July 29, 2021

Dear Ones,

Hope you are having a good day! The air is very smokey today and we may need to wear masks as we walk today. This morning I went to Aldi’s and downstairs for Donut Day. This afternoon we have Bible Study and Ann and Leif may stop in for coffee too.

Devotions from Judy’s heart

God desires each of us to reach out and help others along the way. Sometime there is just a knowing in our hearts that we are to offer specific help to someone and God puts a desire within us to do just that. But there are also times others are used by the Lord to be His angels and give help to us. Al and I were talking about this yesterday as there have been people in our lives that have blessed us in great ways in our time of need. 

Al still calls Robert our archangel as he filled a big need when we were building Canaan’s Rest nearly 20 years ago. It was a place for Pastor’s and wives, missionaries and others to come and rest and share their burdens. We spent what money we had at that time for our first house to be built on the lake, as we had lived only in parsonages prior to this. We planned to settle into the upper level that was finished but didn’t know how we were going to manage to make the lower one into a place of retreat. That’s when Robert (a member of our previous church) said he would answer the call and come and finish off the lower level for us. It meant a long drive for him and many, many weekends and days off; he often brought John along (another member), and other times a whole group from the church came to help. Al and I used every day off and Robert would instruct us in helping to make it into a place where others could come to spend time in quiet with the Lord. We wondered what we would have done without him and our hearts will always be so grateful.

God sent us another angel after the big storm in 2016 that took down over 100 of our trees, as well as, the cabin. Al just happened to see a stranger with a Bobcat on the side of the road looking for firewood and asked him if he would like some of wood from our downed trees. He not only took many huge logs, he let Al use his John Deer tractor, which was an enormous help in the cleanup.

The third angel Al mentioned was Jon who organized 4 men from our church to help us move the big furniture items to our present place. One of the men he asked knew exactly how the U-Haul trailer should be loaded and all of them worked hard; by afternoon everything was in its place in our apt. How thankful we were that each one said, “yes” when God prompted them.

When we have needs, we can ask the Lord for help, and as Paul said in Phil. 4:19 (Amplified), “And my God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Challenge for today: Tell God a need you may have and wait for Him to answer. He may even send an angel!