You thought of everything.

Oh, Lord, sometimes I am giddy with excitement over you. Sometimes I want to walk with you, talk with you, laugh with you, cry 0-BOOK 4-FOLK HERO-Child'sCartoon-Mediumwith you.  I want to run with you through meadows and lie on the grass and watch the clouds float by. When I am in a breeze, I wonder if you are whispering to me. Sometimes when I hear the flutter of wings overhead, I wonder if you are embracing me. You call me your child, then spoil me with your love. How I rejoice in you. My heart calls out to your heart. Even in the deepest gloom, I feel your presence. All that has been, is, and will be honor and praise you.

Thank you for March. The snow is beginning to melt. There are puddles everywhere and the lawns are soggy. How I rejoice when I see all this because I know it is a prelude to spring. How I love spring. Thank you for spring. Yes, and winter. Winter when the world goes inside and rests. When I have more quiet time, family time, and reflecting time. Winter is good. But now I am ready for Spring. Your seasons. How delightful they are. And always on time. Your promises are like that ~ always on time. Thank you for the unique beauty and benefits of each season. You thought of everything.

04-FOLK HERO-Child'sCartoon-Thumbnail.A CHILD’S LIFE OF CHRIST has the same books in it as the grownup THEY MET JESUS.  Even the chapters are the same.  The only difference is the story has been adjusted for a child’s mind and vocabulary and shortened.  In FOLK HERO, Jesus performs many miracles and people are beginning to catch on that he is more than just a carpenter.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or past this:  https://bit.ly/3803JHN

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/a-childs-life-of-christ-book-4-folk-hero/

Do you think it would help to…

03-Naaman'sMaid-MediumCoverThe stars praise you by night, the sun declares your glory by day. They sparkle with the romance of the ages in their own way. Even raging storms declare your power, butterflies declare your gentleness, grass coming back to life each spring declares your mercy. You make, then you remake. You create and recreate. You raise up, cheer up, climb up, clean up. You love without boundaries. Your mercy is limitless. Your life without end.

I was discouraged the other day and dragged my family down with me. I could have excused myself and gone for a walk or into a room alone. I could have written them a love note asking for their patience while I rebuild. I did not. I snapped at them because I felt so bad inside. It was probably just some chemical thing in my body, but I did not know how to change it. Do you think it would help to write some love notes to my family and put them away for the next time it happens?

Thank you, Jesus, for all you did for me. I couldn’t do it. I still cannot be perfect. No matter how hard I try, I fail. So, you did it for me and for everyone. You were perfect for us. Then you took the blame for our imperfections along with our punishment. The world hated you because you were perfect and we were not. Jesus, you did so much. I cannot begin to comprehend it all.  But I can spend eternity thanking you with my heart, my spirit, my soul.

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03-Naaman'sMaid-ThumbnailCoverA CHILD’S BIBLE KIDS:  NAAMAN’S MAID was grabbed from her parents’ yard when the soldiers came.  They took her far away, but she never forgot her family or friends.  And old Elisha who had performed a miracle for the widow lady living next door.  When her master began to look like a monster, she could have been happy her master was sick.  Instead, she forgave him and told him the God of her family, her friends, and Elisha could heal him.  Guess what?  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://bit.ly/38OR4qT

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/a-childs-bible-kids-book-3-naamans-maid/?frame-nonce=dcd871ac5b

And when I could stand it no longer…

The scripture for today, March 1 (3/1), is 1st Thessalonians 3:1,5 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

00-Hero Alone-COVER-KINDLE-Medium“So, when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens….For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.”

In Thessalonica, there had been a riot, and the man who had given Paul and his helpers a place to live was hauled into court. Paul just couldn’t put his host through that, so “when we could stand it no longer,” he left the city and went off by himself so he wouldn’t jeopardize anyone else.

Still the great Apostle Paul ~ who went everywhere preaching non-stop for decades; who stood up under beatings, stonings, hunger, and shipwrecks; who explained to church leaders how to lead their congregation; whose letters were prophecy and became scripture ~ the powerful Apostle Paul still felt very tenderly toward his fellow Christians.

He worried about how they were getting along spiritually. And when he “could stand it no longer,” he wrote back to Thessalonica to find out how they were doing.

Do you feel this way about the spiritual well-being of other people? Is there someone you need to call or write to today because you want to find out how they are?  Do you have any words of encouragement for them? Any at all?

Tender love is a powerful love. A strong love. A love that will never, ever let go.

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00-Hero Alone-COVER-KINDLE-ThumbnailYOU CAN BE A HERO ALONE:  SURVIVAL STORIES FOR THE COURAGEOUS ISOLATED CHRISTIAN.  This book was written for the discouraged isolated Christian.  It is stories of people in the Bible who were isolated from society because they followed God.  There are thought questions at the end of each chapter.  A great gift to send someone who needs courage to keep going.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://bit.ly/354h5R8

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/1107-2/you-can-be-a-hero-alone-survival-stories-for-the-isolated-christian/

Teach my eyes to see it all.

My very being praises you. My every breath, my every heartbeat, every blink of my eye praises you. The mighty mountains and 01-Adam&Eve-KindleMediumroaring seas praise you. The eagles flying high and soaring on the wings of the wind praise you. The fish great and small that thrive somewhere in the deep waters praise you.  The unborn children still snug in their mother’s womb praise you.  The stars dancing through galaxies around the orb of the universe praise you. Touch and sound, motion and stillness praise you. On ethereal wings, all things praise you.

Lord, I was in a hurry and I went way over the speed limit. Most people would call such guilt silly, but I feel it. I endangered others by going a speed the engineers consider dangerous.  I didn’t listen. I paid no heed. I should have left home early enough. I didn’t. I endangered people because I was not prepared enough and was running late. And the place I was rushing to was not worth anyone’s life. What if I had hit someone and caused them all kinds of inconveniences in their life?  Worse, what if I had killed someone. I am so sorry. But thank you for protecting everyone I drove near.

Ah, thank you, my Lord for color. How delightful color is. People who have been blind all their lives do not comprehend color. That just reminds me of what is in store in your world. What will heaven be like? I can only imagine. And for sound. Thank you for the sound of music, whether it be on the lips of a chorus, a child, a song bird, or the wind dancing among the leaves of a tree. How much fun it must have been for you to create the world. A little dab of blue here, a little dab of red there. A whisper of a song, the enchantment of a bubbling creek.  Teach my eyes to see it all.

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01-Adam&Eve-KindleThumbnailA CHILD’S BIBLE HEROES:  ADAM AND EVE.  How much fun God had in creating the world with splashes of color here and there and everywhere.  And scents of flowers and fruit wafting through the breeze.  Then there were Adam and Eve — his crowning achievement.  They lived up to his expectations for probably a hundred years.  We need to give them credit for what they did do — not singing for much longer than we can.  To BUY NOW click a book cover or paste this:  https://bit.ly/3l4WL84

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/a-childs-bible-heroes-1-adam-and-eve/?frame-nonce=1e7c6b1760

 

Look out, world. Here we come!

The scripture for today, February 25 (2/25), is Revelation 2:25 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

0-BK 8-ComeFlyWithMe-Cover-Medium-New“Only hold on to what you have until I come.”

Several years ago, my 91-year-old mother left this life. Some say that, at the moment of death, one’s life flashes before their eyes. In the case of my mother, at the moment of her death, her life flashed before my eyes.

I suddenly imagined her as a baby in her mother’s (my grandmother’s) lap. Then she was a toddler playing in their yard. Then I saw her in school, then as a young bride to my father, then at home with her husband and children gathered around her. Then I saw her as launching a career after we were grown, then retiring, then eventually going into the nursing home.

And when that brief moment of envisioning her whole life was gone, I whispered, “You made it, Mother! You made it! You never faltered. Through all those years of ups and downs, you never wavered in your faith that Jesus Christ was real and would accept you into heaven. You stuck it out. And now you’re home!”

May you live your life in such a way that, despite your ups and downs, you never wander from Jesus. Stick with him through every storm, every flood, every blast of tragedy, every tumbling of dreams. Hold on to what you have until the day you see Jesus coming for you.

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0-BK 8-ComeFlyWithMe-Cover-Thumbnail-NewTHEY MET JESUS:  COME FLY WITH ME.  He is dead and buried.  So is their dream.  Three years of hopes and dreams dashed into oblivion.  He had made promises he could not keep.  Everything now dead and gone.  Life ahead now only a hopeless haze.  How could he have tricked them like he had?  But wait!  What’s going on?  Jesus? Is that you?  It can’t be.  But it is.  Jesus, the God of miracles, is back from the grave and stronger than ever.  The movement is back on.  Look out, world.  Here we come!  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://bit.ly/2OzEnXc

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/historical-novel-about-jesus/book-8-come-fly-with-me-adults-childs-versions/

Every corner of the universe

04-King Joash-MediumCoverThe snowflakes outside my window praise you with all their intricate designs. The icicles praise you as they hang on upside down and grow longer with each drip, drip, drip. The scampering squirrels and fluttering little birds praise you as they brave the cold outside and look in my direction every once in a while as though to say, “Come on out. The winter’s fine”. And, oh how the stars take on a special sparkle and effervescence in the wintertime when so much of the earth is asleep. It is as though they are saying, “Go ahead, world, and sleep. I’ll be here watching over you.” You are in everything because you made everything. How exciting it must have been for you those days of creation.

There are people in this world that seem to have no conscience. They had just as soon kill a person as to step on an ant.  I am afraid of people like that and do not want to be around them. Even though they are overtly doing the work of Satan, I must cover them with prayer. I don’t do it. I don’t pray for my enemies or the enemies of the world. Grab them, God, and invade their heart so the hardness will leave and they can catch a glimpse of you.

Thank you for little babies. They remind me of my helplessness to make food grow and my dependence on you. Thank you for little toddlers who patter around discovering their world and giggling in delight. Thank you for adults who are mentally still like children. They remind me of innocence in an adult body and how I should be more like them. As I look around this world, I see blessings you give me in every corner of the universe.

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04-King Joash-ThumbnailCoverA CHILD’S BIBLE KIDS:  KING JOASH:  1 ~ Baby Prince, 2 ~ Running, 3 ~ Escape, 4 ~ Hiding, 5 ~ Growing, 6 ~ Almost King, 7 ~ Practicing, 8 ~ Telling the Secret, 9 ~ All the Guards, 10 ~ Long Live the King.  Large font for early readers.  “Think and Do” at the end of each chapter.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this: https://bit.ly/37HLpDa

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/a-childs-bible-kids-book-4-king-joash/

The Son shall be called the Father

 0000-BK 1-StarSong-Cover-new-MediumThe scripture for today, February 23 (2/23), is 1st John 2:23 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

“No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

This verse tells us the Son and Father are one. Isaiah 9:6 calls the child to be born both the Son and the Father and Mighty God. The Son gives birth to the Father; the Father gives birth to the Son. In other words, God is self-existent and one.

When you speak into a tape recorder and your voice then comes out of that machine for other people to hear, that doesn’t make you two.  You are still one; you have just chosen to put your voice in something where you can be heard by people away from you.  That tape recording is just another form of you. You can also put your voice and body in a movie. That doesn’t make two of you ~ one on the screen and one in your physical body. You are still one.

God is One, and yet he revealed a part of himself in a burning bush to Moses just like you revealed a part of yourself in the tape recorder or movie.  Does that mean there were two Gods ~ one in heaven and one in the bush?  No.  God can and has sometimes revealed himself in different ways. Remember how he walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?

Some say, “If Jesus was God on earth, when he died, God was dead.”  No. That temporary body was dead, but God’s Spirit, God’s Soul, God’s being continued to live. Jesus, the Word of God, did not depend on a body to be alive.

Why would Jesus be called the Son of God, since he was not a son created in the literal way we have sons?  You have thoughts, and those thoughts have existed as long as you have.  But you still created those thoughts.  When your thoughts become hearable or seeable, people call that your “brainchild.”   In that same sense, Jesus was God’s “brainchild” ~ God’s thoughts in hearable and seeable form. 

How was he the only begotten Son? God has only one Word ~ the Bible.  “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made” (John 1:1-3).  When God spoke the world into existence, that was Jesus. Every time God spoke, that was Jesus.

Isaiah 9:6 says the Son shall be called Mighty God and Everlasting Father.  And so he was.  And so he is.

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0000-BK 1-StarSong-Cover-new-ThumbnailTHEY MET JESUS:  STAR SONGCome meet the people who met Jesus.  You are one of them  Probably you are several of them. Go ahead and struggle with him as they did.  Laugh. Cry.  Do mental battle with him.  Emotional battle too.  Fight for your faith as they fought.  Pause to listen for what you’ve never heard before.  Then touch Jesus. This is the story of faith in the impossible.   Hope in the inconceivable.  Love for the invincible.  It is the dreams of youth, the desperations of infirmity, the hopes of age, and the song of eternity.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://bit.ly/3qMEUXd

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/historical-novel-about-jesus/

 

The world is your song

OldOldTunes-mediumI can’t help but praise you, my Lord, each day and all day. You alone are worthy of this. You alone are God and there is no other. You are the life of my body and spirit. You are the love of my heart and soul. Your words are absorbed in my heart and treasured in my soul now and forever.

Lord, I was in someone’s house yesterday and they had the most beautiful rug. I wanted such a rug for my house. I almost envied them. Then I caught myself. What difference does it make how I decorate things? Help me look at the beauty of their souls instead. Help me want what I have and no more. All I need is you.

Thank you, God, for the little birds I see outside my window each morning. There they are, ready to greet me. And the sun. Each morning it rises just to say, “I’m back. Didn’t I promise you I would be?”. The darkness is good because it makes me rest. But how I love the morning and the world waking up with it. And thank you for pouring your heart out to the world in your Bible. Now I can know you and have no doubts. How many in this world are willing to pour out their heart to others as you did? I think the world is your song.

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OldOldTunes-ThumbnailTHE OLD OLD STORY SET TO OLD OLD TUNES.  All songs are set to folk tunes.  Forty about the Old Testament and forty about the New Testament.  Sing with friends and family on Zoom.  Or with grandchildren when they visit. Or for music lessons of homeschoolers.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this……….https://bit.ly/2YwJVHI

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/links-to-some-of-my-fun-bible-stuff/the-old-old-story-set-to-old-old-tunes/

Nestled in my heart

Rhoda Book Cover KINDLE-mediumWhat a powerful God you are. You speak and your words roar through the universe. You sing and your song echoes from star to star. You whisper and the wind swirls and makes the clouds bump lazily into each other. You sigh and I feel your Spirit within my soul.  Mighty and gentle. Tough and tender. Everywhere at once and nestled in my heart.

Oh, my. Forgive me when I judge others by myself. I was where they are once. Help me be patient with others and delight in their little bit of growth instead of their slow progress.

Thank you for cold, nippy mornings with the wind pounding on my cheeks, icy paths challenging my balance, and cabin fever when I stay indoors too much. And for rush-hour traffic and horns that honk and declare their presence on the road. Thank you for restless children and empty cupboards and flat tires. Thank you for a world that is not perfect so I can watch you work within it all to bring blessings and peace and wonder.

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Rhoda Book Cover KINDLE-thumbnailA CHILD’S BIBLE KIDS:  RHODA.  She was always sill and told jokes no one understood, but she was a hard worker and loved everyone she met.  She and her widowed mother worked hard to support themselves.  Then one day in the market, she voluntarily helped a lady who had dropped part of her produce.  The lady hired her to be a live-in maid.  Sometimes a man named Peter would visit Mary’s home and Rhoda learned to love his stories about Jesus.  Then, one day, Peter was put in jail.  To find out what happened next, READ NOW by clicking a book cover or pasting this: https://bit.ly/3psKU5L

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/a-childs-bible-kids-book-8-rhoda/?frame-nonce=dcd871ac5b

 

Do your best, Timothy. Do your best.

00-PAUL COVER-Medium-The scripture for today, February 15 (2/15), is 2nd Timothy 2:15 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

“Do your best,” Paul told a younger co-worker.  “Do your best.”

This was an apostle speaking. This was Paul who had endured multiple beatings with rods and lashings with whips. This was Paul who no one could stop.

He had endured floods and snowstorms, hunger and robbers on the road. Still, no one could stop him. He endured shipwrecks and even treading water a day and night in the sea. Nothing could stop him.e \

It seems with Paul, it was never enough. He was driven. When he was stoned and presumed dead, he got up and went back into the city! When he was imprisoned, he defied the magistrates who put him there and sang his sermons to the other prisoners. Nothing could stop him. Nothing could shut him up.

When he wrote this, he was now in prison. He had done his best. Now it was time for the next generation. He was handing the torch over to Timothy and the others.

“Do your best, Timothy. Don’t let them stop you. Never let them stop you. They are lost and don’t know it. Tell them, Timothy. Keep telling them, no matter how terribly they treat you. Keep telling them and keep telling them. Don’t stop, Timothy. Do your best.

“Some will stop what they are doing and listen to you. They will turn their life around. They will be there with you when it is time to be presented to God. They will be there with you, and with you they will say, “I did my best.”

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00-PAUL COVER-Thumbnail-PAUL: THE UNSTOPPABLE.  I sometimes wonder what kind of child Paul was.  I tend to think when his parents punished him, he got up and immediately did the offending thing again.  Why do I think that?  Because that is what he did as a missionary preacher.  Pagan priests beat him. But he got up and preached again.  Jewish priests lashed him. But he got up and preached again.  Governments imprisoned him. But he got up and preached again. What kind of stuff was Paul made of?  To READ THIS BEST SELLER, click a book cover or paste this:  https://bit.ly/UnstoppablePaul

https://inspirationsbykatheryn.wordpress.com/books-more-biblical-historical-novels/book-2-paul-the-unstoppable/