Lori's Rambling

Over the last week, God has brought prayer to my mind again and again.  Last week I was praying for a specific health situation with a family member.  All my prayers were that the health issue would be identified and would be treatable.  Yet when the answers came from those health tests, God chose to answer in a way I didn’t think was possible – all the tests were normal and there was nothing to be concerned about.  Then, sitting in church on Sunday, absorbing Pastor Daryl’s message about prayer, it was hard to contain myself.  The thoughts bursting through my head in response to Pastor Daryl’s message and illustrations were hard to keep up with, specifically the encouragement to pray big and bold prayers.  What we think of as big and bold, God can and will outdo.  Yet we are always surprised when He does do it.  It is too easy to put God in a box, forgetting that He is the God of the universe and He CAN AND WILL DO even the impossible. ...

When I began reading my devotional tonight, it struck me right away.   The title was “The Powerful Hope In Peace”.   The author began sharing the story of the day she received her cancer diagnosis.   After leaving the doctor’s office with her husband, with many unknowns and uncertainties ahead of her, she broke down and cried.   After about fifteen minutes, as she began pulling herself together for the drive home, she describes the peace that settled over her: “But what I did know put all that I didn’t know into its place.   I knew that God was on His throne.   I knew that He was still good and I was still loved.   I knew that Jesus took care of death for me a long time ago on an old rugged cross.   And I knew that He was with me every step of the way.”   -- Leighann McCoy   I cannot tell you how many times I have re-read the line, “But what I did know put all that I didn’t know into its place.”   What a powerful and si...

One of my informal New Year’s resolutions that I made about a month ago was to make sharing my relationship with God with Jaelyn.  When she was little, we did devotions with her every night at bedtime.  Life has a way of getting in the way and before I knew it, it had been a few years since we had done devotions together.  I have been thinking, praying, and looking for a family devotional to use for Jaelyn and me.  I purchased one a few weeks ago, but with the holidays hadn’t had a chance to begin using it – actually, truth is, I didn’t make it a priority.  At Christmas time I talked with Jaelyn about starting family devotions together and wanted to start after the New Year when we were back in normal routines.  I am ashamed to say that Jaelyn had to ask me what devotions were.  Making daily time to spend with God has been a priority over the past sixteen months, especially since Scott’s death.  I haven’t always been consistent with it, but h...