Hello everyone,

God brought to my remembrance a green hammock that my grandmother gave to my grandfather when I was a small child.  He sometimes would let me in it, but I knew that it was for his use only.  It was a privilege to be allowed to use it. 

When I was in it, I could feel the warm sun shining upon me as the hammock cradled me.  There was such a peace and rest, that even as child who never napped, I could just close my eyes and go to sleep.  I would watch the clouds and see if I could make shapes out of them.    I felt very special and loved when I was allowed to be in that hammock.

I then realized that my grandfather let me share what was his at times, but my heavenly Father let’s me share in what is His at all times.  He wants us to have that rest in Him – just like in that hammock.  He cradles us in His loving arms and surrounds us with the warmth of His love.  We have His peace, His rest when we are in His arms.

I think that we sometimes have a hard time realizing this because we do not see Him with our physical eyes.  In the crazyness of all that we have to do, we try to take control and we strive just to stay afloat.  Our physical senses overtake our spiritual “eyes.”

If we can just take a moment and take our eyes off the problems of the world and look to Jesus, we will see how He works it all out for us.  If we can just give it all to Him, we can hear Him say, “Rest My child, all is well.”

Let’s all curl up in Jesus’ arms and have a “green hammock” day!

Blessings, Evelyn

P.S.  Please check out my articles on www.innervoicemag.com.  Click on Faith, then Reflections, and then the title – Do-Overs, God’s Love Notes, End of the Rope, and upcoming new article Just Whistle.

I would appreciate you passing any of these blogs or articles on to those who may be encouraged by them.  Thank you!

Hello everyone,

If you’ve read my book, Lessons I learned from the Lord, you know that one of my favorite childhood movies was the Wizard of Oz.  God often teaches me through the ordinary things in life.  Dorothy finds out that there is no wizard at the end of the movie, but it’s the journey that mattered most. 

Our journey is a series of life’s lessons.  The lessons that we learn along the way are what is most important.  Like Dorothy, it’s the people that we meet along the way that help us to grow.  Some people, although they don’t realize it, help us to grow by causing us difficulties.  They help us grow in patience, strength, and endurance.  They help us to grow to trust in the Lord. 

Some people are those that help us grow in kindness.  They show unselfishness and sweetness to us even when they have their own problems.  They think of others first and make us feel special.  But all help us to grow in love.  Even the ones who are difficult help us to love as Jesus loves.  I have learned a lot from people’s kindness.  Their kindness has shown me where I fall short in my own life.

The hardest thing to learn is to love your enemies – those that do you harm.  The secret is to know that God turns all things for good.  When we realize this, we can rest knowing that we will be victorious – if we put it in His hands.

One of the neatest things about the Lord is that He gives us what we need ahead of time.  About a week before someone did something mean to me, every day, several times a day, I would hear in my spirit – the battle belongs to the Lord.  Or I would hear, the battle is Mine says the Lord.  I would wake up at night with these words, or the song that has these very words.  With the song, it was so much in my spirit that whether asleep or awake, it just kept re-playing over and over again.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  God was preparing me for what was to come.  When it did, I knew that God had it all taken care of.  Sure enough, He worked it out for my good.

So often we want our journey to take us to the “wizard”  so that all our problems disappear.  When all along it’s the journey that teaches us our greatest lessons.  They prepare us at the end of our journey to meet our wonderful Lord – who is all love, all wisdom – and the best teacher of all!

Blessings, Evelyn

To read my articles on Inner Voice Magazine, go to www.innervoicemag.com and click on Faith, then Reflections and then the title.  Previous titles are Do-Overs, God’s Love Notes, End of your Rope, and new upcoming article,  Just Whistle.