Francine Rivers's Blog, page 4
March 16, 2024
Encounters with God – Part One
Our pastor, Jim Swaney, is teaching a series on the Holy Spirit. After one sermon, our worship leader gave a spontaneous testimony of how God had been “speaking” to him for years, even before (in his forties) he gave his life to Christ. Some of us are slow to listen, including me. I was in ...
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March 2, 2024
Pruning
Winter has come to Sonoma County. The wind picks up at four. It’s dark by five. I’m ready for bed by seven-thirty but sometimes wait until eight before calling it a night. And then when Rick and I get up by five in the morning, it’s still dark! When I take Ranger out for his ...
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February 13, 2024
Hearts, Flowers, and Daily Valentines
Ah, February—the month of Valentine’s Day. When I was a child, my classmates and I taped up empty lunch bags in the classroom, hoping they would fill up with cards, and maybe a special one from a secret crush. It was a day of excruciating anticipation, ending sometimes in delight or crushing disappointment. I remember ...
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January 24, 2024
Season of Dreams
The hard thing about January is that it can feel like a letdown. The wonder and miracle of Christmas is over. Other than the Rose Bowl Parade (for me) and the Rose Bowl Football game (for Rick), everything quiets down. It’s time to take the ornaments off the Christmas tree and store them away, take ...
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January 15, 2024
New Year Reflections
It’s that time of year when I do my “Possibilities” list. I’ve shared this before, but I break it down into categories: Spiritual, Family, Work, Home Improvements, Financial and Personal. At the end is a page where I list the books I read during the year, along with what kind – fiction, non-fiction, devotionals, etc. ...
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December 30, 2023
Open Mind, Open Heart Reading
My first attempt to read the Bible started at Genesis 1. I gave up mid-Leviticus. Over my B.C. years, I made other attempts. All those genealogies and strange names, all those wars were confusing. I gave up. When I was finally hungry and thirsty for truth and answers, a friend gave me the One Year ...
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December 16, 2023
Why I Read the Bible
Many people read for entertainment. I do, too. As a writer, I think it’s important to read all kinds of books; fiction, non-fiction, various genres, young adult (just discovered Nova McBee’s series), children’s books, secular and Christian. I am venturing into another human life and hearing their “voice”. Every person on the planet is unique, ...
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November 18, 2023
Squirrel Memory
Have you ever gone from one room to another to get something, and then you get there and can’t remember what you were going for? Happens to me all the time. Sometimes I’m writing a note, get distracted for a minute, and then can’t remember what I wanted to write down. The same thing happens ...
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November 4, 2023
Need for a Jonah
All the books about prophets in the Bible are written about their message – except Jonah. The book of Jonah is about his defiant heart and the merciful heart of God. Jonah lived when Judah was a vassal of Assyria. Strategically located on the Via Maris, the major trade highway, Judah also served as a ...
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October 21, 2023
Plug In, Turn On
Well, I did it again. Set the temperature on the oven, slide the roast in, and went off to do other chores for the next hour, only to come back and see a raw roast. What now? After dealing with a brand new, defective washing machine (and doing wash at the laundromat for a month), ...
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