Category Archives: Blog

Trading Flaws for Grace

Kathy Cheek

I am flawed. Every day I miss the mark. Every day I lose patience and say things the wrong way which means I should not have said them at all.

I keep messing up. Last week I forgot to pray for someone I assured I would remember their prayer request. I saw her at church and the stress of her situation was written across her face and I was reminded that I need to pray. I was also reminded of my negligence.

I stand in the line at the grocery store and chit chat with the cashier or another person in line with me and forget to share the Lord in some way when God opens the door and gives me a moment to open my mouth and be a light in a dark world.

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How to Fight (Daily) Discouragement

There’s a saying about the little things in life. It’s the little things, so the saying goes that can end up being the big things. This can be true in relationships, careers, and attitudes. A teensy mouse can terrify a huge elephant, and so the story goes, one young man with the proper vision took down a giant who had defied armies. The unnoticed dripping faucet by day rings out like a maddening racket in the quietness of night, when one longs for quiet and sleep. It’s the little things we are thankful for, we rejoice in and the little things heaped upon us that can undo us in one moment.

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Yelling Is A Choice

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Yelling is a choice …. Yelling is a choice. 

I am struggling. This is my ongoing battle as a mother. I am impatient, I want my girl to hurry up.

I am learning that being on time is never more important than speaking kindly to her.

Getting schoolwork done is never more important than living and breathing patience.

Obedience is not effective when enforced by fear, by volume.

When my frustration wells up in my throat and swells my voice and she hasn’t stopped moving, but never in the direction I want her to go, when I send her for shoes and she comes back barefoot with pen and paper …

 ….

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Friendship and Why Your Friends Need You

-A new command I give you- Love one (1)

“And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. And being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.” Mark 2: 3-5

In Mark 1:40-45 Jesus filled with compassion, touched the leper and he was healed. In Mark 2, Jesus returns to Capernaum. Jesus meets many at a house. Can you imagine the excitement to hear Jesus speak, to be touched, to see his penetrating eyes?

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Anticipating Resurrection Day

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“In Christ alone, who took on flesh,
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.”

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His Sufficient Grace is More than Enough

Mornings have often been a source of stress in our home. I can remember trying to sneak down the stairs early in the morning, eager to get at least 5 minutes of quiet time before the troops descended upon me in mass chaos. This silence which comes as our senses are waking with the morning was a coveted time for me, a pause before the storm in the day, which I considered necessary.

The waiting moments, hanging in the twilight of day’s transition, often seemed just enough to let me arm myself for the day ahead. Unfortunately, there were many days that ‘just enough’ didn’t make it.

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Salty or Salt-Free?

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? Luke 14:34

Most health conscious adults today acknowledge that excessive salt in the diet is not optimal for good health. As a matter of fact too much salt in the diet increases health related risks and in the extreme can be associated with life threatening conditions. Some health conditions require minimal salt intake with the aim of a “salt-free” diet.

How completely contrary to the Christian’s call to be Salty. As far as your spiritual life goes, you can consider saltiness to be an excellent measure of your effectiveness in the Kingdom.

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Truths to Fill Your Soul With Strength

Soul, do you feel far way from God?

Susie

  • Do you know the comfort of God’s presence when days are hard or do feel He has left you on your own?
  • Do you know the healing of His touch or do you feel brittle with a thousand cracks from wounds that never seem to heal?

What we think about God

has everything to do with how we relate to Him.

For the child of God, He is always constant within. We often forget this, relying on feelings rather than faith. Strong emotions can reveal what we are really believing in the moment.

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