I dedicate this Blog to my parents who are celebrating their 66th anniversary tonight at midnight. Here is their story:

My mother was born of parents who had never traveled far from their Appling County home, South Georgia. My dad was born of parents who had immigrated from Armenia at the time of the great slaughter of the Armenian Christians by the Turkish people. From different parts of the world, their lives entertwined like vines growing to the top of a fence from opposite sides and winding around each other becoming one great vine. My granddad had gone to Phoenix,Az for a convention and met the "strongest man he had ever seen".He stuck a picture of this dashing young evangelist in his Bible for future reference. As mother was cleaning up the table where his Bible lay, little did she know that she was about to see the face of the man she would love and marry...the picture fell from the Bible and when she saw it, she knew "this is the one I am going to marry." Meanwhile, back in Phoenix, the young Bishop was praying that God would send him a wife. He had begun praying seven years before, not knowing that his future wife was only eleven years old at that time! Time for the Church Convention, from different sides of the US the two vines began their journey toward each other, one from Phoenix,Az.the other from Cleveland, Tennessee.The first day there she walked with her dad to a meeting in the early afternoon to catch a glimpse of the tall,dark and handsome stranger. She did. Leter that evening a mutual friend saw mother coming toward them wearing a red dress with black fringes around the hips and those fringes were swinging side to side pretty fast as she clicked her heels on that cement walk. The friend asked daddy if he had met her,he said no, but he would love to. He invited her to accompany him and his friends to get something to drink after church. After he had obtained permission from her mother, they went and then planned lunch for the next day. After lunch as they walked around the park across from the auditorium where the meeting was taking place, this enthusiastic young minister asked the shy southern belle if she would marry him. After only three hours of being together, she said YES! To bring this to a quicker end, I will tell you that they were married three months later in a beautifully decorated, packed out church at Midnight, New Year's Eve 1942...as the bells began to ring in 1943 they took vows that have lasted 66 wonderful years.

I guess a "Happily ever after" can still happen if you trust God to bring it to you!

Happy Anniversary to mother and daddy and Happy New Year 2009 to you and yours!

Be Blessed, keep praying and Happy New Year 2009!

Please let me hear from YOU!

Someone asked me yesterday if I had a good Christmas. I started to answer and realized they were finishing their sentence (I am told that I tend to interrupt...oops) by saying "Did you get a lot of great gifts?" Well I was polite, now reader you know me by now, and said "Oh yes," I could see they were waiting for a list..so I named the Rachel Ray kitchen gadgets, and the alarm clock my daughter gave me (the alarm clock is great it wakes you with nature sounds instead of a loud ring), and the book I had wanted by Tom Brokaw...My son gave me a season of a TV show I like and I also got a keychain that you place your digital pictures in. But what I wanted to say was that more than anything else, I was happy that I was able to sit at a table with my parents still alive and well and my children and two grandchildren happily eating away and telling me how great everything was...I had even made a New York Cheese Cake, because my son loves them. I overheard him telling his sweetheart that "no one makes a better Cheese Cake than Mom"...now all THAT was my Christmas.

I have looked up Matthew 6:19-21 in several different translations today because I wanted to know the real heart of the scripture before I placed it with this Blog..it says "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. (NLT) What is the real treasure in your heart? Is it in the things that you possess or is it in the love of your family and friends, and most of all...is it in the love of your God? No one can take the smiles and laughs away from me. Even death can't steal the memories that I have stored up. I know a mother whose son was killed in a car crash last week end, this young man had asked her to make a Red Velvet Cake for Christmas dinner. He lost his life on the 21st, but she made that Red Velvet Cake for him anyway,because he had asked.

So presents or monetary things can make you happy, that is true, but what is your real joy? Philippians 3:1 the Apostle Paul advises "Whatever happens, dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord give you joy."  Remember that when he wrote that, he was chained between two guards in prison. He was able to sing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs while there in that jail..why? Because the Joy of the Lord was his strength (did you read the earlier Blog on Joy?) and he knew that in the presence of God was joy and pleasures for ever more! God loves us no matter what mistakes we have made His mercies are new every morning, you can't be bad enough or ugly enough for God to turn you away. Let Him give you that Joy deep in your soul...and I leave you with this...

Whatever happens, dear reader, may the Lord give you Joy!

Be blessed, keep praying and Happy New year 2009!

I had always heard that more people commit suicide during the Christmas Holidays than any other time. So I did a little poking around and reading to find out if and why. For one thing I found out that there actually ARE more DOA s on Christmas Day than any other time of the year. The reason is actually a logical one. People ignore symptoms they are having because they don't want to ruin anyone's holiday or cause a problem if it is simply indigestion so they let it go and suddenly they have the "big one." That is something that could happen to any of us, and I totally understand why anyone wouldn't want to ruin a holiday with "indigestion". But I want to take on the subject of suicide and I would love input from any of you who have ever had thoughts about it. I looked up the word. The dictionary says that it is an intentional taking of one's own life, or another kind of suicide is what happens when a preacher gets caught in a situation that costs him his pulpit, or a politician loses his position, or, as happened this past week end to Miss Mexico, can cost a beauty queen her crown. That also happened to one of our Miss America winners when pornographic photos were published starring...HER!

It is said that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. When the devil, yes I said the devil, talks to you..oh you may not recognize him, he may sound exactly like your current significant other, or your exacting boss, or someone that is holding a secret over your head with threats to tell on you. Maybe he sounds like the bill collector telling you that if your rent isn't paid on time you will be evicted. There is always the chance that he sounds like an abusive parent or spouse. Sometimes when you have been a victim of a crime, especially rape, you feel like you have been so violated that you cannot live. What ever the problem is the solution is not taking your own life. The devil wants to steal your life so you cannot continue to live and take care of your children or be with your friends, or find that your problem is solved to the Glory of God. 

1Peter5:6-8 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you. Stay alert, watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around, like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
When you realize that the devil just wants you for his next meal, it should make you want to stand up and fight for your life! If your life is a mess and you can't handle it anymore, why don't you just  "wrap it all in the rags of your  life and lay it at the cross, Let Christ make, Something beautiful, something good, all my confusion He understood, all I had to offer Him was brokeness and strife, but He made something beautiful out of my life!"

Before you give it to the devil and leave your loved ones to grieve, give yourself to God and see what He can do with you!
I would love feed back on this, be blessed, keep praying and look forward to a Happier New Year!

Dear Reader, I wonder, who are you and what do you need? When I first began my little "Daily Inspirations" it was small and something that filled a need in me. As I have continued, there are more readers and, from the mail I have received, I find that I have helped some of you. This has thrilled me beyond measure! I have taught Bible classes for years and held prayer meetings that gave me the instant gratification of SEEING the people that I taught or prayed for smile or see a light bulb go on in their eyes at understanding some scripture that I explained in my own home spun way. I had a vision about a year ago, it was my paternal grandmother who came to me. She spoke and told me to speak to people in words that they could understand, to help people in simple ways. I didn't quite know what to make of it, but I wrote it down on a pad by my bedside table so that I would remember. When I started this I never thought that it might be fulfilling the very thing she was speaking of to me. Before I write anything down, I pray and ask God to show me what someone needs for that day. It may not apply to everyone everyday, but I hope that if you are a faithful reader, there will be enough of the Word or something that the Word reveals in each Blog so that even if YOU don't need it, you may take it with you and apply it to someone who does need it. That is my highest hope.

As the new year is rushing toward us this week, I want to start it right, I want to do what God would have me to do. So I am praying and seeking answers, answers to questions that may arise this year, things that may help you, the anonymous reader, my anonymous friends. I ask you to let me know what is in your heart, the questions, concerns, needs, prayers that have been answered and unanswered as yet...I ask that you let me know what some of those things are and I will agree with you.

I ask you to pray with me for a long time friend who's son, only 31 years old, was killed in an automobile crash last Sunday, the 21st. Death is devastating anytime of the year, but when it happens on a Holiday, Christmas lights become only a reminder of the tragedy that happened...There is another friend who was admitted into the hospital today and needs a liver transplant, and she is on the bottom of the list...what is YOUR need?

I ask that you read Philippians chapter 4 for a guide on "right thinking" for the coming year..and underline verses 13 and 19 which say respectively, I can do all things through Christ Who stregthens me, and My God will supply ALL my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus! Then verse 4 gives us advice that we should all take...Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say Rejoice!

Be blessed, Pray always and Happy New Year!

Much love from my computer to yours,

Harolene

There is a chorus that was sung many times over the years, one that I like to sing as a prayer from my heart. It is called:

Open My Eyes Lord, Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch Him and say that I love Him, Open my ears Lord and help me to listen, open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus.

After Jesus was crucified and buried we all know that He rose again on the third day, no question in my mind, it is true. When the ladies came to the grave and found it empty they were delirious with happiness and ran to tell the disciples. That evening the disciples were all in a room with the door shut against the prying eyes of the Jews who had crucified their Lord. As they stood there, Jesus Himself appeared in their midst! Oh Joy! Their Lord was alive and here with them. He showed them His hands and his side. He said "Peace be unto you, as the Father has sent me, so send I you! Receive ye the Holy Ghost." At this point He was gone from their midst, there was one disciple missing, it was Thomas, the one we refer to as "doubting Thomas". When he came in, the others told him how Jesus had been there with them and what He had said, but Thomas lived up to his name and said, "Unless I see his hands, the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe!" It was eight days before the Lord came back into the room with his friends, this time Thomas was there also. As before, the Lord came into the room, the doors being shut and just appeared in the room, He said "Peace be unto you". Then He turned to Thomas and held out His hand, "Here Thomas put your finger in the nail print in my hand, thrust your hand into my side, and be not faithless, but believing." Then He spoke these words to him, words I wouldn't want Him to ever have reason to say to me: "Thomas because you have seen me, you believe. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."(John chapter 20)

Why is it that you will accept that you can read something on a screen that I have typed, and you have received through the airwaves, or however it happens...don't ask me...I don't know. Or how can you take a phone call on a little instrument, as I did a few moments ago, from my daughter who was in an entertainment ride in Epcot Center, Disney, Orlando Florida! How did it happen? Yet we want to question anything that seems a bit mysterious to us if it is about the Lord. So on the one hand we accept mysterious and on the spiritual side we want to be a "doubting Thomas". I am not trying to tell you anything today except this: You might be missing out on a world of wonderful by not accepting the mysterious and exciting works of the Lord! If it is hard for you to believe, think of the examples, and I am sure you can come up with many more, and decide that you will begin to seek an experience with God that you have never had before. If you haven't received the Holy Spirit in your life..pray for Him to come into your heart! I am looking at my now bare Christmas tree as the bulbs on it change colors "magically", seven colors from the same bulb and the same electricity supplying it! I can't explain it but I am surely enjoying the effects! Come on, with me pray this prayer, Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus!

Be blessed as you prepare for the new year, keep praying, and Happy New Year to you!