I love to hear the waves and watch the foamy currents race across the shoreline! I find going to the beach to be an exhilarating experience. Especially exhilarating is to try and walk through the crashing waves yet being knocked off your feet. And then, finding it impossible to stand back up because you cannot stop laughing.

This reminds me so much of real life when we lose our footing. And what is worse, being dragged further and further from the shoreline. Of course, when this happens, it is no laughing matter and panic mode (like the time my backside slid down our staircase!) sets in. Many times, I wonder, “will I ever stand again?” It seems like an impossibility!

Even more agonizing is the spiritual warfare that creeps in without any warning. Like a dark cloud that comes out of nowhere and will not leave. It can certainly send…

With Valentine’s Day approaching there are candy hearts, roses, chocolate and love notes in high demand! But let me offer a more satisfying Valentine gift that we can give one another. It is the gift of Unity and let me tell you why. We are so focused on ourselves and our own personal wants that we miss out on what really brings the greatest level of pleasure:

“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.”

Philippians 2:3-5, NLT

Jesus Christ came and taught Unity for all Christ-followers. That bond of putting others needs ahead of our own, serving and not looking for reward, we all need unity that binds us together and causes us to work…

After being incapacitated for a period of time, we lose muscle tone. They say it happens rather quickly. Sadly, it is painless to lose it but very painful to build it. I am in training building muscle once again and gaining strength in my leg, not to mention my back. And of course the stabilizing factor to all of that, is the stomach muscles, our core. “Lord, this is too hard!” As I groan through these workouts, that I do not want to do, but am rather sternly encouraged to do by my dear husband, as well as my physical therapist, I hear Paul’s words “But I [discipline] my body and make it my slave . . . ” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Which leads me to the monster of the mind! Yes, my mind has been undergoing training as well, and there is a reason I refer to it as…

“Time is the least thing we have of”

this quote by Ernest Hemingway caught my attention~ But thankfully, Charles Swindoll argues that we have more time than we realize “once we get our priority ducks in a row” (Day by Day with Charles Swindoll).

Joe Stowell outlines how we can “[Embrace] The Virtues of The King” by making this observation:

Embracing the reality of the world to come radically alters everything in this world. Our values are prioritized and purified. . . .

If anyone should express the reality of eternity, it’s those of us who have been guaranteed safe passage to the other side through Christ, our divine passport. Yet interestingly, we who are marked with heaven in our hearts usually live as though it were real but irrelevant. We are consumed with the tyranny of the temporal, and we trade both the character and power of a…