a ray of hope

clouds cover. a blanket which blurs. a weight hovers. clenching for clarity. frustration looms. head in the clouds, eyes to the ground. sky so big, i’m so small. it’s getting darker, finding it hard to see even one step ahead of me. straining to see shining things; the stars, the moon, the sun. i know they’re there, but they cannot be found.




“look up My child.” a new dawn, a new day. same cloudy sky, but today something caught my eye. amidst it all i look up to see the clouds parting just a wee. behold one single ray of light, breaking through oh so bright. this ray of hope reminds me to make the choice to rejoice. no matter what clouds my view, i know Your promise is true. i can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on, it won’t be very long, until we are Home where we belong, until we are singing Heaven’s song.

blessings beheld in a bone

sitting on the sofa there in front of me sat a precious pooch gnawing on his bone. his teeth kept digging into the same spot on the bone, over and over. each time pieces of the bone were chiseled away by his sharp teeth. he tore the thing apart piece by piece. at times he would get a little excited and want to swallow big pieces of the bone, but realized that they would not go down his throat. he took a break for awhile, leaving a piece of the bone he was working on next to me. "he'll forget he put it there, i'm sure." i thought. but a few minutes later he came back in to fetch it and continue on. nothing else could distract him from his work on that bone..he was in the zone. what about the constant chewing of that bone was so pleasurable to that dog? what value did it have to him? i did a little research and found that there is rich fat nutrients in bone marrow. i also found that dogs enjoyed working the strength of their jaw with bones.




God used this to remind me of a simple truth i so often stray from. we as Christians are to approach Scripture the way a dog approaches a bone. it is not supposed to be something we easily digest, but something that takes time and effort. we have to peel back the layers of Scripture like a dog has to chisel away at the bone. when we try to swallow Scripture quickly, we do not get the full richness of what the passage is trying to tell us, we get the half truth, we read out of context, and we end up being choked by something that is supposed to set us free. there are times when we can sit down the Word to go put into action what we have been learning, but we must always return to chew and process it more. we must fight any distractions around us when we dig into the Bible. it takes our undivided devotion and discipline to be in it daily and wrestle with what it says. God's Word is what we live by, it is our spiritual nutrients. reading His Word strengthens us, and sharpens us.



dogs go back to bones they have buried and dig them up with such determination. have you dug into the Word the same way lately?