Hey Everyone,
Thanks again for signing up for my quarterly newsletter! Each newsletter will have an update from the author on all writing projects and progress. More importantly they will contain encouraging words from fellow Christians. These men and women are people who have walked through seasons of suffering. Their testimonies are accounts of God’s faithfulness. Their words are meant to encourage and spur you on.
I am excited to kick off the first newsletter with a little recap of how things are progressing. Several months ago I submitted, Walking Restored into a book challenge through Compel Ministries/Proverbs 31 ministries. The winner of this challenge will be announced in March and offered a book contract. Although the pickings are many, I am hopeful and prayerful in every book proposal I submit. Trusting in God’s timing and perfect plan for this book. I also submitted a devotional writing into a writing challenge to be considered for a Devotional Book composed of proverbs 31 ministries and Compel Ministry writers. It is my first attempt at writing a devotion. The process has been a fun, new writing outlet.
Encouraging word presented by Suzanne Larson~ Worship Leader and Pastors Wife
Hi sweet friend 
Take it from someone who has known nothing but a relationship with Jesus since she’s been born – it doesn’t matter if you have 9-toes, scars all over your body, bones popping in and out daily, headaches continually or abilities decreasing by the day – God is good and He is at work in you!
Life often doesn’t turn out how we envision it. Maybe parts of it will. The parts of my life that turned out like I envisioned are:
1) being married to an amazing man of God
2) having 2 beautiful sons who gave me 2 beautiful daughters-in-law
3) having amazing grandchildren
4) living a life with purpose in pastoring His people.
The parts that haven’t turn out like I envisioned
1) being disabled at 50 years old
2) losing my ability to perform simple daily activities without having the repercussions of pain, dislocations & subluxations
3) being on more medications than I can count
4) relying on physical therapy regularly just to function.
Here’s the question I ask myself regularly – Lord, what are you asking of me today? Most days His answer is “Trust me”. Some days it’s “Don’t worry”. Other days it’s “look for my widespread mercies today”. You see, my life may not have turned out as I envisioned it but I do see that He has answered one of the prayers that I’ve prayed since I was a child – “I want to know Christ and power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).
If we truly want to know Christ, not just about him, we must expect suffering, difficulty and death to self. We must expect that he is in it, he is with us and we have all we need in him to walk through it to the other side which is called overcoming! Jesus himself walked the road of suffering – no one can deny the truth of his betrayal by one of the disciples, his friend. No one can deny the beatings, the mocking, the agony of the cross. No one can deny the agony that he experienced being rejected. The only difference between my agony and his is that he truly understood the purpose of his suffering – the redemption of mankind. We don’t necessarily understand the purpose of our suffering but, if we trust who Jesus is, we trust His purpose.
A.W. Tozer says “What comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you”. What comes to my mind is that God has been faithful to me from my earliest memory at 3 years old through all the expected, unexpected and in-between. What comes to your mind when you think about God? What is He asking of you today?
| Check out my page at~Walking Restored~ – The scars that never heal. |
~Walking Restored~ 