November 17, 2023

Dear Ones,

Happy weekend to you! It’s almost hard to believe the beautiful weather we have been having. Soon the snow will fly again, so let us enjoy the mild weather while we have it. Today is Party Day here so Al and I will be going to Costco soon for the cake and setting up for the party! 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

  We must never get too busy for God to use us. Let us not be distracted by lesser things that we crowd out what the Lord would desire to do through us. When we are listening to the Holy Spirit, He can use us as instruments of healing to others who are hurting. He can give us the right words at the right time and as it says in Prov. 25:11, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” Wouldn’t we all like our words and actions to help bring healing and be like gold.”

   When we are Christians, we have something very real to give others. It’s good to show compassion but if it is just our nice words that feed into the person’s emotions, we will run out of empathy after time. We need the words God can put in our mouths by the Holy Spirit. We all are body and soul and if we neglect soul and just say kind things, we are missing what is most important.  We want to minister to their soul and share what is needed at the time. But how do we know?

 We need to listen well to others and pay attention to their words, their facial expressions, body language, eye contact, and emotions. We must listen with our heart and give them the words that the Holy Spirit would put into our mouth. There are times that the person just needs to be listened to and we withhold some of the questions we will later ask them. Their relationship with the Lord is the most important thing and He is the healer, not us. We are just His agents but their lasting healing comes from Him. We are simply a messenger sent from the Lord to bring healing in various ways. Our part is to point them to the One who cares for them even more than we do. We can listen to their story, pray for them, hear their confessions, pronounce absolution to them, and love them and bless them. It is all a work of the Holy Spirit and let us be open to however the Lord would use us.