Tulips~N~Lace

Do you ever feel like life is just against you?  Sometimes life is just plain and simply hard.  Have you ever felt like you were wrestling with God over answers, over problems, over issues??  Sometimes, I think we wrestle things out in our heads, like going over what we could have done differently or done better or could do better.  But did you realize that in the Bible, Jacob physically wrestled with the Lord?  I've been pondering on this lately and when things are hard, it is difficult to see what our next steps are or should be.  Sometimes we wrestle out our feelings or our attitudes and sometimes it is hard to listen to what God wants for us.   24  So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.   25  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.   26  Then the man said, “Let me go, for ...

I was praying for healing for some people the other day and the thought kept coming to me, if God can raise Jarius' daughter from the dead and heal the leper from leprosy, there is nothing that He can't do.  I decided to look up the story of Jarius' daughter because it has been a while since I have read that.  There were a few things that really struck me when I was reading this passage this time.  This passage is found in Luke 8:40-56 and Mark 5:22-43 Now, I have been raised in the church and heard this story several times through my life and I am raising my kids to read the Bible now.  Sometimes, I feel like when I read the Bible, "How could you not have faith and not believe when you could see what was happening right in front of you?"  Did you realize that at this time in history, it had been 400 years since a prophet of God had been seen?   Now that is something amazing to me.  400 years since any miracles had been performed, yet these people...

Do you ever feel like life is just falling apart around you?  Some days are just plain tough.  Have you ever been told, you only have a short time left to live?   It really makes you stop and evaluate your life.   Now, before you get too concerned, I have not been given a time frame, however my father was given 1 year, possibly 2 to live.   He was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia and Parkinson disease in January of this year (2024) and it has been such a challenge for him and my mom. Recently, I was speaking to my mom and she was saying how it is so easy to have faith for other people.  If you ask me to pray for a miracle for you, no problem.  I know God can handle it, but when it is something that you are going through personally it is so much more difficult to hold on to that faith that God can do anything.  I KNOW God can perform miracles.  I have seen miracles in my lifetime, but it is still tough in our human minds someti...

Break down the Walls of Jericho:  My 5 year old son likes to watch Bible Stories on YouTube and the other day we were watching about the Israelites marching around Jericho.  God told them to march around the city once a day for 6 days and they had to be very quiet each time.  On day 4 or 5 they started to grumble that they needed a leader that would lead them in to war to take the city, but Joshua reminded them that God said they needed to just march and on the 7th day they were to march around the city 7 times.   How many times does God tell us to do something and we grumble and complain because we don't think we are getting answers fast enough?   There is a cute song that plays on the video that says: Break down the walls of Jericho, break down the walls, lift your voice and shout until the wall comes down.     On the 7th time around the city, Joshua tells the people to shout, praise, and sing for the victory is theirs.  Claim the...

1 Peter 1: 7-9 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see  him  not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: 9 Receiving the end of your faith,  even  the salvation of  your  souls. What is your impossible situation?  What is your I need a miracle situation?  I heard these lines in a song recently and it got me to thinking about how sometimes situations in our lives seem so impossible and out of control.  We just don't know what to do about it or what to think about that situation. I read the above scripture in 1 Peter last week and it got me to thinking about how gold is refined by going through fire, diamonds are mined from deep within the earth.  We wouldn't have the beautiful jewelry and precious me...

Do you ever feel like you have been put on a shelf and no one ever truly sees you anymore?  Do you feel like your life has been shattered and you aren't sure how to put the pieces back together or even if you want to try and put them back together again?  Life can be messy and stressful and difficult, but it can also be beautiful amidst all of the struggles. One of my hobbies is making broken glass jewelry.  Do you know the process is very interesting to make this jewelry.  First, you have to find some cool china or maybe it's not that cool yet, but you see the potential of what it could be.  Have you ever thought that might be what God is looking at when he looks at you?  Do you know that God sees so much potential in you that you can't even see at this particular point in time in your life.  When we are broken or facing difficulties in life it is hard to feel like we have any value in us, but God sees so much potential when He looks at you. In making...