Jan 26, 2011

A Woman's Hurt

What causes a woman to hurt
To feel pain within her heart?
A pain she hides from the world
Though tears flow in the dark.

What causes her to hurt
To feel like no one cares
As she curls in the fetal position
And bathes her pillow with tears

She cries, she prays, she questions God
As she shows him all her wounds
Then she looks to him for answers
For all the bruises on her soul

Did no one ever look behind
The smiles she shows the world
And see the teary, pained filled eyes
She hides behind the smile?

Did no friend reach out a hand
To help lift her downcast heart
To let her know that she is loved
And God cares for her soul?

There are so many smiling faces
Which hides the tears of pain
So take a closer look today
At the woman next to you

Give her a smile, lend her an ear
Let her tell you why she hurts
Your concern may be what’s needed
To make a difference in her life

Inspired by Pastor Monvella McIntosh’s
Hurting Women’s Conference August 7, 2000

Jan 25, 2011

Choose Him More

I don’t usually post to my blog on Sundays. However, on Sunday Jan 16th, some thoughts came to mind and I quickly wrote a short post, entitled “Just Do It” and pressed publish. It could have been my last post. The following evening I was in a car accident. Thankfully no one was hurt.

At the moment before impact my life didn’t flash before my eyes as people often say it does. It happened too quickly. There was much time for reflections afterward however.

As I sat at home later that night, still quite shaken I thought about my day, weekend and the previous week. Thoughts of, “Am I living in readiness for His coming?” and “Were my decisions in those previous days pleasing to my Lord?” flew through my mind.




I'm over at Laced With Grace today. I'd love for you to stop by and read the rest of my post Choose Him More



Trusting Him,
~Bernadine~

Jan 16, 2011

Just Do It

 
photo by fotosearch.com

The Bible is sitting there waiting to be read…
Scriptures to be memorized
Words to be hidden in our heart
Strength to be found
Revelation to be discovered
Relationship to be forged with Jesus our Lord
But often times we choose the next thing,
A favorite television show,
A phone call from a friend,
An interesting book,
Housework
Busyness…

Hence, our spiritual life wanes
Becomes dry,
Joy fades,
Hunger subsides
All the while the Holy Spirit whispers,
Choose me,
So in the words of the Nike’s slogan
I say

Just do it…

photo by fotosearch.com





Choose Him first,
Choose Him consistently and
Interest in other things will
wane,
fade,
subside
Then we’ll hear the quiet whisper,
Well done my child.





Trusting Him
~Bernadine~

Jan 6, 2011

Of Dreamers and Dreams...

I am a dreamer... I guess that's part and parcel of being a bookworm. As a child I usually had my head in the clouds, lost in my world of daydreams building a picture perfect future. Back then my dreams were childish and fanciful, not surprising since they mostly revolved around the plot of whatever book I happened to be reading at the moment.

As I grew older my dreams changed. They lost some of the childlike fantasy and evolved into plans and goals for the future. As I dreamt I happily wrote them down as advised in Habakkuk 2:2 Write the vision, and make it plain on tables, that he may run that reads it (AKJV) The problem was, after I write my dreams I often simply closed the book and continued on with life.

Recently I had an opportunity to reflect after watching the movie Last Holiday. In the movie the main character Georgia Byrd was always dreaming about the future and deferring her dreams for a later day. She kept a journal which she called her book of possibilities. Between the pages were pictures and scribbled thoughts of all the places she wanted to go, people she wanted to meet and things she wanted to do some day. However she was contented to live in her world of dreams until one day her life was interrupted. All of her dreams of someday went out of the window when she was told by her doctor that she was terminally ill and had only weeks to live.

Georgia then stopped dreaming, cashed in her savings and started living. She began to do some of the things that she only dared to imagine between the pages of her journal.

Have you had those Georgia moments? In your mind the possibilities are endless but the weeks and months and years go by and hardly anything gets checked off the list.

The movie resonated with me because I’ve had entirely too many of those moments. I too often find myself living in my world of dreams about the future and not spending enough time working at achieving them.  I convince myself that I have faith yet James 2:14 states What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Yes there is a time for dreaming but like everything under the sun there is a time to refrain from dreaming and work on achieving.

I'm learning that life is meant to be lived not dreamt about or pushed aside to be lived when the time is right. Hence I'm taking steps to ensure that 2011 will be the year where I not only dream but achieve also.

What about you? What's on your heart at the beginning of this year? I'd really love to hear about it.

Trusting Him,
~Bernadine~