Dear Ones
Hope you had a wonderful weekend. We enjoyed having Mark’s family here and now they are enjoying time at the Silver Chateau! This morning I did food prep and made a casserole and went to my exercise class. We are meeting our walking friends this afternoon. Tomorrow we plan to go to Duluth, as Al wants to celebrate his birthday a day early, since he is preaching on his birthday.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
   Sometimes it pays to wait! It’s hard to be patient but there are rewards if we learn endurance and wait in trust that the Lord has things under His control. Sometimes we need to just be still and quiet our souls to become aware of what God is saying or teaching us in times of waiting.
  Recently Al and I went to Culvers one hot afternoon for ice cream. There were a lot of young people working and after we gave our order and were given an order number. we waited for our waffle cones filled with red raspberry frozen custard. Al and I conversed for a while and after about 20 minutes we asked one of the young workers to check on our order. Nothing happened and we waited some more. An older worker came by and we told her we still hadn’t gotten our cones and she asked if we had ordered a meal. No just cones. She said a blue order number was given us which meant we ordered a meal; Since we had not ordered that, our frozen custard would never have made it to our table as the order went to the cook; it rather needed to be a white order number, so she corrected the mistake of the young man who took our order. In no time at all after that we got our cones, but not only that, she gave us a pint of red raspberry custard to take home with us because of our wait. Was the wait worth it? You bet! 
   There are times in our lives that we can’t figure out what the holdup is as we pray and wait and wait some more. It could be that the Lord wants to straighten some things out in our own lives and it is a wakeup call. Just like when we finally asked a seasoned worker, she was able to tell us right away what the problem was. God puts others in our lives, mentors and pastors etc., that can help us when we feel stuck and so we can move on.
   But let us not get impatient or anxious in our waiting times, but seek to slow down our minds and remove distractions and focus on the Lord. David said in Psalm 37:7 (ESV), “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” 
Challenge for today: Be open to the Holy Spirit to teach you in the waiting times and keep your focus on the Lord.
Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy