Dear Ones,
 
Hope you are enjoying a nice weekend and that the sun will soon come out. I made a dinner in the crock pot early this morning as Ann and Joe came. We were the first ones at the store this morning and got new phones and had everything from our old phones transferred over. Yea! I may write more on this as we were blessed unexpectedly beyond what we could ask. After lunch Joe helped us become more acquainted with our new phones and now we hope to be more proficient than we were on our old ones! 
 
Devotions from Judy’s heart
 
 I woke up last  Sunday morning with the song going through my mind, “What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again, nothing but the blood of Jesus!” Just below me as I wrote this there was a large red stain on the carpet that was result of a bottle of nail polish falling from my desk the night before. As hard as I worked at it, I couldn’t remove all of the stain and it remains there as a vivid reminder to me of my continual need of forgiveness. Just the same day, Pastor David gave a children’s sermon on the damage caused by King David’s sin with Bathsheba. He wrote SIN in large letters on a white board with a black marker and then had a young boy come up to try to cover it up with colored markers. But we could still see the word, SIN. Our attempts on our own to cover our sin doesn’t work just like King David tried to do. He may have thought he would get by committing adultery and others not finding out; but it took a prophet to point it out and there were heavy consequences for David. In fact, his adultery caused the death of his son and the innocent death of Uriah and others. We all sin daily even in our thoughts as well as words, and deeds but also by things we omit. It doesn’t help to try to hide our sins but rather to come clean with them and to seek forgiveness. Until we do, we live with a weight on our hearts and it gets very heavy. But when we quit hiding and confess our sins, what a wonderful feeling fills us of being forgiven and set free. Our slate is whipped clean. My dad’s favorite Bible verse that he so often quoted was from Isaiah 1:18(NIV),” Come now, let us reason together , says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall become like wool.” Scarlet was a very deep-red dye that was almost impossible to remove from clothing, just like the stain of our sin. Only God can forgive us and remove those deep stains as His Word promises us. What a relief!
 
Challenge for today:  Pray that God would create in you a clean heart and a willing spirit to follow His ways. 
 
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love,
Judy