Soul Sister Time

            There are two major themes of the Lenten season and they are the same themes that Jesus taught throughout His ministry; repent and believe.  These same lessons are meant to be a part of every day we live.  They come into focus during the Lenten season when we are preparing our hearts for believing in the greatest miracle of love the world has ever known.             God asks us to repent because He loves.  He doesn’t require that we repent of every minor offense that we have committed.  He knows we cannot even see how deeply sinful we are.  Even when we are being good, we are not purely good, perhaps seeking a little too much glory for ourselves.  Only God knows the true truth depths of our sins (Jeremiah 17:9).  He simply asks that we look at His holiness and recognize how impossible it is for us to look at His purity without accepting that our true impurity is far beyond what we can even see. When He calls us to repentance, it is purely out of His love for us.    

May you have a holy Lent!  I put together past Tea Time for Your Soul devotions in an ebook for the 2015 Lenten Season.  If you don't own a Kindle, you can download the kindle app on your smart phone or computer to read the daily devotions. Blessings, Dr Deborah Newman     In Remembrance: Preparing your heart for Easter day by day from Ash Wednesday until Easter (Lenten/Easter Tea... Feb 16, 2015 by Dr. Deborah Newman Kindle Edition $0.00 Subscribers read for free. $3.49 to buy Auto-delivered wirelessly

            Love is the best gift this world has to offer.  It breaks my heart that there are so many souls who are born, live, and die without experiencing true love.  This world is full of heartache and pain as well as some wonderful, thrilling and exciting experiences.  None is worth experiencing without love.  St Valentine was a man who knew true love.  His name is associated with valentines, flowers and chocolates; but the love he lived by and showered on those in his spiritual community was much richer than trite sentiments or frivolous gifts.  He showed the world true love.  When a person can shower others with love, it is evidence that they have received the love God pours into our hearts.  St Valentine gave practical, sacrificial gifts of love to help the people in his care follow Christ’s instructions for marriage in his society.  The love that motivated St. Valentine was the love he received from Christ.  That kind of love is better than any other.               If you

            Henry Drummond said:  Our lifetimes are the cradle to eternity .  I always find comfort in that thought.  I long to truly please God with my life, yet find the more progress I make I discover the further I have to go.  It is because of God’s great mercy and grace that He makes the victorious Christian life seem possible.  It’s only after we truly move towards Him in intimate, vital connection that our eyes are opened to an acceptable reality.  All our spiritual progress is good, but there is so much more to make.  It’s not a bait-and-switch game at all.  There is a glorious freedom that comes with this illumination.  I believe that is what gave Henry Drummond the courage to make that statement.  The joy is the journey here on earth; the destination will only be reached in heaven.             I have the privilege of being invited into the spiritual progress of people God sends to me.  I learn so much more from them than they do from me.  It’s easy to point out the stum

            Why do people give up on God?  There are a variety of reasons.  He is real.  He is present.  He is good, but it is hard for us to see His goodness when we are faced with the evil that is in the world.  The evidence of evil shrieks from news on television or and from the microcosm of people we know.  Most of us use our own lives to determine if God is, whether he is good or that He cares.  We miss the fact that God is so real, generous and full of affection that He is in the midst of our fallen, broken world and reaches out with hope. His goodness is impossible to drive out of our world, and especially by our doubt of Him.             Still the majority of people find His goodness hard to see, or they have simply stopped looking, believing His goodness or His existence to be irrelevant to their own.  Souls in doubt are souls that are at the precipice of faith.  God deals with people differently.  Some souls need doubt to grow.  Some of our rejection of God results in s