Women of Promise

Bread of Life Digital Art by April Moen fineartamerica.com        My mom made homemade bread for our large family (12 kids) for all of my years in her home.  She ground wheat berries, mixed dough, kneaded, formed and baked four to eight loaves every two or three days.  Oh, I love the smell of fresh homemade bread just coming out of the oven!  There is simply no better taste, in my opinion, than butter on a piece of warm, freshly baked bread.  This bread was a staple in our home and provided a good part of our daily nutrition.  It "stuck to your ribs," as Mom used to say, especially when topped with Mom's homemade peanut butter and honey from Dad's bee hives! Yum!! Sweet memories. . .     Looking at the names of Jesus, this one jumped out at me:   Jesus is the Bread of Life .       In John chapter 6, Jesus performs a miracle where He feeds 5,000 men plus women and children (probably adding up to over 20,000 p...

       Shakespeare wrote "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  I am not quite convinced (like Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables) that a rose would smell quite as beautiful if it were called a thistle or a skunkcabbage. 😆     When we name our children, we often think long and hard about what this child will be called for the rest of their lives.  Perhaps it is a beloved relative's name, or the name of a special person or place.  Often we research the meanings and choose one that reflects a positive image or message.  Maybe we just like the way the name sounds when combined with a middle or last name.       Depending on who you read, there are somewhere between 200 to 350 (possibly more) different names for Jesus in the Bible!  What we must understand is in the Hebrew culture of Biblical times, names were much more than just a title.  Names conveyed a description of who or what that person was...

The Via Dolorosa, or "The Way of Suffering," in Jerusalem is the traditional route that Jesus was taken as He carried His cross to Calvary.  If you go there today, you can walk this same path and visit fourteen stations along the way, where traditions say different events are said to have taken place such as, where Jesus was beaten by the Roman soldiers or where He stumbled and Simon of Cyrene was called upon to carry His cross.  The road is narrow and cobblestone, much as it would have been over 2000 years ago.  The very last station is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is traditionally the site of the crucifixion.  Perhaps one day, I will get to walk that road in person -- what an experience that would be! As Easter draws closer and I begin to revisit the events of Christ's crucifixion and glorious resurrection, one song that my father sung around this time of year always comes to my mind.  It is a Sandi Patty song (Love me some Sandi Patty -...

  " He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty."  Psalm 91:1 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. John 15:4      Some of the most beautiful, quotable and comforting passages of Scripture use the word, "abide."  This word may be translated "remain" or "joined" or "united" in your copy of the Bible.  Have you ever started looking into something and gotten so excited you had to share it, even before you feel you fully grasp its meaning?  That is the way I feel as I have looked at the word "abide" in Scripture.  When you combine the Hebrew and the Greek equivalents, the Blue Letter Bible Lexicon tells me that there are well over 200 uses of this term in our Bible.  I think that God has something to tell us! Abiding is a beautiful word, isn't it?  I love the poetic tones it brings t...

 "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."  This quote always brings me to the brink of tears.  It was made by a man who gave all, literally, for the cause of the gospel.  If you are not familiar with Jim Elliot's story, here is a very brief synopsis.   Jim was a missionary to Ecuador in the 1950's.  He and his co-workers spent years learning the language and ministering to the people. One day they flew to an area that had not been reached by the gospel.  In fact, these Auca Indians had not even seen white men prior to these missionaries' arrival in Ecuador.  Jim and the others had spent months dropping gifts by plane into this area in an effort to gain the trust of these violent tribes.  There had been signs that these people would be willing to meet them in person.   However, something went wrong and the five missionary men were killed that day in January of 1956.  They gave all....