Dear Ones,
May you wake in hope and peace that the Lord has everything in His control. This morning I plan to make egg dishes and blueberry muffins and go to my exercise class and later Crafts and Soup supper/ Lenten service.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
  As I hear from many of you that get my daily devotions, I know that some of you and your loved ones are experiencing some very hard times. There are situations you never dreamed would have to go through, but you don’t want to give up and are hanging on in faith. I am in the book of Job right now and what he had to endure is hard to even imagine. He was a very wealthy man but lost his 10 children in one day and all the thousands of his donkeys, oxen, camels, and servants. What would our response have been? Perhaps we would be asking God, why are you letting this happen to me. But we can learn from his response in Job 1:21, “Naked (without possessions) came I (into this world) from my mother’s womb, and naked (without possessions ) shall I depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed (praised and magnified in worship) be the name of the Lord!”  When we suffer loss like our home in a tornado, do we say thank you Lord you gave me a home for these past 10 years and I am grateful; or do we say how could you let this happen to me?

 Next Job’s body was attacked and full of painful sores, so much so that he used broken pottery to scrape himself as sat in ashes. At that point his wife told him to renounce God and die. Some encouraging word and from the one closest to him!  But he responded with that we not only receive good from the Lord but we also have to accept misfortune. To add to his problems, his friends accused him of sin as the cause of all those terrible things happening to him. How about those times we are misunderstood by our friends, our motives are maligned and we feel helpless to defend ourselves. We may have to just sit tight for a while until God reveals to them what is really going on. Job had to listen for days to all the accusations but the Lord ended up defending him and having him offer prayers for his friends who judged him. We know from the familiar story that God also restored everything and twice more to Job.

  When we go through those hard times, let us know that God is doing a deep work in us; He sees and walks with us through it all and has our good in mind. Let us not lose hope but remember that one day He will restore us with far more than we have endured in our suffering.

  Challenge for today: Be present to your loved ones who may be suffering and don’t presume to know the cause but listen with understanding and pray for them.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy