Soul Sister Time

                It is important to monitor who speaks to your soul.   It will make a huge difference in life and even more in death.   You don’t want to be a fool when it comes to supervising your soul.                 The thoughts of a rich man found in Luke 12:19-20 reveal why such scrutiny of soul thoughts is necessary.   And I’ll say to myself, You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.   But God said to him, You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?                 I imagine that this foolish man did not even realize that he was speaking to his soul.   He was so focused on the earthly realm that he did not...

            Two years ago I sensed God calling me to take special notice of sunrises and sunsets.   I had always enjoyed their beauty and had many memorable sunsets or sunrises, especially when traveling and I had time to focus on the beginning or ending of each day.             I will never be able to forget the sunset I saw from the rooftop of my hotel in Rome.   I was all alone because my family was tired after a long day of touring and decided to take a nap before dinner.   I was in Rome!   I could not sleep so I ventured up to the roof.   What was so amazing about this sunset was that earlier in the day I had seen the Sistine Chapel, but that masterpiece could not compare to the sights and sounds of the masterpiece in the sky.   I loved sharing sunrises and sunsets with my husband in magical places like Hawaii and even at home in Dallas....

            If God wants what is best for me, then why do I have a hard time wanting it too?   Our minds have definitely been damaged by the fall.   Even though I know better than to want what I want, I can’t stop myself.   I find it difficult to transform my mind from wanting what I want into wanting what God wants.             Wanting God isn’t easy.   It’s only the seasoned saints who truly breaks through to fully wanting God more than their selfish desires.   They don’t want God on their own.   They need help just like I do.   To want God is to want His will. In the Christmas story the Virgin Mary seemed so prepared to do God’s will, more than Zachariah.   Eventually they both wanted God’s best; it just took a few months of speechlessness for Zachariah to come around.   This means there is hope for me.    ...

             God’s love is unimaginable.   The depths to which He will go to bring those He loves into relationship with Himself are awe inspiring.   My own personal experience of being separated from my husband through death has brought richer meaning to God’s love for me.   As you can imagine, it is not easy to learn to live in the absence of someone who has been a constant strength for almost three decades.   All my siblings and I have long-term marriages.   I have noticed in each of us that we have taken on the characteristics of our spouses through the years.   For instance, I became more generous through living with Brian, and he became more willing to plan and save for the future through being married to me.   Decades of marriage merges minds as well as bodies and souls, thus your whole being aches when these unions are separated through death or divorce.   I have also obser...

            I need to keep reminding myself that I know the end of the story.   When you read the Bible the beginning starts out so amazingly and it quickly goes downhill.   By the sixth chapter, God has to flood the entire universe.   The all-time low is when God is crucified and is laid in the grave.   That was literally and figuratively hitting rock bottom.             You’ve got to read all the way until the end to know the end of the story.   If you read it from beginning to end, you will see Revelation as the ultimate in God’s love poured out over the entire universe.               I have to admit that it took me a while to read Revelation that way.   In fact, though I have been reading the Bible from beginning to end since I was 16, I never read Revelation until I was in my...

  Time can feel like an eternity depending on the circumstances in which you find yourself. When engaging in a meaningful conversation, you may lose track of time; but managing each second of intensifying pain while waiting on your dental appointment can feel like an eternity. The time between birthdays as a child can seem like forever; yet those same 365 days seem to fly by in a flash after adulthood sets in. Today is my mother-in-law’s eightieth birthday. The Bible teaches us to think of time as short. Psalm 90:12 says Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom . A heart of wisdom will say there is just enough time for me to fulfill the ministry that God put me on this earth to do. Wisdom is knowing that God has given me only enough time to do what He planned for me to do. He won't waste a minute of my life, but how many minutes do I waste not focusing on what this life is really about? Working thr...

              Sometimes you need to give up your faith to get faith.   What I don’t need is the kind of faith that is committed to what I believe is the right way for things to go.   I must constantly guard my heart, mind and spirit from clinging to my own rendition of faith.   For faith to be real, it has to be given by the Spirit of God, and not based on my own understanding.   Faith is sure of what is unseen.             I can’t move forward in faith until I recognize that I carry unexamined expectations of where the road of faith will lead me.   My childish beliefs about faith must be laid aside if I am to grow in true faith.   Since God is always for me, my faith might cause me to believe that everything will work out well for me and therefore not so good for those who come against me.   When the opposite happens, my expectat...