abandoned to Christ.

The joys of parenting begin when the news first hits our ears...we're going to have a baby! Then we get to revel in all the shopping of baby items, planning of baby showers and dreaming of all that we'll do with our precious little gift from God. We savor every moment we get to sing to our child in the womb and read the Words of God to him or her every day. Then we're elated when the grand and long awaited day arrives and we get to hold our little bundle of joy in our arms; smell his/her fresh babyness, and delight in the wonders of holding a new life! The parenting joys continue as we watch our sweet child experiment with sounds and begin to coo and smile, laugh, roll and play. We're just as eager and excited as they are when they learn to crawl and walk...until we realize a fully independent mobile child is often a full independent accident waiting to happen. Then we have nightmares that they've ingested poison, or a toy, put a fork in a socket, or climbe...

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, a day where many mother's will be honored and celebrated by her children, husbands, other family members, friends and even some online friends the Lord has allowed. It'll be a beautiful day, but is this all that it's about? Is Mother's Day, a day only to honor our earthly mothers or be honored ourselves? Or is a day, another day we get to give thanks to God for His inexpressible Gift of Christ (2 Cor 9:15)? It's a tough question even for me to answer because like everyone else, I like to be praised, applauded, honored, appreciate and noticed. I like being made to feel special. Don't we all? About four years ago when I was in the midst of nearly daily doctor's appointments and serious and painful tests, I prayed to the LORD for help and He led me to a faithful sister in Christ, Rachel Barkey . Rachel, a wife and mother of two young children, fiercely battled breast cancer for more than four years. Only a few months...

For the past month our oldest son has been asking me what I want for Mother's Day. I've had no other ideas to offer him except one: that he aspire nothing greater than to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ; walk closely with Him and that love for the Almighty be preeminent in his life. I'm 45 now and I pretty much have everything I need or want. When you get to be my age, there's very little you desire that money can buy. The things that are most cherished are the things of the heart. And since Christ is my Lord and Savior, His Holy Spirit inhabits my heart and directs my desires to be more like Christ and less like I was pre-second birth (Rom 8:28-29, Gal 2:20). The desires of our flesh begin to wane as we draw nearer to the Lord Jesus. We begin to see things with the new spiritual eyes He gave us. And the things we treasure are no longer the things that satisfy our flesh. We begin only to long for the greater things—the things that ...

The first week of April 2014, my darling husband Jim shared something on Facebook that really peaked my interest. He posted the Bible study, Scripture memory and reading methods of A.W. Pink. After reading it, I was a bit hesitant, but printed it out and desired to do the same. "In my early years I assiduously followed this threefold course: "First, I read through the entire Bible three times a year (eight chapters in the Old Testament, and two in the New Testament daily.) I steadily persevered in this for ten years, in order to familiarize myself with its contents, which can only be done by consecutive reading. "Second, I studied a portion of the Bible each week, concentrating for ten minutes (or more) each day on the same passage, pondering the order of it, the connection between each statement, seeking a definition of the important terms in it, looking up all the marginal references, being on the look-out for its typical significance.  "Third, I meditated ...