Hope From Your Mama!

We have started to attend a new church recently called Radiant Fellowship. There are many reasons why we chose to switch churches after many years of attending a different one.  We did not decide to leave because of a fight or a strong dislike for anyone.  Although unfortunately, that did happen just before we switched churches. It was UGLY and probably one of the worst experiences of our life! It also taught us a lot of things we never would have learned if that bad experience had not happened.  I guess that is how life works sometimes. We didn't think that our old church was evil. We LOVED the Church there! By Church, I mean with a capital C, as in the "people" (like Jesus meant when He was talking about Church) not as in corporation or denomination. We just were journeying in different ways than the place we were at. The much smaller church we first became a part of almost twenty years ago, had slowly become a "Mega-Church" with this huge affluent ...

My hubby and I were coming home from a trip to Las Vegas.. He had surprised me for my 30th birthday... My hubs has played in a band for 18 of the 20 years of our marriage. Back then he had longer hair...actually, more of a very long mullet at that time which makes this story even funnier, I think. So, we were getting off the plane and a guy came to us to "witness" to us...share his faith in God. We listened to him, because we're both pretty friendly and people don't freak us out.  We pretty much answered all his questions the way he wanted to hear them... well, because we DO love Jesus. I personally think he was frustrated.  I had a sweatshirt that said "Las Vegas" on it... you know Vegas is known as "sin city",  so I really think he was pretty frustrated with the fact that we were lovers of Jesus and yet could have been THERE...Gasp! Anyway, instead of saying, "Hey praise the Lord, you guys love Je...

I woke up one morning thinking about ways God speaks to me! Yes. God talks to me. :) Usually when people say that, we wait for the next weird thing that they will say... like, "if we build it, they will come!"  Well, yes indeed I'm about to say something VERY "weird". Jesus is EVERYTHING. It's ALL about Him. Everything. One day, I believe we're all going to see that clearly and it's going to be SUCH a joyous thing!! I so seriously can't wait. I was thinking about the day I found out Noah had a serious Chromosomal Abnormality. He was born three months before, via a c-section. We were having a scheduled c-section after my first birth with Holly which was supposed to be a home birth and ended up being 84 hours of labor and 5 hours of pushing and then finally a C-Section! So with Holly, I went through EVERYTHING I WAS HOPING TO NOT GO THOUGH and ended up knowing a MUCH BIGGER GOD!!  Seems to be a pattern for me... B...

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;  your walls are ever before me."  Isaiah 49:16 I am staying this weekend at Holy Hill.  https://holyhill.com/ It is breathtaking here. I needed some time to get away and think and pray and read and write and... relax.  This morning I woke up after a long night in my room with NO HEAT and got dressed very quickly. I called the maintenance man who said he'd fix it and then he made a very apropos joke about me paying my penance! I'm not even Catholic... I wonder if it still works??   In awe, I explored the grounds and the magnificent church. I spent some time in the shrine which is pictured above. The Mary and Baby Jesus caused me to think of the scripture that I posted above. God wanted us to know how deep is His love for us. I am staying a...

~Holly Elaine Wileman~ To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.  No one whose HOPE is in you will ever be put to shame...  From Psalm 25 King David wrote that Psalm.  King David was a man who rose to very high power against all odds and had many, many enemies.  Was King David perfect? Was he flawless? Did he never offend, never have vain pride, never make bad choices?  He did ALL those things... and many more. The bible makes sure to let us know that. I like that a lot. But King David put his HOPE in the LORD.  As a matter of fact it says that ALL DAY his hope was in the Lord! Psalm 25:5 This story is about betrayal. Now, I know whenever you say "betrayal", instantly the listeners' guard goes up. Is anyone ever REALLY betrayed?  I mean, there are ALWAYS two sides to every story, right?  Right.  There are indeed two sides to every story (sometimes te...

   Tonight I took my daughter, her best friend and my Great Niece and Nephew to McDonald's to play.  I walked into the Play Place and saw a man working on a computer and thought, "Darn, they have Wi-Fi... I coulda brought my computer and played on facebook a little!"  But I missed that boat.  So, I sat down and watched the kids play. Getting bored, I remembered I had a New Testament in my purse so I pulled it out to read my bible. Reading around in Philippians, my eye caught an underlined verse. "Being confident of this, that he who began the good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."    I looked up and saw a young lady sitting at a table across from me rubbing her forehead and looking like she was in great pain.  Being a migraine sufferer, I called her attention,  "Miss, miss... are you okay?"   She came over by me which I did not expect.  She began to tell me that she suffered from a vir...

Jeremiah 29:11  "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "Plans to prosper you and NOT to harm you. Plans to give you a HOPE and a FUTURE. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD. I heard it said once that this verse was really God talking to the Israelite People, so it doesn't really apply to us today... Well, I'm just glad I don't believe everything I hear...  Because I believe this verse with my whole heart. I'd like to share with you one of the many stories of why I do believe it. I had worked as a "Career Waitress" for about 15 years.  Impressed with my credentials now, aren't ya?  It was time for a change.  I applied to various jobs and decided to take a job as a Bank Teller.  I was there for about two weeks when I got a job offer at another place I had interviewe...

We arrived at camp. Our Fifth Family Camp weekend at Camp Forest Springs. The stress leading up to the vacation was immense, I will tell you. The planning and packing. Noah had some sort of a sinus issue that was bothering him and we took him to the doctor the week before and they did NOT offer anything to help. I wish we ONLY had to pay them if they DID something to fix the situation or offered advice that I COULDN'T Google myself! He had been doing SO good with not hitting himself and had JUST started doing it again and crying more with this sinus thing just before we left for our vacation. I had hoped this would not be something the staff would have to deal with! I wrote a letter ahead of time to them explaining a little bit about Noah. I wanted to help them as they were to watch him in nursery while Frank and I went to our sessions. It's so hard to even imagine what other people think of our boy, as we're just so used to him. I would never want an...

I have never blogged before. I like the idea of it.  I came home with soul-full of thoughts and wanted to write some of them down.  So I went to this Google site and sat down to figure out this new technical hurdle for me to jump.  With my luck I will pour out my heart and then try to hit "publish", only to receive some "failure" message.  Insert chuckle. It asked me for a title for my blog.  I guess because I have craved most of all through my life, the Hope of glory (Col 1:27),  I like the idea of Hope.  Then I thought of the verse about hope being the anchor for our soul (Heb. 6:19) (indeed it IS)... and I thought it clever that "hope anchors soul".  Just like rock smashes scissors, scissors cuts paper and paper covers rock.  HOPE is the anchor for our soul. So, here goes... Today we went to see the movie, "Tangled". Earlier in the day I found out some devastating news that a friend of mine, who has been trying to have a baby via a s...