Make Today Count…No Matter What

By Cami Checketts-

At my local gym an older gentleman comes with his bottle of oxygen strapped to his back. When I watch him lift weights, I always think “That’s how I want to be when I’m in my 70s.”

I’m impressed by so many different people. A friend with breast cancer who not only keeps running, but is training for an ultra marathon. A 60-plus year-old lady who is in better shape than most 20 year olds. My husband who finds time to exercise even though his schedule is overflowing with work, church, and family responsibilities (not to mention that lengthy honey-do list). An expectant mom I see on the treadmill every day, walking through the pain (As the mom of an eight month old, I remember that pain all too well!).

In exercise and other areas of life it is extremely easy to make excuses: too busy, too tired, I’ll do it tomorrow. How often do we say these things? “Tomorrow I’ll visit my elderly neighbor.” “With my next paycheck I’ll donate more to charity.” “Tomorrow I’ll eat healthier.” “After things calm down I’ll be more fun with my children.” All great intentions, but today is the only day we have.

“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44 KJV). Today is the day to be the person we want to become. If we wait for tomorrow we may miss opportunities to serve, love, and grow.

As I relate this back to exercise, I think it’s easy to put off doing something that we know we should do, something that will not only improve our health but make us feel fabulous. Don’t put off the important things. Make time today to exercise. Make time today to serve. Make time today to show your family and friends your love. In our modern age it’s easy to waste time. Don’t do it! Get out and do something to better yourself or help someone else. No excuses. Make each day count, no matter what. I promise you won’t regret it.

Friends for Life

By Pam Kumpe –

Manuela sat across the lobby from me at work. She was a temperamental argumentative type of person (not with me) so many folks didn’t even try to get to know her. Most just stayed out of her way.

Our friendship took place in California (when I was in my 20s) at a fast-paced bank near the airport, close to the beach. With all the people and traffic it was easy to get lost in a crowd, but for whatever reason I liked Manuela.

I was drawn to her, and yes, she was quirky and different—didn’t fit the mold, kind of like me. We took our 15-minute breaks and lunches on a set schedule, and with short spurts together for snacks and meals, she and I became friends during our time in the kitchen.

Eventually, we started to eat lunch outside the office, strolling through beach city boutiques followed by our grabbing sandwiches. We laughed, talked and bonded, becoming closer each day.

At first we lived near each other, I lived in a condo, and she lived around the corner in a brand new house, thus her desire to look inside shops, especially those which had rugs and house décor.

Toward the end of our first year as friends, I moved inland buying a home about an hour from work. Putting in for a transfer, I drove back and forth to the office, waiting to hear about my re-assignment.

Finally it came through, and I said goodbye to everyone at the bank, while making preparations to start at another branch office.

I realized I had not given Manuela my new phone number, so I jotted it down for her. I only had a land line, but I knew that I wanted to keep our friendship alive; I didn’t want the distance to keep us apart.

On the very day I wrote down the digits on a piece of paper, I had no idea that a sequence of numbers would lead to another sequence filled with pain, horror, death and murder.

For on that day—after the phone number exchange—tragedy rolled in like a tsunami hitting the beach. It changed everything, especially in regard to my faith and how I lived it out.

On Saturday morning, my phone rang; the sound on the ringer beeping, so I answered it. The voice on the phone said words which tore at my heart, as a horrible piece of news shocked my world.

Why couldn’t it be a dream? Why her? Who would do such a thing? Murder? Not to my friend? This couldn’t be happening.

The nightmare turned into a wave of suffocation, much like a rip tide of despair and it pulled me under. I had so many questions, and I was overwhelmed with sadness, doubt and tears, trying to sort through the details.

For you see, someone had gone into Manuela’s house at her back door. A serial killer left her for dead. But at one point, she must have been struggling to live, holding on, because she grabbed the piece of paper with my phone number on it.

She had held the number in her palm. Had she tried to call me? Would she have lived if I’d gotten the call? Did she even get to dial one digit?

Manuela’s death became one of the saddest days in my life, because I never once shared my faith with her. I never once talked about God’s love for her. I didn’t even know what she believed about God.

This weighed on my heart, because we could have been friends for life, ready for an eternal shopping spree in heaven.

Life rushes in, and it can be taken away in the blink of an eye, before the night gives way to the next sunrise.

So for all the Manuelas who are lost in a crowd—for anyone wandering around in the boutique of life—God is looking for you. He’s the hope for your life. You matter. You are important. He holds you in His palm even if you think He’s forgotten your phone number.

That’s good news because the Lord says in Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

So dial His number. Check in. And stay awhile. God wants to be friends for life.

Transformation

By Aubrey Spencer –

I have recently been doing some redecorating in our home. To be honest, I redecorate a lot. It’s kind of my hobby. Not many people share my desire to constantly change things up. In fact, those who know me well often think I’m crazy for the number of times I’ve repainted rooms or rearranged furniture. But I just can’t help it. I love transformation.

One project I’ve been working on in particular is the painting of our three and a half year old son’s bedroom. His newly, but not yet finished, orange bedroom. He is completely nuts about the color orange. So the transformation has begun to create for him an orange and white horizontal striped bedroom. (Don’t cringe – it’s going to turn out great!)

Unfortunately the process has not been particularly pleasant. The two coats of orange paint I have already put on the walls are not covering what was previously there. I’m afraid it’s going to be a four or five coat job and that’s before we even get to the white stripes! (Maybe I’m starting to see why people think I’m crazy.)

It sure would be easy to give up mid-project. To assume it will never come together. To throw my paint roller away and say I’m never again working on another project. But I won’t because I know the outcome. I can see the finished product in my mind. So, during this daunting process I keep reminding myself that no matter how long it takes, I will keep painting. The room will eventually be finished. The hard work will be worth it.

Transformation will happen.

I can’t help but compare my paint transformation project to my walk with God. It’s so similar to how God transforms me. Layer by layer by layer until, eventually, He’s created a completed project in me – to become more like Him. It can be daunting. It can be difficult. It can seem impossible. Transformation isn’t easy. And I can be resistant. I can only imagine how many times the Master Painter has wanted to give up on me mid-project. How many times He’s wondered if I’m ever going to “come together.” Thankfully though, He never gives up on me. You see, He has the finished project in mind. And, He keeps working on me layer by layer until transformation happens.

PRAYER: Father God, I am so thankful that you see the outcome. I trust that You are creating something beautiful in me no matter how daunting the process can be. I realize that it is quite a project transforming me into Your image. I don’t change as easily as I should. But I am so thankful that You don’t give up on me. Thank You for seeing what I can become and saying that I’m worth the effort.

“And we all…are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory…” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV).

Future Blessings Today

By Cheri Cowell –

A while back I received a great blessing. The mother of a teenager from one of my previous youth ministry jobs invited me to dinner. She told me of her daughter’s successes, and most importantly, her continued love for God.

“When Shannon comes to visit in a few weeks I know she would love to see you,” her mother said.

We never know the impact our lives are making on others. We hope, and we pray we are setting an example worthy to be followed. I was blessed by this mother who took the time to tell me I had done just that. She also shared that I had helped her, too.

Wow! God promises we will see the fruit of our endeavors, but not always when we think we should.

God promised Abraham that He would bless the world through his descendants, but Abraham must have wondered if he would really have an influence on those who followed. God made a similar promise to us. If we seek God with our whole hearts, minds, and souls, He will not forget us, nor the generations to come after us. We may not always know the good we are doing, but we know He has the power to multiply those deeds ten-fold.

PRAYER I praise You, Lord, for the promises You have kept through the generations. Because of one man’s faith, You were able to make us heirs to Your kingdom. Help me stay focused on the blessings that are to come and, if it be in Your will, allow me to catch a glimpse of a few of those future blessings today.

“Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed’” (Acts 3:24 – 25 NIV).

June Gloom?

By Kathi Macias –

Okay, if you recognized the term “June gloom,” you must be from California, right? Seriously, June gloom is a major weather phenomenon here on the West Coast, and I for one love it! Why? Because I live in the desert, and June gloom is our last buffer against a summer hot enough to fry your brain five minutes after the sun comes up in the morning. To say it gets hot out here in the California desert is like saying it gets cold in the Antarctic—an understatement if ever there was one.

So what exactly is June gloom? It’s the glorious gray, damp, chilly fog that rolls in off the Pacific nearly every morning from Memorial Day until almost the Fourth of July, holding temperatures down until the sun burns through it and starts heating things up by noon or so. But at least that gives us the morning hours to get outside, take walks, prune the roses, etc. Once that desert sunshine makes its entrance, forget it! We desert rats lock ourselves inside, turn up the AC, and don’t come out again until dark.

It wasn’t always like that, though. There was a time, eons ago, when I despised June gloom, but that was because I lived right on the coast—not anywhere near the desert. June gloom there lasted nearly six months out of the year, and that frigid blanket of damp gray seldom burned off, instead leaving everything cold and miserable—including everyone who lived there.

But we were kids then. When school let out the middle of June, nothing was going to keep us from heading for the beach and catapulting our skinny bodies into the icy cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. I was nearly twenty years old before I found out that blue was not my natural skin color and teeth weren’t supposed to chatter.

Then I got old. Seriously! I refuse to tell you how many times I’ve passed another twenty years and how distant a memory those “skinny bodies” we once took for granted have now become. And somehow, some way, my husband (who grew up in the same gray beach town) and I ended up living in the desert. Now we celebrate June gloom and weep when it disappears because we know what’s coming—115-degree days for about four months or so.

And yet, when that broiling summer sun finally sets in the evening, we’ve discovered that there is nothing to compare to the beauty of desert nights. Along with our neighbors, we crawl out of the woodwork at sundown and revel in the clear night skies, the clean air, and the un-crowded streets and towns we now call home. We’ve learned that home really is “where the heart is,” June gloom notwithstanding, which makes it all the more important that our hearts are focused on God and eternity. For that’s where our Home really is, isn’t it? And what a magnificent Home it will be! No need for June gloom to hold down the temps there, for we will at last be in the ideal place we’ve been yearning for all along.

I’m going to hold that thought as I work my way through this year’s June gloom season—and on into the stifling hot months to follow. After all, in the words of the late Rev. E.V. Hill, “This ain’t it!” And aren’t we glad?

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