Just Us: Manna for July 27, 2009

Question for the day: What would a “picture perfect” family look like?

What can we pray for YOU about today?

Good morning,

This is just a reminder that every day, while we are studying God’s Word to add to our website, someone from our ministry, Dysmas Conduit, is holding you up before the Lord in prayer. May He greatly bless you today as you pursue His will and He is glorified through you.

God’s blessings, our love,

George & Sidney Granger

CURRENT PRAYER REQUESTS:

Please pray for Mike and Sandy Brommer as they spread the Lord’s Seed and witness to His glory while on the road today. Please pray also that the Lord will lead him to Kingdom-profitable loads to carry, and that He grants them safe passage from Little Rock.

THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR PASTOR BOB ALLMANN

Pastor Bob is doing so well that he gave his testimony about his accident and road to recovery at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Saginaw on Wednesday evening at 7pm. He will also be preaching on Saturday at 5pm and Sunday at 8am and 10:30am! What a miracle of healing...prayers have been answered! Everyone is welcome to come and encourage him! Pray that he is upheld by the Spirit and is physically strong as he does what he loves to do!

Please continue to pray for Billy Hamburg, whose doctors found 5 tumors in his bladder. He had surgery June 29^th and the biopsy results showed a cancerous condition. He will be undergoing chemo & radiation treatments and will need the Lord’s Hand to overcome his anxiety as well as the cancer.

Pray for Duane Locke and his family (grandfather of John Bornheimer) as it appears he is about to go home to his Lord. Pray for peace and comfort as the family gathers together. Pastor John

Please lift up my Uncle Gregg in your prayers. He collapsed today and is in the hospital in Mt. Pleasant. This is not the first time this has happened. So far, the doctors have not been able to find a cause. They are keeping him overnight for observation. Please pray that they are able to determine what is causing this, so they can come up with a treatment plan. Please pray for peace for him and for my Aunt Pam, as this has her very worried. --Wendy Kall

Please pray for the Matt Siler Family. He is the young farmer that lost his arm in a pickle harvester. He is very lucky to be alive! My wife' s family has known that family for years.

Pray for healing and God's hand leading the surgeons and comfort for his wife and children..

Rod and Bev Dietzel

FREE FOOD

(Isa 55:1)

Today in God’s Word

MONDAY, JULY 27, 2009

Please join your brothers and sisters

studying and praying with us today…

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR TODAY

July 27, 2009

Starting Fresh

T. Suzanne Eller

"This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.

The old life is gone: a new life has begun."

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)

Devotion:

It was a typical holiday scene. My mother hummed an off-key tune in the kitchen. My father lounged in his faded blue recliner, while my husband and brothers talked about the football game on TV. The younger children played cards, while the older kids talked about my daughter's recent acceptance into college.

As I viewed the scene, I stood still in my tracks. Wait! When did we become a "typical family"?

My past will never resemble a Hallmark card. My mother had her first baby at 15. She lost her footing as she tried to be a young mother and wife. She was physically and verbally abused by her young husband and fled at 20 to start over. Alone and pregnant--with me--mom met a good man and later they married. But the emotional baggage took its toll on that relationship, and later on our entire family. She often threatened suicide. She raged. She lashed out physically. She begged for forgiveness. If I let my guard down to love, the next day or the next week a new scene would unfold. My heart hardened at a tender age.

Flash forward 25 years. I am no longer a child. I'm a woman with young adult children of my own. God has healed my heart.

As I stood in the living room I realized that I still viewed my family through the past. I had let go of the resentment, the anger, and I loved my mother and father, but I still saw my extended family as broken. In far too many ways our relationship was founded on that perception.

I stepped back and took a good long look. Who was my mom now? How had she grown? Did I recognize what God had performed in her life?

The answer was no, and I was not alone in this thinking. My siblings also wrestled with this. No matter what my mother did, no matter how much she had overcome, she still had a scarlet letter branded on her. She was marked "B" for broken.

My family had been "normal" longer than dysfunctional. I realized it was time to step into the present and leave the past behind.

That day I fully transitioned from child to adult. I reflected on what God can do in spite of a broken past. I rejoiced in what had taken place in the heart of my mother and our family. It didn't just change me, but it changed my mother and our relationship. Somehow she knew we had crossed a new threshold. The burden of guilt was eased as she looked into my eyes and realized I saw her fully as the woman she had become.

Several holidays have passed since that day. My mother still hums off-key. I still bring desert. But when I look at my family, I don't just see a family gathering, I see a portrait of God's grace.

Dear Jesus, do I recognize the miracles You have done in my loved ones? Do I hold on to resentment even if that person has changed? Give me new eyes to see. Paint the picture fresh for me as I extend the mercy You so freely gave to me to one person in my life today, in Jesus' Name, amen.

Application Steps:

Refocus:

Take the spotlight off your childhood and put it on to the present.

Be Realistic:

Even normal families have conflict. There is no such thing as a perfect family.

Relent:

Do you rehash bad family memories or bring up the past to punish a loved one? Are you willing to begin a new conversation?

Receive:

Amends may be awkward and not what you think they should be. True grace is receiving a gesture with the same spirit with which it is offered.

Reflections:

"If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming." ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Power Verses:

Matthew 9:13, "Then he added, 'Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.'" (NLT)