Messages From a Hope Filled Heart…

November 29, 2024November 18, 2024 / The WheatandTares

Day 13

Be Like Sam.

Maybe the holidays bring undue stress and anxiety to your heart.

Maybe Thanksgiving doesn’t feel like much of a thankful time but rather a time filled with angry words and heartless deeds.

Maybe Thanksgiving is more of a forgotten time of year, just as you feel neglected, alone, and wearisome.

I challenge you to look up.

Look up beyond the turmoil and strife.

Look up beyond the discouragement of your heart.

Step into the great outdoors and breathe in the beauty. Stand beside a waterfall until the rushing roar is all you hear. Sit on the seashore with the wind against your skin until the sun’s warmth is all you feel and the salt air is all you taste.

There will be troublesome times and even worse, troubled people along your path.

But don’t let these stop you from your purpose and your destiny.

Strive to see more. Strive to be more.

And never give up.

It might be a shire that is your end, but with the right choice, an eternal eternity can be, and that is greater than you could ever imagine.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

Jeremiah 29:11-14

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

Philippians 3:20-21

Messages From a Hope Filled Heart

November 28, 2024December 16, 2024 / The WheatandTares

Day 12

Happy Thanksgiving!

I do hope your Thanksgiving today is a blessed one. And even if it looks different this year than in years past, try your best to have a grateful heart.

Honestly, I don’t know how the grieving heart finds joy during the holidays. I don’t know how a broken valley finds water for the soul. I don’t know how the shattered dreams find a hope for a better tomorrow.

But I do know a God who has the answers. I do know a Savior who gives strength for the moments. I do know a King who wipes away the tears. And if you get to know Him, He may not instantaneously change your circumstances, but He will surely give you peace for the journey.

He is able to open blinded eyes, heal the broken body, raise the dead back to the living. He is able to bring a calm to the storm. And there’s no strings attached to how many times He can do it. There’s no hoops you must jump through for Him to respond.

He does it because He loves you.

Just call on Him today and share your story. Call on Him and let Him pour it like a waterfall.

He’s waiting on you because He cares.

For whoever calls on the name of theLord shall be saved.

Romans 10:13

I love the Lord, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

Psalm 116:1-2

Silly Saturday

November 25, 2023September 5, 2023 / The WheatandTares / 2 Comments

Family dynamics for the holiday weekend? 🤣

Funny Friday

November 24, 2023September 5, 2023 / The WheatandTares

Are you recouping and regrouping from the Thanksgiving holidays? 😂

Happy Thanksgiving

November 23, 2023November 20, 2023 / The WheatandTares / 4 Comments

No matter where you are today or where you’ll be tomorrow,

From our family to yours,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eat well. Be at peace. Embrace hope.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13

Thanksgiving is an Attitude

November 22, 2023November 20, 2023 / The WheatandTares

Thanksgiving is not an event to be attended.

It’s not a holiday to be survived.

It’s not a date to be dreaded or anticipated.

Thanksgiving is an attitude of the heart.

It begins with gratefulness and ends with love.

It is consumed with peace and wrapped up in hope.

Thanksgiving can be now, and it can be tomorrow.

As long as you never leave it behind.

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.
Colossians 3:15

Thankfulness Begins With A Thought

November 21, 2023November 20, 2023 / The WheatandTares / 3 Comments

Gandhi said,

Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.

Although, I don’t follow the teachings of Gandhi, there is truth in those words.

Scripture tells us this in a much simpler form,

“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”

Thanksgiving isn’t a date on the calendar or a time of year, it’s an attitude of the heart that should be lived out every single day.

What are you thinking about today?

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
Proverbs 23:7

Thankfulness in a Cup

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023 / The WheatandTares / 2 Comments

When you have a grateful heart, it doesn’t take much to make you happy.

It can be a cool summer breeze or the first snowfall is winter.

It can be a bright spring flower or a golden falling leaf.

It can be a newborn baby’s gentle sigh or an elderly loved one’s hand pat.

It doesn’t take much to bring a smile because the heart is settled within and at rest.

Are you grateful today?

You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Isaiah 26:3

Everyone’s Crazies

November 29, 2022November 28, 2022 / The WheatandTares

The holidays always bring with them interesting family dynamics and semantics.

For some, it’s just simply dealing with the edges of uncomfortable scenarios and conversations, but nothing real out of the way.

No harm. No foul.

For others, it’s complete removal from the dysfunction and toxic environment which accompanies family, celebrations and traditions.

Survival of the Fittest or Crabs in a Barrel.

For most, it can just be learning to navigate between the two extremes.

The Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Wherever you find yourself during your yearly festivities, strive to do better.

Better yet, don’t just strive to survive.

Learn to thrive!

Your thriving isn’t going to look like another’s.

So, do what you can do to succeed.

Their crazies aren’t yours, and yours aren’t theirs.

They don’t have to understand.

Happy Crazy Holidays.

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.They shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing,
To declare that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Psalm 92:12-15

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider thatthe longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they doalso the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know thisbeforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
2 Peter 3:14-18