Encouragement

“Canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?” Job 38:32b (KJV) I felt like I had missed something. I needed to go back to the library and find the astronomy book again. I had researched the star groupings of Pleiades and Orion that God had pointed out to Job (in Job 38:31), but I had no idea what I had missed. I thumbed through pages, searching chapter headings. Then I saw it: Arcturus. We can find Arcturus by locating the first bright star off the handle of the Big Dipper. Arcturus (also called “the Bear” in the NIV) is 23 times […]

“Children are a gift from the Lord, they are a reward from him.” Psalm 127:3 (NLT) As a child, I remember going for a ride with my parents and siblings one day after sundown. My dad was trying to convince my mom to send us to residential school, since our family was growing so fast, and he wanted to save mom from having too much work. I remember Mom saying, “No, I will never send my kids there. Those people don’t know who God is!” She convinced Dad that this was not a solution. Dad believed in God, too, but […]

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’” . . . “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” 1 Corinthians 12:21, 24-26 (NIV) We are just getting through a technical electronics issue at our place. A […]

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3 (NKJV) In 2017 God was calling me to leave my husband, family, and home for three weeks to do security work nine hours away. Also, it was time to do some personal work on myself with God. I called it a “paid retreat”—where I learned to trust God and listen to His loving voice. In the past I experienced mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Trusting others didn’t come easy. While away, during the pitch-black dark nights of the far north, I talked […]

“My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT) The apostle Paul was given a “thorn in the flesh.” Some scholars believe it had to do with his eyesight. Whatever the case, Paul prayed that God would take it away. However, God did not take it away. Why? God had allowed Paul to see amazing visions and revelations (vs. 2)—definitely something to boast about! Yet God says to Paul, “My power works best […]