Looking Ahead to that Good Inheritance
My 87-year-old mother lives with me, and I have to give her credit today for this devotional. She was doing her own Bible study yesterday morning and shared with me that it was based on the verse below from the Psalms and how that verse was taking her back in her memory to various points in her life. When my grandmother was eight her mother died and her father was unable to care for her, she was sent to live with her grandparents. At the time—and for many years thereafter—she thought she was one of the most misfortunate people on the face of the earth. All she could think of was all she had lost and how she didn’t have a “real family” like most of her friends did.
Family Missions
When my aging grandmother moved into my mother’s home, I witnessed a beautiful picture of God’s love. My grandmother had fallen and was undiscovered for nearly three days. After a stay at the hospital it was determined she could no longer live alone, so my mother and her new husband took her in. It was very difficult—not because my grandmother was terrible, she just wanted to "go home."
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An Invitation to Intimacy
To be invited to the home of a friend for a meal is always an honor. There is something about sharing a meal while talking about the happenings in life and enjoying the fellowship.
Remember playing outdoors as a child and suddenly hearing the sound of Mom’s voice as it echoed across the yard, “Come to dinner!” Hungry and ready for family, food and good conversation, you raced to be first at the table!
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Raising Rooted Children
Recently I took my six-year-old daughter to her first Christian concert. I had received two tickets to the Chris Tomlin concert in Dallas, Texas, for Christmas and we were excited to say the least! In fact, Savannah scheduled for an entire mommy-daughter day—complete with a trip to her favorite store and restaurant. What a wonderful memory.
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Can You Help Me?
December 31, 2021 by Charlotte Riegel
Filed under Daily Devotions, Family
By Charlotte Riegel –
While visiting my son’s family, the grandchildren pulled out a bucket of play dough and set to work creating various wondrous things. Lilah, the thoughtful one, quietly began playing with the number molds, filling them, digging out the play dough and lining up the numbers. I wondered if she would soon be setting up a mathematical equation for me to solve.
Silas dug through the bucket looking for anything he could use to make an action figure. He eventually settled on a dinosaur mold that sort of looked like a turtle with holes in the shell for the spikes of a dinosaur. What surprised me was his use of the mold. Instead of filling it to create his beast, he began scraping the play dough across the holes, creating crumbles of play dough, or perhaps sand for his dino to walk in. At any rate, that’s all he did for nearly an hour and I silently wondered if perhaps he might become a chef one day, grating cheese and chocolate.
Zoe sat with a few pieces of play dough and some molds but seemed at a loss as to what she should do with them. “Gramma, can you help me?” she pleaded.
“Of course I can help you. What would you like me to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Well then,” I continued, “if you don’t know what you want me to do, how will you know I have helped you when I’m done?”
She took items out of the bucket and put them back in, then left the table apparently disinterested in play dough activities, and began playing with her dolls.
The next day when I felt at a loss with a circumstance facing me, I cried out to God, “Can you help me with this, Lord?” I immediately heard my play dough activity words to Zoe echo back to me.
“What do you want me to do for you?”
I have never doubted that God can help me, but if I’m not specific with my requests, how will I know that He answered my prayer?
PRAYER: Lord, today I need Your help with organizing my day appropriately to accomplish all that needs doing. And, it would be absolutely fabulous if You helped me succeed without becoming distraught, frustrated, or frantic. Amen.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see” (Mark 10:51 NIV).
