It must have been remarkable to see Jesus after thinking He was not alive any longer. Witnessing the brutal treatment and crucifixion had to be devastating. The Bible tells us He appeared to His disciples and many others after He rose from the dead, but after forty days, He ascended into heaven. He left them – again. But this time, not without leaving them the promised Holy Spirit.

Jesus assured them, “I will not leave you as orphans [comfortless, desolate, bereaved, forlorn, helpless]; I will come [back] to you.” (John 14.18)

The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity,  but it seems I don’t hear much about the Holy Spirit. In fact, some others never heard of Him as I read Acts 19.2 – “…and he asked them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed [on Jesus as the Christ]? And they said, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

Happy 4th of July! This day we celebrate our Independence and Freedom from a tyranical government to embark on a new nation! With the help of God and men of prayer, we established a land for the free and a home for the brave.

It has been a very long time since I have heard this song, but I love the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on…..

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free
While God is marching on

Glory, Glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on”

Yes! God wants all men to be free. Not only free in their daily lives, but in their spirit as well. He died to make men holy and well and free and forgiven and more. “…The Lord sets free the prisoners…” Psalm 146.7

2 Peter 1:2 tell me, “May grace (God’s favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you in [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”

I recently heard someone who struggles with addition pretty much say, “It’s never beatable – it’s always a problem; even when you do not engage in your addiction.” I believe God can do anything. I believe He can break any chain that has us bound. I believe He is able to heal the deepest pain and help anyone overcome the most heart and mind wrenching situations. He wants everyone free.

“…..Blessed (celebrated with praises) is the King Who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven [freedom there from all the distresses that are experienced as the result of sin] and glory (majesty and splendor) in the highest [heaven]!” Luke 19:38

My bondage had its roots in deep seated anger. When I asked God to show me the reasons for my bondage to depression and anxiety and defeat, He showed me; not to condemn me, but to set me free – “So if the Son liberates you [makes you free men], then you are really and unquestionably free.” John 8:36

Galatians 3:13 reminds me “Christ purchased our freedom [redeeming us] from the curse (doom) of the Law [and its condemnation] by [Himself] becoming a curse for us.”

He paid too high a price to have my soul just stirred at times, but never really changed – or set free like He died to do.

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I hate change. I know hate is a very strong word, but then, the truth is, I have very strong feelings about change. I don’t hate all change. I like when change involves buying a new car or landing a new job that is better than the one that ‘changed’ – another way of saying, ‘than the one I lost.’

Everyone tells me change is inevitable. Changes are happening all around us, everyday and in every way. New highways, new shopping malls, removing forests, and more. I am certain all of us love when a new baby is added to the family or a change in location brings us closer to the ones we love. Marriage brings about welcome changes too. The changes I hate are watching the ones I love age and grow weaker, when good friends move away, when I lose a favorite relative or a home that I cherished for years, or when a relationship I thought would last forever does not. When some of my best memories bring a feeling of sadness to my heart, then I know the changes that are happening are not the ones I welcome.

There is One Thing in this Universe that does not and never will change. God. He is “Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord God, He Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty (the Ruler of all).” Revelation 1:8. He is the God of our past, our present, and our future.

God is (our) Rock, (our) Fortress, and (our) Deliverer; (our) God, (our) keen and firm Strength in Whom (we) will trust and take refuge, (our) Shield, and the Horn of (our) salvation, (our) High Tower. (Psalm 18.2). Our Rock that is solid and never changes.

And, (Though) the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; … (God’s) kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of (His) peace be removed, says the Lord Who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54.10. No matter what happens around us, He is the same.

The God we love never changes – He is always faithful, He is always loving, He is always kind, He is always gentle, He is always patient, He always answers prayers. He is always the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is always the Resurrection, the Bread of Life, the Living Water. Always. He never changes. We can count on this from now until all of eternity.

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I work at a veterinary clinic near Orlando, Florida. Here is where I met Bella. It seemed a routine recheck for a dog that had been bitten by a rattlesnake three days earlier and taken to a local emergency clinic for care. There she received two units of antivenin and her blood work was assessed to make certain the effects of the poison interfering with her ability to clot her blood were no longer a threat.

Snakes are a serious threat in Florida and may be seen in plain view anywhere, anytime. I read the emergency clinic report dutifully and did my exam. Bella was bitten in the facial area – the swelling can be seen under her left ear. I informed the owner of the resulting wounds that would most likely occur because of the poison and the care they may require. Snake bites are deceptively small, but the danger is huge and the resulting damage to the tissues affected by the poison can be quite extensive. She said she would do anything necessary to save her dog. Then I began to cry.

Bella’s owner shared the details of the incident. Bella was was bitten because the rattlesnake – not a pygmy rattler, but a BIG rattlesnake with SEVEN rattles the owner said – was actually striking at her. Bella, sensing danger, put herself in harms way to protect her owner and took the bite. My heart melted as I stroked Bella’s face and told her what a very good girl she is. She gave me kisses as her owner and I continued our talk.

What a remarkable story. A loyal dog saved her owner and now a loyal owner is determined to save her dog. Hats off to all the great dogs in the world and especially to Bella!

This story reminds me how my Savior knew the danger I faced and He took all of the danger for me to live. It may not have been a ‘snake bite,’ but my Savior did put Himself in harm’s way to save me. He died on a Cross so I do not have to die and I do not need to save Him back, but have dedicated my life to sharing His Good News with everyone I meet.

Hebrews 2.9 reminds me – “but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”  “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable Gift! ” 2 Corinthians 9.15.

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I understand that when a hurricane comes, birds instinctively find the ‘eye’ of the storm. I have been told that skies are often clear above the eye and winds are relatively light because it is actually the calmest section of any hurricane. The eye is so calm because the strong surface winds that converge towards the center never reach it. Smart little winged creatures! They travel within the eye.

Recently, I have enjoyed finding a place of rest in the midst of what in past times in life would have been overwhelming to me.  I am not by nature a calm person. I wonder how I have lived so many years without true peace? I do not know why I have been so anxious in life, however, this seems to be a season in my life that finally the truth of God’s Words is penetrating in a real and deep way. It has not come easily though, I have be honest.

A truth in the Bible hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. Jesus gives us His peace. “Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]” John 14.27.

I must have read this verse hundreds, if not thousands, of times over the 45 years I have read the Bible. But I never had true peace. I pretended to and wished I had, but the truth is , I had turmoil, anxiety, worry, and more. I bragged about making worrying an Olympic sport. Very foolish really.

Peace- I cannot even grasp the true meaning of the word or find words to define ‘peace.’ Free of anxiety, tranquil, no emotional upset, and other words may be available, but not truly express the still feeling that is glorious deep inside oneself that is called ‘peace.’ This is what God wants for us and God gives to us – as a free gift.

God’s Word also tells us, “Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (^[a]definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God’s peace [shall be yours, that ^[b]tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall ^[c]garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4.6-7. (emphasis mine) Another version calls it ‘the peace that passes understanding.” 

I pray for you and all of the ones you love to be blessed in a new way today with God’s peace.

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Yesterday I drove two hours to testify in court for a woman I am still convinced is innocent. She is a friend and colleague. Long story short, she had some horses that had some funny looking feet and I could not persuade the jury  – even with excellent reasoning – that the little horses were not in pain and she was not guilty of being cruel to them.

We veterinarians have a tendency to try to help the animals that are less than perfect and that should never be a crime. I myself am guilty of having misfit pets. I was almost afraid to say so because I did not want to be attacked for this, but tried my best to help her.

She was found guilty and is now in jail awaiting sentencing. I am writing today to plead with everyone who is able to pray – to pray. She needs a miracle. She deserves one. My heart is so torn for her situation and I feel so helpless, but I know that God hears and answers prayers.

I have contacted the innocence project in Tallahassee Florida and they will accept a letter asking for help. They told me they receive 1,000 letters a year from people pleading for help. They said they only help about 1% – meaning 10 people each year.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God has called each of us to bear each others’ burdens. I know there is prayer power out there and God is never at a loss for what to do for us. Ephesians  6.2-3 admonishes us – to “bear (endure, carry) one another’s burdens and ^[a]troublesome moral faults, and in this way fulfill and observe perfectly the law of Christ (the Messiah) and complete ^[b]what is lacking [in your obedience to it]. For if any person thinks himself to be somebody [too important to condescend to shoulder another’s load] when he is nobody [of superiority except in his own estimation], he deceives and deludes and cheats himself.” 

God makes crooked paths straight (Isaiah 45.2). No matter what we have done, His mercy is available for us. This is true for our struggling brothers and sisters. Please add Gail to your prayer list. Please ask God to be with Gail each moment she is going through this valley of the shadow of death. Please pray for Gail to be vindicated and not lose the precious things in life she has worked so hard to achieve. If you feel doubtful about Gail, pray that my prayers will prevail for her benefit. Thank you.

Please pray with me for my friend. I know godly people are reading.

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I love roses. Any color, any size, any rose. From the time I see one budding to the unfolding of the petals that seem to be opening to praise God, I love them. There is one thing I don’t love about them, though; the thorns.

While reading my little devotional recently, I ran across a little story about a man named George Matheson. Like most of you, I don’t know him. I understand he was a blind preacher in Scotland. He was overheard one day telling God that he had thanked Him thousands of times for all the blessings and answered prayers and protection and all that God had done that made him happy – the things he considered ‘roses’ in his life, but at no time did he thank God for the thorns.

He said he was looking forward to a world where he would be compensated for the cross he bore here on earth, but he never thought of his cross as a present glory from God. He prayed for God to show him the glory of his cross and the value of his thorn. He prayed for God to show him how he climbed to God through the pathway of his pain and how his tears had made his rainbows.

There are many times I have asked God, “Why?” I thought I could never thank Him for the depression or the anxiety or my constant failures. I thought the low opinion I had for myself could never be used for good in God’s Kingdom. I thought I could bear it as He asked me to, but never be truly thankful.

God has miraculously brought me to the place where I can see that He is always faithful and has been my Guide each and every day of my life. He knows every detail about me and the path necessary for me – the path that has led me to know Him in a way I am thoroughly convinced I would never know Him as I do without the pain – without the thorns.

Today I can thank Him for all the pain I have endured, my learning disabilities, my past depression, my past agoraphobia, and even my present anxieties and shortcomings because they keep me connected to Him by reminding me each and every day that I need Him more than I need to take my next breath. How easily I forget sometimes when the thorn is not with me.

The truth is I wish it did not take things that are difficult or painful or sad to make me connect to Him, but He knows how we are as humans. I have others ask me, “Why?” as often as I asked. I do not peddle easy answers to difficult questions, but I always say, “Make your pain your pathway to God.” He will be our Everything in everything.

God leads us down every path of our lives and is with us always. His Name is Emmanuel.

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While talking to a friend one day about the abundance and faithfulness of God, she said, “Yeah, I prayed for a coat and received FIVE.” She did not pray for five, but God is good. I chuckled as I remembered once I prayed for shoes and then it seemed I had more than I could count. I shared my over abundance of shoes with others I knew did not have any. Yes, I think God is a God of abundant supply and we cannot out give God, so I give and God gives. “The Lord is our Shepherd, we will not lack.” Psalm 23.1

At church one day, the piano played a song I loved the first time I ever heard it – it is the hymn “He Giveth More Grace”

Romans 8.32 reminds us -“He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all [other] things?”

I have lived the Words  “… to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it). Ephesians 3.20-21.

My brother had nothing. He was released from prison with a felony record, no job, no money, ill health, and more. My pastor and I prayed. God opened up a flood gate and my brother received a check for over $60,000.00 with which he purchased his first and only brand new vehicle that he cherished and enjoyed for many years. He received a sizable monthly income that allowed him to have shelter, food, and doing all the things he loved to do while he lived out his last nine years here. God gave us superabundantly above all I ever asked or thought possible. Praise Him for everything.

From a personal perspective, I was not wise and did not have a retirement. Sometimes I was ashamed to ask God in the face of choices I had made. He is faithful and true to His Word. I am facing retirement soon and He has provided over $300,000.00 for me at this late time in life. I ask myself, “How much does one need?” I have always had my daily bread, but am grateful to the God Who can do anything and does everything.

The Word challenges us, “Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

God truly does give and give and give again. No fear of exhausting Him. All He wants in return is little old us.

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Sometimes I think I have more challenges than I can handle and I frequently wonder why difficult things happen. I do not think I am alone in wondering.

Everyone who knows me knows that CS Lewis is one of my favorite authors. I recently discovered a new blurb of his. I have never been in  country at war and this is from a collection of his letters to others about war time- TO BEDE GRIFFITHS: On fortitude and trust in God in the face of war; and on ecumenical differences dated 29 April 1938:

“I have been in considerable trouble over the present danger of war. Twice in one life—and then to find how little I have grown in fortitude despite my conversion. It has done me a lot of good by making me realise how much of my happiness secretly depended on the tacit assumption of at least tolerable conditions for the body: and I see more clearly, I think, the necessity (if one may so put it) which God is under of allowing us to be afflicted—so few of us will really rest all on Him if He leaves us any other support.”

What he writes rings true with me. I want to be comfortable and much of my happiness depends on it. To tell the truth, if I was not forced to depend on Him, I am not certain I would. Sad though, really. Why is this so?

I ask myself this question daily. Is He my First Choice? What is the Bible filled with?  The answer is – God’s love for us, His faithfulness, His ability, His all knowing and all seeing, His care, His desire to answer prayer, His wanting us to see Him as He is and not as we are – broken, frail – and His true desire to have us trust Him with everything every moment.

Is 40.26 reminds me “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
    Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
    and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
    not one of them is missing.” 

The God that named the stars and keeps them, keeps me and all that concerns me.

Romans 8.15 tells me “the Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.'” Abba is a very tender word that means ‘daddy.’

There isn’t enough paper to add how Jesus says He is my Shepherd, He is the Truth, the Way, the Light, the Bread, the Eternal One, the Living Water, the Resurrection, Counselor, Prince of Peace, Wonderful. He is Everything.

He has called me by my name and knows every detail about me and my life and what has hurt and what has made me happy and will make me happy. He reminds me “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…” Psalm 24.1. He owns all the animals in the forest and all the cattle on a thousand hills. Psalm 50.10. And He tells us how He gives us great and precious promises to care for us and love us.

This means He owns all the jobs, all the money in the world, all the homes, all the physical things and spiritual things available to us. He gives us all things through Christ.

To tell the truth, what more could I ever want? Why would I go to any other source for anything when He never runs out of anything. He never runs out of patience with me and for that I am eternally grateful to Him. I want to make Him my First Choice in every situation.

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Elephants are one of my favorite animals. I think they are beautiful and amazing creatures. I understand ‘elephants never forget.’ Exactly what do they never forget? Apparently they never forget most things in their up-to 60 year lifespan. Their memory is their key to survival.

Elephants’ superb memories help them stay alive in ways that go beyond just recognizing threats. Females that come from desert climates can remember where reliable water can be found and are able to guide their herds to water over very long distances, and over the span of many years. This is a pretty clear indication that elephants have a great ability to remember details about their spatial environment for a very long time.

They also remember each other. I read a story recently of an elephant named Jenny that became very animated when a new elephant named Shirley arrived. After the caretakers  looked into the animals’ backgrounds, they discovered the two had performed with the same circus for only a few months—22 years earlier. Amazing.

Recently, I have been reminded of two incidents where family members have ‘remembered’ something I did or did not do many, many years ago. One was about my reasons for running away as a young girl and the other about when I was asked for help and did not. I have few regrets in life, however, being reminded of incidents I have no personal memory of makes me wonder what else others’ remember that I may have forgotten. I wondered how many times these memories came to my family members and how often they were saddened by them. I am saddened to know they held these memories in their hearts for so many years. For all I know, there may be more.

Sometimes I try to edit the things I find disappointing in life – apparently especially my disappointments to others. I choose to remember the good times and the good things I have experienced, but I know others may remember an event I have long forgotten, but wish I could have done differently or said I was sorry for.  I may have been a troubled younger person and made mistakes, but am hoping I am a better older person and making less mistakes.

The Bible tells me God remembers things. He remembers His covenant with His children, His promises to care for us, that we are weak, all the times we tried so hard, all the times we did do the right things, when prayers need answered, He remembers how He loves us, everything about us – even the number of hairs on our heads and what makes us happy and more.

God encourages us to remember things too – how He saved us each time we asked,  the miracles He did for us, His Word and promises, His sacrifice, His love, His commandments, the poor and others, our past and bondage, how hard families worked to make it and give us life, the ones who loved and cared for us and still do, and more.

God, however, does not remember everything. He never remembers our forgiven sin, our mistakes, our bad days, or when we were disappointing.  And for this I am grateful. I want to forget the wrongs done to me too and hope those that I have wronged can forgive me and remember the better things.

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