Him for help, we will get the help we are looking for. Remember, it says right in this verse that, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” We can conquer anything with Christ. He is there for us, and He will help us get through whatever it is we are going through. The only thing we n

Come As You Are Series - The Prodigal SonLuke 15:20-24 “So he set out for his father’s house. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quickly bring out the finest robe we have and put it on him. Place a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us celebrate with a feast. For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life. He was lost, and now he has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.”I really like hearing other people talk about the various aspects of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It seems like such a straightforward story to me, at least at first glance. For those who are not aware of the story, let me read it to you.Luke 15:11-32 “The Parable of the Lost (or Prodigal) Son. Then he said: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that I will inherit.’ And so the father divided the property between them.“A few days later, the younger son gathered together everything he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissolute living. When he had spent it all, a severe famine afflicted that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who sent him to his farm to feed the pigs. He would have willingly filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. “Then he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more food than they can consume, while here I am, dying of hunger. I will depart from this place and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me like one of your hired workers.” ’“So he set out for his father’s house. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quickly bring out the finest robe we have and put it on him. Place a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us celebrate with a feast. For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life. He was lost, and now he has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.“Now the elder son had been out in the fields, and as he returned and drew near the house, he could hear the sounds of music and dancing. He summoned one of the servants and inquired what all this meant. The servant replied, ‘Your brother has come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The elder son then became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him, but he said to his father in reply, ‘All these years I have worked like a slave for you, and I never once disobeyed your orders. Even so, you have never even given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours returns after wasting his inheritance from you on prostitutes, you kill the fatted calf for him.’ “Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are with me always, and everything I have is yours. But it was only right that we should celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and now he has been found.’ ”I have heard many people talk about this one parable. Some have focused on the younger son, who took his father’s money and left. Some focus on the father and his willingness and eagerness to forgive. Others focus on the older son who stayed and worked his father’s land. Every time I listen to someone explain this story, I always learn something new. No matter how many times this story is explained, there is a whole new level I didn’t know about. It truly amazes me. Today I want to explain one small part of it that Father Mike explained on day #319 of the Bible in A Year podcast. I thought it was so great, and I think everyone should hear how he explains the interaction between the younger son and his father when he comes home. Father Mike explains that when the younger son is leaving, he is saying he doesn’t want anything to do with his father. He takes the inheritance and leaves. Then he comes home because he is starving. Father Mike and Stephanie Parks, who work for Focus, created this retreat called the Prodigal Son Retreat, and it focuses on the four things the father said when the son came home.First, what does it mean that the father gives him the best robe? In the ancient world, one

Come As You Are Series - BartimaeusMark 10:46-52 “Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately, he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.”How many of us have the faith of this man that Jesus healed? He was sitting on the side of the road, and when he heard Jesus was passing by, he called out to him. The crowd of people told him to be silent, but he continued to call out. How many of us listen when others tell us to be silent? Or worse yet, we don’t feel worthy enough to speak up in the first place, or we are too nervous to speak out and ask for help, fearing rejection. Bartimaeus did not listen when others told him to be quiet. He kept calling out. He believed that Jesus could heal him, and he was not going to let the chance pass him by. Once Jesus heard him calling out, Jesus told the crowd to call him over. When the crowd told Bartimaeus that Jesus would see him, the bible says, “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.” How great is that? How many of us are jumping up at Jesus’ call? I know it’s different. Jesus was right there, and he got to see him and talk to him. However, we can also talk to Jesus at any time we want to. Even though we cannot see him, he is calling us to him. He wants to invite us into a deeper relationship with him. Do we hear this call? Do we jump up, throw our cloak aside and run to him when we are called? I love the faith that Bartimaeus had. He knew Jesus could heal him. He did not seem to have any doubt that Jesus could cure his blindness. He also didn’t seem to doubt that Jesus would want to help him or to question whether he was worthy enough. He saw Jesus walking by and called out to him. Do we do this? Jesus is here for us; he wants us to call out and to rely on Him. Are we doing that? It seems each week at my Prayer Group, God is showing up for us, and he is telling us to come closer. He keeps telling us to rely on him, that he is our protection and our refuge. Why are we not calling on him more? When Jesus healed Bartimaeus, He said, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” How great would it be to hear those words from Jesus?One scripture verse that I think is amazing and that I struggle with is Mark 11:22. This verse is Jesus’ reply to the cursed fig tree. Jesus said to them in reply, “Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him.” This is the type of faith that I strive for, yet I sometimes wonder if it’s possible. I wonder if there are humans who can have this type of faith? I know that God can do anything. I truly believe this. And yet, when I think of myself commanding a mountain to be lifted up and thrown into he see, I can’t seem to wrap my head around that. I have searched for this type of faith for a very long time now. Probably since the first time I actually heard this scripture and let it sink in. The very next verse is Mark 11:23, “Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.” This again just blows me away. All that you ask for shall be yours if you believe. That seems like a lot of pressure, and at the same time, a huge promise on God’s part. As I mentioned earlier, ever since I heard scripture like this, I have sought out this type of faith. I would love to believe without a shadow of a doubt that God can do all the things I ask Him to do, that He will answer all of my prayers. I find it a struggle to believe as much as I would like to, and I wonder if this is because I have a human brain and we were trained from an early age not to believe in things that we can’t see or prove. We were mostly taught that there are certain things that can be done and things that can’t be done. I think as humanity grows, we are learning to question that more and more. But it takes time to overcome years of that type of thinking. I thought I would share one way I have been able to deepen my trust and faith that God can do all He says He can do. I read books about all the miracles God has done and continues to do. I love reading books about healing. God is truly amazing, and He performs miracles every single day. If we were jus

Today’s Witness Wednesday is about my trip to Ecuador. Let me explain in a bit more detail how and why I decided to go to Ecuador. My brother-in-law, Daniel’s best friend, has been in the hospital for a month now. He had a heart attack and then a stroke. Daniel sent me a message asking me to pray for his friend Anival. I then sent this prayer request out to all those I know who could pray for him. Everyone started to pray for him, and I asked Daniel for an update. He said he was still in a coma and they were waiting for him to wake up so they could do the CT scan. However, they were decreasing the sedation, and he wasn’t waking up.Then Daniel asked me for more prayers as they did the CT scan, and it said that there was more damage than they thought. It showed that he still had oxygen bubbles in his brain. When I got this text message from Daniel, I relayed it to all those who were praying for him, as I feel the more specific we can pray for someone, the better, as it shows all the more glory to God when he answers our specific prayers. Then I got another message from Daniel a week or so later, saying that Anival got worse and they need him to start breathing on his own so that he can start eating, as he is not getting enough nutrients.When I got this message from Daniel, I also felt like I got a message from the Holy Spirit asking me to go to Ecuador to pray over Anibal in person. I thought this sounded a bit crazy, so I did what everyone should do when they feel like the Holy Spirit is telling them to do something that seems crazy. I discerned it with my spiritual director. I told her what I thought I heard, and I asked her to pray about it and see what the Holy Spirit says to her about it.She said the first thing she heard was “go” and then she asked Him to confirm it for her. The way this usually happens for her is that she sees the word she heard other places throughout the day. In this instance, she saw what looked like “go” on two different license plates throughout her day. She felt that was the confirmation she was looking for. As I was walking into the prayer group on Thursday morning, I asked the Lord to let me hear something at the meeting that confirmed that He wanted me to go. I was surprised because I didn’t really hear anything during the meeting. Then, at the end, while we were cleaning up, one of our members, who just went to the national conference for Charismatic Catholics in the United States, said, “The main message of the entire conference was to Go Out. Don’t just stay in the comfort of praying within your prayer group, but be bold and go out into the world and pray with others.” I took this as the confirmation that I had asked the Lord for.Now it was time to talk to my husband about it. It was not a good time for me to go to Ecuador, as he works for the government, so he is not getting a paycheck right now. Also, he was going out of the country to visit our son Noah since he is away in Scotland for school and happened to have a week off for his Birthday. Tony is not working and has a free travel credit. They were staying with a friend, so it would not be an expensive trip, and the timing was great for that trip. Another reason the timing wasn’t great for this call to go to Ecuador is that in order for me to go with my sister, Daniel, and their daughter, I would have to leave before Tony got back. This isn’t a big deal, as our kids at home are 17 and 21. They would be fine without us for a night, but it would have been better if we didn’t have to leave them alone for a night.Anyway, I talked with Tony about the trip, and he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me going, especially since he is not getting paid and we would both be out of the country at the same time. However, he didn’t say I couldn’t go, and I felt strongly that I was supposed to go, so I looked at getting a ticket. Before going to dinner, the tickets were $576. When I got home from dinner and tried to buy the ticket, it had gone up to $698. I went back and forth between Expedia and Travelocity, and I couldn’t find a ticket for less than $600 now. I sent my sister a message explaining that the tickets were too much, and so I didn’t think I could go. Then, I had a chat with God. I explained that there was no way I could spend $700 on a ticket when Tony wasn’t thrilled about me going in the first place. I told him that if he wanted me to go He was going to have to do something about these ticket prices. I switched back to Expedia one last night before giving up for the night, and there was one ticket for $540. Thank you, Jesus!! I bought it and was excited that I would be on my way to Ecuador in just one week.There were lots of things that were trying to get in the way of my going on this trip, which is another way I knew I was supposed to go, and that God was going to move powerfully. Whenever we are about to do some amazing work for the Lord, the enemy tries to put up a million roadblocks. I fought through each one of them

Come As You Are Series - EsterEsther 4:14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” I think the story of Esther is a good one for this series. Esther was a young Jewish woman who found favor with the king and became the queen. Her uncle Mordecai adopted her as his own when she was young, as both parents had died. Mordecai had instructed Esther before she met with the king not to reveal that she was Jewish, and she followed his advice. This story tells about how a powerful vizier to the king, named Haman, wanted to kill all the Jews living in the Persian Empire on one day. You see, he was angry because Mordecai refused to bow down to him. Mordecai explained he only bows down to God, and this angered Haman, who told the king that there were people living throughout his kingdom that did not obey the same laws of the king and that he should not tolerate them. He convinced the king to issue a decree that would destroy the Jews, and upon doing so, Haman agreed to put ten thousand silver talents into the royal treasury. When the Jewish people heard, they went into mourning with prayer and fasting. Mordecai got word to Esther and explained the situation. He asked Esther to talk to her husband, the king, and beg for the lives of her people to be spared. Esther explained that if anyone goes in front of the king while he is in the inner courtroom without being summoned, they will suffer immediate death unless he offers them the end of the scepter. Mordecai wrote back the following in Esther 4:14 “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”. Esther risked her life to go in front of the king, and because of her bravery, she saved her people, God’s people. We do not usually know why we end up where we end up or why we go through the things that we go through. God is a mystery, and only he knows what he is doing. He can see the whole picture, past, present, and future. We can only see the past and present. I once heard a quote that I really liked and found comforting during some difficult times. The quote said, “You were assigned this mountain to show others it can be moved.” I found it comforting to think that by making it through the situation, I would show others that they could make it through, too. I also used the quote in reverse and thought, “Ok, then I just need to look for someone who has made it through this type of situation to show me that I could make it through as well.” There is a song by Christina Perri called "I Believe." In that song, she says, “I believe that you fell so that you would land next to me.” Have you ever been in a situation where you could just tell that God arranged it? Sometimes, we can tell what God is doing. Sometimes, we can feel it in our bones that we are exactly where we were meant to be at that precise moment. The reason I think Esther’s story goes well in this series is that she had to go to the Lord and ask Him to save her people. She needed God on her side if she was going to be able to walk into the inner room where her husband was and not suffer immediate death. She was living as a queen and pretending that she wasn’t Jewish. I can imagine it might have been hard to go to the Lord and ask for something, when she was pretending she wasn’t Jewish. I can imagine she might have wondered if God would answer her prayers. Would he be mad at her for not being honest with those around her? Would he want to punish her for not practicing her religion? I can see how she might not have felt worthy to go to the Lord and ask for help.Esther knew the Jewish people needed her, and so she rose above her insecurities. She rose above her fear of dying, and she stepped out in faith that God would not let her and her people perish. She stepped out in faith, and she saved her people. Can you relate to Ester? Have you stepped away from God? Have you pretended that He is not there, or that you weren’t His child? It’s ok. Come back to Him, just as you are, and He will welcome you with open arms. I know this is hard to believe, as that is not how those we know in this world behave. This world is broken, and so are the people living in it. We often struggle to forgive and forget. We hold onto things and resent people for the things that they do.God is not like us. He is for us, not against us. He loves us unconditionally and is just waiting for us to come to him so he can pick us up in His arms and give a giant hug. If you ever wonder what it will be like when you turn back to the Lord. If you ever wonder what God's response will be, you can look in the Bible at Luke 15:20. “ So he set off and went to his father. But whil

Come As You Are Series - The Man With LeprosyMatthew 8:1-4 “When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; and there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately, his leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”This story of the man with leprosy is an excellent example of someone brave enough to come to the Lord, despite the religious and social laws that forbade him from doing so. Back when Jesus walked the earth, “The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face, and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’... He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:45–46) While it wasn’t a civil crime to be around people, it was a religious and social violation that carried serious consequences — it cut you off from worship, fellowship, and daily community life.This man would have known the consequences of coming up to Jesus and talking with Him. He would have known it was forbidden, and yet he was willing to risk it all for the chance that Jesus might heal him. Can we be that brave? Can we approach Jesus with all of our baggage, with the chance that He might be able to heal us, too? What if Jesus could heal your heartache? What if Jesus could heal all of your physical ailments? What if you didn't have to keep feeling whatever you are feeling?Life doesn’t have to get worse before you come to the Lord. Life doesn’t have to get better before you come to the Lord. This man came to Jesus just as he was. He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he wasn’t good enough to go up to Jesus and ask for anything. He knew he could get in trouble for asking Jesus for anything. And yet, he knew he needed Jesus to make him clean. He was willing to take the chance that Jesus could change his whole life. And guess what? Jesus did! He will do the same for you if you ask Him.The man said to Jesus, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” He was showing Jesus that he knew how powerful he was. He was trusting in Jesus’s ability. He had the faith he needed to ask Jesus to heal him. Do you remember what Jesus said? He said, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Jesus will say the same for you. He wants all of us to be clean. He wants all of us to be healed and whole. He wants all of us to come to Him and let Him help change us. Can we do that? Can we be brave and ask Jesus?Perhaps some of our hesitation to ask Jesus is that He might say no. I mean, the man with leprosy said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” What if Jesus doesn’t choose to? What if we ask and He says no, what then? Asking Jesus for a healing takes a level of vulnerability that isn’t always easy, especially if others have hurt us in the past. If we feel we aren’t worthy, then it makes sense we would be nervous to go and ask Jesus for help. What if He says no, and then we are embarrassed that we even asked in the first place?I used to be someone who hated to ask for something unless I knew the answer was yes. I had a somewhat irrational fear of being told no. I would refuse to return things to the store if they didn’t fit me or if I didn’t like them. I would always have Tony do it because I would be afraid they might tell me no, and I would feel stupid for even asking. I would be afraid to go up and ask if my kids could exchange their Happy Meal toy for another one, because what if they said no? It affected so many parts of my life, and yet I just couldn’t do it. It’s one of those things where you have a fear, and then shame about that fear, and then it just adds up.For instance, I would want to just go ask if my kids could exchange their toys, but I was afraid they would say no, and then I would feel embarrassed. Then I would probably start to cry because that is what I do when I am nervous or when I feel embarrassed. Then I would feel even worse because I would be crying for no reason, and so I would cry even more. Then I would also feel bad because my kids really wanted the other toy, and I just couldn’t go up and ask.Eventually, I learned to just ask. It is not a big deal if they say no. You just say, Ok, thanks anyway. I didn’t cry when they said no. I didn’t feel stupid when they said no. Actually, I doubt anyone ever said no. Who cares which toy the kids have? It is very rare that anyone at a store will say you can’t return something. So, most of my fears were not really necessary. Yet, they were very real and kept me from things that I would have liked to do.I get why it might be hard for you to come to the Lord as you are, especially if you fear rejection. I want to assure you that the Lord is different than anyone you have met in this world. He doesn’t reject His children. He wel

Come As You Are Series - The Broken Ones Are Beautiful Too!Romans 7:19-20 Paul said, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.”God knows we are broken. He knows we struggle. He doesn’t get disappointed. Instead, He celebrates every time we don’t give in to temptation. Every time we mess up, we can bring that to God with the assurance that He welcomes us with open arms and celebrates because we came home instead of being upset we messed up.We live in an age where social media lets us see what everyone is doing. Social media has many benefits. I get to see photos of friends I haven’t talked to in years. We can notify everyone with one post about the biggest things in our lives. We get to post all the amazing things happening in our lives. It also has downsides, and one of them is that people tend to post all the amazing things and leave out all the bad stuff. Which in itself isn’t bad. I mean, who wants to read about negative things? However, when we see all the good and none of the bad, our brain tells us stories about how everyone else has it all together. Everyone else can do all the things, so why can’t we? Why are we struggling when no one else is? Our mind starts to play the comparison game. Comparison is the thief of joy. We can go on Facebook for 20 minutes, then feel terrible, and we can’t figure out why. It’s because we compare ourselves to others and decide everyone else has so much more than we do, they are so much further along than we are, they are happier than we are, and so on. We may not even realize we are doing it. Do you ever notice your mood change after spending time on social media? That could be why.We can do the same thing when we look at the various saints or we look at the people of the Bible. We can look at how God used them and get discouraged. We can tell ourselves He will never use us like He used them. We put them on a pedestal and assume that they were so holy, which is why God used them. We look at all they did for God and are sure they were much holier than we are. We tell ourselves they had it all together; they must have said their prayers perfectly, always worshiped God, and were always perfect. We do this with people we see in church, too. We see the Deacon, the Priest, the minister, and his wife; we think they must be so holy. They must not have the struggles that we have. Let me tell you a little secret: they struggle just like we do. No one is exempt from struggling. No one has this life figured out.I found an article titled' The Bible Heroes Who ‘Failed Forward’ by Greg Laurie. I just want to read you the beginning part, as it shows us that these people came just as they were. They didn’t change before God used them. God knew who they were, and he chose them anyway.Pastor Levi Lusko tells the story of collecting shells on the beach with his daughter Clover. Levi was looking for the nice shells that were in good condition. Meanwhile, Clover was picking up all the broken shells.When her little hands couldn’t hold any more shells, she turned to her father and said, “Daddy, the broken ones are beautiful too.”I think God sees things the same way.The New Testament book of Hebrews includes a collection of great heroes of the faith, men and women whom God used and blessed. I find that interesting because these people messed up. They weren’t perfect examples.But the funny thing is that chapter 11 of Hebrews mentions only their victories and not their mistakes. That is because God sees what we will become, not necessarily what we are.In fact, a lot of people we read about in the Bible messed up. Abraham, the father of faith and of the Jewish people, lied about his wife twice. His son Isaac did the same thing. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, laughed at the promise of God and then denied that she laughed.Jacob lied and connived. Noah got drunk. Samson was immoral. Gideon was fearful. Rahab was a prostitute. David had an affair and then had someone murdered to cover it up. Elijah was deeply depressed and didn’t want to live. And Jonah ran from God. The disciples fell asleep when they should have been praying, and Simon Peter openly denied the Lord. Then there was Moses, who killed a guy.”This article shows us that these amazing people in the Bible weren’t perfect. Could God have selected perfect people to do these things? Yes, absolutely. He is God. He can do whatever He wants. Yet He didn’t. He chose people who had made mistakes. He chose people who had done things that we might think are unforgivable. He chose people who probably didn’t feel up to the task. He chose people who failed more than once. Do you know what these people all had in common? They said yes. Not all of them said yes the first time they were asked, but God wouldn’t have used them if they didn’t cooperate with Him. I love that Greg said in his article that God sees what we will become, not nec

Come As You Are Series - Your Sin Did Not Cause Your IllnessJohn 9:1-3 "As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”Another reason we might struggle to come to the Lord is that we think our sickness is somehow a punishment for something that we did. We were awful teenagers, so God is repaying us with this chronic pain that we have. We think that our sins from the past are catching up to us, and that is why we got cancer or why our child is sick now, why our loved one is sick. If we look to the Bible, Jesus addresses this for us in today’s verse.You are not sick because of your sins or because God is punishing you? What if you are sick so that God’s works might be revealed in you? What if God is going to use this illness for something amazing? God did not cause you to be sick. God does not cause illness. God is a healer, it says so in Exodus 15:26, which says, “He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” However, God can use your illness for all kinds of reasons. I heard a story in a book written by Heidi Baker and her husband. They were trying to heal a man from the Middle East. I can’t remember where exactly she said he was from. Her friends asked them to come because they had had great success in praying over people and having them be healed. The man whom they were praying for was muslim, and so were all of his family members. Heidi and her husband thought that the man would be healed when they prayed over him, and it would be a lot of Glory for God because all those in the room would see him healed and know it was God who did it. They prayed and they prayed, but the man was not healed. They had a trip planned, so they had to leave. However, when they got back, they heard that the man was still alive. They went to visit him, and this time he had twice as many people to visit him because they were sure he was going to die. So all his relatives came, even those from out of town. Their friends asked them to come and pray one more time. So then they prayed over him again, and this time he was healed, and all of his family members became Christians. God used his illness, and he healed him, but he healed him in his timing, not our timing, not like when we thought he would have healed him. And so the same can be true for us.Another saint who had to deal with a lot of illness was St. Teresa of Lisieux, who is another doctor of the church. And yet she died at age 24. She had tuberculosis. Again, she was very dedicated to the Lord. She loved Jesus. She spent so much time in prayer, and she really wanted to be a missionary. That was her goal. That was her dream for how she thought God would use her to take her all over the world to spread the love of God. And yet she never got to go anywhere because she was so sickly.And yet she is the patron saint of missionaries because she prayed for all the missionaries who were there. And her writings and her work are now spread throughout the whole church. So even though she wasn't able to go herself and spread the word, God used her, even with her illness, to become a doctor of the church and to spread the word of the Lord.I just want to encourage all of you that if you're thinking that you can't come to the Lord because you have too much sin, or you're thinking you're sick because of something you did, or you're thinking that God can't use you because of what you've done or because of your illness, I just want to assure you that none of that is true. You're not sick because of your sins. You're not counted out because of anything you've done. God still wants to use you. And all the sins or the illness that you feel have discounted you, God could use them for good. Don’t give up on your hopes and dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you they won’t happen. You have a miraculous God who can make anything happen. Just keep bringing it to the Lord! Just keep coming to the Lord, and He will be there for you!Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to the episode. Lord, you are the almighty one. I ask that you help us realize we are not the cause of our illness. I ask you to help us know that you are not punishing us. Our illness is not from you and is not because of our actions. Help us to know how loved and wanted we are, just as we are. Help us to know how much you truly love us! We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I am sorry I didn’t bring you an episode at the beginning of this week. I was in E

Are We Underestimating Praise?2 Chronicles 20:21-22 "After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”In this chapter of Chronicles, God’s people have armies coming to attack them from three different places. Things were not looking good. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel son of Zechariah as he stood in the assembly. He told the king and all the people of Judah that they shouldn’t be afraid because they was not their fight, it was God’s fight. He told them to march down against the invading armies, but that they would not have to fight the battle. This is where the verse picks up. “After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”Jehoshaphat and his army were headed into what seemed like a hopeless battle. There were three different armies waiting to destroy them and to take their land. You would think they would have the soldiers lead them this battle. Even if they trusted God, you would think just to be on the safe side you would have the soldiers go first. However, King Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise Him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out to face the armies. “As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”Did you catch that last part? It doesn’t say once they started fighting the Lord gave them victory. It doesn’t say their enemy was defeated by their mighty hand. It says as they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against their enemy and they were defeated. They didn’t even have to fight a single person. They didn’t have to lift their hands at all in this fight, they just needed to lift up their voices. Do you have enemies that you need defeated? Are you praising God now while you are in the middle of it, or are you waiting until you get out of it? I have known that praise is important for some time know. I have even done other episodes on how important it is to praise through the storm, not just after it is over. However, I didn’t know about this story. I didn’t know about God destroying three armies with praise alone. Sometimes we are trying to fight our enemies on our own. We know we need God and yet we ask Him for so much we feel we should try to do this one on our own. Yet, instead of leading with praise we lead with anger, frustration, sadness, jealousy and whatever other emotions we are feeling in the moment. Can you think of a time when you have charged into a situation with your emotions leading the way? How did that work out for you? For me, it never works out. When I go into a situation on my own, without inviting the Lord to come with me, it never works out as I intended it to. However, when I do think to praise the Lord while I am in the middle of a difficult situation, it always turns out well. There are times when we think God has abandoned us. We are praying and it does not seem like He is with us. Maybe we are the ones who have abandoned God. We may be praying, but are we praying with a hopeful heart? Are we trusting God will come through for us when we pray? Are we praising God for all He does for us? God is working in our lives every single day, are we praising Him for that? I talk a lot about gratitude because I think it is so important to go through life being grateful for what we have. I think when we are grateful with what we have God blesses us with more. Being grateful is also a great way to shift our mood if we are feeling sad, or having a bad day. Sometimes all it takes is a perspective switch and we can turn our whole day around. Praise is different from gratitude. Sometimes we can be praising God for what we have and what He has done for us and yet praise is so much more than that. We can also praise God fro who He is. Sometimes we are in a situation where we may not want to or be able to praise God for the situation. For instance, in this verse God’s people were not praising God for the situation they were in. They were not grateful they had three armies coming after them. They were praising God for “the splendor of His Holiness.” They were praising God for who He is. He is the the Fountain of Life. He is the great “I AM.” He is the Just One and He is the King of kings. He is the Lord of Lords and He is the Light of the world. He is the Lord our God. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. How often are you praising God for simply being God? How often are you spending time in prayer thanking

Come As You Are Series - Can A Leopard Change Its Spots?Jeremiah 13:23 “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”What really struck me when I read this was kind of like an aha moment: we tell ourselves we can't come to God until we have it all together. And yet, we can't get it all together without him.I think that's why the enemy tells us we don't need to go to God. We're not good enough to go to God. Wait a little while, get it all worked out, and then you can go to God. The enemy is putting this in our minds because he knows that on our own, we can't do anything.But through Christ who strengthens us, we can do all things. It really struck me when I read that verse that, yeah, we can't change on our own. So why do we think we can't go to God until we have it all together, until we've figured it out, until we've perfected this or that? When we actually need him to help us, we need him to change our hearts, we need him to change our lives, we need him to show us the way.As I talked about in one of the other devotionals, we need to attach our yoke to God and to Jesus and let them show us the way. All these scriptures are pointing out that we don't have to have it all together. We don't have to know how to pray. We don't have to pray perfectly before we come to God. God wants us to come to him as is, just as we are, and he will help us figure all the rest of it out. He will help make our struggle easier, but we have to come to him.The Lord honors our free will. If we want to go at it alone, if we want to do this life on our own, God's going to let us, and that's because he loves us and because he wants us to love him, truly love him. And you can't have true love if you don't have a choice in it.And so it's very important that we invite God into our struggles, that we invite God into our mess, that we come to God even when we're a mess, and we ask him to help us. Because if we don't invite him in, he's not coming in. He's going to let us do it on our own if that's what we think we want. He's not going to take away our free will.There was an article I read about coming to God as you are, and they had this passage from “Steps to Christ,” and I want to share it with you. "With the rich promises of the Bible before you, can you give place to doubt? Can you believe that when the poor sinner longs to return, longs to forsake his sins, the Lord sternly withholds him from coming to His feet in repentance? Away with such thoughts! Nothing can hurt your own soul more than to entertain such a conception of our heavenly Father. He hates sin, but He loves the sinner, and He gave Himself in the person of Christ, that all who would might be saved and have eternal blessedness in the kingdom of glory. What stronger or more tender language could have been employed than He has chosen in which to express His love toward us? He declares, in Isaiah 49:15, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”I want you to take a moment and think about your own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or friends' children. Think about any kids that you've ever been close to. What would you do if they came to you when they had just messed up, when they had done something really bad? Would you turn away from them? Would you want them to have to figure it out on their own before they brought you the situation? Or would you want to be there with them? Would you want to walk through the situation with them hand in hand? One month in mentoring, I was talking about praise and worship, and I was thinking of David and how he always turned back to the Lord, and it's amazing to me. I mean, he murdered someone, and he repented and turned back to the Lord. When he had an affair with Bathsheba, he turned back to the Lord. David was always turning back to the Lord, and I don’t remember ever reading anything where it says he was too ashamed to turn back to the Lord or he felt like he wasn't good enough to turn back to the Lord.When I really thought about David always turning back to the Lord, I just thought, Wow, that is a man who knows his identity in Christ. That is a man who knows his Heavenly Father, and he knows the love that the Father has for him. David was so sure of who God was and the love he had for his people. I mean, David went up against a giant when he was a child because he was sure God had his back. Don’t you just wish you had that faith? Don’t you just wish you knew without a doubt that God was always going to be there for you? Even when you were in danger, in trouble, running for your life, you still knew God was working all things for your good.This is my prayer for myself, each one of you, and honestly, the whole world. I want nothing more than for each person to know how ridiculously loved by God they are and that he is right there with them. I wish everyone knew they

Today, I am bringing you three witnesses from my prayer group. Each week, we take 10 minutes at the end of our prayer meeting, and we thank God for all he is doing in our lives. We share the various ways we have seen God show up in our lives. Each week, people share, and what is amazing is that He shows up in our lives in so many different ways. Sometimes healings, sometimes an outpouring of love or peace, sometimes provisions. So many different ways. If you are looking at ways He is showing up in your life, you will see them too.I wanted to share something about last week's prayer meeting. When we lifted up the basket, I had some really important, not that any of our intercessory prayers or requests are unimportant, just a couple of really big ones, and it was the Feast of the Holy Angels. So I said to my guardian angel, Guardian angel, I can't be there. I know everybody's praying for my things, even though they're not in the basket, but would you take them and put them in the basket?This is in my imagination. And while you're there, would you get all the other guardian angels, all the angels in that room, to lift the basket up to God? There we go. So I'm picturing this. I'm imagining this. But as I see them, or as I'm imagining them lifting it up, all of a sudden, the basket turned golden. Because the prayer meeting was running late, I didn't get to share that. But there's more to it now, because one of my petitions was for a wonderful priest I know who was going for a biopsy that afternoon. And I figured I wouldn't hear from him until I saw him for Mass this coming week. But I got a text message from him that afternoon saying they didn't do the biopsy. They couldn't find the tumor. Last week, I took somebody to one of these places for cancer treatment. And while I'm out in the lobby, I had the opportunity to share with a variety of people of different faiths some of the wonders that God has done, and also share some psalms and stuff. And one particular lady didn't have any hair. She had had a double mastectomy a couple of years ago and had a very severe infection in her chest cavity. Didn't have any teeth and had some major other ailments going on. And I asked her, were you brought up in a faith? And she says, No, no faith at all in the home. And I said, Well, could I share some psalms with you? And I shared like 91. She had tears in her eyes. I shared 100. And when she gets called in, she gets about 15 or 20 feet away, and she turns around and says, This is the first time in two and a half years I've felt peace. Saturday night, I was in an adoration. The same person who told me about the Eucharistic Rosary by Wording Knowledge came in. And I said to her, You've been telling me about all these healings wherever you go. I wonder if you'd want to just pray for me now. I'm not asking for a healing on demand, but, you know, whatever the Lord wants. And I explained to her that chiropractors for years have told me that there's a rotation and a tension in my pelvis so that one leg is twisted up higher than the other, and that throws my gait off balance, and at least our leg isn't bowed down. And I don't want to go back to chiropractors and have them give me a little relief and take a lot of money, you know? I'm just tired of that. And so if the Lord wants to do something about that.First, I felt tingling in one foot, and then tingling in the other foot. But then all of a sudden I felt weak. I couldn't hold myself up. And she said, Oh, the presence of the Lord is so strong, isn't it? And then when she stopped, it was because she had a confirmation that it was done. And so I was standing, I went a little way, and I'm walking like I'm drunk. So that was my sign that the Spirit had been there. So I said, Okay. I wonder how that's going to manifest in my body. Thank you, Lord. It's been so long, part of my lack of faith and all that. Bless her, and just get me home because I drove there.I got on my bed, and I said, Well, let's just see about this. Because if I, on my back, put my legs out straight, my ankle bone here is usually about this far from the other ankle bone. Those ankle bones line right straight up. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for all the amazing ways you are working in the lives of those in the prayer group. Thank you to all of those in the prayer group who are willing to share the ways the Lord is working in their lives, so that it can build the faith of all those who hear it. We love you, Lord, you are amazing! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Come As You Are Series - I Have Not Come To Call The RighteousLuke 5:30-32 “But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”The theme for the devotional is “Come As You Are.” I chose this because too many of us feel we aren’t worthy to come to God as we are. We think we need to get it all together before we come to God. We believe we have to clean up our lives, and then we can come to God. I can see why we might think this, as that is what society tells us. That is what it looks like on Social media. It seems like everyone else has it all together, so we need to get it together before we're ready to ask God for anything. We can’t attend mass or church service because our kids don’t behave, or we don't have the right clothes, or because we make bad choices.I love a song called Truth Be Told by Matthew West. Let me read you some of the lyrics because I wish we all knew the truth.Lie number one, you're supposed to have it all togetherAnd when they ask how you're doingJust smile and tell them, "Never better."Lie number 2: everybody's life is perfect except yoursSo keep your messes and your woundsAnd your secrets safe with you behind closed doorsTruth be toldThe truth is rarely told, nowI say I'm fine, yeah I'm fine, oh I'm fine, hey I'm fine, but I'm not, I'm brokenAnd when it's out of control, I say it's under control, but it's not, and you know itI don't know why it's so hard to admit itWhen being honest is the only way to fix itThere's no failure, no fallThere's no sin you don't already knowSo let the truth be told How true is this song? We think that we need to keep it all together because everyone else is keeping it all together, but that’s the thing, they aren’t holding it together either. We are all just pretending. I love it when it says, There is no failure, no fall, there’s no sin you don’t already know. Why do we think we need to keep our mess from God when He already knows about all of it? There isn’t anything we can keep from Him, so why are we so ashamed to admit it? The song goes on to say…There's a sign on the door that says, "Come as you are," but I doubt it'Cause if we lived like it was true, every Sunday morning pew would be crowdedBut didn't you say the church should look more like a hospitalA safe place for the sick, the sinner, the scarred, and the prodigalsLike me. Well, truth be told, the truth is rarely told This is where Matthew West reminds us what Jesus said in the verse above. Not what the world says, but what Jesus says. Come as you are. Imagine how full churches would be if everyone knew they could truly come as they were. If we all knew that God wants us, even when we don’t have the right clothes or do the wrong thing. Even when we yelled at our kids or our spouse, even when we stayed out too late drinking, God wants us just as we are. No matter what it is, you can come to the Lord. The song ends with…Can I really stand here unashamed, Knowin' that your love for me won't change?Oh God, if that's really true, then let the truth be told This is the truth that I wish everyone knew. The truth is that God loves us completely and fully before we are even born, and that love never changes. It doesn’t matter what we do or even what we don’t do. He still loves us the same. We can do nothing to make Him love us more or less than he already does. When we see how the world sees us, we think God is the same. We think that we're not worthy of his love until we get it all together.However, in the verse above, Jesus tells us something different. God sent Jesus to die on the cross for us while we were still sinning. If you want to know how much God loves you, it says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Hear that again: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.This is how God demonstrates his love for us. This one statement shows us that we don't have to be perfect to come to God. Jesus didn’t wait for us to have our lives together before he died on the cross for us, so why should we wait until we figure things out to come to Him?The verse above says that those who are well have no need of a physician. Those who are righteous, those who are not sinning, those who are praying perfectly, and those who are getting it all right have no need for Jesus. Jesus died for us, for you, and me, and he did it strictly because he loved us. He did it because the Lord wanted us to come to him. The Lord didn't want anything to be in between us. When Adam and Eve sinned, there had to be a separation, and God hated that. He hated that we couldn't be with him.He hated that they brought this upon themselves and wanted to redeem them. God could have done that in any number of ways,

Come As You Are Series - Come All Who Are WearyMatthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”This is not the verse I was planning to talk to you about today, but after the night I just had, I am hoping that the Holy Spirit will talk to me as He talks to you tonight. I remember hearing a teaching on this verse once, where they explained why farmers would use a yoke. A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened around the neck of two animals and then usually hooked to a plow or a cart. This yoke allows them to pull loads that they would not normally be able to pull on their own. I think I also remember the person explaining that a younger animal is usually paired with a more experienced animal. This way, the more experienced animal can set the pace and teach the younger one. This seems to fit so perfectly with this verse. The Lord is calling us, all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens. I don’t know about you, but this evening I am feeling pretty weary, and my burdens are feeling pretty heavy. The Lord is calling us, and it says He will give us rest. God is calling us to take up His yoke and to learn from Him. That is such a great visual for me. I got an image of this giant wooden yoke on the ground. I go up and put my head in it, and God puts His head in, and my burdens are suddenly weightless. I wish it were that simple. I wish we could just hand God our troubles, and then we would feel this enormous weight off our shoulders instantly. I think it can be this simple sometimes. I think we get in our own way sometimes. We want to hand our problems over to God, and yet we also want to hold on to them. We don’t want to completely release them, because then we wouldn’t be in control anymore. Have you heard of the expression, “Hitch your wagon to the right cart?” or “Don’t hitch your wagon to the wrong horse?” Both of these came to my mind when I started talking about what a yoke meant. I was thinking that if I had my choice of anyone to hook my yoke to, it would be the Lord. There is no one else that I would rather rely on and no one more powerful. I love the idea of taking His yoke and learning from Him. The Lord has so much to teach us. Even in this verse, He says, “I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul.” How awesome would it be to find rest in your soul? Can you imagine what that would feel like? When I imagine rest in my soul, I imagine peace about all things in life. I imagine I am stress-free and have no anxiety. I imagine I am filled with hope and joy. I really feel as though the Holy Spirit is reminding me of Rick Warren’s definition of joy and wanting me to share it. I have talked about it before, but right now I feel the Holy Spirit telling me that I am not the only one who needs this refresher right now. Rick Warren’s definition of joy is as follows: “Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.” Wow, yes, I did need to hear that tonight. For me tonight, this is a reminder that joy doesn’t mean I am always happy about everything. This to me means that it is ok that I am sad tonight about things going on, and that doesn’t mean that the situation has taken away my joy. I do know that God is in control of all the details of my life. I am sure of it. I am grateful for it because He does a much better job than I could do.When I think about it, truly think about it, I do have a quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright. Does that mean that I know how it is all going to turn out? No, no at all. Does that mean that I know when it will get better? Nope, I don’t know that either. However, I do know that eventually everything is going to be ok. Will it be exactly as I wish it would be, probably not. But that is ok, because God’s plan is better than my plan and His ways are higher than my ways. The last part of this definition is the part that we forget about a lot. It says, “the determined choice to praise God in every situation.” Wow, that is not something I always think of. Then, even when I do think of it, I don’t always want to do it. For instance, tonight was a rough night. Do I want to praise God for tonight? Not really? This is where I think we get confused. We think that praising God is about thanking Him for the situation we are in. There are many ways to praise God without thanking Him for the specific situation.For instance, even though it was a rough night, I am thankful that I have kids to argue with. Some people don’t, and I realize that even when parenting them is difficult, I am still blessed beyond measure that I have them. I am grateful to the

The God of HopeRomans 15:13 “ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”The God of hope, what a great way to refer to the Lord. He is the God of hope. All hope can be found in Him. I like the thought of God filling me with joy and peace as I trust in Him, don’t you? I feel as though that would be reassurance that we were doing the right thing. Actually now that I just said that I can see how this is the case. When we are trusting in the Lord, we are filled with peace and joy. Can you think of a time when you had a decision to make and you felt completely at peace with it? Can you think of a time when you were so happy and filled with complete joy? Think about these circumstances. Can you see how you were trusting the Lord in them?The second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 were really tough on our family. Actually they were tough on most families as we were in the middle of a pandemic, and we were stuck in our houses for a lot of it. It was not an easy time for anyone. However, on top of all of this we had a lot of other things going on that made it even more difficult. Probably some of the hardest parenting issues we will ever have to face, and we have faced a lot of parenting issues. Although it was a really difficult time, I was filled with joy and peace for much of that difficult time because I was trusting that the Lord knew what was best. We were encountering situation after situation that we had never encountered before. We didn’t know what to do or how to handle most of it. What do you do when you are in a situation and you don’t know what to do? You turn to the Lord. I spent a lot of time in prayer. I asked the Lord at every turn which way He wanted me to go. I relied on Him to get us through it. I am not saying this to boast at how great I am for turning to the Lord. I turned to Him because I did not know what else to do. This is usually why we turn to the Lord. When we have tried all we can think of on our own and nothing worked. However, I would love to change this. I would love to turn to God first in every circumstance, not just when I feel stuck and don’t know what to do. This is what the Lord wants too. He is always there for us and He is happy when we turn to Him in times of trouble. However, I am sure He would also love it if we turned to Him in our every day decision making. Or, what about when you do know what you want to do? What about stopping to ask God what He thinks about you taking that job you want or buying that car you want. You may already know what you want to do, but what if we stopped to run it by the Lord and see if He thinks it’s a good idea? Sometimes our decisions can be clouded by superficial things or we have the wrong motivation driving our decision making and we don’t realize it until it is too late. Invite the Lord into all your decisions. Wouldn’t it be great to feel that peace and joy of trusting the Lord all the time?This verse ends with, “so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” I don’t know anyone that would turn down the chance to be overflowing with hope. This verse also tells us where hope come from, the power of the Holy Spirit. If we want to have more hope, we just have to ask for it. Jesus tells His disciples in John 16:23-24 “ On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.” If we want to have more hope in our lives all we need to do is ask the Lord for it and we will receive it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we ask that you fill us all with joy and peace as we trust in you. We all want to overflow with hope, please show us how. Please fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit. Please help those that have given up on hope, or have forgotten how to hope. We love you Lord, you are so amazing. You give us so much to hope for. We are so grateful for all you do for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Come As You Are Series- Mary MagdaleneMark 16:9 “Now when He arose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.”Mary Magdalene is mentioned several times in the Bible. She is mentioned in all four Gospels. That is unusual, as most stories are mentioned in one or two of the Gospels, but very few are mentioned in all four. This shows us how special Mary was to Jesus. It shows what an important role she played in His life. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about who Mary is as a person, but it does tell us a few things.First, it tells us in today’s verse and also in Luke 8:2 that she was delivered from 7 demons. Second, we know she was present at the crucifixion. Third, we know she went to anoint Jesus’s body in the tomb after his death. Lastly, as today’s verse tells us, Jesus appeared to her first after He was resurrected. Of all the people in the world that Jesus could have first shown himself to, He chose Mary Magdalene. That is pretty cool. Again, Jesus is showing us that our ways are not his ways and his ways are not our ways.If we had to choose someone to be the first person who saw Jesus, I don’t think we would have chosen Mary Magdalene. I think if it were me, I would have chosen Mary, his mother. Or what about Peter? He was chosen to be the rock on which the church would be built. Why wasn’t he the first? Jesus is constantly doing things in the Bible that we don’t understand. He is doing and saying things that shake things up. I am sure Jesus had His reasons for choosing Mary Magdalene to be the first to whom he revealed his risen self. I am sure Jesus has his reasons for choosing you, too.Jesus saved Mary Magdalene from 7 demons. Do you feel like you need to be delivered from some demons? Do you feel like you are struggling in an uphill battle? If so, you are not alone. We are all fighting something. One great thing about this story is that it shows us that Jesus doesn’t just heal us or free us from our demons and then walk away. He stayed with Mary Magdalene, and she stayed with Him. She became one of His followers. Are you one of his followers? Do you stay close by Him and listen to all He says? Do you try to get to know Him and to spend time with Him?Mary did. She put in the work. She was so grateful for the freedom that Jesus gave her that she stuck by His side, trying to learn all that she could from Him. We can do this too. We can’t follow Jesus around as one of His disciples anymore, but we can listen to all He says by reading scripture. The New Testament is full of Jesus’s actual words. We don't have to guess who He is, or what He said. It’s all in the New Testament. There are actually verses in the Old Testament that talk about Jesus as well. As you can see, even though Jesus is not walking on earth, we can still be His followers and we can still get to know Him.Even though we don’t know why Jesus chose Mary Magdalene to be the first person to see him alive, we do know that He did choose her. Jesus is choosing you, too. I don’t know what He is choosing you for, but I know that He is. I know you don’t think you are worthy, and you might not even feel up to the challenge, but He is calling you anyway. You might worry that no one will listen to you or that no one will believe you if you try to share the message of the Gospel with others. Guess what? You wouldn’t be the first person they didn’t listen to. The very next verse after today’s verse says, “She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.”Just because Jesus chooses us doesn't mean everything is going to fall into place and be easy. We live in a broken world, and not everyone will see what Jesus sees in you. Not everyone will believe what you have to say. Not everyone will support the calling God has placed on your life. That is ok. Jesus also appeared to two other disciples, and when they told everyone, no one believed them either. Just because others didn’t believe them doesn’t mean what happened wasn’t true.Of all the people in Jesus’s life, He chose the one who had been delivered from demons as the one to reveal His risen self to. He didn’t choose the one we would have chosen. He didn’t choose the one who was perfect and blameless. He didn’t surround himself with people who were perfect and blameless. He surrounded himself with regular, everyday, ordinary people like you and me. We don’t have to clean ourselves up to be around Jesus. We don’t have to heal ourselves of all our demons before we come to Jesus. Jesus healed Mary of her demons. She didn’t wait until she was healed to come to Him. She couldn’t have healed herself of her affliction. She needed to come to Jesus as she was, and He healed her. He will do the same for you. Come to Him with all your baggage. Bring your demons. Bring your fears and your worries. Bring all that you have to the foot of

I have two witnesses for you today. One is from a member of my charismatic prayer group and one is from YouTube. It is from the 700 Club. I will place a link for the video in the show notes. Both of these show how good our God is. The first witness shows how God never forgets our hearts' desires and the second one is a miraculous healing after a heart attack. Let’s begin…Well, when I hit my 30th anniversary, my husband and I went to Italy. Now, when we got married, we got married in front of the Virgin Mary, the side altar, and it was just family because the wedding was too expensive for me, so that's how we did it. We did have a nice meal afterward, but it was simple. And the thing that I wanted most was to hear the Ave Maria sung by this beautiful vocalist at the church, but she was extremely expensive, so I was very disappointed. I had to forgo it because of the price. So then, when I was in Italy, we were in the dining roomOne morning, having breakfast, I kept getting this message from God to get up and to go to the next table where there was a little four-year-old boy sitting with his mother and father, and sing, Santa Claus is coming to town. And I said, well, I couldn't get over it, so it was his birthday. So I put some money in an envelope or whatever I had, and I got up, and my husband was looking at me, and when I started singing, he was like, and I was singing, Santa Claus is coming to town in this dining room with all these people sitting around. So the mother, when I finished, I gave him the envelope, and I said, Happy birthday. So the mother looked at me, and she said,Wow, that is his favorite song in the whole world. Well, okay. So that night, when I entered the big sitting room that they had in this hotel, the woman came over to me, and she said, Oh, you made my son so happy. I want to do something for you. And I said, well, unless you can sing the Ave Maria, because I happen to be thinking about it, I said, really, I'm fine. And she said, Well, as a matter of fact, I'm an opera singer, and I can sing the Ave Maria. And so I went into the dining room for the acoustic part, and she sang me the Ave Maria.Wow. Thank you, Lord. You would have missed it, had you not sung. If I had not sung Santa Claus is coming to town. What time of year is your anniversary? June. You're singing Santa Claus is coming to town in June? June 29th, almost the last day of June, yeah. And my husband was like, Are you kidding me? I would have been so embarrassed. What'swrong with you? Apparently, I don't know. Yep. You're obedient, Mary. Yep, you got what you wanted. He never forgets us. God never forgets the tiniest thing, and He rewards us for our obedience. Miraculous heart healing (CLICK HERE to watch on YouTube). As the band began to start the worship music, I stood and raised my hand in worship. And a woman that I didn't know, I had never seen her before, she walked past me, turned around, and came back and stood nose to nose with me. She said, Fear not, for the Lord your God says you will surely live and not die. I think both of us were a little concerned.Obviously, you'll live and not die. It kind of tells you something is going to happen soon. So both of us were quite concerned and just kind of, Okay, what's going to happen next? Monday came. I just didn't feel quite right. I just felt kind of out of sorts, tired, and not feeling my best. I was sitting on my sofa with my husband, and something's not right. I can't breathe. I said, I need to go to the hospital. We took her immediately to the emergency room. They came out with a wheelchair, wheeled her inside. The whole time, I'm saying to God, Have your hand on her. My vitals are slipping, and I'm saying, Lord, forgive me for everything I’ve ever done.Anything, Lord, that's not pleasing to you. And I saw our pastor lean down and whisper, Remember, Dale, you shall live and not die. They came back, and they said, You've had a heart attack, and it looks like a bad one. And she's going to have to have a stent put in. They did the stent, and the cardiologist said, You should be dead right now. 90% of the people who have the kind of heart attack you've had don't even make it to the hospital, or they die in their sleep at night. The heart attack was so bad that it severely damaged my heart. My heart was functioning at only about 20%. They were so worried that I could have another heart event that they fitted me with a life vest. It's actually a defibrillator that they strap around you with all kinds of monitoring devices on it.Coming back to the house was tough. The only way to get her around was in a wheelchair. My husband had to pretty much just kind of take over whatever was needed. He would not leave my side. And when we got home, every night, every night, he served me communion and prayed. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't bend over. I couldn't do anything. All I could do was just get up, go to the bathroom, and go back and lie right back down because I was terribly,

Come As You Are Series- JonahJonah 1:1-3 “The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.”Jonah is a great person to discuss this morning because we can all relate to him for several reasons. The first one is displayed in this verse. The Lord came to Jonah and asked him to do something, and Jonah ran away from the Lord. How many of us have done that before? Maybe not physically run away like Jonah did, but we do not do what God asks. We tell Him no, with a whole host of reasons why we can’t do it. Or, maybe we ignore the Lord, busy ourselves with work and other things, and pretend that he didn’t ask us to do anything. Both of these are similar to Jonah. The Lord asked Him to do something He didn’t want to do, and so He left.This didn't work out so well for Jonah. He got on a boat headed in the other direction, and God sent a storm to the ship. The other people on the boat asked what was going on. They drew lots to see who was behind this storm, and Jonah drew the short lot. They asked Jonah what they should do, and he said to throw him over the side of the ship into the water. They were afraid to do this, as they knew he was a man of God. They tried to row back to safety, but did not have any luck. So they prayed God would not hold it against him if they killed this man, and then they threw him over the side of the ship.As soon as they threw him over the side of the ship, the raging sea grew calm. “At this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.” (Jonah 1:16) These men all became God fearing after God calmed the sea. Even though Jonah was trying to run away from the Lord, God still used that circumstance to bring about the conversion of hearts. God can do the same with our actions. He can take our actions and their consequences and use them for good. He can take them and use them for the conversion of others in ways we can’t even imagine.When they threw Jonah over the side of the boat, he was swallowed up by a whale or some giant sea creature. While he was sitting in the belly of the sea creature, he was praying to the Lord, and the Lord heard his prayers and had the fish spit him out on dry land. Then the Lord tells Jonah to go to Ninevah to give them the message that God gave to Jonah. So, this time, Jonah goes and does what is asked of him. Jonah tells Nineveh that it will be overthrown in 40 days if they do not repent and change their ways. As soon as the king heard this, he declared a fast in the land, and all of Ninevah repented and turned back to the Lord. When the Lord saw how they repented and turned from their evil ways, He relented and did not cause destruction.You would think, after all that, Jonah would be happy. He did what the Lord asked him to do, and the people actually listened to him. Yet, Jonah wasn’t happy. Jonah was upset that God spared the people of Ninevah. He thought that they deserved to die, and he wasn’t happy that they took the second chance and turned from their evil ways. We have all been here in one way or another before. Have you ever been upset that someone got away with something that you think they should have been punished for? Have you ever seen someone do something and then wished they would get in trouble for it? One common example I can think of is when we are driving and see someone else driving unsafely, and we hope they get pulled over by a police officer. It is not our place to decide what should happen to others.God chose Jonah for this task, and Jonah ran from it. How many of us have done that? How many of us have run from a task because we didn’t want to do it? Jonah ran because he knew how good God was. He understood that if Ninevah repented, God would save them, and he didn’t want them to be saved. He didn’t think they deserved it. How many of us have run from a call from the Lord because we disagreed with Him? It might not be the same situation as Jonah, but we disagreed that we were the right people or that we had the skills it took to do what He wanted us to do. We might all have different reasons for running from what the Lord calls us to do.However, Jonah’s story reminds us of a few things. First, just because we ran doesn't mean God gives that call to someone else. He is still waiting for you to do what He called you to do. Second, he can use bad consequences for good, like when Jonah ran from God, and the others on the ship almost died in the storm until they threw him off the ship. God used that to convert the hearts of all those on the ship. Whatever bad came out of you running from the Lord, He can redeem it. He can use it for good. The important thing is that we turn back to the L

Storm-Battered and UnconsoledIsaiah 54:11-14 “O afflicted one,* storm-battered and unconsoled, I lay your pavements in carnelians, your foundations in sapphires; I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the LORD; great shall be the peace of your children. In justice shall you be established, far from oppression, you shall not fear, from destruction, it cannot come near. If there be an attack, it is not my doing; whoever attacks shall fall before you.”When I read this verse this morning I knew this was the one. So many are struggling right now. This verse is to show you that God understands. “O afflicted one, storm-battled and unconsoled.” He gets it. He understands how you are feeling. He’s showing you that He sees you. You haven’t somehow escaped His attention. He knows you are suffering and he knows that you are unconsoled. Once He has your attention and lets you know He sees you, then He is telling you that he has laid the way before you with precious stones. “I lay your pavements in carnelians (a semi-precious stone), I lay your foundations in sapphires; I will make your battlements of rubies, your gate of jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.” Actually the Lord is not just talking about laying the road before you, He is talking about building all around you. He talks about the pavements, which I was thinking was the path ahead. However, then He talks about your foundation, your walls, your battlements, and your gates. We all know that if we wish to get anywhere in life, we need to have a firm foundation. If our foundation isn’t firm, it won’t support us. This reminds me of Matthew 7:24-27, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” If we don’t build our house on a firm foundation it will slip away. Next, the Lord talks about our battlements made of rubies. I was not sure what battlements were, so I looked it up. Battlements are the parapets at the top of a wall, especially of a fort or castle, that have regularly spaced squared openings for shooting through. Also, our walls are make of precious stones and our gates of jewels. These are how we defend ourselves. God is building these things for us out of the finest materials. He is our protection and He will make sure we are safe.The next part of the verse says, “All your children shall be taught by the Lord; great shall be the peace of your children.” This might not be your experience right now. You may hear this and wonder when that peace is going to come. I know when I read that line, I thought that is not true for so many children I know these days. I have heard several people say over the last few months that it seems like the enemy is really attacking God’s faithful ones through their children and their marriages. There are so many children struggling right now with so many things. The mental health of our kids is under attack for sure. Also, with social media and constant access to their phones, our children are being bullied in ways we don’t even know. I am surprised at the number of young kids who are willing to send inappropriate photos over the phone because it doesn’t feel like a big deal. It feels like everyone is doing it. I think social media also allows kids to say things that they would never say to someone’s face because they just have to type it into a phone. It gives them a sense that they are somewhat removed from it. I have three teenagers, and I get how hard it can be. If you are listening to this and you either have teenagers or maybe you have teenager grandkids or nieces and nephews, I would say pray for them definitely and also remember this promise from God. “All your children shall be taught by the Lord; great shall be the peace of your children.” God always keeps his promises. He doesn’t tell us when they will have peace, but he tells us they will. Our job is to keep them going through the hard times until they have this peace.The next part may be hard to understand as well.“ In justice shall you be established, far from oppression, you shall not fear, from destruction, it cannot come near.” You will be established in justice, far from oppression, destruction cannot come near. If you are struggling right now, this may be hard to take in. It may be hard to see how you are far from oppression. It may seem like oppression is all around you. You may feel beaten down at every turn. If this is you, remember the ending of that line, destruction cannot come near. A

Could You Perform Miracles?John 14:12-13 “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It is one that I read, and when I heard it, I believed it right away. Some verses are like this in the Bible. When you read the Bible, some things are easy to take in and others are difficult. These easy and difficult things are different for everyone. We all have different experiences when we read the Bible because we have all had different experiences throughout our lives. There is a quote by Steven R. Covey that I really like. Steven R. Covey said, “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are.” This is true for the Bible as well. We look at and interpret the things we read in the Bible through our own unique lens. For instance, if we had people letting us down our whole lives, we may read the parts of the Bible that talk about trust and struggle to believe we can trust God because we haven’t been able to trust anyone on earth. If we have grown up in a very unloving environment, we may struggle with the parts of the Bible that talk about unconditional love. Other things may come easier to us. I instantly loved this verse. I know the Bible is God’s Word and that God chose His words very carefully. Sometimes, when we are reading the Bible, there may be a question in our minds about why they used this word vs. that word. One thing I have learned from doing Bible studies is that there is always a reason why certain words were chosen. Also, if you have done Bible studies, you have had the benefit of hearing all about the original Greek or Hebrew words that were used in the original translation and what those words meant. Sometimes, when translated, we don’t have an exact word to mean what they were saying. I find Bible studies fascinating because you gain so much more insight into what the verses are really saying. Anyway, back to the verse. I heard this verse, or read this verse, and I believed Jesus’ word to us. I have never really been one to struggle with trust. I grew up in a loving family, I had great friends growing up, and I am blessed to be able to say I was not let down by those I know and care about, often growing up. Therefore, I trust pretty easily. But what if you don’t trust easily? What if you look at that verse and say there is no way we could perform the works Jesus did, Jesus was God, of course, He performed miracles. Also, the apostles were right there with Him for 3 years during His ministry; of course, they could do miracles too. We can all usually agree that Jesus did miracles when He walked the earth, and we can also usually agree that the apostles were sent out and they performed miracles, too. Where we run into trouble is trying to believe we could do signs and wonders in the world today. Who are we? We are not holy enough, we are not worthy of that power and authority. I agree with both of those statements, and yet Jesus still says we will do the works that He did and even greater works than He did. How is this possible?It is possible through the Holy Spirit. Did you ever realize or notice that there is not a single miracle recorded in the Gospels before Jesus was baptized? Jesus was fully human and fully God the entire time He walked the earth. There was nothing stopping Jesus from performing miracles during the first 30 years of His life. However, He chose to wait until after He was baptized and received the Holy Spirit to start performing miracles. This is something I recently found out and found fascinating. It was not a surprise to me that Jesus did miracles in the Bible; He is God after all. What I didn’t know is that Jesus didn’t use his divinity to perform miracles. He used the Holy Spirit, working through Him, to perform the miracles. He chose to put his divinity aside and act from his human nature, with the help of the Holy Spirit, because it would be greater glory for God. St. Lawrence of Brindisi explains it like this:"Christ came into the world to do battle against Satan, to do away with idolatry, and to turn the world to faith and piety and the worship of the true God. He could have accomplished this by using the weapons of his might and coming as he will come to judge, in glory and majesty… But in order that his victory might be the more glorious, he willed to fight Satan in our weak flesh. It is as if an unarmed man, right hand bound, were to fight with his left hand alone against a powerful enemy; if he emerged victorious, his victory would be regarded as all the more glorious. So Christ conquered Satan with the right hand of his divinity bound, and using against him only the left hand of his weak humanity.”Is this new to you, too? Did you know that God performed these miracles and defeate

Welcome to Witness Wednesday. Today’s witness is from the KLOVE.com website. I love their radio station. Their Music and their DJs are the best. I have been hearing them mention for a while now that they have a tab on their website that is titled God Stories. I thought I would bring you one of these stories today. It is about a woman who started an organization called HER campaign. Here is what I found about this organization on their website.HER Campaign began with a simple but profound mission: to help survivors of human trafficking heal, grow, and find purpose. Since our founding in 2016, we have walked alongside survivors and their families, offering a continuum of care that includes crisis intervention, emergency stabilization, and transitional living programs.Our roots are in Billings, Montana, where we started with a single safe house. Over the years, we’ve expanded to include emergency stabilization programs and advocacy efforts. We believe every survivor has inherent worth, and we are committed to serving them with dignity, respect, and love.Today, I am sharing with you part of a podcast episode she did. CLICK HERE for the link to the website. You can also just go to KLOVE.com and click on God stories. Here is her story.Britney Higgs is one determined woman and a determined follower of Jesus Christ. On foot, she traveled nearly 600 miles from Billings, Montana, to Denver to raise awareness and support for the fight against human trafficking - and the important need to care for those who have been trafficked.“Walking that route was significant on many levels. That interstate corridor is a well-known trafficking route. Traffickers exploit highways and transportation systems for control, from recruitment to moving victims across state lines, especially in areas like Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, where remote roads and interstate access offer anonymity and opportunity for those who traffic people in darkness. And so, this walk for me wasn't just between two cities. It was to take back ground and prayerfully asking that the Lord would stop the trafficking that is happening between these two areas.” Britney rates the severity of human trafficking in the U.S. as an eight-out-of-ten “It's more widespread than most people realize. It happens in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. But the encouraging part is that God is raising up his church every day, believers to answer this issue in their own communities.” She explains the route she walked and prayed over “is between our two HER Campaign locations, two sanctuaries of healing connected by a road that sadly sees human lives treated like commodities. So, we just made sure that we were walking and partnering with the Lord to say, ‘this will not happen here anymore!’” Britney is deeply involved in the ‘take back’ process as founder of the HER Campaign, which has created two safe homes, one in Billings, the other in Denver, with plans for another location in the Nashville area. The non-profit provides a critical gap service: emergency stabilization programs that offer survivors immediate safety, medical care, counseling, and holistic support.“The first thing a survivor experiences in one of our safe homes is safety. Imagine a woman stepping into a home where, for the first time in a long time, she has a community that is working towards her safety in the mind, body, and spirit to where she can truly rest for the first time… in usually years. We meet her immediate needs. We provide food, clothing, and medical care, and then we surround her with counseling, case management, full body health practices, and prayer. We are at the cutting edge of a program that looks at survivors comprehensively, providing those medical, clinical, and spiritual aspects to really come alongside her and help her to heal, grow, and find purpose.” "HER Campaign is my ‘yes’ to him [God] that is creating safe places for women to experience his healing love," Britney explained the origins and core mission of her organization as a response to a personal call from God.HER Campaign Mission: Bridging the gap between rescue and freedom"We do hear that there is an estimated 300,000 children who are trafficked every year in the United States, and that is not even hitting the adults who are being trafficked. So, we know that this is a huge issue, but that is one that we are called to come alongside right now."She highlighted a severe lack of resources in communities, noting there were only about 2,600 beds available nationwide specifically for trafficking survivors.Combating human trafficking requires collective action and awareness from the entire community, particularly the church, explains Britney.At HER Campaign's safe homes, there are numerous success stories. “One mom came to us broken, having been trafficked since she was a teenager. She went through her emergency stabilization program and a drug recovery program, and today she's reunited with her children and has stepped into a job she love

Come As You Are Series - The Hemorrhaging WomanMark 5:25-34 “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately, her hemorrhage stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”I don’t usually use a whole story for the verse of the day. However, it seemed right this morning. This is a powerful story for this series because it not only shows how powerful this woman’s faith was, but it also shows us how much she needed Jesus. This series is all about how Jesus wants us to come to Him just as we are. I am trying to help you see that you don’t have to get all cleaned up and fix all that is broken before we come to Jesus. Jesus wants us to decide to come to Him just as we are, and then He can help us change. He can help us fix all that is broken. He can help put us back together again.The woman in this story had been bleeding for 12 years. According to Jewish Law, if you are bleeding, you are unclean and therefore must be separated from other people. You could not participate in worship or be a part of the community. Normally, this would just be for a few days during a woman’s menstrual cycle. However, this woman had been bleeding straight for 12 years. That meant she was cut off from the community for 12 years. Imagine all the lies the enemy was telling her. I am sure she felt unworthy, alone, dirty, not pretty, not feminine, and not wanted. She had been to all the doctors, and they kept taking her money but could not find a cure for her. She was tired and alone and felt hopeless. Then she heard about Jesus and how He was healing people. She heard about Jesus and knew He could help her. She needed a healing so bad that she believed even if she just touched his clothes, she would be healed. Imagine that? We, or at least I, get all caught up in what prayer to say, how to word it, what to do before and after I pray. I get all caught up in what I am doing instead of the power that Jesus has. She was focused on the power Jesus had and that if she could just touch His clothes, she would be healed.Have you ever needed Jesus that badly? Have you ever been so desperate for a healing or for love, or for something that you felt you could come to Jesus and all would be well, you would instantly be healed? I know a lot of people who are desperate for healing right now. They would do anything for it and I think if Jesus were walking the earth today, they would have the faith to touch his garments. However, He is not walking the earth today, so now what do we do? That is a great question. How can we be like this woman who touched Jesus’s garments, when He is not physically here.It is important for us to remember what Jesus said to her. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Her faith made her well. He didn’t say, Daughter, your actions have made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.” She wasn’t healed because she touched his garments. She was healed because she knew with her whole being that she would be healed if she could just get close enough to touch Jesus.She wasn’t thinking about how she wasn’t worthy enough to touch Jesus. She wasn’t thinking about how it was against the rules to touch Jesus. She wasn’t thinking about all she “should” do before touching Jesus. For instance, all the rituals to purify herself. The only thing she was thinking about was that Jesus had what she needed and that He was so powerful; if she only touched his garments, she would be healed. When is the last time we believed we didn’t have to do anything but be near Jesus for us to be healed? Have we ever thought that? Have we ever believed that we didn’t have to do anything except be near Jesus in order to be healed?I don’t know about you, but I often feel like I have to do the right things. I have to pray the right way. I have to go to church each Sunday. I have to go to confession. I have to read my Bible. These are not bad things. These are great things, and I do believe they will help me be closer to Jesus. However, I don’t think they are required to have a relationship with Him. I don’t think we need to be doing things perfectly in order to com

Come As You Are Series - The CenturionMatthew 8:5-8 “When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.”When asking the Lord who to talk about next in this series, the story of the centurion’s servant came to mind. The story is short, so I will read it to you in case you aren’t familiar with it. Matthew 8:5-13:“When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, 'Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion, Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.” And the servant was healed in that hour.”This story is similar to the one we previously discussed, the Canaanite Woman. What is interesting about both stories is that the faith that healed their loved ones came from people who weren’t even Jewish. This is important for us to see because oftentimes we think we are not holy enough to pray for healing for our loved ones. In my family, everyone goes to my dad for prayer. Actually, it isn’t even just in my family. Everyone who knows my dad will ask him for prayer, even if they aren’t Catholic, and sometimes they don’t even believe in God, but if they need a miracle, they will ask my dad. It seems as if my dad has a direct connection to God. He and my mom are both powerful prayer warriors. I think they go to do my dad more than my mom because he is a deacon in the church. We tend to think that priests and deacons have more clout than we do. We tend to think their prayers are heard more than ours.This story is showing us that we don’t have to be super religious for God to work miracles in our lives. It shows us God is not only healing the loved ones of those who are in church every single Sunday. This story is showing us that anyone can come to God. The centurion soldiers weren’t always kind to the Jewish people, and yet Jesus still healed his servant. We can come to the Lord, no matter where we are in our faith, and He will help us. We don’t have to wait until we go to church every week. We don’t have to wait to come to the Lord until we know exactly what we think and what we believe.This soldier knew that Jesus had authority and that if Jesus said that the servant would be healed, his servant would be healed. The Jewish people were struggling to see that Jesus had authority. They had expected the Savior to look a certain way and to do things a certain way, and Jesus was not what they had expected. The centurion and the Canaanite woman hadn’t heard all the prophecies of what the Savior would look like, where he would come from, and what he would do. They didn’t have expectations. They saw what Jesus was doing for others, and they wanted Him to do it for them, too.This is an important lesson for us too! What if we let go of our expectations of who we think God is, what we think we need to do, and who we think we need to be before we come to God? What if we let go of our expectations of how we think God can help us and when He will help us? What if we accept the fact that God has authority and can do anything whenever He chooses? He doesn’t need us to say the right thing or to do the right thing. He doesn’t need us to ask the right people to pray. We can go to Him, just as we are, and we can ask Him ourselves. We can decide to trust that if God has done it before, He will do it again. If He has done it for others, He will do it for us.We don’t have to worry if our faith is enough. Jesus said we just need the faith of a mustard seed. Think about the Canaanite woman and this centurion. They did not know the Bible. They did not know Jewish law. They didn’t really know anything other than what they saw Jesus do and maybe some things they heard Him say. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar for God to heal your loved ones. You don't have to have all the answers to come to the Lord. He will give you the answers you seek when you come. You don't have to figure things out on your own. He is here to help with all of that. We

Come As You Are Series - The Canaanite Woman’s FaithMatthew 15:28 “Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.”I have heard this story in the Bible many times and I am sure you have too. Right before this verse is the story of the woman who was asking Jesus to heal her daughter. Here is the story found in Matthew 15:21-28 “Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.I have heard several sermons on this story. The focus always seems to be on why Jesus spoke to her the way that He did and why He said the things that He said. I think those are important things to discuss because it sounds like He is being very rude. If you have not heard any sermons or any explanations of why Jesus said the things He said, I recommend you look them up, as it is very interesting. However, what the Holy Spirit highlighted for me for this series is the very last line in this story. Jesus said, “‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”This came right after the woman said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” What the Holy Spirit told me is that we don’t have to be perfect to receive healing. This woman was not one of the chosen people, and yet she believed that even the crumbs left over after the chosen people had been healed would have enough power to heal her daughter. She knew she wasn’t one of the chosen people. She knew she didn’t have a right to speak to or ask Jesus for anything, let alone a miracle, and yet she was brave enough to ask anyway. It’s interesting, when I read the words, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table,” I heard the Holy Spirit say, you are like the crumbs. I had no idea what he meant by this. Then I felt like he was saying, we think we need to be perfect to either ask for healing or pray for others for healing. The Holy Spirit was telling me we don’t have to be perfect. This woman was not perfect, and yet she knew she needed a miracle, and although she didn’t really know Jesus, she believed in His power and knew He could heal her daughter. She knew, without a doubt, that He could heal her daughter. She even said when she called out, “Lord, son of David.” Even his apostles were struggling to see who He truly was, and yet this woman could see. If we want to be used by the Holy Spirit to pray for others, then we don’t need to be perfect; we just need to be willing and humble. This woman humbled herself and knelt before Jesus. She begged Him to heal her daughter. She did not get caught up in what she should or shouldn’t do. She didn’t get caught up in what He was saying or how He was saying it. She needed Him to heal her daughter, and she kept asking and persisting until He did. We can all learn a lot from this woman. Her faith was so powerful that it saved her child. Whom do you know that could use some prayers like this? This woman knew she had nothing to lose and everything to gain by begging Jesus to heal her daughter. Are we playing it too safe with our prayers? Are we holding back when we ask Jesus for healing, or not even asking Him to heal our loved ones, because we don’t want to bother Him, or we don’t feel we are worthy? Are we asking for things, but not the big things, not the things we really want, because we are afraid we won’t get them? Are we protecting ourselves from the letdown of our prayers not being answered, so we don’t ever ask? I know this is for someone today because it is very strong in my thoughts right now. God wants me to tell you to stop holding back and stop playing it small with your prayers. God has some amazing blessings for you, and yet He is waiting for you to ask. He is waiting for you to trust that He will answer your prayers, even if they seem a bit impossible, even if they seem extremely impossible. God is telling us to ask Him anyway! I feel as though He really wants us to understand that we are not bothering Him with our prayers. We honor Him when we pray to Him and ask Him for help, especially when we ask Him for big, bold, audacious things. That is not a word I use often, but I felt that was the word I was suppos

Come As You Are Series (The boy who gave up his lunch)John 6:9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?”This verse is just before the Lord does something amazing! Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and a large crowd has followed Him. They saw all the amazing things Jesus was doing with curing the sick and wanted more. Jesus told his disciples to have everyone sit down and asked how they would feed them. One of the disciples said there was no way they would have enough money to feed that many people. There were 5,000 in all. Then another disciple said that there was a boy who had five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus took those five barley loaves and two fish and broke them up and instructed the disciples to hand them out, and when everyone had their fill, the disciples gathered what was left over, and it filled 12 baskets.I am sure most of us have heard that story before. If you haven’t, you can read the beginning of Chapter 6 in the Gospel of John. It is great. Today, since this series is Come as You Are, I want to focus on the boy who gave up his lunch. We know very little about this boy. They do not talk about him other than that he gave us his lunch, and yet, he was the only one. I wonder why this boy was there that day. Was he with family or friends? How old was this boy? I would think if he were with his parents, they would have said, There is a family with five barley loaves and two fish. So, it doesn’t seem like he was there with family.I wonder if his mom made him that lunch. I wonder why he wanted to go see Jesus. Did he need a healing? Did he have a loved one who needed a healing? Did he just really like what Jesus had to say? Was he drawn to Him? There is so much I would like to know that I never really thought of before now. This story is mostly focused on the miracle, as it should be. Jesus took a very small amount of food and fed 5,000 people with 12 baskets to spare. That is truly incredible!Jesus did not need the boy’s lunch to make this miracle. He could have made bread out of thin air. He made the whole universe. He could certainly have made food for everyone to eat. What I love is that Jesus included this boy in his miracle. He didn’t do it all by himself. He allowed the boy to take part in it by offering his lunch. Imagine how special that boy felt? I am sure that is a day he will never forget. I am sure no one there will forget that day, but this boy especially. He willingly gave up his lunch so that Jesus could feed everyone.Jesus uses people like you and me every day to help Him with miracles. Not because He has to, but because He wants to. He does not use people who are ideally suited for what he needs to accomplish. He uses people who are willing to be used by Him to build up His Kingdom. This boy was not perfectly suited to help Jesus. We don’t know anything about him. He could have been Jewish, but he also could have been a Samaritan or some other nationality. We don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us. We don’t know if he was a sinner or not. All we know is that when Andrew asked what the boy had for food, he gave him all he had.The boy said yes. That is all that Jesus requires of us. He just wants our yes. I know you think that you are not who God is looking for. I know that you feel you are too old or too young for God to use you. I know you think you are not enough or too much for God to use you. I know you feel you are not smart enough or holy enough. I know you think there are a million other people out there who are more qualified than you are to do what you believe the Lord is calling you to do. I know you are nervous, and you don’t feel like you know how to do what He is calling you to do. I know because I feel all those things too. We all do.This is the reason I am doing this series. I am praying that by the time we are done with this series, you will begin to see that you are exactly the kind of person God uses. You are perfectly suited for what He is calling you to do. He knows your strengths and weaknesses. He knows what you can and can not do. He actually knows much better than you do what you can and can’t do because He created you. We don’t always know what we can and can not do because sometimes we have had other people telling us that we can’t do something our whole lives, and yet they were wrong. We actually can do it. Or, maybe we have been telling ourselves we can’t do something even though we have never tried it.If God is calling you to it, He will equip you for it. God knew Jesus was going to need to feed 5,000 people on the mountain that day. It was not a surprise to God that all those people followed Jesus. Why do you think that boy was there at the specific moment in time? Why do you think, of all those people, he was the only one to bring food. I wonder if his mom packed him that lunch? I wonder if he argued, as my kids would. No, Mom, I don’t need food. I will be fine. It's just a talk, I’ll

Today’s Witnesses are both from the Encounter Ministries YouTube Page. The first one I just learned about today, and the second one I have had on here before. However, someone in my Big Life mentoring group was asking for prayers for her daughter, who has stage 4 cancer. It is easy to believe the doctors when they say there is nothing they can do about it and that stage 4 is terminal. However, only God gets to decide when we enter and exit this world. I wanted to find some testimonials of people with stage four cancer who have been healed, as it is easier to believe God will do it for us and our loved ones if we hear how he did it for someone else and their loved ones. God is still healing today. We need to keep believing. He needs to keep hoping. Hope in the Lord does not disappoint. (Romans 5:5) I pray that after hearing these testimonies, your faith will grow, even just a little. All we need is the faith of a mustard seed.Hi, my name is Roxanne, and I was healed of inoperable ovarian cancer. I had excruciating pain in my abdomen, and they rushed me to the emergency room. I had emergency surgery. I woke up and I asked my husband, Okay, how did it go? And he just said, You have cancer. The doctor came in and they said, No, it's not colon cancer, but it's ovarian cancer. That spread. That had spread. I'm like, okay, well, there's still hope. And she looked at me, and she's like, No, you have stage four cancer. There's no hope.There were some big tumors, but it actually kind of looked like there wasconfetti of all the tumors. It wrapped around the colon, which is what caused the pain initially, and then wrapped itself around other vital areas like blood supplies, was very close to the pancreas, the stomach, everything. Her husband was in a really, mentally, a really bad place, really negative, very, very angry. And we thought, okay, let's just lean into this. Let's go to the healing service.It was November 3rd or 4th. At the healing service, the priest said, “Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus because in his eyes is the history of his passion for you.” And, you know, he calls out different ailments, and then he called out cancer. Stand up if anyone has cancer. I stood up, and it felt like everybody in the church came over and prayed over me. And then we got in line to do individual healings, and we ended up with Father Jason, another individual. We didn't know Father Jason. I've never seen him before. So he did start praying over me, and then Eric started praying over me. And as he was praying over me, I felt this burning in my side, which was where the inoperable tumor was. Father Jason said, “So when Roxanne and Eric came for prayer, I was like, God's got this, you know, let's go for it. And so we prayed for the Holy Spirit to come down. I prayed that the Holy Fire of the Holy Spirit would consume the cancer in Roxanne's body. And she said that she felt heat. And when I heard that, I was very encouraged. And I said, that's a good sign. And let's press into that. Let's keep praying more, Lord, more Holy Spirit, more fire.”Father Jason continued to pray, Holy Spirit, burn the cancer out. It really got intense with the Holy Spirit, burn that cancer right out. You know, all the anger and where her husband’s head was at before that, it seemed like it cleared out. He felt like God has this in some way. I don't know how, but just stop being angry about it. And then December 12th was the Feast of the Holy Day of Guadalupe, which we're having surgery on your feast day for a reason. Please, you know, help, help, help us, right? Help us get through this. Help Roxanne get through this. And then I just sat in the waiting room and prayed.And nine hours later, uh, the surgeon actually comes out. But good news. We were able to reverse everything. And I said, What do you mean? And she said, Well, yeah, we didn't, we didn't see any visible cancer in Roxanne's body. Sorry. We didn't see any visible cancer in Roxanne's body. So we were able to reverse everything. Anything that looked suspicious or like scar tissue, we removed it. They called it dropped all the ostomies, so her bag was gone. The colorectal surgeon comes in. She's like, yeah, it was very successful. And all we saw was a lot of scar tissue. That's why they took hours and hours just to pull, pull apart, and separate the, uh, the bowels because they were trying to search and find anything. Right. They spent hours just searching, and all the scar tissue made it difficult. She's like, yeah, we always saw a lot of scar tissue and burned-out tumors. And I was like, what? What did you say? Yeah, scar tissue and a burned-out tumor. And immediately I thought, well, you know, the words had come out during the healing service. I just couldn't comprehend it at that point. I was blown away. Right. A gynecology oncologist came in, and she's like, Did you see the pathology report? No. She's like, I wanted to come down and tell you. We didn't see any cancers or any of the biopsies o