Category: truth

Scripture Journal Challenge 2020: Week Two

Last year during the month of August I joined with others and participated in a Scripture Writing Challenge.

We committed together to read and write out short passages on grief every day.

I wrote companion posts and shared them.

Circumstances have prevented me from doing another in-depth study again this year but I thought it would be nice to collect the entries from last August in a weekly bundle and put them out there for anyone who might want to revisit them or try it for the first time.

So here’s the first week’s links (including how to set up a journal):

Setting up your journal and link to all the verses: August Scripture Journal Challenge: Verses on Grief

Day 8: Scripture Journal Challenge: Earth Has No Sorrow That Heaven Can’t Heal

Day 9: Scripture Journal Challenge: When I Can’t Trace His Hand I Trust His Heart

Day 10: Scripture Journal Challenge: Worn Out and Weary? Jesus Understands.

Day 11: Scripture Journal Challenge: A Living Hope

Day 12: Scripture Journal Challenge: The One I Run To

Day 13: Scripture Journal Challenge: My Righteous, Raging King!

Day 14: Scripture Journal Challenge: Suffering and Safe Places

It takes a bit of work and commitment to do this so I understand some hearts may not be in a place where that is possible.

But if you’ve missed feeding your soul with the Word of God this is an easy way to get back into the habit.

❤

Scripture Writing Challenge Revisited

Last year during the month of August I joined with others and participated in a Scripture Writing Challenge.

We committed together to read and write out short passages on grief every day.

I wrote companion posts and shared them.

Circumstances have prevented me from doing another in-depth study again this year but I thought it would be nice to collect the entries from last August in a weekly bundle and put them out there for anyone who might want to revisit them or try it for the first time.

So here’s the first week’s links (including how to set up a journal):

Setting up your journal and link to verses: August Scripture Journal Challenge: Verses on Grief

Day 1: Scripture Journal Challenge: Life Everlasting

Day 2: Scripture Journal Challenge: Unshaken and Unshakeable

Day 3: Scripture Journal Challenge: Sufficient Grace

Day 4: Scripture Journal Challenge: When My Heart Needs a Reminder

Day 5: Scripture Journal Challenge: Safe In My Daddy’s Arms

Day 6: Scripture Journal Challenge: Between A Rock And A Hard Place

Day 7: Scripture Journal Challenge: My Groom Is Coming To Get Me!

It takes a bit of work and commitment to do this so I understand some hearts may not be in a place where that is possible.

But if you’ve missed feeding your soul with the Word of God this is an easy way to get back into the habit.

❤

Let The Morning Come In Our Hearts

I have written many times of my habit of greeting each new day watching the sun come up through my east facing living room window.

It never gets old.

I cherish the reminder that despite how difficult things may be or how dark my heart might feel, God is still on His throne.

Daily Bible Verse | Heaven | Psalm 103:19

As the shadows fade and light pours through the window and illuminates the world outside, I remember that no night lasts forever and death doesn’t win.

John 11:25-26 | Jesus quotes, John 11 25 26, Jesus

It’s not always easy to choose life, Lord

Because then we have to struggle with who we are

and why we are, and who you are,

and what to do with who we are,

and why we are,and who you are.

We have to let you make us new, and being made anything always hurts.

Father,

Let the morning come in our hearts,

So morning can come in our lives,

And the world that needs a word of hope can hear

‘Death has lost, and life has won.”

Verdell Davis, Riches Stored in Secret Places

It IS painful to be made into anything.

And sometimes I resist.

But then the morning comes and once again I choose to yield my heart to the One who loves me best and is molding and making me more like Jesus.

❤

Comfort Amid Strange Shadows

I’ve had the privilege of keeping my grandson this week.

It’s the first time he’s been away from his mom and dad since he was born early and stayed in NICU for over two months.

So it’s no wonder the first night he was here and sleeping in a different room with light coming through the windows from the moon and casting strange shadows his sleepy eyes told his little brain there was something to fear.

What started as a whimper grew to a full on desperate cry and I could tell it wasn’t just restless sleep-he was startled and afraid.

So I picked him up, held him close to my chest, nestled his head under my chin and whispered, “It’s alright. You’re not alone. I love you.” I rubbed his back, calmed him down and he was able to drift off to sleep once again sure he was safe.

When Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, I felt like I’d been picked up from the world I knew and understood and thrust into one where everything was unfamiliar, frightening and potentially dangerous.

There were strange shadows everywhere.

I not only whimpered, I cried out in desperation for some solace, some confirmation that I was seen, heard and loved.

As my perfect, faithful, loving Father, God reminded my heart He was there in the dark when the shadows threatened to undo me.

One of my favorite verses is found in Zephaniah and is a picture of God gathering His people in His arms, comforting them with His love and singing peace and joy over their souls.

For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. ~ Zephaniah 3:17 NLT

When I listen I can hear Him sing over me.

When I am still, He covers me with His grace.

When I lean into His arms and rest my head on His chest, I am filled with strength and peace.

Why Pray After Child Loss?

Did the mother whose son died pray less or with less faith than the mother whose son lives?

We must be careful to remember that God is sovereign and while we are commanded to pray, our words do not dictate His actions.

He alone knows the end from the beginning. He alone is the Alpha and Omega.

Read the rest here: Prayer After Child Loss: What’s the Point?

Bereaved Parents Month 2020: Is God Punishing Me?


I’ve heard it from more than one bereaved parent.  

I’ve thought it myself.  

“Is God punishing me?”  

Have I done something so terrible that it falls outside the grace and mercy of the God Who sent His Son and so I must pay for it with my own child?

Read the rest here: Is God Punishing Me?

Contour Lines Of God’s Grace

If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.

~Julian of Norwich

Truth is this life is not easy.

There is joy. 

Absolutely amazing awe-inspiring, breath-taking joy.

But there is also suffering.

Read the rest here: On Suffering and Redemption

How I Answer The Question: Did God Take My Child?

I try to share this post a couple of times each year because it discusses a question many bereaved parents desperately want to answer: Did God take my child?

These are my thoughts-ones I believe are backed by Scripture and align with what I know personally about God’s character.

They are the result of many months of wrestling. I offer them in hopes they will help another heart.

❤ Melanie

This is a question that comes up all the time in bereaved parents’ groups:  Did God take my child?

Trust me, I’ve asked it myself.  

How you answer this question can mean the difference between giving up or going on, between turning away or trusting.

So this is MY answer.  The one I’ve worked out through study, prayer and many, many tears.  You may disagree.  That’s just fine.  I only offer it because it might be helpful to some struggling and sorrowful soul.

Read the rest here: Did God Take My Child?

Where The Problem Lies

God’s promises.

He said it, I believe it.

Simple, right?

Not so simple when a plain reading of plain words seems to guarantee one outcome and life delivers another.

As a Christian, you are to honor your parents, and you are to show ...

Not so simple when pain obliterates hope and tears blind my eyes to a future that’s anything other than dark.

But is the problem with God and His promises or me and my expectations?

Before my lifestorm I could have worked up a lovely devotional on God’s promises and given good reasons why we should not doubt them. But God’s promises were no longer devotional material; they were real-life issues. I knew I could not go that class and tell those who gathered there how God keeps his promises, but I could assure them I was learning that he does. Even as I questioned his promises because of the pain that wouldn’t go away, I knew I was learning that the problem is not with God’s promises but with our bringing twentieth-century expectations and personal wish-fulfillment to those promises. The problem lies with our expectations of what God should do and how he should do it when life hurts. I was learning that I had to quit just looking at the promises of God and look to the God of the promises.

Verdell Davis, Riches Stored In Secret Places

I’ve written before about how easy it is to put God in a Box.

So often I interact with Scripture based on false assumptions, wishful thinking and my own idea of how God should work in the world. I want a God I can understand or (if I’m honest!) manipulate or cajole into doing what makes me most satisfied and most comfortable. I pick and choose among the promises and tend to focus on the ones that seem to guarantee health, wealth and happiness and I gloss over the ones that plainly describe the painful process of being conformed to the likeness of Christ.

Pruned by God is PAINFUL! | RoadTrip Parenting

I cannot answer all the questions my heart can conjure up and I don’t think God will answer them for me this side of Heaven.

But God doesn’t lie.

His promises stand.

How and when He chooses to fulfill them is not for me to say.

I am learning to lean into His faithful love, trust His heart and live in the mysterious space between what I understand and what I find incomprehensible.

Daily Bread: His Provision Is Sufficient

If I had my way I’d store up grace like green beans-stacking one can atop the other “just in case”.

Then I could decide if and when to open it up and pour it out.

But grace isn’t like that. It’s a perishable though infinite commodity-like manna.

Just Enough Grace — ASK Apparel LLC

When God led the Israelites into the desert, He promised to feed, nurture and sustain them.

Daily bread rained down from Heaven every morning-enough and more than enough-for their needs. But He warned them not to gather more than they could use THAT day.

He promised there would be another bountiful plenty the next morning.

Manna and the land: God's methods of miraculous provision – Acton ...

Faced with the choice to trust God or trust themselves, some tried to hoard this gift and guarantee (so they thought!) tomorrow’s bounty. It turned to maggoty mush by the next morning.

God was making a point.

He wanted His people to know that He was the Source of their provision. He wanted His people to learn that His faithful love endures forever and shows up every morning.

Many of us grew up reciting this blessing without understanding the deep truth hidden inside:

God is great,

God is good,

Let us thank Him for our food.

By His hand we all are fed,

Thank You, Lord, for daily bread.

Children’s Blessing

Few of us live on daily bread anymore.

Most have pantries and refrigerators and freezers full of food. It’s hard to hearken back to a time when the penny you earned for working a field was the penny you used to purchase that day’s meal.

So, in some ways, the idea of having only enough and no more is both foreign and frightening.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

But my Father wants me to trust Him, to lean on Him, to wake looking for His face and reaching for His provision.

Like manna in the desert, if I try to gather more grace than I need it rots before I can use it.

God greets me each morning with the grace I need for that day-no more, no less. It is always enough for the work I must do and the challenges I must face.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sunrise-trees.jpg

He nurtures and sustains me.

His daily grace is sufficient.

I can rest in His bountiful provision without fear for tomorrow because His faithful love endures forever.