I have many questions about pain and suffering, but don’t know where to begin. So, I will leave it at that for today.

Blessings,

Kim

Monday, March 30th, 2009 10:15 P.M.

Do you pray? Who do YOU pray to? Have you every prayed out loud? Do you think God hears you when you pray?

Here is what James 5:16 says about prayer:

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

That verse said that prayer is POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE! How awesome is that?!  God most definitely listens to prayers, answers prayers, and moves in response to prayers.

In Ephesians 6:18 the Bible tells us how we should pray:

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

So, in that verse it tells us to be alert and always be praying. God hears us, and He hears all of our prayers, whether or not we pray out loud or just to ourselves.

When we pray we should pray like we are talking to God, just like we’re having a conversation with Him. It doesn’t have to be big and fancy, just honest and forthright.

Matthew 6:7-8 says this about prayer.

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Do you ever wonder what to pray about? Sometimes I have to just be quiet, still and listen for God to speak to me.

Philippians 4:6-7

⁶Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The power of prayer has overcome enemies (Psalm 6:9-10), , conquered death (2 Kings 4:3-36), brought healing (James 5:14-15), and defeated demons (Mark 9:29). God, through prayer, opens eyes, changes hearts, heals wounds, and grants wisdom (James 1:5).

So, if you pray, know that God DOES hear you, and He does answer your prayers, maybe just not in a way that we thought He would.

Have a most blessed week.

Blessings,

Kim

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Do you find it hard to try to keep in touch with friends? Friends that you may have lived close to for a long time and then one of you had to move?

Well, over the past year I have had a hard time trying to stay in touch with some dear friends we left in Texas.

My husband has been in the Air Force for a little over 18 years and we have lived in many places. Our closest friends we made live in Wichita Falls, Texas. We arrived there in 2000.

My husband taught Tech school at Sheppard Air Force Base for the four years we were stationed there. The weekend we first got to Wichita Falls we went to a small church in Burkburnett, Texas. (Which just happens to be on the border of Texas and Oklahoma)

 The church we visited that weekend was “referred” to us by some friends we had met in Guam, where we had just moved from. Our friends in Guam had lived in Wichita Falls right before they came to Guam. What a small world right? I don’t think it’s that small. I think God placed us all there in Guam for a reason.

The church’s name was Jan Lee Baptist Church and it is across the street from Burkburnett High School. If you are ever in the area, stop on by I promise you won’t regret stopping by.

So, we visited Jan Lee that first weekend and were looking for the wonderful people we had been told all about by our friends in Guam. We were so thrilled that we went that Sunday. We continued visiting and before long we made Jan Lee our church home.

Pastor Jim Smithee was the Pastor at the time, and he was a wonderful, Godly man! I learned so much in the three years he was Pastor while we were there. Pastor Smithee had cancer while we were there and in June of 2003 he went home to be with our heavenly Father. It was so hard to be there an entire year after he had passed away. It was very, very hard for me. We use to sit right behind him during the service.

But, I do have to say that during the four years we lived in Texas, I learned a lot about the Lord, and I grew a lot in my walk with HIM. Most of it was due to the friendship I made with Pastor Smithee, his wife and a wonderful, Godly group of ladies.

These ladies and I were part of a Tuesday night Bible study that Pastor’s wife Sue did. It was a small group of us and we got to pray for each other and really study God’s Word. I have not found a more loyal group of ladies or a more REAL Bible study since we left Jan Lee.

I sure do miss Sue a lot. She has had a real hard time over the past six years since Pastor Smithee passed away. I just heard from her yesterday and February 21st was her and Pastor’s 40th wedding anniversary. She still misses him so very, very much. She asked me when the pain would ever end.

There are so many, many more friends from Jan Lee that I miss. Rick Sims was such a blessing to our family, and he may not even knew it at all while we were there. His sports analogies when he did devotions on Wednesday nights or during the monthly Saturday morning Brotherhood breakfast really touched my husband. We ALL miss Rick so very, very much.

But, I would have to say that the closest of our friends that the Lord put in our path while we were there was the Williams family. Oh my gosh, I am tearing up just writing this, thinking about all we went together while in Wichita Falls. My heart breaks to think about their loss of their beautiful son Isaac, two days after 9-11-2001. He would have been two years old five days after his death. I don’t know how you go on after a loss like that, but my wonderful, amazing friends did, and have. I miss April and Jonathan so very much.

The Williams and our family have so much in common , especially since we both have blended families. But the biggest thing we have in common is our love for the Lord.

When you find true Godly friends, the Lord will always help you to remember to stay in touch with those friends. Even though I don’t always get back to Sue’s wonderful, hand written letters as soon as I should, I know that she is still praying for me. She is such a wonderful lady and a terrific friend.

I know that even though April and I may not talk on a daily, weekly or a monthly basis, I know that she is still a great friend and all I have to do is pick up the phone and call her and I know that she will be there to listen, talk and give advice to me. She is a terrific friend who I miss terribly. But, one day whenever we get the chance to be together again, it will be like neither one of us ever left each other.

Love ya April…you’re the greatest friend I have ever had!

If you have dear friends who you haven’t talked to, or e-mailed or written, I challenge you to get back in touch with them. Tell them how much you miss them and how much they mean to you.

Have a blessed Wednesday.

Learning to walk in God’s grace one day at a time,

Kim

 Monday, March 2nd, 2009 @ 10:43 PM

I started reading the book of James again last night. I learned several things from the first chapter of James. Here they are.

     Listening and Doing:

1. Be quick to listen
2. Slow to speak
3. Slow to anger
4. Get rid of all moral filth
5. Humbly accept THE WORD planted in you
6. Do what THE WORD says
7. Keep a tight rein on your tongue
8. Look after orphans and widows
9. Keep oneself from being polluted by the world

Some of my favorite and most useful Bible verses come from this chapter in the book of James.

James 1:19 … Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

James 1:21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

I read this chapter of James out of my favorite Bible. It use to belong to a very dear friend. He was our previous Pastor. When we lived in Texas we found this little Southern Baptist Church in Burkburnett, Texas. Jan Lee Baptist Church became our church home during the four years we were stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls. Pastor Jim Smithee became like a father to me and taught me many valuable life lessons. He had cancer when we first met him and in June of 2003, a year before we left Texas, Pastor Smithee went home to be with our Heavenly Father.

I felt so close to the Lord last night as I read these verses and I felt like Pastor Smithee was guiding me in what I read as I looked at the chapter and saw the underlined words. It was like he was telling me…. “you KNOW this Kim, you know it.” It was so awesome.

I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to read from Pastor Smithee’s Bible.

I pray that the Lord blesses your day today.

Learning to walk in God’s grace one day at a time,

Kim

“Bring the Rain” by Mercy Me 

It has been two months since I have blogged on here. I have tried time after time and come up with nothing. It’s like writer’s block I guess. I prayed about it, and this subject came up this morning.

When we go through difficult times in our lives, it’s easy to take our eyes “off the prize.”   We often concentrate only on what we  are feeling and what we are dealing with at the time. I know that this is often true for me.

In the verses below, Paul talks about suffering. He says that our sufferings are NOTHING compared to what WILL BE REVEALED to us! But, if we wait patiently and in eager expectation for what God is going to do in our lives, like it says in Romans 8 verse 19 and  in verse 25 God will give us the glory. That is what Paul is talking about in verses 18 – 27. Paul talks about future glory.

^{Romans 8:18-19}

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.

Romans 8:24-25

 ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is where John is talking about The New Jerusalem. Read these verses and take comfort that one day soon our tears and our pain will be gone. There will be NO MORE TEARS! No more suffering and no more trials.

Revelation 21:4

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Jeremy Camp is one of my favorite Christian singers. This man has been through some trials and pain in his young life. He lost his first wife due to Ovarian cancer in the short time they were married. Read what Wikipedia says about them:

Personal life

Camp has been married twice. He and his first wife, Melissa Lynn Henning-Camp (born October 7, 1979), were married on October 21, 2000.^[9] She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died in 2001, when he was 23 and she was 21.^[9] Some of his early songs reflect the emotional ordeal of her illness. “I Still Believe” was the first song he wrote after her death. “Walk By Faith” was written during their honeymoon.^[10] In December of 2003, he married Adrienne Liesching, former frontwoman for The Benjamin Gate. They have two daughters: Isabella Rose Camp (born September 25, 2004) and Arianne Mae Camp (born April 5, 2006).

Melissa Lynn Henning-Camp

Take heart if you are suffering. No matter what you are going through, God knows and He is RIGHT there with you … ALL the time. He is walking it right beside you.

Have a very blessed rest of the week.

Blessings,

Kim

Here is Jeremy Camp talking about suffering and hope. And then take a minute and listen to a music video on his newest song, “There Will Be a Day.”

 I woke up Saturday morning, December 6th around 5 AM to find our beloved, blind Basset Hound dog  had passed away in the middle of the night. Dexter Babe Wright was his name.

Dexter had many nicknames. We would call him Tex Dex, Dexter Texter and Lindsey’s favorite was Dexy.

We got Dexter from a very nice Wichita Falls, Texas policeman eight years ago while we were stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base. Dexter was only six months old when we got him.

At the time we got Dexter, we also had two labs; Sugar and Cocoa. (none of the dogs at the time were neutered or spayed …. so it was inevitable :>) )

In December of 2002, Sugar (our yellow lab) had eleven puppies with Dex as the proud papa. One of the eleven puppies died shortly after birth. We had six yellow puppies and four black puppies. We gave them all away at six weeks old. They were so cute.

 When my parents lived at their other home, they had a lot of land, with a pond. We would bring Dexter with us when we would go to their house to visit. This is what they said about Dexter.

“Dexter got to be a “regular dog,” at our house. He would run around with the other dogs around the property.”

“He loved to get into the pond.”

I asked my son, husband  and my youngest daughter one or two things they remembered the most about Dexter and here is what they said, and some things I remember.

 I am also going to go through my pictures and put together a slide show of pictures of Dex and our family over the past eight years.

Kyle said, “Dexter liked to lay by the front door on the big rug waiting for Dad to get home from work.”

My daughter Lindsey said this about Dexter, ” It’s weird, because all the time we have had Dexter, we’ve had all of our other pets.” (The other two dogs and our three small finch birds)

Lindsey also said this, “That no matter what you do, he always let you lay on him.”

Tommy also said, “Dexter would love to run up and down the chain link fence barking at our neighbor’s little dog when we lived in Texas.”

Tommy said, ” Dexter loved to play fetch (before he was completely blind) with the other dogs. He would chase them really fast around the yard in circles.”

Here are some of my memories of Dexter:

I remember how when we lived in Texas, Dexter use to jump up on the bench on our deck (that was attached to our house right by the kitchen) and he would sit outside and look inside at use in the kitchen window. (The window was real low)

My favorite memory of Dexter was watching him “sunbathing” in the backyard on his back and he would roll all around like he was itching his back! He would always groan and make funny noises too as he was rolling around.

I also remember how he would rub his face and the ENTIRE sides of his of body on the couch. I think he was just itching himself! LOL!

Man did Dex have some drool! OH MY GOSH! When EVER Dexter drank EVERYONE in the entire house could hear him. His beautiful, big ‘ole ears would drop into the big water bowl and they would get wet. (Let me tell you here that we live in military base housing with NO carpeting and no area rugs)

After Dexter was done drinking, I would count to see how many seconds it would take for him to shake all that extra water off his face and ears. All that extra water, mixed in with his “lovely” Basset Hound slobber would go F-L-Y-I-N-G everywhere! He didn’t always do the shaking in the kitchen, sometimes he waited until he made it into the dinning room.  A LOT of the time we wouldn’t see the “spray” of water and slobber from Dexter shaking off all the extra water and slobber so we ended up stepping it.  I can vividly remember stepping in those spots many, many times and saying, “Ewe that is soooo nasty!”  The kids would step in it most of the time and run to the front door and wipe their feet off about a million times. (This is where we have the only rug in our home)

Another memory is of our other dog Rusty with Dexter. Over the past few years Rusty has been licking Dexter’s “eye boogers.” That is what we have always called them. It is just nasty to watch! We always tried to get him to stop, but he never did; except on Friday, Dexter’s last day with us.

One lasting memory of Dexter was his howling. He would howl when the kids played the harmonica, or even when we would howl. (We would even put our heads up like he did when he howled) Dexter would keep on howling as long as we did or as long as you kept playing the harmonica.

Dexter was such a neat dog! He just wanted attention and someone to pet him. He was such a great dog and we all already miss him so very much! My heart is breaking every time I go to the backdoor to let my other two dogs outside. 

With a heavy heart,

Kim

My heart breaks tonight as I watch my ‘ole dog Dexter. Dexter is a big 8 1/2 year old Bassett  Hound that we got when he was 6 months old when we lived in Texas.

Let me just say this upfront. Dexter stinks! Literally! Almost all the time. I could bathe him and then 5 minutes later, he will stink just as bad as he did before his bath.

I love Dexter so much. He has been such a good ‘ole faithful dog for the 8 years we have had him. He is almost completely blind now in both eyes, and tonight it seems like it may be the last night he will be with us.

He has no energy, has been throwing up all day off and on, and does nothing but lay around. I know that if it’s his time, then it’s his time. I just pray that the Lord will take him quickly because he is very loved in our family.

I don’t know what else to say because my heart is breaking. I will close for now and pray for the best.

Blessings,

Kim

Here is a video clip I put together from my mission trip to Botswana in Africa. The video clip is of a few of our men playing with some of the children in Old Naledi.

Enjoy!

In His Steps,

Kim

As I read yesterday and today in a devotional, it was talking about gratitude and giving thanks. I want to share what the writer of this week’s devotionals shared this morning. It was so awesome! Here it is:

What do I do that matters? Sometimes I ask myself questions like this. Did I end world hunger today? Did I bring an end to war? Did I find a cure for cancer? On and on the questions go, and the answer to each one is, “No.” I want to make a difference. I want to do something that matters, but it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the world’s need.

I suspect that most people probably want to do something important. In today’s scripture, Jesus is recognizing a group of people who have made a difference. Jesus isn’t interested in their popularity or money. He doesn’t even mention their church attendance or how many times a week they read their Bibles. According to Jesus, these people have made a difference because they offered their food, drink, friendship, clothing and care to people who didn’t seem matter to the rest of the world.

We may not save the world today, but maybe we can give what we have to help someone who seems not to matter much. In God’s eyes, when we care for someone who seems unimportant, we are caring for Jesus. I’m pretty sure that matters a lot.

Dixie Ford

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’”

 Matthew 25:31-36

 

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

Matthew 25:37-40

 

 

 O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Psalm 105:1-3 

So, this Thansgiving, remember what Jesus says in these verses, what IS important is being there for your friends and strangers and giving of yourself and what you have to share.  May you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

In His Steps,

Kim 

 This picture was taken by my oldest daughter in Charleston, SC. 12-2007

Have you ever tried to walk in a dark room, only to stub your foot on something very large and heavy? It’s not easy to maneuver around in the dark, unless you have some light. In our home at night, I leave the bathroom light on in the hallway, in case one of the kids needs to get up in the middle of the night. This way, there is a little light shining into their bedrooms.

Without the Lord in our lives we are totally in the dark. There is no light. Nothing.

As I was reading in my Bible this morning, I read some awesome verses about the light and wanted to share them with you.

          “ … God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5

Did you read that like I did? There is NO darkness in God, NONE…. ZILCH, ZIP-PO! God is L-I-G-H-T! 

“If we claim to have fellowship with Him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.”   1 John 1:6

So, what is that verse saying to you? To ME it is saying this …. if I claim to be a Christian and a follower of Jesus Christ, and I do things that are the opposite of HIS teachings, then I AM walking in the darkness and I am living a lie.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  1 John 1:9

If God is the light, why are there so many Christians walking in the darkness? Good thought to think about today. May the Lord bless your day today.

In HIS Steps,

Kim