One of the main reasons I frequent Goodwill is that you never know what you’ll find. Many times, it’s nothing. Sometimes, I go in there and it looks like the place got robbed because there’s nothing in there.

But today, I found this vintage Christian artist that I know next to nothing about. I also know the CD cover had my name on it. Literally.

Spoiler alert: whoever the Greg is that Renee signed the CD for back in the day is not me. I can’t name one of her songs (except now the ones on the back of the CD, obviously) and have never been to a single one of her concerts or met her in any capacity.

Still, it’s fun finding something with your name on it, especially signed.

And no, there’s no deeper spiritual meaning behind this post. There’s no allegory or metaphor about God writing my name on His heart (although that’s true). This is just me randomly finding something cool on a Monday. That’s all.

I wonder what the odds are that a used signed CD would find its way into the hands of someone else with the same name. Now all I need is a convincing story about how she signed it for me but it got away from me — some kind of “we were secretly in love but knew it could never be” kind of story. Or maybe I could just say that she thought my t-shirt was cool. Yeah, that.

Am I absolutely where I want to be in my life? Not really. I’m still praying for God’s perfect provision and timing on a job.

But then I see a meme like this, and it’s almost like a punch to the gut (in a good way).

Did I sleep last night in a comfortable bed with a roof over my head? Yes.

Did I wake up to good health and a sound mind? Yes.

Did I have a shower this morning and a second change of clothes to put on? Yes.

Did I have at least one good meal today as well as access to clean water? Yes.

Do I have reliable transportation? Absolutely yes.

I remember reading that somewhere out there someone is wishing and praying for one of your bad days because your bad day (to you) is better than one of their best days. My bad day is losing my job. Their bad day is going to bed hungry yet again and getting sick from drinking dirty water because there’s no clean water anywhere around.

Then there’s the meme with a man wearing plastic Coke bottles strapped to his feet for shoes. The meme goes something like this: to the man with shoes, all he wants is a better pair of shoes. To the man with no shoes, all he wants is a pair of shoes. To the man with no feet, all he wants is to be able to walk (or something like that). The point is that having shoes (and having feet to put them on) is a blessing that I can easily take for granted.

As much as I want to not be complacent with my life and strive to do better and be better, I also want to remain grateful and mindful that so many do not have what I have. It helps most of all to remember that every good gift is from above from the Father of lights. Everything that I have in my life that’s worth anything is God’s gracious gift to me that I didn’t deserve and couldn’t earn.

So I think that qualifies for an “oof” and an “amen!”

Sometimes, I post stuff that’s not necessarily funny or overly insightful, but more as an encouragement. I know I need it, so I figure other people do, too.

What’s funny (and not so much in a haha way) is when I see one of those posts from a few years ago and it’s me who ends up encouraged by something I posted back in the day. Something from 10 or so years ago will speak to me right where I am.

All that to say that it’s funny (again not so much in a chuckling kind of way) how God works. That’s all.

I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get when it comes to prayer. I’ve read several books, listened to many sermons, and attended many nights of prayer and worship. Obviously, nothing is better to teach me prayer than the Bible, and the best way to learn how to pray is simply to pray early and often every day.

Here are some helpful words about prayer from a wise old saint from yesteryear, Oswald Chambers. Again, there’s something about the old books of faith that speaks in ways a lot of the new books just don’t. Maybe they were more direct and honest. Maybe they cared less about selling books than communicating God’s unvarnished truth.

“The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking, ‘This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.’ Enter into ‘the secret place,’ and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day. Swing the door of your life fully open and ‘pray to your Father who is in the secret place’ and every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God” (Oswald Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest).

Pray all the time. That means to keep your mind in an attitude of prayer at every possible moment, and when you feel your mind slipping into carnal or otherwise non-spiritual thoughts, practice the discipline of bringing your mind back to God through short prayers, reminding yourself of your need and God’s provision. Or you could just do what Oswald Chambers said.

I recently subscribed to a daily email that contains a prayer and short devotional from the one and only Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers from the 19th century.

I love daily encouragements. I love reading classic books of the faith by saints from bygone days whose legacy lives on long after they have entered into glory. People such as Oswald Chambers, C. S. Lewis, Amy Carmichael, and Charles Spurgeon had such a huge influence on my spiritual development and still speak louder to me than many of the more contemporary voices.

Here’s a sample of the goodness I read just about every single day:

DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Oh God, help us. We are very weak. If we get a little strength, it only adds to our weakness. We grow more and more dependent upon an almighty arm. If we did not have God, we would have nothing. Bless your servants who preach the gospel. May they never dream that they can save a soul. May they leave salvation with the savior whose work it is. May we be instruments in the hands of God, and be content to give him all the praise when we have the largest success.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Let us pick up our tools and go to our work rejoicing, feeling, “Well, I may be weaker, or I may be stronger in myself, but my strength is in my God.” If I should ever become stronger, then I must pray for a deeper sense of weakness, lest I become weak through my strength. And if I should ever become weaker than I am, then I must hope and believe that I am really becoming stronger in the Lord. Whether I am weak or strong, what does it matter? He who never fails and never changes, will perfect his strength in my weakness, and this is glory to me.

If you want, you can subscribe by going to the link and submitting your email address. It’s well worth the 15 seconds and will bless you daily.

https://spurgeonbooks.beehiiv.com

Confession: I wrote all these posts primarily for me. I love that people read what I write, but if it was just me (and my Mom) reading them, it would be just as therapeutic and beneficial for me to get stuff out of my head and on to paper (or technically, into cyberspace, but it doesn’t sound as artsy).

I do hope that someone else will recognize their story in what I write. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to a song or read a portion of a book or heard a movie quote that is telling my own story back to me. It’s like, “yeah, I feel that way. I would never have thought of putting it that way, but that’s me. That’s my story.”

As I was reminded tonight, God’s Word is the only writing that’s living and active. Other books may give you the nostalgic vibes if you revisit them after a number of years, but they’re basically the same. The Bible will hit differently as you get older with verses you may have read over multiple times almost screaming out at you because they’re telling your current story.

I believe the Bible has one meaning that the author, guided by the Holy Spirit, intended for his original readers. I also think that there can be several different applications that will change over the course of your lifetime from childhood to adulthood to old age.

Basically, your testimony is just you telling your story about who you were, how God met you and changed your life, and who you are now . . . or better yet, who you are becoming. A true testimony shouldn’t end with “and now that I know Jesus, everything is perfect and I am suddenly free of temptations and struggles.”

But as I continue to learn, the specifics of our stories may be different, but the themes are the same. The feelings are the same. When we share that part of our story that we swore we’d never tell a living soul, that’s when we find our own healing and someone listening will also find healing.

The point isn’t to tell your story perfectly, but to tell it. I think I heard once that something that is done imperfectly is better than the perfect that never actually gets done. A story or a song or a poem or a picture that’s messy and raw that goes out to the world is better than something that stays in your head because you think it’s not good enough.

Tell your story. No one else can tell it better than you. No one else has a story exactly like yours because it only happened to you. But other people need to hear their stories told through you. So tell it.

Side note: I may have to read (or listen to) this sooner rather than later.

To become real is to look a lot like Jesus. But how did Jesus look? Was there anything physically about Him that drew people to Him? Not really.

What was it? What draws us to Jesus even after all this time? Why is He so impactful that His name is still spoken more than any other name 2,000 years later — either in prayer or in cursing?

Because no one has ever loved us sacrificially like that. No one ever went through that much torture and shame and death for us. The one who deserved it least volunteered to take the place of the ones who deserved it most. And without Jesus, we still do.

It’s not the kind of love that affirms us as we are and leaves us in the mess we’re in, but the kind that makes us not just better, but brand new. The kind that transforms us into something like Jesus.

I want to be real like that. I want to be so used up at the end of my life that I might not look pretty but people can say that they have seen Jesus. If I ever get there, it won’t be due to my perfect faith or my super spiritual living or my holy countenance (all of which I seriously lack), but it will all be the grace of God that didn’t quit on me when I wanted to quit on God and everything else.

Lord, make me new. Lord, also make me real.

I don’t know whether this is funny or scary . . . or both, but I had my own little adventure tonight driving from downtown Franklin to Barnes and Noble.

When I turned on to Mallory Lane, I noticed that the intersection light was out. I believe at that point, you treat it like a four-way stop depending on who gets to the intersection first. At least that’s the way it’s theoretically supposed to go. In reality, it did not.

People had no idea what to do. Sometimes, they sat there. Sometimes, several cars from one side would go through, one after the other. Sometimes, it looked like they were playing the old arcade game Frogger with their cars. A few times, I thought I was about to witness an accident. Once, I came mighty close to being in one (that hopefully would not have been my fault).

It was that way for about 4 or 5 intersections. I didn’t see any police cars (but I did see one emergency vehicle). My nerves were getting frayed and I was ready to be off Mallory Lane.

But then the next intersection had lights, so all was well and I made it unscathed. People resumed normal driving (or at least less crazy driving).

My takeaways are that 1) people in general are dumb (and I can say that because I’m dumb about other stuff), 2) it didn’t take all that much to throw everybody into chaos, and 3) if the apocalypse does actually come in my lifetime, I hope I’m walking and not driving.

Maybe it’s a tiny foretaste of the book of Revelations. Or maybe it’s just we need better driver’s ed in high school. I don’t know. I keep thinking about those bombs that can wipe out all the electronic devices within a certain radius or people who can knock out the power grid and cause random chaos. I have read my Bible, and the last verses of the last chapter isn’t a big scary massive car wreck. It’s one where we’re invited to the biggest and best feast where all the best people will be there. And the best part is that Jesus is there.

But I know I’d rather not go there just yet, especially if it’s from a heart attack caused by the anxiety of driving with no working street lights. I’d rather go the more serene route and die in my sleep (and again hopefully not while driving a car).

I’m thankful to be at home with most of my sanity intact. I know I don’t want to go through anything like that again for a long, long time.

I saw something today that gave me all the feels. Even though I personally am not a parent, I was touched by the words I read, so grab a tissue before you read any further:

“From the moment you hold your baby in your arms you will never be the same
You might long for the person you were before
When you had freedom and time
And nothing in particular to worry about
You will know tiredness like you never knew it before
And days will run into days that are exactly the same
Full of feedings and burping
Nappy changes and crying
Whining and fighting
Naps or a lack of naps
It might seem like a never-ending cycle
But don’t forget….
There is a last time for everything
There will come a time when you will feed your baby for the very last time
They will fall asleep on you after a long day
And it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child
One day you will carry them on your hip then set them down
And never pick them up that way again
You will scrub their hair in the bath one night
And from that day on they will want to bathe alone
They will hold your hand to cross the road
Then never reach for it again
They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles
And it will be the last night you ever wake to this
One afternoon you will sing ‘the wheels on the bus’ and do all the actions
Then never sing them that song again
They will kiss you goodbye at the school gate
The next day they will ask to walk to the gate alone
You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your last dirty face
They will run to you with arms raised for the very last time.
The thing is, you won’t even know it’s the last time
Until there are no more times. And even then, it will take you a while to realise.
So while you are living in these times, remember there are only so many of them and when they are gone, you will yearn for just one more day of them
For one last time.”