Invisible Illness, Visible God Review

Great new review for Invisible Illness, Visible God on Amazon today! Minnie writes:

I can't say enough about this devotional. It is so comforting to read, especially if you yourself are going through any kind of trial: illness, job loss, relationship problem, etc. It is filled with God's word and promises but also filled with very real emotions that we all experience at different times of our lives. It is hard to use as a daily devotional because I want to read it all at once (it's that good!). 

Amazon is sold out right now, but Barnes & Noble online has it in stock and they also do free shipping on orders $25 and up. 

I have it in stock here on Hope Is My Anchor too, if you would like a signed copy. I hope you will check it out!

A place to rest

A favorite spot at the nature preserve

Thursdays are my writing days. My normal daily schedule involves homeschooling the kids, laundry, meals and other household chores, working online for a few hours (I work for a homeschool curriculum company), helping Dave as he needs, running to various appointments, and so on. Thursday afternoons are beautiful beacons that lure me out of the house each week. I get my work with the kids and online done as early in the day as possible, and then go walk at the nature preserve, or sit in a favorite sunny spot. Today was gray and rainy, but time in the Word and just to sit and think was refreshing. Usually I spend the first 30 minutes just sitting, eating lunch, and decompressing from life's fast pace.

Last week I sat under a cool maple with the wind whispering through the leaves, watching the sunshine dancing on a glorious green hillside that races up to a brilliant blue sky. So many shades of green: broad, pale stripes from the mower alternating with grassier greens, trees that glow lime-green or stand tall with stately and subdued forest greens...

It was so peaceful after a long, cold winter, and a spring filled with sickness after sickness. So I breathed in deep, long droughts of sunshine and green, and just sat and listened.

Truly my soul finds rest in God;

my salvation comes from him.

Truly he is my rock and my salvation;

he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Psalm 62:1-2

This reminds me of home and the creek I grew up by

Nature is so healing. Where do you go for healing and rest? Do you have a special place that you spend time with God?

Cast Your Burden

Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you;

He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

~Psalm 55:22

As many times as I've read this verse, I never caught the significance before, but here is another beautiful, comforting promise from the Lord.  

He doesn't promise to take away our burden; he promises to sustain us.  I find such great comfort in that because it's easy to lapse into self-doubt when it seems God isn't answering our prayers--meaning he isn't making the trial end. 

I've tried to teach my children to not only pray for what they want, but to pray for the strength and the endurance, patience and love to walk with the Lord humbly, no matter how he answers, and no matter what he brings into our path.  

Interestingly, the word "burden" in this verse can also mean, "what he has given you."  We don't often talk about burdens as coming from the Lord, or afflictions as being from his hand--though in the Old Testament that is common language.  Job 42:11 speaks of Job's relatives comforting him for all the adversities that the Lord had brought him--even though Satan did the actions, the Lord allowed it.  

We don't get to see all--we are not God and don't have his perspective, we don't understand why.  But he has sustained me, and walked with me, and carried me, and wept with me for all these years.  I know he cares, I know he's in control.  And this verse reminds me, it's in his nature to strengthen us, to be with us.  I don't have to be afraid that somehow I've fallen from his good graces if he doesn't answer a prayer as I want.  

We tend to think answers should be immediate, healing should be now, promises must be proven.  And yet...Sarah was barren for 90 years, and didn't even have a promise that she had anything to hope for the first 65 years.  The man born blind was blind for 30 years.  The woman who had an issue of blood...bled for twelve years.  The heroes in Hebrews 12 did not receive what was promised.  Surely they all longed and hoped for something different, and likely they even sought the Lord for answers, for help.  Waiting was in God's plan for them.  Sustaining was in his plan for them. 

Daily we learn to rely on him and not the things of this world.  

Oaks of righteousness won't be shaken because their roots have dug deep down for water in times of drought.  They have found water to survive even in the worst of conditions. years of little growth...but the Water of Life was with them.  

But even oaks can die, if they are cut off from the water supply.  That daily habit of casting our burden upon the Lord and looking to him for our sustenance is our life.

Read other Stories of Hope

“The God Who Sees Me”: Achu’s Hope - Blog - Eternal Perspective Ministries

I hope you have time to read 15-year-old Achu's amazing story.  We are so fortunate in America to have access to healthcare, even if there aren't always answers.  Her faith...and how God pursues her, are inspiring.

You may want to steel yourself for the pictures of her leg if you are on the squeamish side, but juxtaposed with her beautiful smile full of the Lord's love and hope, it's worth it.


“The God Who Sees Me”: Achu’s Hope - Blog - Eternal Perspective Ministries

As my pastor wrote when he forwarded this:

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. (Psa 36:7 NIV)

Getting Back Up

"If God doesn't give you the miracle, you will be the miracle for somebody else."

"The victory is not when I stand up.  The victory is when I know I can't do this by myself."

If you haven't seen Nick Vujicic's video, check this one out!

Healing - When the Miracle Doesn't Come

The accuser is constantly hissing in our ears:  "Where's your Jesus now?"  When we read the New Testament, it seems healing is everywhere.

"Jesus doesn't really care about you..."  "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean," the leper in Matthew 8 said to Jesus.  Jesus was willing then, but not now it would sometimes seem.

"You're not good enough."  Really?  He counts our hairs (Matthew 10:30) and gathers our tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8).

"Your faith is worthless!  If you were really a Christian..."  Jesus said it only takes the faith of a mustard seed--the tiniest of seeds.  He didn't turn away the one who had just a modicum of faith.  "Help me in my unbelief!" the father in Mark 9:24 begged, and Jesus didn't reject him--he healed his child.

The tempter hissed in Jesus' ear too.  "If you are the Son of God..." he challenged Christ.  The lie was powerful to a parched and hungry man, a sock in the gut when he was already down, a blow of pure hatred at his weakest moment.

And in that moment, Jesus had a choice.  He was fully God, he did have the power to turn stone into bread.  But in his very first words, he chooses instead to identify fully, completely with us.  "Man..."  He is not only God.  He is man.  And he chose to live as we do.

Most of us don't have the ability to snap our fingers and make trouble or pain go away--and I don't think it's a lack of faith, though sometimes that may be an issue.  I think most Christians have at least as much faith as the father who asked Jesus to help him in his unbelief.  At least as much as a mustard-seed.  But our mountains don't always move.

Jesus in that moment chose to identify with us, in our pain, and told us in effect, you don't need the removal of pain to live.  "‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"

His words echo Deuteronomy 8:2-3,

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.  He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Jesus spent a day in the desert for every year they wandered in the desert.  God's spirit led him into the desert to starve--the very thing the Israelites accused God of leading them into the desert to do, despite the food and water and clothes that didn't wear out that God provided for them.  And we, too, wander in our faith at times, in our deserts of pain and trouble and silence from God.  And we wonder, why has he brought us here?

Jesus identified with us.  Maybe he brought us into the desert that we might identify with him.  That we might be able to see beyond the pain, the trouble, the thing we think we just can't live through--and see that he, the Bread of Life truly knows, truly understands, lives through the pain with us--and he will see us through.  He is what we need most of all.

See More Stories of Hope