May you have a blessed Resurrection Day! Enjoy your loved ones. Spread God’s gospel of grace and hope. Focus on the great sacrifice Christ made because of His love for you and the redemption offered by Father God in giving His son for our sins.
Blessings! ~ The Priceless Team
by Morgan Ramsey
So at 22 years old, I’ve decided recently that I need to become an adult. In order to become an adult, in my unofficial checklist, you must learn how to cook, which is an area that I really struggle.
A couple of weeks ago my family got sick with the flu, and I suddenly switched from the lazy bum that lives on the couch to caretaker. I know what you’re thinking, my poor parents. You know how to pray for them. But hey, I don’t think it went so bad. They were 
fed. Somehow. Anyways, one night I was trying to cook dinner for them, and I grabbed the first thing I could find in the fridge: ground beef, heaven’s manna. I knew how to cook that, so I grabbed a pan, and started cooking, until I realized that I was missing something integral, especially for a rookie like myself: I didn’t have a spatula. Where was it, you ask? At the bottom of the mountain of dishes that had been sitting there for so long that I am not going to disclose the amount of time because you would automatically put my parents on your church’s prayer list. Inspired after my favorite movie series of all time, I called it “Mount Mission Impossible of All Dishes.” I know, it took me longer to name it than to actually do the dishes. Judge me.
Anyways, I was out a spatula, so I found the closest thing that I could find to use when I cooked the meat: a pie-cutter. Also, who knew it was called a pie cutter. I just thought it was called a triangle spatula. By my lack of knowledge of common household items (you know where I’m going with this story), it was bad. I couldn’t flip the meat as efficiently as I could with a spatula. Let’s be real: I couldn’t flip it at all. I was so frustrated. I kept saying, “ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT? LORD JESUS YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO COME DOWN AND GIVE ME YOUR HOLY PATIENCE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I’M ABOUT TO LOSE IT WITH THIS STUPID TRIANGLE SPATULA. LORD WHY DID YOU GIVE SOMEONE THE IDEA FOR A TRIANGLE SPATULA? IT’S JUST A STUPID CONCEPT.” Several of you probably have holy prayer moments with the Lord, which I admire. You all just got a glimpse into my moments with the Lord. You now know how to pray for me. The struggle with the pie-cutter was more than frustrating: it was exhausting. But after my mom told me (aka laughed at me) that night that it is used to slice pies instead of flipping ground beef, I realized why it was so difficult: it wasn’t designed to flip meat on a stove.
A couple of weeks ago, our family had a very close family friend pass away. To say it knocked us down and took our breath away is an understatement. I can’t think of any eloquent or spiritual way to describe it except by saying that it was awful. My friend that I’d known since I was 8, gone on several vacations with, laughed with, and loved so deeply was gone suddenly and unexpectedly. It was a hard time. But even though it was a difficult time, I remember telling my mom, “I can’t imagine how people go through something like this without Jesus.” Tragedies may not make sense to us as believers, but with the Lord we know that all things – whether we can see it or not – are working together for our good and His glory. I may not understand, but I can trust Him. His presence is so thick that it’s tangible in those hard times. He gives us a peace that allows us not always to see the big picture, but a piece that shows us Him, in a way we’ve never experienced Him before.
He’s our secret weapon. I had someone ask me, “Morgan how can you smile during this?” And I answered, “Because I know the Lord. I know what He’s done for me. I know what He’s doing for me. And my friend? She isn’t in the ground. She’s with my best friend, my Savior, my peace, my King. And because of that I can smile, because I know that yes I will see her again, because one day I’ll see my King.”
So ladies my question to you is what in your life do you simply need to release to God? Where do you need to trade in the pie-cutter for the spatula? Jesus desires us to have life, and not just life, but life to the full, not life weighed down by burdens and sin! Abundant life is lived with Him every day for the rest of our lives and beyond. So what’s your pie-cutter? Is it fear? Give it to Him. You were not designed to live with fear. An addiction? Jesus is bigger than that. Give it to the one who created you and deeply loves you. Comparison? God has created your life uniquely. He’s given you a story, a platform, a life that only you can live.
I don’t know what it is for you, but I do know that He wants to give you a life free from sin and from the hold of the world. He wants you to trade in the pie-cutter for the spatula. With a spatula you can cook food, because that’s what it was designed to do. A pie cutter was designed to cut pies not cook food. You were designed for life with Him, not a life burdened with the worries of this world, that is not our home. Trade it in ladies, and then you can experience real, satisfying, eternal life; the life you were created for.
by Gina Mayfield
I don’t know about you – but I am always looking for resources to point our 2 1/2 year old to Jesus and show her the real meaning behind Easter. So, I began to scour the internet to see what I could find to help me in my parenting journey, here are a few things I have found…
Family Devotional:
Trail to the Tree: a devotional book for families written by Ann Voskamp
Activities and Crafts:
Resurrection Eggs: Each egg in this one dozen set includes a meaningful object that helps teach the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. You can also create your own eggs instead of buying them in a package. Here are a few resources – Motherhood on a Dime for Preschoolers, From Tots to Teens, and Day to Day Joys.
Easter Breakfast Resurrection Rolls – make these with your family on Easter morning
He died…for me – an easy, yet powerful reminder
The Jelly Bean Prayer – a prayer jar filled with jelly beans
Holy Week and Easter Activities for the Whole Family – this is a series from Focus on the Family
Books & Music:
Benjamin’s Box: The Story of the Resurrection Eggs
Seeds of Easter by Seeds Family Worship
So, help a new mom out, what resources do you use to point your children to the real meaning of Easter? I’d love to hear them!
by Debbie Stovall
God tends to show me spiritual lessons in the strangest places! You too? Usually I’m like my friend Dena who says God teaches her spiritual lessons most often through nature and everyday life. Well a strange species of nature collided with my everyday life for a grand spiritual lesson just as school was starting back this past year.
As a mother of adult children, family time happens less and less frequently. So after a busy summer we finally managed to squeeze in a week away in a quaint little cabin on a serene lake far away from the rat race. My youngest son joined the family with several scrapes and bruises from working the ropes course and working out in the gym at the Christian camp where he had been employed for the summer. Boys!
Vacation was blissful. Swimming, kayaking, and cooking out in the daytime, and jigsaw puzzles and old movies every evening got it off to a great start. Then 2 days into our trip my son commented that his scraped leg was hurting. I checked it. It was a little pink and quite swollen. I went to the store and got some Neopsorin and waterproof Band-aids and told him we needed to watch it.
The next morning he hobbled around the kitchen as he cooked omelets for the family, all the while assuring us that he was fine. By lunch he could hardly walk, was having shooting pains, and the leg had 3 distinct pus pockets near the original scrape! Yikes! I knew. Staph. I’d never seen it before, but I just knew. After a scramble to find a local doctor who would take an out-of-towner, Dr. Mom’s diagnosis was confirmed, and we were getting prescriptions filled in no time. “Everything is gonna be ok,” I kept telling myself, not fully believing.
The infection didn’t get worse, but it didn’t improve either. At all.
After 2 full days of meds with no change, we headed home to his usual doctor. This doctor confirmed the previous diagnosis and changed him to a stronger medication. While waiting on the lab report to come back on the strain of staph he had, the sores began to ooze a thick yellow goo. My son slept and slept like Rip Van Winkle (his body was fighting a hard battle), so we woke him up precisely every 8 hours for medicine, but the leg got to looking nasty. (Don’t google staph infection pictures if you have a weak stomach! I’ve included a mild “after” pic below.)
Monday morning greeted us with a confirmation that it was MRSA – the strain of staph that is most resistant to medicines. I must admit this was quite a faith journey for me, but that’s for another blog. We continued our regimen of cleaning and bandaging and medicating and resting and taking photos twice a day to document the disease’s progression. Healing was happening, but it got to looking worse before it got better. Slowly the oozing, swelling, and redness diminished.
After 10 days of strong medication it finally looked like just a couple of scabs on regular pink-colored skin! Whew! Just in time for us to move the boy back in his college dorm. End of story, right?
Wrong. Four days later he called. The pinkness and swelling started up again! Back to the doctor. Another round of antibiotics. And that’s where we were at the time I first wrote this. “The rest of the story” was still happening. His Dr. jokingly said we wouldn’t get to call him “Peg Leg Pete,” but that’s all we knew at the time. God was in the driver’s seat, and I was just along for the ride. As it turns out, my son continued to get better and has been fine since, except for brownish scars where the infection sites were. The Dr. warned us that my son may have a propensity for the staph to recur in the future.
Now for the spiritual aspect of my long story. This morning God showed me clearly how that MRSA is a picture of sin.
Think about it. We go along working out, going on our vacations, running errands, going to work or school, raising our kids…. We think we’re doing fine. But underneath our skin those individual germs of sin are reproducing and growing. Maybe it’s jealousy or greed or bitterness over something from the past, or lying, unforgiveness or salacious thoughts. Maybe it is anger toward our spouse or a judgmental attitude toward a co-worker or our worship leader at church. But these are little things, right? We don’t even feel the need to confess them sometimes because “Hey, everybody else does that, too.”
But those germs of sin are growing.
That unforgiveness swells into hatred toward a person. Or our judgmental attitude toward a co-worker grows into vengeful actions because they irritate us. Or we take a pill just to relax because “it’s been a really bad day.” At this point it’s growing silently, unconfessed, just under the surface of life. We’re still doing ok, going through the routine of life. People might notice little quirks, but no one knows about our sin. Whatever it is.
Who knows what your sin is, I certainly know mine.
Then one morning it grows enough to get our attention. We feel that first twinge of pain sin causes. Our boss overhears us speaking harsh critical remarks – ouch! Someone catches us watching, reading, or listening to inappropriate things – ooh! Our lie is discovered – oh no! Or we get called in to the boss over issues with our accounts – we just hold our breath. Just as physical pain is good for us because it alerts us to the fact that something is wrong, these pains of conscience, pains in our spirit, are good. They alert us to the fact that sin is festering inside. If we are wise we will turn to The Great Physician in repentance at this point.
But if we don’t… this analogy continues. Before we know it, overnight it seems, these ignored twinges turn into pain that cripples us. We limp around with sin swelling within us and pockets of more infection springing up all around. Lying, cover-up, having to remember our stories, more lies, slip ups, more cover-ups… you know how it goes. Or that little flirtation with improper sexual thoughts grows into a stronghold of lady-porn, improper relationships, cheating, family pain, broken relationships with those we’ve loved. By the time we catch ourselves and are willing to repent, we have spiralled down and are spiritually sinful, rotten, oozing, scabby, crusty zombies.
Finally, from pain or consequences or conviction we reach our limit, repent, and go to the Great Physician.
But then nothing. I’ve repented. Why hasn’t God fixed my mess already? Why are people still upset with me? Why isn’t there a magic wand that makes everything right immediately?
Sin has consequences.
Relationships can be restored and situations set aright, but it takes time and seeking the Lord and set backs and immersing ourselves in the Word and prayer and being willing to admit our sin and seek forgiveness.
Just like the long process of healing from staph, healing from sin is a long process.
If we had Ebola, staph or even strep we would be heading to the doctor for help! Girls, we have a really bad case of this sin disease. We have spiritual MRSA – Malicious Radical Sin Affliction! It’s tough to fight and impossible to cure here on this earth. We will always be plagued with it lying just under the surface waiting to flare up, to grow and spread its evil infection through our souls, if we aren’t constantly aware, repenting, vigilant. We desperately need help.
Is there hope? Yes, always! We can daily go to “the Doctor.” The prescription? Read His Word. Spend time listening to His heart. Pray. Get together with other believers to be mutually strengthened. Change our behaviors. Make wise choices. Let Him search our hearts and reveal our motives.
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24)
Choose to act obediently on what He has shown us and repent every day, if not more often. And don’t forget to confess those “little” things we tend to excuse ourselves for doing.
Have mercy on me, O God,according to your unfailing love;according to your great compassionblot out my transgressions.Wash away all my iniquityand cleanse me from my sin. Psalm 51:1-2
by Dena Green
Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
You can live your life in front of others in such a way that they know you are a believer, whether it be a work, school or in your community interaction. There is definitely a place to let our actions to speak louder than our words. But I recently heard one of my favorite preachers say that “it is the power of the gospel that saves someone”. We can equip ourselves with a few simple tools and the Word of God to share the gospel. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God will do the work.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association breaks down how to share the gospel into 4 simple steps.
To receive Christ, a person needs to do 4 things:
Romans 10:13 says, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” Here’s a prayer you can pray to receive Christ:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior. Guide my life and help me to do your will. In your name, amen.”
There is more insight on witnessing available on the Billy Graham Evangelical Association website.
Our pastor recently shared the 3 Circles: LIFE CONVERSATION GUIDE app that is available on your smart phone and it would be a great tool to illustrate the gospel presentation above. Another phone app that is available is SHARE JESUS WITHOUT FEAR which give you steps to walk through when sharing the gospel.
Shake the fear that is holding you back. To be successful at most things in life, we must equip ourselves and practice and then do. It is no different with sharing the gospel. Prepare yourself spiritually. Get a plan. Follow the Spirit’s leadership. SHARE! The truth of the Gospel is never wasted on anyone. It is God who gives the increase.
1 Corinthians 3:5-9 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Mark 16:15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation
Other resourses on witnessing:
As a young mom, clutter was always a battle. The Second Law of Thermodynamics – that all closed systems tend to drift toward a state of disorder – played out daily in my home! (I’m married to an engineer, can you tell?) I cleaned up the house and my four little ones and their mass of toys would bring disorder sweeping in right behind me.
One of the biggest culprits of this toy mess, and my biggest love-hate relationship was with Legos! I loved the creativity they generated in my kids, but hated the chaos on the floor of their room, particularly when I had to walk through there. Barefoot. In the dark! Ouch!
Each morning the Lego bin was dumped. In every spare moment – before school, after school, all day on holidays and weekends – cities and machines, craft and people of all sorts were meticulously assembled by my little horde of creators. Over the course of the day there were frequent requests of “Mom, come look at this one!” After supper was prime Lego play time, no school and often Dad would join in the fun. There were pirates and natives of tropical islands, British soldiers and space explorers and of course every conceivable building, device, or mode of transportation these Lego people might need. As you might imagine, when bath and bedtime approached it was war. “No! Don’t make me put them up!” “Whyyyy? I just got finished building it!” Sound familiar?
After too many bedtime showdowns, I realized something had to change. I’d been going to bed every night wound up from dealing with the kids. As the saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” so I came up with a solution.
Now, I’m not a “perfect house” kind of gal; I want our family to be able to actually live in, play in, and enjoy our home. My goal for picking up the toys was a safety issue. If the kids got sick in the middle of the night, or if there was a fire or other emergency, the children needed to be able to safely walk out of the room and their dad and I be able to safely walk in without crippling ourselves or falling over toys. It dawned on me that all we needed was a safe path through our personal Legoland.
The next night I introduced new procedures to the kids. They could henceforth leave the creations they had built spread out all over their room as long as there was a cleared path between their bed and the door. They readily agreed. That first night I helped clean up in order to show them what I considered a decent “clear path.” After that it was smooth sailing. Each night 10 minutes before bath time “Clear a path to your bed!” would ring out from Mom or Dad, baths would proceed without frustrated gripes (at least the gripes about having to pick up toys), and bedtime became peaceful.
So what does all this have to do with anything spiritual? I think it gives us a glimpse of the love of the Father.
As I saw my children, made in the image of Creator God, creating their Lego landscape, I saw sheer joy and love. Joy in creating them. Uniquely. Joy in talking with them. Joy in planning the whole script of their Lego lives and moving them from here to there. Joy in giving them new homes and cars and hats. Joy in being with them first thing the next morning and spending the day with them. Joy in protecting them from the crawling baby brother. Joy in preserving them from mom who would require destroying (putting up) things each night. They loved the creative process, loved what they made, loved interacting with it, and loved showing it off to others.
Just think about the loving care that went in to creating everything we know. Creator God spent thought and energy and love and passion preparing this world we take for granted. What must have gone into his ideas for making the earth a ball and dangling it in space with beautiful heavenly bodies and spinning it and making it of dirt and rocks and water and air? What creative joy did He get out of making volcanos, clouds, hurricanes, and caves? Did He do all 
those majestic things just because one day He would delight in our joy and awe of seeing and experiencing these amazing sights? What about the variety of plants? Couldn’t he just as easily have made one kind of plant to cover the whole earth that fed us all, created all the oxygen, and did everything else He wanted plants to do? And the animals? Again, huge variety. Did He make slugs sticky so little kids would say “Ew!”? Did he make rugged elephants to reveal His strength, downy chicks to show His gentleness, peacocks to reveal His beauty, 
marsupials to remind us He takes care of us when we’re helpless? And did He make giraffes just so one day in 2017 He could watch us with joy all come together online to wait on the birth of a giraffe for weeks? On and on I could go. But the question is still Why?
Ladies, just as we get joy from the creative process and the things we make, Father God gets great joy through us, His created masterpiece. What creative joy there must have been when He dreamed up just who we would be and gave us our particularly unique physical appearance, personality and abilities. He enjoys talking with us and being with us. He receives joy each day as He sees us live out the script, the plan, He has set in place for our lives. He rejoices every time He gets to give us something He knows we desire. He loves seeing each of us first thing every morning and spending His day with us. He enjoys protecting and preserving us from the things that might hurt or destroy us. He loves the whole process, from bringing us into being to relating with us to showing us off. He just simply loves us.
We were created for God’s good pleasure and to bring glory to Him. I encourage you today to bask in His love. Then live out your day in His love. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19) When we know we are truly and deeply loved by our Creator, we will operate differently in this ole world.
For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited—
he says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain.’
I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right.
“Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save.
Declare what is to be, present it—let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me.
“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.
They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone are deliverance and strength.’”
All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.
But all the descendants of Israel will find deliverance in the Lord
and will make their boast in him.
Isaiah 45:18-25
by guest author Kristi Singletary
When it rains it pours, somehow that is always the case. Have you ever been to that point in life where you thought what else could possibly go wrong? We have had our share lately and we found ourselves overwhelmed to say the least.
In January, my husband had a car accident. I was helping my daughter at her house when we received that dreaded phone call. I was literally stunned for a second unable to believe what I was hearing; I do not do well in those situations. OVERWHELMED!
Thank goodness my daughter was there so she drove us to the scene of the accident. My husband was very dazed with pain in his head and abdomen. An ambulance ride was the only option as he is on blood thinner everyday due to an aortic valve replacement that he had back in 2013 (another testimony for another day) and the scare was internal bleeding. OVERWHELMED!
When we arrived at the hospital, they did a CT scan of his head and abdomen. The results were incredible! His scans were all clear, he was going to be ok. God had protected him once again. OVERWHELMED! Still very foggy headed with a massive headache, he was able to go home that night.
The next few days were difficult as he beat himself up over having an accident. He was upset that we were going to have to make a financial decision regarding a new vehicle as he figured his was totaled. The insurance company called and indeed it was totaled. OVERWHELMED!
As he was home recovering, we received a call from the hospital where he had gone after his accident. The nurse advised that the radiologist had read his scans and that he had a lesion on his right kidney, unrelated to the accident, that needed to be checked out. Seriously??!! Are you kidding me??!! Did God allow he accident to discover this??!! OVERWHELMED!
A few days later, we went to clean out his truck so the insurance company could take possession; the truck that had belonged to his late father for years. OVERWHELMED! It was sad as he cleaned out his dad’s truck and said goodbye to that piece of him.
One week later, he had an appointment to see a urologist about the lesion on his kidney. Upon reviewing the scan, the doctor confirmed that there was definitely a wedge-shaped
mass. OVERWHELMED! We were told about the possibilities including cancer and the only way to know what we were dealing with would be to remove that part of the kidney and have pathology reveal the diagnosis. OVERWHELMED!
We were advised to come back in 6 weeks for my husband to have a repeat CT scan to determine growth or changes and go from there. It was a long, long 6 weeks! OVERWHELMED! In the interim, some days fear consumed us and some days we had incredible faith. And our firstborn got married during this time; we had a lot going on for sure. Six weeks passed and we went to the urologist unsure of the outcome. OVERWHELMED!
The doctor came into the room laughing, just laughing. I wish I had a video to share with you. He said, “Todd, your scan is fine! I don’t know what to tell you, whatever was there is gone. Not only gone, but it left a scar. When I first looked at your scan, I thought why did we scan this guy? It looked like I had done surgery to remove that piece of your kidney. So I went back to read your chart and remembered that you had something there. I don’t know what to tell you, it’s gone, whatever was there is dead, but it left a scar. You do not need me anymore!” Say what??!! Are you kidding me??!! OVERWHELMED!
God had once again protected my precious husband. I’m sure each of you have similar stories, testimony of God’s healing or protection. We are still very overwhelmed by the latest event, the thing is GONE and it left a SCAR. Isn’t it just like God to not only remove the thing, but to leave a scar??!! A scar that appeared that it was surgically removed?! He wanted us, the doctor, and the world to NOT be able to explain it away. God left proof! Undisputable proof! A scar that He had been there. OVERWHELMED!
As I think back over the last few months, I have tried to figure out the purpose in all of this. What was the reason for the accident, for the kidney mass? We will never really know as God’s ways are higher than our ways. He sees the big picture; after all He is the author of our story. We believe that the wreck happened to find the kidney mass. And we believed that God, without a doubt, removed it from Todd’s kidney. He left a scar so that the world would not be able to explain Him away, that we and the doctor could see, without a doubt, a touch from His healing hand, a miracle! OVERWHELMED!
The doctor was laughing and smiling so big, I think because he too knew the truth and he too was overwhelmed. Whatever your life looks like today, stuck in a season of pouring rain from the circumstances of this life, grab hold of the Savior. Hang on precious one because the sunshine is coming!
When He reigns, He pours!
Much love,
Kristi
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”Isaiah 55:8-9
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Originally published on Memory Laine Boutique’s “Beautiful You Blog” – March 21 2017 https://memorylaineboutique.com/blogs/beautiful-you-memory-laine-boutique-blog)
It’s crunch time for me! In exactly one month a horde of college students will be at my house for the weekend. My youngest and next to youngest will be bringing car loads of friends for their formal here in our town. So this month I am in mad cleaning mode. Here’s the background.
Mom passed away 22 months ago. I brought all her personal belongings to my basement, and there they’ve sat this whole time.
I’m not lazy.
I’m not a hoarder.
I’ve gone to the basement approximately 20 times since then planning to clean out and throw away. But all of those subterranean excursions have lasted less than an hour. As I begin to sort, I become emotional, overcome with memories and grief. Whether it is a visual memory connected to an item, a smell of my mom’s perfume, or something totally unexplainable to me, something always ignites my emotions and I find myself unable unwilling to continue.
But this year for Lent I heard of the idea of giving up your clutter. (I know, I know, it doesn’t really fulfill the purpose of Lent, but bear with me here.) The idea proposed giving away one bag full of unused items from your home for each of the 40 days of Lent. So I’m trying it. It is not a spiritual thing,… but it is. It is deeply affecting me and teaching me.
Today as I gathered up another bag, I entered the unused bedroom in the basement that contains the leftovers of my mom’s life. Once again the aroma of her face cream, the sight of her old kitchen utensils and the stuff of her life – her address book, her phone, her purse – all threatened to undo me once again. Then I caught sight of her sifter. That precious old kitchen utensil! The one I begged her to let me help with from the time I was 5 years old and that I had seen her use hundreds of times in the past brought a smile. And I thought – I’ll take that upstairs and clean it up and use it in my kitchen. So now it sits soaking in my sink.
Somehow in that sifter I see a spiritual picture of redemption and restoration.
Redemption – the act of offsetting the bad effect of, making worthwhile, extricating from, or helping to overcome something detrimental
Restoration – the return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition.
You see, Mom had to move out of the her home of forty-five years and into an assisted living about 5 years prior to her death due to a fall and health issues. She didn’t really want to move, so we locked the house up and kept it as it was for a year – just in case she wanted to move back you understand. 😉
After a year locked up and unoccupied, mice, raccoons, etc. had taken up residence in the 70+ year old house. Due to their chewing and nesting and such, most of the things she had left behind when she moved to Lakewood were not salvageable. Those things that held a dear memory for us kids we did try to retrieve and clean up. This sifter was one of those things for me, but it was still in the dirty, forgotten shape it had been in when I brought it from my childhood home years ago.
Anyone else would quickly toss that sifter in the trash bin destined for the dump. But I see its worth. I love it. It is dear to me.
People are like that sifter. Seemingly worthless in the eyes of some, but of great worth and greatly loved and treasured by the Father. Redeemable. He sees our usefulness. He remembers fondly the times we were close to Him and longs for that again. He longs to put us in that warm soapy water and wash us up, scrub us with a Brillo pad and make us shine. He tenderly cares for us as He cleans and restores lest that timeworn wooden knob break or that metal mesh get split open. He gently works with us in our hearts, through His Word, and through people around us who “love us back” to a restored state. You are worth restoring!
He has a plan for us, just like I have a plan for that sifter. You see, this week is my eldest’s 30th birthday, and I intend to teach some of my closest loves (my grandsons) to use “Peppymint’s” sifter as we make their dad a birthday cake. I’m planning a celebration, and that sifter is central to my plan! No, it won’t be noticed by many. And yes, it will end up sitting in my cabinet except for maybe a few days a month when I happen to bake. But it is not forgotten. It is not useless. It is crucial! It is cherished! And so are you!
If you find yourself feeling too dirty to be used, unredeemable, stored away and forgotten, not worth restoring, or old and worn out and wondering if you’re still needed by the Father, Stop! You may have lived through the years of rust and dust of sin and deception coating you over. You may have had your season being stored in the basement, but He’ll bring you out in time to make the cake for the party. He knows how to restore you and clean you up. He needs you for His purposes. We, the body, need you.
You have a purpose in God’s plan as long as you have breath in your lungs. You may be the thing that brings Him great joy as He uses you in the background. Or you may be displayed in front of His closest loves as He teaches them something wonderful. Or you may not be a sifter at all; you may be a Mont Blanc pen, or a Battenburg lace tablecloth, or a latchhook rug He carefully wove together. But you have a place in God’s plan. Never forget the story of the sifter.
“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103:2-5
Hey! Good to see you again! Grab your Jasmine Tea or whatever your favorite beverage is. I’ve got my cup of Breakfast Blend.
So… have you just been doin’ it? Your personal Quiet Time alone with God each day, that is. Have you? This stuff builds upon itself you know. Walk in obedience to the truth you’ve already been shown.
Enough check up and lecture, on to business. A couple of months back Michele mentioned some of these ideas, but there is much to be gained from examining differing perspectives.
A huge part of our quiet time each day is reading and studying God’s word. I hope you chose a Bible reading plan and are well into it. If you’ve kept up with a monthly whole Bible reading plan, you’re probably about 20% Of the way through! On fifth! Way to go! If you haven’t started but would like to, jump in! There’s never a bad time to begin searching out the Father’s Word.
Here are some tips and ideas that may help you read & get the most from scripture study:
For more ideas check out this article from the Navigators on how to study your Bible.
Mmmm! My coffee was so good! But sharing Bible study tips was even better. What about you? Do you have specific Bible study tips you’d like to share with the rest of us? We’d love to hear from you!
by Tera Ferguson
The LORD and the Church have always been a part of my life. I was born into a Christian home. My parents were very active in church. My daddy was always either Chairman of the Deacons, Sunday School director or on another committee, and my mother was active in working with children. Both of them sang in the choir. Needless to say we were at the church every time the door was open. I even remember walking to church in the snow one Sunday when the car was iced in. Of course, we couldn’t find my gloves so I remember that my daddy kept one of his hands in his pocket and let me wear one of his big, leather gloves. I also remember joining the church and being baptized when I was very young.
Later, when I was a teenager, our youth group was preparing for a mission trip. We were using The Four Spiritual Laws booklet as our evangelistic tool. We were assigned to practice at home so we would not need to read the words but be familiar enough to say what was on each page. As I was practicing in my room, I realized that I did not remember ever praying to ask the Lord to forgive me of my sins and be Lord of my life.
This really began to nag at me. Was I a Christian? The scripture talks about “childlike faith” and “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for of such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14 ESV). So was I saved? I am sure my parents thought I was and that I understood, but I could not remember.
What did I remember? I remembered going to Sunday School and Training Union (the Sunday night classes) and Girls Auxiliary which was the mission organization for girls in my church. My mother always read me Bible stories. I remember walking down the aisle and sitting on the front row. My mother had filled out my membership card. I remember waiting with another little girl to be baptized and wondering if the water was cold. We decided that I should stick my toe in the water, but I don’t remember if the water was cold or warm.
The question remained, Was I saved? I did not like that I was asking this question. I had been in church all of my life. I was going on mission tour for crying out loud. Was I saved!!!
Well, there was one thing I knew without a shadow of a doubt and that was how to present The Four Spiritual Laws. That afternoon in my own room I went through The Four Spiritual Laws booklet and prayed to receive Christ. I have always felt that I was the first person that I ever led to the Lord. I was baptized to publicly profess my salvation. Was I saved? Yes! There was then, and is today, no question as to whether I am saved. I know that I know.
Do I believe that a person can lose their salvation? No. I do believe that every person should be able to pinpoint the occasion when they received Christ. Maybe you do not know the time or date but you should remember the circumstances of your salvation. Do you know that you know that Jesus is your Lord and Savior? Do you remember when you prayed to receive Christ? If not, now is the time to take care of business. Every Christian has a salvation story? Do you have a story?
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The Four Spiritual Laws is a booklet by Campus Crusade for Christ – Bill Bright Media Foundation.
God Gave Us Easter
Priceless 