Barbara Rainey's Blog, page 17
February 24, 2022
Friends & Family 22.2
Happy shortest month everyone!
As the days continue to speed by, this month’s letter to all of you is more of a deep dive into what I’m learning in my online class at Dallas Theological Seminary.
But first here are two of my favorite photos from the Love Like You Mean It cruise we went on earlier this month. The first is with an Ethiopian-American couple who live in the DC area with their four kids. They have loved learning about marriage and family from our ministry so it was a treat to spend an evening with them. The second is a rainbow out our cabin windows which was gorgeous to see and so meaningful to be reminded of God’s love for us.
My class this semester is on the history of doctrine, which sounds terribly boring and dry, but what I’m learning is compelling and truly important to believers today. So stick with me for a few minutes and marvel that God has managed through broken sinful humans to keep the truth of His Word and His character pure and clear for generations.
This month I learned why the Church, meaning the universal body of believers around the world, wrote and adopted creeds and statements of belief. The story goes like this:
In the days, months and early years after Jesus’ ascension and Pentecost, the rapidly growing baby church all believed what they had seen: Jesus was a real human who they saw and touched; He really suffered and died and therefore He had to be God because He rose from the dead. Hundreds were witnesses, so no one questioned it.
The apostle John says it plainly: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life …” (1 John 1:1-2).
It wasn’t just the 12 who saw and touched Him! Paul records that Jesus appeared in His resurrected body to over 500 believers at one time, and who knows how many others saw Him at other times that weren’t recorded.
But eventually new converts began asking questions no one had asked before. And so those first-generation disciples—like Ignatius of Antioch in Syria, a disciple of the Apostle John—began to write explanations for why we believe Jesus is God, who existed eternally with the Father.
Okay, pause on this one. Can you even imagine what it would have been like to be a disciple of John? The real John of the Bible who saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain and saw Moses and Elijah! And how did he know the two who showed up with Jesus were Moses and Elijah? And John was in the boat when Jesus calmed the storm, when Peter walked on water, when Jesus fed 5,000 people … John saw it all. Literally. If I was discipled by John, I would have a thousand questions. And I would have believed everything he said.
Back to the story. From those early days to today, we believers need words to communicate our faith to others. As a result, creeds (or statements of faith) were written for the purpose of uniting the church in our beliefs about God.
Jesus prayed before He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane that God would keep us and that we would be one even as He and the Father are one. When the body of Christ all believe the same truths, we are united in our faith even if we practice our beliefs very differently.
This month one of the concepts we studied was the Trinity, which is present throughout the Scriptures, even though the word trinity is not in the Bible but was coined to explain our three-in-one God. For example, when Jesus instructed His disciples to “baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), He clearly listed all three members of the Godhead in equality. Nowhere is the deity of Christ or the Holy Spirit denied in the Bible. Thus the concept of the Trinity is clearly revealed in Scripture and the church Fathers defined it for us.
Concepts like the Trinity were eventually worked into creeds or statements of faith. Perhaps your church, as did mine growing up, recites one of these creeds during Sunday morning worship. The Methodist church, even with its increasing drift toward liberalism, still recites the Apostles Creed every Sunday. I was so surprised and interested to learn the earliest form of what became the Apostles Creed was first written in Rome and called the Old Roman Symbol. This was sometime between 200-300 A.D. It was a statement all new Christians memorized and stated before baptism.
The final wording of the Apostles Creed was adopted in the fifth century and has remained unchanged since. Which is truly remarkable … that almost two thousand years later churches worldwide are still professing the same beliefs, the same creeds as did those in the ancient church. Others from that era are Nicene Creed written in 325 A.D. which established the equality and unity of the Father and the Son; and the Constantinople Creed from 381 A.D. and the Chalcedonian Creed in 451 A.D., both of which added sentences declaring the deity of the Holy Spirit.
Following these there was no change in our major creeds for over a thousand years. Another remarkable providence of God.
If you are like me, you’ve never seen some of the lesser-known creeds unless your church repeats them or you learned them in a catechism class as a child. So at the end of this letter I’ve had our designer Julie create a few of them for you to print and keep to read for a quiet time or a prayer. The words are beautiful and inspiring and worthy of our attention since they are reflections of the God we serve and love.
Two weeks ago we had ice and snow and now the early daffodils are blooming! Such is the on again, off again nature of this season. As I type this a front has blown through and the temps dropped from the low 60s this morning to the low 40s now with lows tonight in the 20s. My desk is built below a window in our laundry room and the cold air blows through the cracks around the window so I need a cozy blanket to stay warm. I love the changing seasons.
I hope you will enjoy reading these beautifully written creeds of the faith and that you will join me in giving thanks for the wonder of God’s work through the ages.
Till next time in March!
Ever His,
Barbara
Click here to download your copy!
The post Friends & Family 22.2 appeared first on Ever Thine Home.
February 17, 2022
The Barbara Rainey Podcast: Letters to My Daughters
Good morning, dear friends!
This week has been busy getting back “in the swing of things,” after Dennis and I got home from FamilyLife’s Love Like You Mean It Cruise. It was a great week of seeing old friends, meeting new friends, and seeing God move in a mighty way, but I’m glad to be home!
I wanted to drop you a quick note today to let you know a new episode on the podcast has been released. In this episode, Dennis and I talk about my book, Letters to My Daughters, and how it came to be. What started out as a few emails to my new daughters-in-law, turned into a book that contains those letters and many life lessons I’ve learned along the way of being a wife.
I hope you take some time for yourself today and listen to this episode and hopefully find encouragement that you are not alone! We all have struggles and hard days, but I am living proof that with Christ as your center, you can do anything He has called you to!
You can find us on any of the popular podcast platforms.
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Praying for you this day,
Barbara
P.s. Letters to My Daughters is still available on Amazon. And it makes a great wedding or shower gift. A friend just sent me this photo last week!
The post The Barbara Rainey Podcast: Letters to My Daughters appeared first on Ever Thine Home.
A new episode of The Barbara Rainey podcast is here!
Good morning, dear friends!
This week has been busy getting back “in the swing of things,” after Dennis and I got home from FamilyLife’s Love Like You Mean It Cruise. It was a great week of seeing old friends, meeting new friends, and seeing God move in a mighty way, but I’m glad to be home!
I wanted to drop you a quick note today to let you know a new episode on the podcast has been released. In this episode, Dennis and I talk about my book, Letters to My Daughters, and how it came to be. What started out as a few emails to my new daughters-in-law, turned into a book that contains those letters and many life lessons I’ve learned along the way of being a wife.
I hope you take some time for yourself today and listen to this episode and hopefully find encouragement that you are not alone! We all have struggles and hard days, but I am living proof that with Christ as your center, you can do anything He has called you to!
You can find us on any of the popular podcast platforms.
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Praying for you this day,
Barbara
P.s. Letters to My Daughters is still available on Amazon. And it makes a great wedding or shower gift. A friend just sent me this photo last week!
The post A new episode of The Barbara Rainey podcast is here! appeared first on Ever Thine Home.
February 14, 2022
Your Marriage Is Worth Fighting For: 9 Truths to Remember
When you see marriages around you dissolving, it’s normal to start wondering how yours is going to make it. It might be your parents’ marriage that didn’t last, or your brother or sister’s. Maybe you know a couple who wedded the same year as you and now you’ve witnessed their dramatic nasty divorce. You might keep up with media announcements to see famous marriages broadcast their woes and affairs oh so publicly.
No doubt, right now you can name family members, friends, ministry leaders, and church leaders who are struggling or have even announced their intentions to end their “wedded nightmare.” Perhaps your marriage is the one struggling.
Sadly, there are so many stories, and the themes so familiar, that we’ve become mostly numbed over. We can only absorb so much bad news in this world, and there is a lot, so we turn the page, scroll on down to something happier and less depressing.
Collectively we ask the same question of ourselves: If this marriage couldn’t survive, what hope is there for mine?
But bad news about marriage can be a good reminder, a wake-up call to pay attention to our own. Hearing about a dissolving marriage can motivate us to look within our own and take an honest assessment. And if your marriage is shaky, know this: I have seen many marriages miraculously resurrected. As a result, I have learned some very important truths I want to share to encourage you because:
YOUR MARRIAGE IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR!
The enemy of our souls, Satan himself, would love nothing more than to use your fear about someone else’s divorce to suggest to you that your marriage is beyond redemption, too.
Don’t listen to the whispers, the lies the deceiver loves to tell you. Instead focus on what is true. Here are nine truths about all marriages and the common pathway to dissolution.
1.No one is exempt from marriage failure, even those in ministry. Dennis and I have felt the bullseye on our backs many times through the years. It is by perseverance, lots of hard work, repeated repentance and forgiveness, and God’s work in our hearts that we have survived and are thriving.
2. No marriage dies suddenly overnight.The only way a marriage ends instantly is when one spouse dies.
3. All marriage deaths begin as slow leaks, small compromises, little sins ignored, or forgiveness dismissed as “It’s no big deal.” The cancer that kills marriages begins almost invisibly in easy-to-overlook moments that seem harmless but gradually erode the foundation of the relationship. The decision to end may be sudden, even dramatic. But the disease was present long before the outward signs of emotional distance, empty communication, pretending to be happy, or infidelity became visible.
4. For a marriage to make it, feeding and nourishing the relationship can NEVER stop. Marriage is a living relationship. When you stop paying attention to its health … when you assume that “all is well” … your relationship begins to unravel or unwind. Just as most of us schedule annual physical checkups for our health, and undergo preventative screenings, so marriages must have regular checkups–spiritual and relational health evaluations–to detect small cellular level malignancies.
5. No spouse is perfect.It’s too easy to proclaim the faults of your spouse.
I’m not perfect and neither is my husband. We are sinful, selfish, and desperately need the gospel in our lives every single day.
In the last four years of our marriage we have struggled through some rough waters. So much life change happened all at once and it impacted both of us very differently. We both felt unheard, unappreciated by the other.
I’m confident our enemy the devil was watching, sharpening his claws, eagerly watching for the stress to create cracks and for one of us to give up on the other. And know that we both felt the temptation to quit.
It was real. The season was a hard one. But giving up was never an option. We weren’t leaving those vows of long ago now no matter how miserable we were in the present.
Why? Just as a lasting marriage requires both the husband and wife to take responsibility for nurturing each another and feeding the relationship, both must also own responsibility to quickly admit faults and ask for forgiveness. Therefore, both have responsibility before God for any marital demise. When marriages fail both spouses are guilty and both are victims of their own sin and the sin of their spouse. Romans 3:10 declares, “There is none righteous, not even one…” and Romans 3:23 adds, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
6. As long as both spouses have breath, and neither has remarried, God can heal and restore. But He must have at least one humble broken heart before Him, one spouse who is willing to do whatever it takes.Tim Keller gave a great sermon that would be worth listening to for his encouragement for those of you who feel married to a spouse who isn’t investing as you would desire.
7. To say a marriage is beyond repair is to say God is not all-powerful. It is to say in God’s hearing (for He hears every word and knows every thought) that the miracle of the cross, the resurrection of a dead Jesus to life again, isn’t enough for this marriage of yours. If Jesus can defeat physical death, He can most certainly raise your dead marriage to life.
Beware, my sisters, of declaring God weak. The inspired Word of God says, “Nothing is too hard for God” (Jeremiah 32:17). God’s Word is more true than the state of your relationship with your spouse. Hundreds of couples have attended Weekend to Remember marriage getaways with divorce papers in hand only to tear them up at the end of the event. One couple who just attended recently said, “We loved each other but hated our marriage and didn’t know how to fix it. The conference saved our marriage.”
8. Marriages are often full of pain and loss. All marriages suffer regularly from mistakes, sin patterns, poor choices, and challenges with health, jobs, school, parenting circumstances, extended family issues and a lot more. Some of you are married to unbelievers, which is hard in different ways.
All suffering is real and painful. I’ve experienced it as, have many of you. But there are other kinds of marriage pain. Some marriages face abuse, addictions, or dangerous situations. Submitting to physical abuse is not God’s will. By all means, get help and talk to wise mature counselors, a trusted pastor, or the elder board at your church.
9. Separation and the threat of divorce are sometimes needed to force the seriousness of the situation to the forefront. Spouses need humility, wise counsel, and good support before making this decision and while carrying it out.
Sometimes we can see signs of neglect in someone else’s marriage. But more importantly you need to be able to identify these signs in yours. The best way to know if your marriage is in danger is to do an evaluation. And that will arrive in your inbox next Monday. Watch for it!
Ask God to give you eyes to see what He sees and already knows is there in your relationship.
Here is a prayer you might want to pray to the One who created you and your spouse and who imagined the idea of marriage in the first place.
Oh God who sees in secret,
Remind me that You see all.
You know
every heart, every motive,
every thought before it is even known
or spoken by me.
You know
the fears I try so hard to cover up,
the anxiety that drives me, prevents sleep,
the loneliness I thought went away with “I do.”
You know
all the sins I pretend are not that bad …
all the habits, the loves
that I don’t want to give up.
All the things that bolster my identity;
my ministry, my friendships,
my spending.
And You know
all that will truly satisfy my soul.
Give me peace, sweet sleep, greater rest in my marriage.
Help me not look to other marriages
except to be warned or to mimic the most godly and wise.
Help me look to You
the One who formed our union,
the One who knows the plans You have for us.
the One for whom nothing is too hard,
Help me surrender daily to You
and trust all Your ways.
May the challenges we find ourselves in as husband and wife.
guide us to You,
increasingly every day.
Amen.
Be brave, my sisters.
God sees you and loves you and wants to give you all your heart longs for. Will you trust Him and His timing even it seems impossibly difficult today?
For more help on building oneness in marriage, click here .
For more help on conflict in marriage, click here.
For more help on romance and sex, click here.
For more help on working on a troubled marriage, click here .
For information on the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway, click here.
The post Your Marriage Is Worth Fighting For: 9 Truths to Remember appeared first on Ever Thine Home.
February 7, 2022
How to Romance Your Man
Many romantic novels and movies seem to follow a common theme. A handsome, intelligent, adventurous, single man unexpectedly meets a beautiful, equally intelligent single woman under improbable circumstances—often in an exotic foreign location or in a lavish historical setting.
Their personalities may clash at first, but eventually they fall madly in love … often in just a few days. While this love is often impulsive and always new—never mature—in most cases the story ends with the unspoken assumption that they will live happily ever after.
Okay, wait.
How many romance novels or films feature a faithful husband and wife raising children, packing lunches, cleaning up messes, mowing the yard, going to work, serving at church … and, oh yes, enjoying passionate romance on a regular basis?
Not many. I’ll grant you that Hallmark television romances—which I never watch but friends of mine do—often include happily-married couple. However, they are almost always secondary characters. The audience is more interested in the fantasy “boy meets girl” romance.
Obviously not many real couples live like the made-up characters in the movies and books. Who can maintain that level of intensity? Or adventure, intrigue, and surprise?
Everyone must come down from the high of new love and make the transition to everyday romance. But there really is something to learn from first love, too. It’s important to work at renewing some elements of those beginning lovestruck days.
Even Jesus talked about this when He told the Christians at one church that their love for Him had grown cold. His solution to rekindling their love? “Do the works [or deeds] you did at first” (Revelation 2:5).
Couples in the beginning season of romance are often so focused on pleasing each other that they devise ingenious means of capturing each other’s attention. They create endless ways to say, “I love you.” Their courtship is marked with creative notes and gifts, interesting dates, surprise parties, and much more.
But at some point complacency sets in to a relationship, and creativity often goes out the window—or is refocused on the children.
The ability to imagine and create sets humans apart from the animal world. It’s a connection to God Himself. He gives you the ability to use your mind to think of something that is different or distinct and then express that idea in some kind of action.
In an article titled “God Is Not Boring,” John Piper suggests that using our God-given imagination is a Christian duty. He writes, “Jesus said, ‘Whatever you wish that others would do to you do also to them’ (Matthew 7:12). We must imagine ourselves in their place and imagine what we would like done to us. Compassionate, sympathetic, helpful love hangs much on the imagination of the lover.”
The application for rekindling romance in marriage is twofold:
Express your love to your husband in the ways he enjoys. And love isn’t just expressions of affection. It’s also expressed in the ways we treat our men … with kindness and patience, with respect and belief. It’s also expressed in our words. Do we speak with love or with criticism and contempt?A favorite quote of mine is from author Madeleine L’Engle who wrote in her book, Walking on Water, “to love anyone is to hope in him always. From the moment we pigeonhole him, and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him, and he ceases to become better.”
Use your imagination and creativity like you did in your dating and early married season. And you don’t have to create public exploits to wow your friends or his when you tell the stories. The best love is private and safe, the kind that generates security and peace within the walls of your marriage and your home.Still, men and women are very different. We are opposites God made for the purpose of completing one another like two puzzle pieces. One of the challenges when it comes to romance is that spouses usually spell romance differently. For example, men usually spell it S-E-X while women spell it R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P. But not always … I often hear from wives who are more interested in sex than their husbands.
The point is you will both view romance and love differently. So your challenge is to find ways to nurture the relationship side and the intimate side of your relationship.
One key is thinking of creative ways to spend time together. When the weather begins to warm, invite him to go on short walks in the evening with you with or without kids. If he has evening tasks outside in his garage, work room, or the barn, join him to get time with him where he is most comfortable. Men are often more willing to talk if they are doing something they find interesting or relaxing. They don’t often respond well to, “Let’s sit on the couch and talk!”
As you find ways to get more time together, add small creative acts like leaving him a voicemail, sending a text, or writing notes for him to find, (see our newest designs here). Take him coffee, ask how you can help him, be kind and interested in him as much as you once were.
Make it a point to thank him verbally to his face for something you appreciate about him. Or something specific he does that helps or encourages you like his work, his leadership, his faithfulness, or his way of serving you and your children. Naming the good in people—your husband and your children too—always calls out more of those qualities.
Ultimately, if you know your man and know he would like this, imagine new ways to give yourself to your husband sexually. Depending on your level of comfort and your husband’s level of interest in bedroom creativity, plan a special love feast for his birthday or your anniversary.
The only guidelines for your creativity are that it be pleasing to your husband, not offensive to either of you, and within the boundaries of Scripture.
One last thought. In some ways, renewing romance is like baking a cake. Every cake has some ingredients in common; such as flour, sugar, eggs. But there are also many variables that affect the baking. Oven temperature, altitude, humidity, and the inevitable mistakes of inaccurate measuring, incorrect ingredients, or inadequate equipment affect the final product.
Similarly, every marriage contains a host of romantic variables. Husbands and wives bring different thinking patterns and past experiences. Every spouse has experienced disappointment, failure, and rejection in life, related and unrelated to romance and sex, that influences the ability to take further risks. Many marriages deal with repeated health issues for one or both spouses. All couples have different personalities, values, desires, and goals.
Romance is a lot more complicated than baking a cake, but every marriage has the ingredients to make it work if we follow God’s recipe, the Bible, in learning how to love well.
Renewing romance in your marriage means taking the time, exercising your imagination and being willing to “love your neighbor as yourself”—and your nearest neighbor in this case just happens to be your husband.
May you enjoy a Happy Valentine’s Day this year as you focus on practicing love as God taught us in His word
The post How to Romance Your Man appeared first on Ever Thine Home.
February 3, 2022
The Barbara Rainey Podcast – New Episode!
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and for many people, it is one of the most disliked days of the year. It creates unrealistic expectations on both husbands and wives and if you are single, it tends to rudely remind you that you don’t have a special someone to spend the holiday with. Love as God intended isn’t full of flowers and chocolate; in His words He says it’s full of patience, kindness, goodness, and many other traits. His love also wasn’t meant to be celebrated only one day a year.
On the newest episode of The Barbara Rainey Podcast, Dennis and I talk about what biblical love looks like. Several years ago, I wrote a 14-day devotional called How Do I Love Thee?. On today’s podcast, we talk about the 14 descriptors of love that are in 1 Corinthians 13. I encourage you to download the devotional and companion hearts as well for the full effect! This is a great devo to do with your kiddos and get them involved so they, too, know about the love God intended for us!
I hope you enjoy going through the 14 descriptors of love as much as I enjoyed writing them!
Ever His,
Barbara
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Play
The post The Barbara Rainey Podcast – New Episode! appeared first on Ever Thine Home.
The Barbara Rainey Podcast – new episode!
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and for many people, it is one of the most disliked days of the year. It creates unrealistic expectations on both husbands and wives and if you are single, it tends to rudely remind you that you don’t have a special someone to spend the holiday with. Love as God intended isn’t full of flowers and chocolate, but in His words He says it’s full of patience, kindness, goodness, and many other traits. His love also wasn’t meant to be celebrated only one day a year.
On the newest episode of The Barbara Rainey Podcast, Dennis and I talk about what biblical love looks like rather than what commercial stores want us to focus on. Several years ago, I wrote a 14 day devotional called How Do I Love Thee. On today’s podcast, we talk about the 14 descriptors of love that are in 1 Corinthians 13. I would encourage you to download the devotional and companion hearts as well for the full effect! This is a great devo to do with your kiddos and get them involved so they too, know about the love God intended for us!
I hope you enjoy going through the 14 descriptors of love as much as I enjoyed writing them!
Ever His,
Barbara
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Play
The post The Barbara Rainey Podcast – new episode! appeared first on Ever Thine Home.
January 31, 2022
Valentine’s Day is Two Weeks Away!
Happy Monday, friends!
“We love, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
Two weeks from today, there will be balloons and flowers galore as we celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s the florists’ biggest season of the year! And I do love flowers.
As promised, here is how you can sign up for our new “How Do I Love Thee” eBook. Over the next 14 days, you and your family will go through the 14 descriptors of love found in 1 Corinthians 13.
Here is a snippet from the book:
The word “love” is the subject of each verse and each story as if love were a person, because Love is a person. The Bible tells us in John 14, that God is love and Jesus said “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” So to better understand love, substitute Jesus’ name everywhere the word “love” is written and read “Jesus is patient, He is kind. Jesus does not envy or boast” to the end of the list. He is true Love!
I hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed putting it together! You can download the book here.
Grateful for His love and as always,
Barbara
P.S. It’s also not too late to purchase the set of 14 beautiful heart cards that go along with this ebook or the “Be His Valentine” cards for your kids, or our cute new love notes for your spouse! Click here to get them from Etsy!
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January 27, 2022
Friends and Family #13
Happy New Year everyone!
I do know it’s not happy for everyone. Life is hard and always will be, but God is good and never will that change. Here’s an update on some of our very normal good and bad moments in January.
I’m resorting to a bullet list for this month’s letter as a simpler way to share a lot.
2022 began for us with another round of Covid. Dennis got a positive test result on the Monday after Christmas. That’s twice in less than six months, even with the vaccine. Equally amazing is that I didn’t get it either time! When I took my second test, the longer, more-accurate-they-say one, the nurse who called me with the results said I must have super antibodies. Who knows? Dennis finally started feeling normal on January 5, which also happens to be our Laura’s birthday. I always know he’s improving because he starts teasing again!His positive test and slow recovery meant cancelling our trip to attend the Weekend to Remember speakers retreat. Since Dennis and I began a team speaker approach to our marriage events in the late 80s, he and I had never missed one. This was to be our last official retreat as speakers. We hope they will invite us back one day to attend just for the opportunity to encourage the amazing team of couples who are committed to carrying on the ministry of strengthening marriages.Since my brother’s death in October I’ve spent more time paying attention to our small family farm, since Dennis and I live the closest. Late in the first week in January we drove down for the day and discovered the recent freeze had broken pipes in my now-deceased brother’s trailer in which he lived. Everything else was fine, thankfully. We got all the water turned off to every building, locked up, and came home with a to-do list.God has so kindly provided the help we need to take care of things at the farm even though the nearest town is tiny and would appear to have nothing to offer compared to a city. Yet even in this small unknown place I’ve re-discovered and been encouraged by the old-yet-eternal values that used to be commonplace across our country. The woman who cleans for us after we stayed at the farm fell and broke her heel but chose not to sue us. She said it was her fault and not to worry. We went to visit her and checked on her often, took her flowers and food, and tried to demonstrate our gratitude and genuine appreciation.
Last week I asked her if she knew a carpenter who could fix the rotting deck stairs at my brother’s trailer. She volunteered her boyfriend, who refused to charge us except for supplies because we’d been so nice to her.
In the midst of asking God if He wants me to keep maintaining the farm or sell it, He is giving indications like this that He is in it with me for now. Next week I’ll be there while we get the foundation leveled, a much-needed job. And the man doing the work is someone I met standing in line at Home Depot. Another only-God story of provision.
With Ever Thine Home I’ve been working to finalize our newest ebook, How Do I Love Thee?, a devotion on the 14 descriptors of love in 1 Corinthians 13, and creating several sets of cards for Valentines for our Etsy store. You can find them all here. We are also continuing the search for a managing director and doing a lot of planning and brainstorming for the entire year of 2022. I’ve never had an entire year planned on paper and I’m excited to see how it works … always subject to the leading of the Spirit, of course. He’s in charge, not us.Monday the 10th was the beginning of a new semester of seminary. I’m taking “History of Doctrine,” by Dr. John Hannah, who happens to be a long-time friend along with his wife and family. He has been the chair of the history department for a very long time and has an amazing wealth of knowledge.Here is a link to a chapel message Dr. Hannah gave almost 20 years ago. It will give you a taste of his wisdom and it will be a big encouragement, a warm invitation to more time in your relationship with Jesus. It’s titled “Come Have Breakfast with Me.”
I hope you’re are enjoying these personal letters from me. I’d love for you to forward this to a sister, friend or neighbor and encourage them to subscribe to Ever Thine Home. That will allow them to receive this monthly update, be eligible for free downloads of our ebooks, and be the first to know about new things coming your way.
And don’t forget to watch your inbox on Monday for the newest ebook for personal devotions or for everyone in your family to join in together in learning how to love well. I think you’ll find the stories each day to be challenging and inspirational.
Happy Valentine’s Day and may you learn this month how to love more like Jesus Himself.
He is the Perfect Lover of our souls.
Ever His,
Barbara
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Friends and Family 22.1
Happy New Year everyone!
I do know it’s not happy for everyone. Life is hard and always will be, but God is good and never will that change. Here’s an update on some of our very normal good and bad moments in January.
I’m resorting to a bullet list for this month’s letter as a simpler way to share a lot.
2022 began for us with another round of Covid. Dennis got a positive test result on the Monday after Christmas. That’s twice in less than six months, even with the vaccine. Equally amazing is that I didn’t get it either time! When I took my second test, the longer, more-accurate-they-say one, the nurse who called me with the results said I must have super antibodies. Who knows? Dennis finally started feeling normal on January 5, which also happens to be our Laura’s birthday. I always know he’s improving because he starts teasing again!His positive test and slow recovery meant cancelling our trip to attend the Weekend to Remember speakers retreat. Since Dennis and I began a team speaker approach to our marriage events in the late 80s, he and I had never missed one. This was to be our last official retreat as speakers. We hope they will invite us back one day to attend just for the opportunity to encourage the amazing team of couples who are committed to carrying on the ministry of strengthening marriages.Since my brother’s death in October I’ve spent more time paying attention to our small family farm, since Dennis and I live the closest. Late in the first week in January we drove down for the day and discovered the recent freeze had broken pipes in my now-deceased brother’s trailer in which he lived. Everything else was fine, thankfully. We got all the water turned off to every building, locked up, and came home with a to-do list.God has so kindly provided the help we need to take care of things at the farm even though the nearest town is tiny and would appear to have nothing to offer compared to a city. Yet even in this small unknown place I’ve re-discovered and been encouraged by the old-yet-eternal values that used to be commonplace across our country. The woman who cleans for us after we stayed at the farm fell and broke her heel but chose not to sue us. She said it was her fault and not to worry. We went to visit her and checked on her often, took her flowers and food, and tried to demonstrate our gratitude and genuine appreciation.
Last week I asked her if she knew a carpenter who could fix the rotting deck stairs at my brother’s trailer. She volunteered her boyfriend, who refused to charge us except for supplies because we’d been so nice to her.
In the midst of asking God if He wants me to keep maintaining the farm or sell it, He is giving indications like this that He is in it with me for now. Next week I’ll be there while we get the foundation leveled, a much-needed job. And the man doing the work is someone I met standing in line at Home Depot. Another only-God story of provision.
With Ever Thine Home I’ve been working to finalize our newest ebook, How Do I Love Thee?, a devotion on the 14 descriptors of love in 1 Corinthians 13, and creating several sets of cards for Valentines for our Etsy store. You can find them all here. We are also continuing the search for a managing director and doing a lot of planning and brainstorming for the entire year of 2022. I’ve never had an entire year planned on paper and I’m excited to see how it works … always subject to the leading of the Spirit, of course. He’s in charge, not us.Monday the 10th was the beginning of a new semester of seminary. I’m taking “History of Doctrine,” by Dr. John Hannah, who happens to be a long-time friend along with his wife and family. He has been the chair of the history department for a very long time and has an amazing wealth of knowledge.Here is a link to a chapel message Dr. Hannah gave almost 20 years ago. It will give you a taste of his wisdom and it will be a big encouragement, a warm invitation to more time in your relationship with Jesus. It’s titled “Come Have Breakfast with Me.”
I hope you’re are enjoying these personal letters from me. I’d love for you to forward this to a sister, friend or neighbor and encourage them to subscribe to Ever Thine Home. That will allow them to receive this monthly update, be eligible for free downloads of our ebooks, and be the first to know about new things coming your way.
And don’t forget to watch your inbox on Monday for the newest ebook for personal devotions or for everyone in your family to join in together in learning how to love well. I think you’ll find the stories each day to be challenging and inspirational.
Happy Valentine’s Day and may you learn this month how to love more like Jesus Himself.
He is the Perfect Lover of our souls.
Ever His,
Barbara
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