Wonderful Storybooks

High Apple Pie, in the Sky HOPES!

>> Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Illustration by, award winning artist, Donny Finley
from the soon-to-be-released, Secrets of Shiloh,
A Christian Storybook for families

“HOPE deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is the tree of life.” Prob. 13:12

In the 60s, my brother and I had a stack of 45-records and a little player concealed behind our living room love seat. One of the songs we listened to in our little “hide out” was Frank Sinatra’s “High Hopes”:

Once there was a silly old ram

Thought he'd punch a hole in a dam

No one could make that ram, scram

He kept buttin that dam

Cause he had high hopes, he had high hopes

He had high apple pie, in the sky hopes

So any time your feelin bad

Stead of feelin sad

Just remember that ram

Oops there goes a billion kilowatt dam

All problems just a toy balloon

They'll be bursted soon

They're just bound to go pop

Oops there goes another problem kerplop

Considering my storybooks, some days I feel a bit like that silly old ram butting my head against an impenetrable dam between success and me. But today, I have HIGH APPLE PIE, IN THE SKY HOPES!

Is confidence in my own abilities the grounds for HIGH HOPES? NO WAY!!! Quite the contrary in fact!!! HIGH HOPES for successful storybooks comes only from great confidence in the One who commissioned me to write, BECAUSE…

“Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (1 Thess. 5:24),

and

He “is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us” (Eph. 3:20).

What has God commissioned you to do? PRESS ON, my friend, with HIGH HOPES in HIM.

“I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth. Stay with God! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with God!” Psalm 27:13-14, The Message

Azalea Blossom, by Donny Finley

Way of Escape

>> Monday, July 8, 2013

My Phillip age 19,
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, football

“God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it!”

(1 Cor. 10:13 NASB)

At 13, my husband, Phillip, promised God he’d never taste alcohol – a vow he kept religiously through high school, college, and young adulthood.

On a mission trip to Ukraine in 1994, however, Phillip faced a challenging dilemma: he found himself in a church service that used wine in the Lord’s supper and was told that it would be offensive if he refused the elements.

What was a man to do? PRAY!

Phillip talked to God as the cup passed from brethren to brethren. Just before it reached him, someone opened the sanctuary door and asked, “Will some of you come help with the children? Over 600 kids have come for children’s church!”

Phillip was the first to volunteer.

The Lord indeed provided a way of escape and helped His son keep a promise. What a mighty God we serve! Praise ye the Lord!

Peace

>> Saturday, July 6, 2013

Photo taken by my son, Ben, two weeks ago on a beach in Honduras

Cordage of the cares of life twine

'Round about this heart of mine...

And creep into my thoughts at night

Invade my soul and choke it tight.

Then one day my toes touched sand

Along the shore beside my man

And rode a bike built just for two

Then watched the sun drop out of view.

In one short while I was astounded

My vines of woe could not be "founded".

Somehow they slipped away from me

And silently drifted out to sea.

Ahhhhh…

How grand 'twould be to go about

With no fears, no woes, no doubt.

With heart at peace and mind at rest

My disposition at its best.

Then these words I did recall

An invitation for one, for all.

"Give Me Your cares," My Jesus said,

"Lie down in peace upon your bed.

For I am greater than the sea.

Let go, let woes drift up to Me!"

(Written by me, Jill, on Sanibel Island and dedicated to my sweet Savior, Jesus Christ, and my wonderful husband, Phillip, of 35 years)

Hope of Heaven

>> Friday, July 5, 2013

My sweet cousin,
Vicky Nance Boyd,
Aug. 30, 1962-July 2, 2013

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." (1 Thess. 4:13-14)

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise enending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore!

(from BLESS THE LORD, Matt Redman)