10 Great Quotes from Aslan

Aslan, The Greatest Lion (Photo credit: peasap)

 

1. “But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

 

2. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not…”

 

3. “You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,”

 

4. “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”

 

5. “There is no other stream,”

 

6. “My country was made for noble hearts such as yours.”

 

7. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river.  But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.”

 

8. “Things never happen the same way twice, dear one.”

 

9. “Dearest daughter,  I knew you would not be long in coming to me.  Joy shall be yours.”

 

10. “Are you not thirsty?”

From The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis

Do you have other favorites?

Betsy and Laurie

 

Praying Psalm 23 for Your Children

Quietly, in bedrooms and armchairs across the world a force of power unknown and unseen is unleashed, changing the course of the world: the prayers of faithful women and men for children.

Untold numbers of mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles and people of faith lift up prayers.  We do not know how many soldiers have returned home to spouses and loved one because of these prayers.  We will never be able to count the good choices made and bad choices avoided.  How many have been healed?  How many have avoided disaster? How many lives have grown in faith through the quiet prayers of others.

Join us for twelve weeks of prayer from Psalm 23.  Sign up here to receive the weekly email devotional message with a prayer for you to pray for a loved one.  

Click here to sign up.

Betsy and Laurie

Please share this message with others who might like to join us.  The first week begins June 12.

How Can We Find Peace?

But the fruit of the Spirit is . . . peace   Galatians 5:22

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.   John 14: 27

I am trying to find peace today.  As always, there are a lot of things going on in my life.  People I love struggle and are hurt.  There are challenges and decisions.  There is just a lot to do.  Where can I find peace?

When I try to find peace by controlling my circumstances I come up short. It is only when I surrender those circumstances to God that I find peace in the middle of it all. I can surrender that control only when I have the assurance that God is good and that He can be trusted with my challenges. The answer for me lies in time spent with God:

• Spending time to pray
• Reading the Bible to understand who God is
• Remembering His faithfulness to me in the past

This reminds me that He is bigger than my circumstances, He is good and He cares about me.  That’s a relief.

“Christian peace is not the absence of troubles. It is a peace that is unshakeable even in the midst of troubles.”

“If we set our hearts on anything but God, we can lose our peace. But if our greatest love is the unchanging God, then our peace can never be taken from us.”

Tim Keller

God’s peace or my attempts to control?  It is a matter of choice.  I can choose to practice peace.

Today I choose peace.

Dear God, Please send to me the spirit of Your peace.

Then send, dear Lord, the spirit of peace from me to all the world. Amen.

Marianne Williamson

How do you find Peace?

Betsy and Laurie

About Love

About Joy

Do You Want More Joy?

But the fruit of the Spirit is . . . joy  Galatians 5:22

I want more joy.  I can come to my desk with the spirit of drudgery or the spirit of worship. With worship comes Joy.

“We have forgotten that the call to creativity is a call to worship.” 

Michael Card

Somewhere along the way I learned that work was the opposite of worship. I learned wrong.  When I engage in my work as worship, I can write with joy.  If I am writing with a sense of the wonder and expectation I revel in my work and experience joy:

The joy of creating.

The joy of connecting with God.

The joy of sharing myself with others.

 It helps to come with a sense of expectation to the desk instead of dread.  When I lose myself in the writing I do my best work.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
Rumi

“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” 
Marianne Williamson

“when we are powerless to do a thing, it is a great joy that we can come and step inside the ability of Jesus”
Corrie ten Boom

How do you experience joy?  Do you want more?

Betsy and Laurie

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Philippians 4:4

Can You Write WIth More Love?

10 Great Quotes from Frederick Buechner

English: Public domain image from Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/van.5a51769 taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1950 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Great Inspiration from Frederick Buechner.

1. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.

2. Go where your best prayers take you.

3. God himself does not give answers. He gives himself.

4. Jesus didn’t come to merely speak words that were true, He is the Word that makes us true.

5. To be wise is to be eternally curious.

6. Remember me not for the ill I’ve done but for the good I’ve dreamed.

7. … in the long run, there can be no joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all.

8. Listen to your life. All moments are key moments.

9. The story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.

10. Faith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief’ is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.

Do you have other favorites?

Betsy and Laurie