One Way

Today was one of those first time experiences that I'll never forget. I've been a part of our local Church Body - Southwest Wake Christian Assembly (SWCA) - for right around eight years, and although we've had a dozen births and a handful of marriages, we've never had a death of one of Body members. One of our oldest members, Mr. Bob, was just transferred to Hospice this week with likely only a few more days to live on this earth. The whole situation was rather sudden - I knew he'd struggled with health issues for a while and was weak, but I didn't realize how close he's been to death. Today I got to visit him. Unfortunately, he was sound asleep the whole time, but I still got to talk and sing loudly to him. Even if he didn't hear anything I said or sang, I'm sure God will pass along the message when Mr. Bob falls into His embrace. I admit, I cried. It was emotional seeing him there, knowing he won't be here for much longer. I was also sad tha...

I can't believe I've been writing blog posts for a whole year now!! I've really enjoyed writing out my thoughts and insights from Bible study, and being able to look back over all that God's taught me this year. :) To "celebrate", the following is the very first blog post I wrote, which describes why I named this blog "One Way": ~~~~~~~~~~ In John chapter 14 verses 1-6, Jesus said: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the  way ?” Jesus answered, “I am the  way  and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except...

As of today, I'm 14 days through the 30 day "Choosing Gratitude" devotional! It's been a very enlightening journey, and I'd like to share with you some of the insights I've received over the past couple of weeks. For those of you who haven't read my previous blog posts, "Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy" is a wonderful Christian book by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, who takes an in-depth, Scriptural view on gratitude, how it leads to joy, and debunks the belief sometimes held by Christians that ingratitude (worry, complaining, covetousness) is an "acceptable sin". Not only does she do a great job at describing our need to put on gratitude and put off ingratitude, but she also created a 30-Day devotional at the end of the book so the reader is not left simply to ponder what they've read, but are given a guide to put it into practice! So, on Day 1 , I learned the definition of gratitude - "Gratitude is learning to recognize ...