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“ Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.   For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”-Matthew 11:30

It’s hard for us as human beings to understand just how much Jesus loves us. Because Jesus really cares about our welfare. He cares when we are tired, when we are sad, when we cry and when we worry.

But sometimes, when the weight we carry feels heavy, we need to give it to Jesus to carry and rest in Him. For it is God who can give us a peace beyond all understanding.

We just need to ask Him!

Follow Jesus & Keep Praying; Prayer Changes Things!

We all have read so many wonderful miracles about Mary, but Joseph was handpicked to be Jesus’s parent by God Himself as well. Descended from King David, a member of the Tribe of Judah, he was well versed in scripture. He understood them in a special God-given way :). And God picked him to be Jesus’s earthly father.

When I think of St. Joseph, I often think of how much he trusted God. After the angel’s appearance, there was no hesitation in Joseph in his love for Mary and Jesus :). When he awoke in the middle of the night, he did as instructed and immediately too Mary and Jesus to Egypt! I often wonder if I would have the same faith and trust in God.

The other thing that always touched my heart when it came to St. Jose[h, is how he always ensured that Mary and Jesus had everything they needed, but stood in the background. He loved them both so much! He provided for them and supported them, and that was enough for him.

We need to find a way to serve, trust and obey God like Joseph did! And we need to find away to love and serve our spouses and children the way St. Joseph loved and served Mary and Jesus.

Follow Jesus & Keep Praying; Prayer Changes Things!

Jesus said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”-Mathew 10:29-30

“Cause You take good care of me
You take good care of me
You know what I need before I even ask a thing
And You hold me in Your hands
With a kindness that never ends
I’m carried in Your love no matter what the future brings
Yeah, You take good care of me“

Cory Asbury

What an amazing love Jesus has for each one of us. We can trust that kind of love!

It’s easy in the business of life to forget that amonst all of the things we are thanful for; the most important one is our Salvation.

We can forget just how grateful we truly are to have Jesus in our life everyday and that we are now going to Heaven when we die! Not everyone can say that because it is not true for everyone.

So THANK YOU JESUS, for making this true for us 🙂

Follow Jesus & Keep Praying; Prayer Changes Things!

Sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes it just doesn’t go the way we want. We lose our job or our home. People we truly care about let us down. Life let’s us down. But all of this is part of life, we are not in Heaven yet. And we need to learn to deal with these issues, without letting them pull us down.

So what do we do? How do we handle the “downs” of life? The answer is as simple and hard as life itself. We Pray and we shift our Focus.

And First, we ask Jesus to change our Hearts. We ask Jesus to help us love exactly where we are and to see the good in it. And instead we Focus on how we can help all of those that Jesus has placed in our lives. Helping others not only will help them, it will help us :). For helping others will truly add happiness to our lives. It always has and it always will. And it will soothe our hearts.

Part of the hurt/sadness and anger of tough times comes from focusing on the hurt and sadness. The anger often comes from that hurt and/or sadness. And “righteous” anger can be the worst. But God can not work through anger, and so it has to go.

And whether it is a loss of something like a job or home, or the hurt that comes when someone lets us down, dwelling on it will only bring us misery.

And so we need to shift our focus. There are two steps to shifting our focus. The first is asking Jesus to shift our focus. Prayer is always the best first step. The second is a bit harder. It’s discipline. The Holy Spirit can help us with that :); just ask Him! Part of that shift/discipline is simply shifting our minds to a different subject when our mind seeks to dwell on the hurt.

We are “in charge” of our minds. We get to decide what we will think about. We can either dwell on a past hurt of dwell on the happy day we have planned for tomorrow. We can either dwell on the job we lost or dwell on the new possibilities ahead.

Happiness is a Choice, given to us by God Himself. But it is a choice we need to make.

Follow Jesus & Keep Praying; Prayer Changes Things!

Love is an action verb. So when we love God, we actually act upon that love. We can begin with that :).

If we love God, don’t we love what and who He loves? When we love God, we pray. Afterall don’t we talk to those we love? Don’t we tell those we love about our day, the good and the bad? Our successes and our worries? Don’t we say Thank You? We tell those we truly love-everything and we listen to them and follow their guidance as well 🙂

And don’t we do things for those we love? In God’s case, there is so much we can do for Him. We can put God first. We can pray. We can make time to really listen to God. And we can listen to God’s guidance and obey Him. We can be kind to others. There are really so many things we can do to love God!

As to all of those who God loves, don’t we share what we have been given with them? It may be something physical like a bag of groceries. It may be a smile or word of encouragement. It may be taking the time to listen, really listen, to the worries or problems of another. It may be a hug. It may be so many things. So many acts of love and kindness. For isn’t that what Jesus calls upon us to do? Love our neighbor as ourselves!

Love is so often defined as a “deep affection or feeling for someone”. But the truth is, Love is an action verb and it requires action.

” Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body ^[a]to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Follow Jesus & Keep Praying; Prayer Changes Things!

“ But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”   And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”-Jesus, Matthew 12:48-50

Imagine being stuck in the Judea and Samaria/West Bank, as a Christian? Israel does not trust you, because you may be Palestinian and attacks on Israel have come out of that region. Many Muslims in that region want you gone. The war, including the attacks, have struck both the Muslims and Christians. Daily life has become an unbearable burden. The future of your children is something you worry about constantly.

What will the future hold for your children? Will they even be safe? Do they even have a future in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria? After all, it is said that there are less than 50,000 Christians left in all of Palestine. And even if a person wanted to leave, where would they go? And leaving requires a lot of money, many don’t have it.

And since Bethlehem was the birthplace of Christ, many Christians don’t want to leave. So many Christian remain trapped between their desire to stay and the safety and future that leaving would probably provide their families.

The problems of Israel and the Christians that are in the Judea and Samaria/West Bank is not one that we are going to solve. Who did what to whom is also a question we can not solve.

But we can pray. We can pray for their protection and for their pain. We can ask Jesus to walk where we can not, with them each day. For no matter the situation, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Please pray for them!

My heart goes out to all of those in Israel. They are God’s Chosen people and they always will be. And yet, they have suffered so greatly. More than we can really imagine.

The people living in Israel know the stories of suffering first hand. Many of their parents were in camps such as Auschwitz. They spent their childhood and their teen years listening first hand to stories of what Auschwitz was really like. Which was far more horrifying than anything that the media has published.

We can’t really imagine the horrors of living in Auschwitz. We can read about them, watch movies about them. But the truth is that since we have never actually experienced horrors like those that existed in Auschwitz, we can’t truly imagine what it was really like.

And the people telling them how horrific their lives were in the camps were their Moms and Dads, who they loved just as we love our parents. Can you imagine the horror of the children listening? Many of their parents have died now. Many earlier than they should have because their bodies were so physically damaged and their suffering and anguish was so great.

Now, after the world promised never again, their adult children once again face a world that, in large part, has turned against them! They face a horrific, violent enemy and once again they must defend themselves against a violence far worse than any American can truly imagine.

That God is protecting Israel, we know.

That God will continue to help Israel, we also know. For they are His Chosen People.

We also know from God’s Word,

“I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you”-Genesis 12:3

“The sparrow’s not worried ’bout tomorrow
Or the troubles to come
The lily’s not thinking ’bout the seasons
The drought or the flood
A tree that’s planted by the water
Isn’t fazed by the fire
So why should I be?

‘Cause You take good care of me
You take good care of me
You know what I need before I even ask a thing
And You hold me in Your hands
With a kindness that never ends
I’m carried in Your love no matter what the future brings
Yeah, You take good care of me

The sun’s not worried ’bout the winter
‘Cause soon it will pass
The light’s not thinking ’bout the darkness
Or the shadow it casts
A heart that’s planted in forgiveness
Doesn’t dwell in the past
So why should I be?

‘Cause You take good care of me
You take good care of me
You know what I need before I even ask a thing
And You hold me in Your hands
With a kindness that never ends
I’m carried in Your love no matter what the future brings
Yeah, You take good care of me

I know there must be more
But I can’t get past Your kindness
I know there’s got to be more
But I can’t get past Your goodness
I know there must be more
But I can’t get past Your kindness
I know there’s got to be more
But I can’t get past Your goodness

You take good care of me
You take good care of me
You know what I need before I even ask a thing
You hold me in Your hands
With a kindness that never ends
I’m carried in Your love no matter what the future brings
Oh, You take good care of me”-Sparrows by Cory Ashbury