Author: Carolyn

I am a Christian, a sinner saved by God's amazing grace. Much like my life, my blog is a work in progress. The main objective I have for this blog is to "proclaim the praises" of the One who called me out of darkness and into His marvelous light! (1 Peter 2:9)

A New Year’s Resolution

Carolyn

The new year. A time to begin again. New hopes, new goals, new plans.

Yesterday, I turned the last page and closed the book it took me a year to read. The Bible.

I used the NIV One Year Chronological Bible. It was the first time I had ever read the Bible in a year, the completion of a goal I set for 2013. It was a blessing to see the full scope of God’s Word, how it all ties together. I encourage anyone to do this and take time to see what God has spoken to us through the Bible.

For those of us craving to hear from God, this is the place we find Him speaking. It’s worth the time to daily read, reflect, and pray.

I could come up with a whole list of goals and resolutions for 2014 (i.e., exercise, eat right, limit distractions such as social media, etc.). Perhaps like last year, though, I should pick one main thing and find joy at year’s end when it’s achieved. Instead of many resolutions that end up broken, I name one that is attainable and that can produce growth through that one action. And then commit it to the Lord, asking for His strength to do it, dedicating the new year to Him.

What are you resolving to do this year?

The Patience of God

Carolyn

My high school friend Terri hosts an Advent reflection group on Facebook each year, and she asked me to write something for one of the days. This was what I submitted.

In this season of Advent, we wait with expectation for the coming of Christ at Christmas. We reflect again on his coming to earth in the form of a baby to live life as a man (fully God, fully man), die for our sins, and be raised again. During Advent, we prepare our hearts to make room for Christ (“Let every heart prepare him room” as Isaac Watts penned in “Joy to the World”). We turn away from the things – even good things – that would draw us away from Christ in this season, and we focus on Him. We ponder the true Gift Giver, God Himself, and the gift of salvation (and much more!) that is ours in Christ.

We also remember that there is a second coming of Christ, one to come, and we consider how we are preparing for that coming. (“Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.” Luke 12:35)

We wait. We wait for our King’s arrival! We wait for His return!

In this season of our waiting, I began to reflect on a God who waits. Is there evidence in Scripture that God waits for us?

Look at these verses:

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you….” (Isaiah 30:18)

“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)

“…God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared,…” (1 Peter 3:20)

“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

“And count the patience of our Lord as salvation…” (2 Peter 3:15)

christmas oldMy husband and I are part of a couples’ “small group” in our church. We meet every month, rotating homes, to fellowship and study the Bible together. Several years ago, while we were at our small group in a time of animated discussion, I was listening to everyone share and fully engaged in the conversation. While we were talking about whatever our study was that week, several words flew across my mind, interrupting my thoughts: “I waited for you.”

It’s hard to explain as this kind of thing has only happened a couple of times in my life and perhaps it sounds odd. But while my attention had been fully focused elsewhere, not trying to imagine something God might say, those words cut right through the conversation and spoke (though not audibly) to my heart: “I waited for you.”

I remembered that when I was a little girl, there was a verse in the Bible that said something about God being patient so that many would come to salvation as He did not want people to perish. And in my young mind, I had wondered about that, thinking, “Yes, Lord, but the longer you wait, the more people are born, and so the more people are probably actually going to be lost because there are so many more people!”

After our small group, my husband went out to the movies with the guys, and I went home and got down on the floor with my Bible and prayed, asking God about this. “Where is that verse?” “And are you speaking about that verse to me?”

As I prayed and flipped through my Bible, I found the verse in 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”  (2 Peter 3:9)

face to faceI asked the Lord if He would keep showing me this verse and teaching me through it if this was truly from Him. Three days of that next week, God brought me this verse through various devotionals and books. One had come in the mail that week from a conference I had attended, and the devotional was about 2 Peter 3:9. I also occasionally work through the book Face to Face (it guides your prayer with Scripture), and 2 Peter 3:9 was listed as one of the verses for the day. Then there was a third source, as well, another day. All three unseen beforehand, placed and timed perfectly that week to show me this truth.

The thought was quite powerful. God had waited for me. Before I had believed Christ and trusted Him with my life and for the forgiveness of my sins, He had been waiting for me. Once it became personal, I suddenly threw out all of the mental mathematical work on that verse that I had done as a child! God had waited for me. I ponder each of those words. Our God, the Creator of the universe, the Savior of the world – waiting – for me, small though I am, sinful, unworthy, yet even for me, He waited.

Do you know this King that is coming? The One who has come and will come again? Can you imagine that He might be waiting for you? If you haven’t trusted Jesus for your sins, why not do so this very day, this Christmas season, and experience a rebirth even as we celebrate His birth.

The Bible tells us that if we confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved (Romans 10:9-10). I pray you know this Jesus as your Savior and Lord, and the abundant, eternal life He wants you to have. And may we celebrate with joy a God who is so personal, who loves us so dearly, that He would send His Son into our brokenness and sin to suffer in our place so that we might know His righteousness and be reconciled to God. What a gift! What a Savior! What a King! Praise the Lord!

Happy Thanksgiving

Carolyn

It’s been a quieter Thanksgiving. We were in Florida for a family wedding two weekends ago, and my sister and her kids came back through for an eight-day visit. We enjoyed being with them; it’s far too infrequent. They left on Tuesday, and after a busy last couple of weeks, we had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving with my mom. We went to church last night for the annual Thanksgiving Eve service, and that’s always a favorite service during the year to be encouraged by testimony of God’s faithfulness in many lives.

There are so many things to be thankful for on this day and every day. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

A week ago today my son and I were involved in a car wreck. While waiting at a red light, on a dark and rainy evening, two cars had a wreck in the intersection, each trying to beat a yellow light, one turning, and once they collided, the wreck came flying into our sitting car. I had my son and his friend in the car, coming home from his driver’s ed class, of all places! I have no doubt we were intended to be right in that place, right at that time, for that very moment.

I had just been praising the Lord that morning for such a fun time in Florida with my extended family and for the many good gifts from his hand. And I was wondering would I respond with praise when things aren’t as good. Would I love Him and recognize His goodness to me in all things. I’ve been reading through the gospels in my daily Bible readings and seeing how Jesus told his disciples to watch and pray that they might not fall into temptation. They needed to be prepared.

Before the wreck, unrelated to it, as we had headed to the intersection where we were waiting at the red light, a car had come speeding by us on the left, illegally, and raced past to turn in front of us. His cutting me off made me miss the previous light. As I sat at that intersection, the first car in line, waiting for the next green light, I wondered about how that car was on down the road in my place, and I was sitting in his place. I thought, wouldn’t that be weird if I find him down the road in a wreck and he ended up taking my wreck. But moments later, I was in a wreck, in his place.

Of course, I was right where God intended. And would I praise Him even in this? I do praise and thank the Lord for that. Could it be, in God’s good design, my son, who just took to the road today to drive for the first time, is now more sobered by the responsibility of driving, aware that we really aren’t in control, recognizing firsthand that cars can be really dangerous? This will definitely cause him to always wear his seat belt, if he ever wanted to be lazy about it!

But whether I can find good in it or not, I know it was for good purposes, and I know that God is good.

And I thank Him this Thanksgiving, among other things, for His protection over us. And I thank Him for our family and friends. Perhaps not being with many of them today reminds me all the more of what a gift they are. I thank Him for the many good gifts from His hand (James 1:17), and most of all, for His salvation. I thank Jesus for taking my sin, bearing my shame, suffering for me, taking my place, the punishment for sin that I deserved, and giving His life for me, so that I could live, and know Him, my Creator and Lord and King. He is good, and I praise and thank Him.

Weeks Nine and Ten of Summer!

Carolyn

The summer is coming to a swift conclusion! It’s been a wonderful summer, but we are ready for the new things the fall has in store!

Most of our last two weeks of summer were spent in Florida! It was a last minute trip that fit perfectly in all of our schedules, so we did it. This is probably my favorite place on earth. I’m a Floridian by birth, so perhaps it stuck with me!

This is the single picture I got of my kids on this trip!
They have grown a lot since our trip last year over spring break.

Unlike our England trip, where I gave up my time in the Word while we traveled around so much (not a good idea! It was a loss!), I thankfully had time every day to read my Bible and pray each morning in Florida, and the Lord met me in very specific and needed ways. I returned with a heart overflowing with praise to God and awe of His personal care for us.

Here’s a verse from my Scripture reading one day that really ministered to me in what we were going through and that I prayed through:

Isaiah 43:18-21:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

“A new thing!” He provides and gives “that they may proclaim my praise” (note my blog name!).

A friend from Virginia who was praying for us that week wrote me that same day and shared this same verse from Isaiah 43! I told her I had prayed it that morning, and she wrote me that she had asked God what to share, and that was the verse He gave her.

My last night in Florida, I stood on the shore with the waves lapping over my feet, praying and asking God to “redeem this,” to redeem the hard things of the week. My friend wrote me the next morning, “I am praying God will redeem this.” I got in the car to travel home, and my Bible study lesson was on “Full Redemption.” (I love Psalm 130:7, with the Lord there is unfailing love and plentiful and abundant redemption!) I praise the Lord for this needed encouragement.

There were hard parts to the week as our car was wrecked by an uninsured motorist, we had brought some friends along for the kids, and just other circumstances that were good, but that revealed hard things. So I pray God uses it all for His glory.

I love this time of year when the academic year begins. My whole family lives by it, so this is always fun to get started again.

We have the school picnic today for my daughter. In my Bible reading this morning, it was in Jeremiah 17 which is where the school verses are:

Jeremiah 17:7-8:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

This is contrasted with the person who trusts in man (Jer. 17:5-6) who is like a bush in the wastelands, dwelling in the desert. It sounds like a person who could use the provision of the Lord described in Isaiah 43 above: water, streams, drink! He is the spring of living water (Jer. 17:13)!

Oh, may we put our trust in Him for the coming year and each new day! I praise the Lord for the summer rest and provision and look to Him for the new school year!