It’s Okay Not to Be Okay

By Sheila Walsh

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Philippians 1:6 (NLT)

My darling mom died two years ago. I miss her every day. I don’t think anything quite prepares you for saying goodbye to your mom. After her funeral in Scotland, I stayed several days to help my sister, Frances, go through Mom’s things. One treasure I brought home was the little Bible that always sat by her bed. She’d received it in December of 1942, when she was 13 years old. She wrote on one of the blank pages, “Grace is undeserved favor. It is love stooping.”

We spent several hours going through Mom’s big red box of family photographs. “Did you really mean to have purple hair?” my sister asked with a smile, holding up a photo that showed one of my more creative choices. “Yes,” I said, grinning back. “Sadly, that was intentional.”

I paused on a photograph from the day I graduated from seminary. I remember that day so well. I was 21 years old. My hair in that season was dark and very short. I had to have most of it cut off after a disastrous experiment with a perm. I looked at my smiling face, confident I would now go out and change the world for Jesus. I remember my mom saying to me that day: “God began this good work in you, Sheila, and He will continue His work until you see Him face-to-face.” I wish I’d listened to those words more carefully. I wish I’d understood the liberating truth that God is the one who begins His work in us, and He will complete it. I thought it was up to me.

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8 Habits That Kill Your Metabolism (an article modified from My Fitness Pal)

I receive health and fitness emails regularly from multiple sources. How many of you grow weary and poor from the promises of this product or this diet that will finally get your body to respond miraculously and shed those mid-life crisis pounds that simply will not come off.

A My Fitness Pal email caught my attention today entitled “8 Habits That Kill Your Metabolism.” Although more recently I have been deleting and unsubscribing, I decided to read the 8 reasons and counter with my OWN 8 habits that I happen to know are inhibiting my weight loss. Let’s see which one you agree with more and let me know if you have your own ideas.

My Fitness Pal list (without descriptions) is as follows:

Skipping breakfast

Eating the wrong breakfast

Sitting too much

Neglecting strength training

Not getting enough protein

Not getting enough sleep

Not drinking enough water

Stressing out

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I’m a horrible neighbor. Well, I do wave when I pass someone out in their yard but gone are the days when parents sat outside as their children played, visited and even shared a glass of lemonade or iced tea. I can’t blame the culture but think about it, you must hurry home to fix supper or you have a project to work on. I know that’s been my excuse for years. There were times the power went out or a storm blew down some trees, then we saw the neighbors, but I’m extremely guilty of running into the house and doing my thing.

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That to-do list God has for you today most certainly includes prayer. And you can’t go wrong using the mnemonic device ACTS: Adoration. Confession. Thanksgiving. Supplication.

The word “adoration” reminds us that God is worthy of praise and his awesomeness should bring us to our knees. He’s not just  more magnificent than the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls, he is the Creator of those natural wonders. If we start our prayers with humble adoration to a glorious God, we’re headed in the right direction.

Confession  breaks the hold of sin in our lives so we can pray from a clean slate. God already knows where we fall short of his glory, but doing our own personal inventory  will surely lead to an attitude of repentance. Confessing our sins begins the process of breaking the pattern of sin. The exciting news is that when we come to God for forgiveness, he has already forgotten our sins, casting them away “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12).Continue reading→

Here Today Gone Tomorrow

I don’t mean to be trite, but two funerals in two days, really? I have never been more aware of the frailty of life as I am right now. In reverse order, last Thursday our sweet friend, Tressa, breathed her last breath. When the cancer metastasized, she was doomed. No one more precious, a young mother, wife, lover of Jesus and just all-around good person.

A few weeks ago, our friend, “Brother Jim” was working on his computer one night after his wife went to bed and just died. He just peacefully died.

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