Forgiven By God

In Judges chapter 6, we see yet another story of the Israelites in captivity. This time, the Israelites were so oppressed by the Midianites, that they were hiding in caves up in the mountains. In their misery, they cried out to God to help them. He replied by telling them He was going to send them someone to rescue them.      If you skip down to verse 11, you will see that the Lord picked a man named Gideon to help His people defeat the Midianites.   It’s kind of comical, because the Lord picked Gideon, but Gideon, tries to talk Him out of it. In verse 15, Gideon tells the Lord “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” In other words, “Lord I’m a nobody, from nobody’s, why are you picking me?”      Have you ever felt like Gideon? Maybe the Lord has planted a big dream in your heart, and your first reaction is to question the Lord and ask, “Lord, are you sure you are talking to me? I’m a nobody from now

Our Sunday School lesson one morning was on King Josiah. The Bible says he was 8 when he became king and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. If you read through 1-2 Kings most of the kings did not follow Gods ways so it's pretty amazing that at age 8, his spiritual compass was already pointed in the right direction. Read a little further and it says in the 18th year of his reign (that would make him 26) he ordered repair work to be done on the temple of the Lord ... . While cleaning and patching up everything they found The Book of the Law. It had been lost for several years. When King Josiah heard what The Book of Law said, he was really upset. You see Josiah had thought he was living a godly life and pointing his people back to God, but in reality he didn't know Gods Word for himself. His leadership, while done with good intentions, wasn't complete because he did not know what the Word actually said. If you continue reading, it's says he went and

About 5 years ago, our church was called to fast corporately. We were able to fast however we wanted, but as a body of believers we were all fasting together. One day, about half-way through our fast I was making dinner. I was trying to boil a big pot of chicken so I could make chicken and dumplings. I had been cooking the chicken breasts for a while so the water was really hot. I reached in with a wooden spoon to try and see if the chicken was done. Big mistake. The chicken flew off the spoon and boiling water went straight into my eye. I had three small kids at home and there just happened to be no one around to take me to the emergency room that day, but thankfully that wasn't needed. The water that went into my eye, did not cause any damage. The only damage I had was a slight burn mark under my eye to show me how hot that water really was. I never went to the doctor. I just went and flushed out the chicken juice and I was fine. I even made it to church the next ni

While we lived at Valliant, I would take the shortcut to Battiest while going to work everyday. For those of you that don't know, the shortcut consisted of 13 miles of dirt road, which may seem odd unless you're from Battiest. One day I was driving home from school. Zellie was in headstart at the time and so she was in the car with me. We were driving down the dirt road and I remember looking over and seeing that she was unbuckled. I remember thinking I really should make her put her seatbelt on, but it was a fight a lot of times to get it on her and I really didn't think anything would happen anyway. On this particular day, I was driving a little too fast. I came around a curve and lost control of the vehicle. My truck started to fishtail and then we slid sideways. A small pine tree was sitting on the edge of the road. It was small but it happened to be sturdy enough to stop the truck. I had reached out my hand in front of Zellie as we were sliding. I remember l

I taught myself to cross-stitch when I was like 12 years old. I have been doing it ever since and am pretty capable at reading patterns and knowing what the stitches are, etc. A few years ago, I found a table top, table runner and pillow set that I just had to have. I thought it was such a pretty piece, so I ordered all three pieces. I was so excited when the kits came in, I just couldn't wait to start working on them. I opened the package and pulled out the material and started to look for the directions. The package said to follow the directions. The problem was there wasn't any directions. There was a picture that did not match the pattern I was looking at stamped on the material. It was similar but it wasn't the same thing. Even though I had lots of experience sewing, it just looked too complicated, so I put it up in my basket and that's where it sat for several years. This pattern made me think about when I first came back to church. There was a lot of

When Cord was three years old, he got an infection that caused the lymph nodes in his neck to swell. We took him to the doctor and they gave him a round of antibiotics and the lymph nodes should have went down, but they didn't. Instead, they got bigger, so a stronger dose of antibiotic was ordered and blood work was done. His blood work showed mixed results. Some things were too high and some things were too low. Hardly any of the things they tested were normal for a boy his age. The doctor felt like it was an infection and it should go away with the stronger antibiotic, but it didn't. Instead the knots in his lymph nodes got bigger. At this point, our pediatrician told us we needed to get Cord in to see a specialist immediately. He said the words no parent wants to hear. In his 30 years of pediatric work only one other child had presented with the same symptoms that Cord had and that child was diagnosed with cancer. It just so happens that my mother-in-law knew the ch