The faith which first lived in your grandmother and mother....

"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life." ~ Abraham Lincoln

"I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also." ~ 2 Timothy 1:5

My mom died less than a week after this picture was taken. I was 26 at the time, and to this day I miss her. But how grateful I am that she raised me up sharing always her faith in the Lord with me. I know that I will see her again one day because of this. Thank you God for such a Godly mother.

Life will become one great romance when God is doing the aiming...

"A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, 'I can't take any more.' Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God's hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him' (Job 13:15).

...even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him.... Faith is the supreme effort of your life -- throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.

...He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him.... The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance -- a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time." (pink emphases mine) ~ excerpt from May 8, My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

“You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses” ~from comic strip, Ziggy

"I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure...." ~Psalm 16: 8-9

Pondering unemployment's most powerful God moments...

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's own or real life. The truth is of course that what one call the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day." ~ C. S. Lewis

"God does not waste suffering; if he ploughs it is because He purposes a crop." ~  John Oswald Sanders

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." ~ G. K. Chesterton

"The little troubles and worries of life may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them stepping-stones to a
nobler character and to Heaven. Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

"...can you bear uncertainty? Can you bear not knowing how God is going to provide for your most urgent needs and still trust that he will? It is a question that Jesus wants all of his disciples to wrestle with. There are simply going to be times when we don't know where the provision is going to come from. Circumstances will look precarious, sometimes foreboding and threatening. Plans are going to fall through. If these things happened to Jesus, we should not be surprised when they happen to us....

Jesus does not want us to be governed by fear at such times. He wants us governed by faith. The reason is that the uncertainty is only apprent uncertainty. Our future and our provision and our ultimate triumph are certain to God. He has all the foreknowledge, power, resources, and desire to turn everything for good for those who love him and are called by him (Romans 8:28).

...uncertain seasons are usually the most powerful God moments we experience. They often put God on display more than other seasons...." ~ John Piper's newsletter, Can You Bear Uncertainty, April 2010

"Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people both now and forevermore." ~Psalm 125:1-2

"What does it mean to trust the Lord? It means looking to him as the source of our security and putting our faith in the grace, love, power, and protection of God when the inevitable pressures of life come. It means knowing as the psalmist did that the mountains surround Jerusalem, God himself surrounds and shields his people. When we trust the Lord...even though there are problems the size of mountains facing us, we can cry out to the Lord who created the mountains and is able to move them. As we focus on him and his truth, he will encourage our hearts and help us to claim the great promise of verse 2: The Lord will surround and protect his people, now and forever.

LORD, I put my trust in you today. You are my security and protection, my shield, my fortress, and my hiding place, and I praise you. When...troubles multiply, help me to remember that you are ever faithful and that you surround and protect me, both now and forever." ~ excerpted from One Year Book of Praying Through the Bible, quoted in God Daily Promises email 5/2/10.