13 Hours of Rain

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any other powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 You will hear it within your lifetime, the perfunctory claim that a loving God would never subject His children to suffering, let alone the ridiculous notion of an eternity without Him. You will be tantalized by the "logical" argument that the nature of God has evolved from the vengeful, hateful God of the Old Testament to the loving, gracious God of the New Testament. Children, beware that you do not create God into a more palatable image that will resolve your discomfort of not being able to fully comprehend the Divine. Do not mishandle scripture. Yes, we are memorizing Romans 8:38-39 as a family. And yes, you can take the verse out of context and completely misunderstand its inten...

And Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth. I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life of the sheep." John 10:7-11 {Our memory verse for June.} Our church is teaching through the Gospel of Luke. The purpose of the teaching to exhort us to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Last Sunday's text was the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The Good Samaritan parable is probably one of the most familiar parables in the New Testament, among Christians and non-Christians alike. We all know the story. Traveler is robbed. Priest walks by, and does nothing. Levi walks by, and does nothing. A Samaritan walks by, and does something. The mes...

I checked off one goal on my "Embracing 40" list: Accomplish a challenging physical feat. I ran a 10K on May 28, 2017! I hadn't planned on running any sort of marathon at the beginning of this year. However, a friend of mine desired to enter a 10K race in a neighboring city. She needed a running partner. I agreed. I began my training in March of this year. I utilized a running app entitled "10K Running" by Fitness22 . The app started me off incredibly slow and encouraged me to increase my stamina and endurance gradually. I ran/walked approximately three times a week. I mainly ran outside, but there were a few days in March when I had to resort to my friend's treadmill. My chiropractor, massage therapist and physiotherapist (yes, at my age I often need all three) provided me with various stretching and strengthening exercises to make sure I didn't seriously injure myself. Thankfully, I didn't hurt myself in my training, though race day I ran with ...