Heart Hope by Olga

My daughter is having the long awaited baby. After her many health issues and previous miscarriages “our” baby should be born on or before January 8 th . There have been prayer after prayer offered on his behalf. There have been doctor’s appointments, and more doctor’s appointments. There has been healthy eating taking place. There was a list of items needed and a baby shower held, with wonderful items, some specially made, some fun and others practical that were given. The nursery is completed and the rocking chair has been slipcovered. Now we wait for the precious arrival with the planning and preparations finished. This time of year, you are probably busy with your planning and preparations for the Christmas season. You’ve probably made travel plans, purchased gifts, bake holiday goodies, mailed cards and hopefully thought about the birth of Jesus, the true meaning of the season. God the Father had lots of planning and preparations to be done for the birth of His ...

Cross Joann Made for Me A few weeks ago a man was walking through our confusing maze of an office with a clipboard, looking up then down, drawing and then erasing. When I asked what he was doing he replied that he was drawing a floor plan of the office. I was perplexed because I had one sitting right on my desk due to the upcoming office moves. With the curvature of the building, the different sizes and shapes of the offices and the hidden hallways his task was next to impossible. You can imagine his elation when I offered to make a copy of the diagram for him. You would have thought I had given him the best gift ever. A simple drawing made his job of placing all of the water sprinklers so much faster and more efficient.  What is the best gift you have ever received? An expensive piece of jewelry? A trip? A gift of time? Or something entirely different? Gifts come in different sizes, shapes and forms. Each person can probably remember ones that impacted thei...

It was an amazing sight to behold…Roman soldiers walking down Highway 6 in our small community. That was the first thing that caught my eye, but then I realized that there was more. Jesus was just ahead of them carrying a cross. And as I continued my gaze, there were children following carrying posters with messages of hope, including John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that who ever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” I wondered who was reenacting this scene from Good Friday. So I quickly turned my car around to do a little investigating. I had my suspicions and they proved correct. As I got out of my car, I saw Pastor Dan from another church in the Valley and found out that it was the youth group from his church, making the 10 mile journey to proclaim the Good News of Jesus.  Pastor Dan informed me that many cars had honked and displayed thumbs up as they passed the group. However he also said that the...

The woman at the well is a favorite of mine--the outcast, the misfit who couldn’t even come to the well with the other women because of the sin in her life. I can relate to her. Yet Jesus the Jew, the male, the Messiah chose to stop and visit with her because he knew a secret about her. Not the things she had done wrong although He did know that; no; He knew that if He could just meet with her, she would be willing.  So He went the “wrong way” on His journey so that He would encounter her along the way. And she was willing--willing to listen, willing to change the way she thought and willing to tell others about what had happened to her. Jesus had asked her for water, but ended up giving her the “living water” of eternal life. In the process she reflected the glory of Jesus and became the first missionary to convert an entire community. She was used by Jesus as a leader of men, women and children simply by opening her mouth and telling them about Jesus. Jesus d...

The times were a lot like today, the situation was bleak with plenty of bad news. There was political unrest… there were financial troubles… the economy was in the tank… military conflicts were threatening… there was moral decay among leaders and a taxation crisis was looming on the horizon. Does that sound familiar? That’s exactly what was going on over two thousand years ago at the time of Jesus’ birth. Yet it sounds like it could describe what was going on in the world right now. It was a time in history that needed some good news, just as we do too. It was the exact moment that God chose to send a gift, not just any gift, but an indescribable gift according to 2 Corinthians 9:15. The gift that God sent to the world that dark night could not be adequately described; it was too extraordinary for words. It was beyond comprehension.  The gift was baby Jesus. The good news proclaimed by the Lord’s angel announced that a Savior had been born. At a bleak time in...