The Hey You Lady

A couple of weeks ago I asked people to share stories of God's love . Here is a submission from Martha in California: One of my most outstanding stories of knowing God's love happened many years ago. My daughter was only seven months old. She was very ill with a high fever caused by I knew not what. After taking her to the doctor's office, I was told to immediately get her to the emergency hospital. As I frantically drove I prayed silently that God would be with both of us. With Mary to let her live and with me to make the trip safely. In the process, she stopped breathing twice, but recovered her breath. We were met by nurses and a pediatrician at the door to the hospital and she was taken away for treatment. After what seemed an eternity, the doctor came and told me that she should, with God on our side, survive. God was with us and he did allow her to survive, unscathed, to become a lovely, caring and giving, young lady and a daughter to be prou...

To marry the one person that God intends to share your life with is one of the biggest blessings we can receive. That’s because it is a relationship patterned after Jesus’ love for his bride, the church (a match truly made in heaven described in Ephesians chapter 5). When we model our own marriage after this pattern, there is a deep, unbreakable, unconditional love, trust, and respect between a man and woman, the husband and wife. But what happens when this pattern isn’t followed? What can happen when the legal commitment and covenant isn’t there? · Fear of abandonment. It’s easier to leave the one you are ‘committed’ to. Divorce is as easy as one partner leaving the other, with no legal ramifications on the one who leaves. Not only can this be devastating to the adults involved, it is equally and often more devastating to children (even to adult children). · Disunity. In the marriage covenant, a covenant made in the presence, and with the inc...

People today live hurried, stressed-out lives. Between the demands on us from our jobs and families, it's not surprising that the only down-time many of us seem to get is the precious few hours of sleep every night. It seems the only time we stop and smell the roses is when we spray the artificial fragrance from a can of air freshener. It's time to change that. It's time we slow down, breathe the fragrance of the Holy Spirit, and tell others of the ways that we have experienced and known God's love in our lives. I'll go first. I'll try to keep it short, so everyone gets a turn to share their story. The time that comes to mind of knowing God's love happened last summer. At the time I was a section manager in a busy public service office, and had just finished a week full of employee drama and a few missed deadlines. That Saturday I decided to go to a park with my pen, my journal, and my Bible, and spend some time with God. My plan was to re-hash the...

It’s no big secret that the price of gasoline is higher than we ever imagined we’d be paying. So, to try to save some money, I decided that I’d start to ride the bus more often. Now riding the bus does have its benefits, such as saving money, good for the environment, and getting exercise by walking to and from the bus stop. But there’s one thing that I noticed about the bus that, if you take time to think about it, seems a bit unfair. The fare. Let’s suppose that the carnival is in town on a Friday, and three friends take the bus to get there (just one bus, no transfers involved). The first friend gets on the bus 7 miles from the fairgrounds, and pays the $1.25 bus fare. The second person boards 4 miles from the fair, and pays the same $1.25. The third person gets on only one mile before their stop, and, yep, a buck and a quarter for him too. Even though a buck and a quarter isn’t much, if I were the third rider in this story I’d feel like I might have rea...

Have you ever pondered why people have periods of time when they don't pray? For myself, the times when I don't pray much are times that I feel things are going well in my life. And the times that I pray the hardest are when I was most desperate. Times when I knew I couldn't see a way through on my own and needed God to intervene where I was otherwise powerless. When I surrender to God in my helplessness is when I often have seen the power of the Holy Spirit intervene in my life to move me forward. But what happens when we don’t perceive God’s answers to our prayers? As I write this, I can’t help but think of a couple who are "just meant for each other" after their first date. They hit it off, have a great time, and at the end of the evening he promises to call her. A day or so later, he does call, believing that she is "the one", and hoping that the relationship will progress. But for whatever reason she doesn’t get the call – not hom...