Joy is a gift from God

06/19/2022

I’m a member of a Facebook group for Christian women. A couple of weeks ago, the administrator asked several of the members, including me, to write a short post on what the joy of the Lord means to me in my life. I thought I would share what I wrote here. It’s nothing profound, just what came to mind as I pondered the request.

Joy is a gift from God. We can have it and we can lose it. According to a number of Bible texts, we have joy when we are keeping God’s commandments, doing His will, and serving Him. We lose our joy when we turn away from God. The joy in the Lord that I have carries me through the chaos, catastrophe, evil, and sin in this world, allowing me to look forward to the time when Jesus will come and destroy sin and death. I may not always feel happy, but I have joy and peace knowing that despite the latitude God gives Satan to show the universe his true character, He, God, is still in control. When Jesus comes again, “They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isa. 35:10, NIV). This is our “blessed hope”!

I love to read!

05/26/2022

I love to read! After so many moves and full-time RVing for eight years, I’ve been forced to pare down the books that I keep. So, the ones in my bookcase are old treasures and some newer ones. Old treasures include my Pollyanna collection, Heidi series, Lassie, Come Home, and Nellie’s Prairie. Newer treasures include many but not all of the Christmas in My Heart series, Joseph by Terri Fivash, and several titles by Tony Hillerman.

I much prefer stories over theological/inspirational books. But I recently picked up a book from the church foyer by Ty Gibson that has me riveted to the message presented therein. Titled The Sonship of Christ, it almost instantly opened my eyes to a topic that I had only recently begun to barely touch the surface of. I was just becoming keenly aware that the title of Son is only given to Jesus in the New Testament. But I hadn’t yet come to the point of doing a word study on “son” in the Old Testament. I was well aware that Luke refers to Adam as the son of God, but I hadn’t tied in the connection between Adam being the first son of God and Jesus later being identified as the Son of God. But Ty Gibson has done just that. I’m not finished with his book yet, but it is a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it to everyone. The book is available at the ABC.

My Very First Blog Posting

05/10/2022

Welcome to the brand-new Mesa Palms Seventh-day Adventist Church website! Because this is a new site, this feature is also new, not only to you readers, but also to me. As I pondered what to write about in my very first ever blog, I drew a blank. Then, I thought, well, maybe I’ll just do a brief introduction and tell you just a tiny bit about myself.

I was born in North Carolina and raised in southern Oregon. I am married, have four grown kids, twelve grandkids, and sixteen great-grandkids. That’s a pretty big tribe for an only child! I’ve also lived in northern California and in central and eastern Washington. We’ve lived in Arizona for six years and so far, feel that the heat of the summer beats the cold, snow, and icy roads of the northland. I am looking forward to heaven and the New Earth where the climate will be perfect year-round.

I enjoy working in the church office three days a week—Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. A meaningful Bible verse to me is “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Ps. 84:10, NIV).