GCR Women

What a whirlwind I've been living in lately!  I'm happy to be involved in some great ministries and God has blessed me with family and friends, too.  Sometimes, it keeps me running in all directions. In the middle of my current whirlwind, one particularly kind friend decided to fix me a meal.  She didn't ask.  She just did.  She understood what kinds of things fill my calendar right now and she decided to do what she could to lighten my load. You see, having enough food for the week wasn't the issue and she knows that.  But in her compassion for me, she told me in a very practical way that she cares and supports me in what I'm doing. And isn't that what a true friend does?  Loves, cares, supports.  The meal was wonderful, but it wasn't about the delicious food.  What she really did was fix me a casserole of kindness, a fruit salad of joy, and a dessert of love. In John 15:13, Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay dow...

It seems like every morning I think:  "OK.  Today, I'm going to do a better job of ..."  Whether it's my diet, exercise program, devotional habits, housekeeping, or something else, I need a fresh start.  I'm not able to sustain any momentum toward success for any decent length of time.  I get tired of starting over but mostly I get tired of failing, of making no real progress. I wonder if God gets tired of me.  Do my promises and vows sound as hollow to Him as they do to me?  So many times, I tell myself:  "Stop.  Who do you think you're fooling?  You know better than anyone that you won't make it through the day with the plans you have.  Just quit.  Give up." If God were like me, He would get tired of me.  If God were like me, He would have given up on me a long time ago.  But praise God! He's not like me. Our heavenly Father's love doesn't expire.  He doesn't judge me and my efforts like I do.  He o...

Time flies.  When I was a kid, the school year seemed to drag by and summer days flew.  (I now understand that teachers feel the same way.)  But what has surprised me most as an adult is how fast all the days go by. Each day is unique and will not be repeated.  Sometimes it frightens me when I think about how many days are behind me and how I wasted so many of them.  I wonder, too, how many days I have left. How can I make the most of the time the Lord has given me?  It seems foolish to focus too much on the brevity of life.  Rather, I want to focus on the quality of living. There's an old saying:  Don't squander time; that's the stuff life is made of.  But that's not entirely true.  Life is only measured in time, but it's made of so much more. Loving, giving, building, trying, working, laughing, playing, crying.  That's the real stuff life is made of. It's time to live a little. Counting the days, Patrice Psalm 90:12...