Dreams Come True!

Congratulations, Felicia!

“I can do all things through (Jesus) who gives me strength!” (Phil. 4:13)

            I hugged my dear friend, Felicia, after her GED graduation ceremony and then asked, “What would you tell the women of the world tonight?”

            With no hesitation Felicia said, “Tell them don’t give up! You can do anything through God!”

            I am so proud of you, Felicia, and I promise to dream big dreams with you!!!

YES, through Jesus Christ a single mother of four can and did earn her GED! YES, through Jesus you can go on to college! YES, through Jesus you can get you and your precious children out of government housing and into a home of your own with a big, big yard, with lots and lots of room¹!

And YES, because you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, one day He will take you to a perfect home in heaven to be with Him and your sweet little Miracle Grace forever and ever and ever!

“…With God all things are possible!” (Matt. 19:26b)

¹BIG HOUSE, Newsboys

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Happy Birthday, Little Buddy!

My little man

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your Word.” (Ps. 119:9)

Happy 4th birthday, little buddy!

            I’m so thankful God chose you to be my grandson. Everyday, I ask Jesus to help you stay a happy boy that never hangs around or follows the advice of bad boys and girls. I hope your delight will always be in Jesus so you will grow big and strong, like a tree planted along the riverbank, and will succeed in all you do (Ps. 1:1-3).

I promise that if you will follow Jesus all the days of your life, He’ll make you a mighty man of God - a superhero like your dad and granddaddy - who loves the Lord, obeys His voice, and holds fast to Him (Deut. 30:20)!

Jesus loves you this I know, and I love you soooooooooo much! As Uncle Mark’s family says, “I love you to the end of the numbers.”

                                                                                                Memaw J

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Our Aerial Chair

One of the kindest men in this world, my brother, Mark, 1959

“As for God, His way is blameless; the Word of the Lord is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God. The God who girds me with strength and makes my way blameless? He makes my feet like hinds’ feet, and sets me upon my high places.” (Psalm 18:30-33)

            In Hannah Hurnard’s classic, Hinds’ Feet on High Places, Much-Afraid follows a path that finishes its winding way through the valley at the foot of steep, high mountains, rising like a wall. Overhead, on a suspended cable, hung aerial chairs in which two could sit side by side and be swung right up to the summit without any effort on the passenger’s part at all.

            Wouldn’t we all love to have an aerial chair that could take us to our goals and accomplish our life purposes with no struggling or striving on our part? Actually, for those of us in relationship with Father God, Jesus Christ yearns to be our aerial chair.

            Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine, and you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”  In his book A Love Worth Giving, Max Lucado makes the point that a branch doesn’t have to exert a lot of energy to bear fruit. The branch has only one job – to receive nourishment from the vine.

            God has plans, strategies, and instructions; we must simply sit in His Presence, listen, trust, and obey the One who is able to make all grace abound to us, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, we may have an abundance for every good deed (2 Cor. 9:8)!

            Sit down with Jesus everyday and enjoy the ride to His high places!

“…the Shepherd smiled and said, ‘Come, Much-Afraid, we will seat ourselves in the first two chairs…All you have to do is to trust yourself to the chair and be carried in perfect safety up to the place which I wish to take you and without any struggling and striving on your part.’”¹

¹Hannah Hurnard, Hind’s Feet on High Places (Tyndale House Publishing, 1975), 168.

            

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My Nine Children

My nine children, 2008

"But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name."


      At Bible study, I asked for prayer for my nine children, and a friend exclaimed, "Nine children! You have nine children!"
        "Yes ma'am: three by birth, three by marriage, and three by multiplication," I answered.
        As we say in the south, God has a passel of children: one by birth, the Lord Jesus Christ ("For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Son begotten Son" John 3:16) and a host by adoption ("All those led by God's Spirit are God's children...you have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father!'" Rom. 8:13-15).
        Every person in the whole, wide world is God's creation, but only those who believe in the name of His Son, Jesus, are God's children. Are you a child of God?

"(Jesus) came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God!" (John 1:11-13)

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Rest on All Sides!

My youngest resting at the beach in Honduras, 2008

“So the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was at peace, for his God gave him rest on all sides.” (2 Chron. 20:30)

In a turbulent season of the Glassco family, I began praying 2 Chron. 20: 30 for Phillip: asking the Lord to give him rest on all sides - just as He’d done for King Jehoshaphat!  I must confess my selfish motive behind that request: if my sweet husband had rest on all sides, then so would his wife!

The tale of King Jehoshaphat

(2 Chron. 20:1-30 – Alabama translation)

J

Way back yonder, a long time ago, there was a king of Judah named Jehoshaphat. One day he got some terrible news that not one, not two, but three fearsome armies were a comin’ against him. Well, that King Jehoshaphat, he commenced to shakin’ in his boots - “scareder” than a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory - so he turned his attention to seek the Lord.

Oh, how he prayed, and he called all the menfolk, women, and young’uns throughout the whole land to pray, too. He howled like a coyot’ bayin’ at the moon and cried, “O God, aren’t You the God of heaven? Didn’t You drive out our enemies before? O God, won’t You help us again? For we are plum powerless against this swarm of varmints a comin’ to get us, and we don’t know what to do. But Lord, we’re a keepin’ our eyes on You!”

Well, in those days, God talked to His kids through prophets. So the Lord told one of those prophets named Jahaziel, “You go tell ol’ Jehoshaphat not to be a fearin’, ‘cause the battle isn’t his; it’s Mine. Tell him to go on out there tomorrow and just watch Me whip those rebel rousers.”

 The very next day, Jehoshaphat was a trustin’ the Lord somethin’ fierce, so he sent the music folks out in front of his fightin’ men. And whilst that choir was a singin’ praises to God, the Lord stirred things up between those three legions, and they started a fightin’ each other. After the dust settled, not one of those rascals was left standin’. So Jehoshaphat just marched his people right onto the battleground, as pretty as you please, and gathered up all the spoils. The Good Book says that God then gave that kingdom peace and the king rest on all sides.

            May the Lord, the Almighty Eternal God, fight your battles today and give YOU rest on all sides. In your rest, may you in-turn refresh the weary, in Jesus’ name!      

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