Michele Huey's Blog: God, Me, and a Cup of Tea, page 64

When the bottom falls out

Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life! – Psalm 130:1 (The Message)
      
      
Has the bottom ever fallen out of your life?
      
A job layoff. A death. A wayward child. A broken relationship. An unwanted divorce. Sudden or chronic illness. A diagnosis of mental disorder. Insurmountable financial challenges. Addiction – yours or that of someone you love. Your most cherished dreams go up in smoke.
      
You wonder if God hears your prayers, knows of your pain. You question if there is a God – one who cares what you’re going through. One who has the power to change things.
      
Like the psalmist you cry, “How long, O Lord? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” (Psalm 13:1–2)
      
Then you feel guilty for talking to God that way or like a failure because you don’t have enough faith for your prayers to be answered. Your hope is dried up, like the old bones lying in a desert wasteland described in Ezekiel’s vision.
      
Take heart. Even Jesus, as He hung dying on the cross, cried, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:35)
      
Think of how Mary and Martha felt when they sent for Jesus with the message, “The one you love is sick,” and He didn’t come for four days. By then their brother Lazarus’s body was rotting in the tomb.
      
We’ve all been there, haven’t we?
      
I love what I call the “but factor” in the psalms. There the psalmist is, pouring out his heart to God – his anguish, frustration, pain – and halfway through the psalm, he says, “But . . .”
      
“But” is a word of transition, a signal a change is about to take place, a contrast to what was said previously.
      
“But I trust in Your unfailing love” (Psalm 13:5), “But I pray to You, O LORD” (Psalm 69:13), “But God” (Psalm 64:7), “But I call to God, and the LORD saves me” (Psalm 55:16) . . . are just a few examples of the “but factor.”
      
Pore through the psalms yourself, looking for the hinge verse where the psalmist turns from despair to hope.
      
“Is anything too hard for the LORD?” El Shaddai asked Abraham (Genesis 18:14).
      
“Nothing is impossible with God,” the angel told Mary (Luke 1:37).
      
I like the way the song “God Likes to Work” by Karen Peck and New River puts it: “God likes to work when your back’s to the wall, when facing the battle and you’re just about to fall; so there’ll be no mistaking when He blesses and fills – God likes to work when nothing else will.” (Click on the song title to go to You Tube to watch and listen to Karen sing this beautiful song.)
      
Has the bottom fallen out of your life? Don’t despair. God’s hands are there, waiting to catch you.

      
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God! (Psalm 42:11).

Special-Tea: Read Psalm 130; John 11:1–45; Ezekiel 37:1–14


FOR FURTHER THOUGHT:  Read and meditate on the following Scriptures

John 14:1
John 16:33
James 1:12
1 Peter 1:7
Matthew 19:26
Luke 1:37
1 Peter 5:7
Philippians 4:6-7
Jonah 2:2
Isaiah 48:10
2 Corinthians 4:16-17
2 Corinthians 12:9
Psalm 30:11
Psalm 33:20
Jeremiah 29:11
Romans 8:28
Romans 8:38-39
Romans 8:35, 37
Psalm 50:15
Psalm 34:4
Psalm 34:19
Psalm 34:18
Psalm 34:17
Proverbs 13:12
Psalm 30:5b

Have a God-filled week!

Michele Huey, author of "The Heart Remembers" 04/10 by GelatisScoop | Books Podcasts

Michele Huey, author of "The Heart Remembers" 04/10 by GelatisScoop | Books Podcasts

The story behind the story

Hear the story behind the story of The Heart Remembers in this interview with blogtalkradio.com:

Current Books Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with GelatisScoop on BlogTalkRadio

God is good

The ABC’s of knowing God better: the letter “G” Taste and see that the LORD is good. – Psalm 34:8 (NIV)
      
“I am the good shepherd.” – Jesus, as quoted in John 10:11, 18 (NIV)
      
      
As a child, I was strongly encouraged to be good – obey my parents and teachers, respect my elders, do my homework, inform my parents of my whereabouts and call if I was going to be late. I wasn’t to do anything that would bring shame and dishonor to the family name. My parents taught me that “a good name is more desirable than great riches” (Proverbs 22:1).
      
I attended a good school – one with a reputation for academics, discipline and a faith-based curriculum. My parents were good people – honest, hardworking, faithful.
      
I was taught to believe that good will triumph over evil.
      
Foods may taste good but sometimes aren’t good for your health. A relationship may be good or bad. Ideas may be good or bad, and sometimes we have to wait to find out. Actions are good or bad. Are there any in between? Declaring something “good” requires judgment, and aren’t we supposed to not judge?
      
But some things are clearly good and some clearly bad. If you read Scripture, it isn’t hard to figure out which is which. God’s Word sets the standard, draws a clear line between good and bad.
      
In the beginning, God declared all He created “good” (see Genesis 1). How could creation not reflect the Creator? And the Creator is good.
      
God didn’t become good. He always was good. God cannot lose His goodness. He is, was, and always will be everything that the word encompasses.
      
What does “good” encompass? My dictionary defines “good” as “excellent; right, as it ought to be; desirable; satisfying; pleasant; kind; friendly; real, genuine; beneficial.” To that I add: “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8).
      
I look at today’s world and think we as a society have stopped believing in good. Life and culture have led us to believe that evil has eclipsed good. That good is weak, and bad is strong. That “good” is a thing of the past.
      
I refuse to believe that. Good is still a force to be reckoned with. Good is still stronger than evil.
      
How do I know?
      
Because God is good. And God is not dead. Nor is He passive. He’s very much alive and active in the world today.
      
I chose today’s Scripture readings, Psalm 23 and John 10, carefully. Meditate on all the Good Shepherd does for you personally: He leads, He provides, He protects, He restores, He refreshes, He comforts, He loves – so much that He lays down His own life so you, the sheep, may live.
      
“The LORD is good to all,” the psalmist writes, “He has compassion on all that He has made” (Psalm 145:9). Still true.
      
“The earth is full of the goodness of the LORD” (Psalm 33:5 NKJV).
      
We need only eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart that responds in child-like faith and trust. What you focus on is what you see.
      
It’s your choice.
             
Open my eyes, my heart, my mind and my spirit to Your goodness, O Lord. Amen.
      
Special-Tea: Read Psalm 23 and John 10:1–18


Special-Tea: Read Psalm 23 and John 10:1–18     
      

How can I pray for you?

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. – Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
      
      
One day as I was scrolling down my Facebook page, I noticed a few prayer requests sprinkled in with the posts. As I usually do, I bowed my head and whispered a prayer – right there at my computer, even though I felt the pressure of a demanding do-list.
       
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have all the prayer requests on one page?” I thought. It would save time because on a busy day, I could skip the social stuff and go straight to the prayer requests.
      
So I set up “Michele’s Prayer Page” on Facebook. Every day I ask, “How can I pray for you today?” Some days there are no requests. Some days there are several.
      
It’s been a humbling experience as folks open their hearts and their lives, sharing their concerns, pain and grief. What does it take to pray? Not even a minute to raise that request to the throne of grace. If there are seven requests on a particular day, what are seven minutes out of 24 hours?
      
I feel honored and privileged to pray for others.
      
As I look back on the past several years, I realize God has been calling me to a prayer ministry. My daughter occasionally calls me with a concern – usually for a friend – and asks me to “do my thing.” My son’s girlfriend has texted me with requests, asking me to “talk to the Man upstairs.”
      
I’ve prayed with hurting people in supermarket aisles, over the phone, in a church hallway, even at a Senior Expo – wherever I happen to be when I sense the Spirit prodding me, “Pray with her (or him). Now.”
      
I love the phrasing in The Message of Jesus’ words as recorded in Matthew 18:20: “When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.”
      
Wow! When we pray, God is right there with us – in the supermarket, in your kitchen, on the street, wherever you are when you wrap your arms around a hurting person and pray with them.
      
Sometimes I don’t know how to pray. That’s when I remember Paul’s words to the Romans: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God” (8:26–27).
      
Sometimes I feel frustrated when I hear of a need and can’t respond in a tangible way, such as donating money or goods, or giving my time to help. But then God reminds me: Prayer is one the three most powerful forces in the world – right up there with God’s Word and the Holy Spirit.
      
All I have to do is ask, “How can I pray for you today?”
      
Teach me to pray, Lord! Amen.
Special-Tea: Read Luke 11:1–13


I invite you to visit “Michele’s Prayer Page” on Facebook, post a request and pray for the needs listed there. A team of prayer warriors prays every day for the needs posted there. 

Always faithful

The ABC’s of knowing God better: the letter F 
     
Thy steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, thy faithfulness to the clouds. – Psalm 36:5 (RSV)
      
If we are faithless [do not believe and are untrue to Him], He remains true (faithful to His Word and His righteous character), for He cannot deny Himself. – 2 Timothy 2:13 (Amp)
      
      
One of my favorite shows when I was growing up was The Lone Ranger. I remember how Tonto often called him “Kimo sabe.” I never knew what “Kimo sabe” meant until the name popped up while I was writing The Heart Remembers . Curious, I looked it up online.
      
“Kimo sabe,” I learned, means “faithful friend.”
      
How perfect, I thought. My novel is about love and faithfulness.
      
Faithfulness.
      
Someone who is faithful always does what he says he will do, no matter what. Someone who is faithful remains loyal in what she thinks, says, and does.
      
The motto for the U.S. Marine Corps is Semper Fidelis – Always faithful. Faithful in all ways.
      
My husband is a former Marine. Semper Fi describes him perfectly. He is faithful, loyal and true to the core. I’m a blessed woman.
      
Twice blessed. Not only is my husband faithful, but my God is also.
      
Life can get pretty frightening at times, the future a big question mark. Things haven’t panned out the way we’d planned. What next?
      
During the taping of our radio interview last week, WMUG 105.1 FM (Indiana, PA) radio personality Lillian O. Clemons told me she leaves jigsaw puzzle pieces around everywhere – in the rooms of her house, in her car – to remind her when life doesn’t make sense that she sees only a piece of the puzzle. God alone sees the entire picture.
      
“I love that analogy,” I told her. “I can’t see the future. I don’t know what tomorrow holds. But when I look back on my life, I can see how God was working to prepare me for where I am now, what I’m facing today. I know I can trust God with my future because He’s always had my back in the past.”
      
Even when I didn’t know Him, God knew me, had a plan and purpose for me (see Psalm 138:8; Psalm 139). When I thought I was the one in control, when I ignored God and went my own way, did my own thing, God gave me the freedom to wander.
      
A verse in a song I wrote describes this period of my life:

Now the path I chose was wide; all my hopes and dreams were there. I was having so much fun chasing rainbows in the air. But in time they disappeared, and all that remained 
Were empty hopes and broken dreams and a heart full of pain.
      
That’s when I came to Peniel (see the story of Jacob in Genesis 28 and 32), where faithful God was waiting for unfaithful me. That’s where I wrestled, surrendered, and found forgiveness, hope, and unconditional love. That’s where I experienced a true heart change. Where I realized “self control” was dangerous. What I needed for a fulfilled life was “God control.”

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God,” Corrie ten Boom, author of The Hiding Place, once said.
      
I began trusting God with the next step. And the next one.
      
And I haven’t ever, even for a second, regretted it.

Thank you, Father God, that You are faithful even when I’m not. Thank you for Your mercies that are new every morning. Amen.

Special-Tea: Read Lamentations 3:22, 23       
      
      

Expect glitches

      
Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. - Isaiah 64:8
      
With all the snow, ice and wind, this winter has been a good time for hubby and I (mostly hubby) to work on some indoor projects. Like taking down and boxing up all of David’s baseball trophies and other memorabilia, pulling off the Loony Tunes wallpaper border in his bedroom (which he hasn’t used in 10 years), and repainting the Irish green walls. It took two coats of off-white paint to thoroughly cover the green. Then hubby sanded the woodwork and brushed on a coat of polyurethane.      

The only problem he had with that project was when the electric baseboard heater, which he loosened from the wall so he could paint behind it, fell over while it was turned on. A section of blue-turned-black carpeting had to be replaced. Thank God we had an identical remnant of carpet for the patch and thank God the house didn’t burn down.
      
The room now looks like a proper guest bedroom instead of a baseball shrine.
      
The next project was to replace the carpeting in the upstairs bathroom with self-stick tiles. Now, in any project, little glitches are to be expected, but not big ones – like replacing all the plumbing.
      
Since the 30-year-old sink fixtures were corroded, I bought new ones. After several trips to town, we replaced the plumbing not only in the sink, but also in the shower and commode. Maybe we should break down and get a water conditioner. But the life expectancy of the new fixtures is now probably longer than ours.
      
The next project is to tear up the carpeting in the dining room, which the cat for some reason thinks is a litter box, and replace it with laminate wood flooring. Since we can’t find a match to the light pine laminate hall flooring that we put down – 20 years ago? – and since the hall and dining room are connected, we’ll also have to replace it. More time. More work. More money. Sigh.
      
And I thought 35 years ago when we began building the house that someday we’d be finished. Ha!
      
Isn’t that like the project God is working on in us? He works on us room by room, smoothing out the rough spots, removing the corroded areas, cleaning, replacing, improving, working until that room is to His satisfaction.
      
Oh, He runs into glitches, all right – when we refuse to let Him work. Or when we undo the work He’s already done.
      
But He doesn’t give up. Instead, with loving hands, He keeps right on working, redoing what we’ve messed up, working, working, one room after another, until finally we are all He plans and purposes for us to be.
      
I have to remind myself to be patient – with myself and with others – because the finished product won’t be ready until Jesus returns: “And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you” (Philippians 1:6 Amplified).
      
Oh, what a day that will be!

      
May I have a pliable spirit, Lord, as You work with me. Help me to be patient with myself and with others. Amen.  


 Special-Tea: Read 2 Corinthians 5:17; Psalm 138:8      

Debut novel released

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
~ Proverbs 3:3 (NIV)


Forty years after meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Dust Off pilot Seth Martin then losing him when he’s declared MIA during the Vietnam War, Evangeline “Vangie” Martin decides it’s time to move on. After having Seth declared dead, she heads to a mountain resort for her fortieth high school reunion, hoping to reconnect with her high school sweetheart. But fate has other plans. The resort caretaker is none other than her husband, but with no memory of his life before being shot down. When he refuses to acknowledge his true identity, Vangie must make a decision: If she is to have the love she’s waited for so long, she must forget the past and accept Seth as he is now. But can she?
REVIEWS:
“Deeply moving and thought provoking, The Heart Remembers takes readers on a journey of the heart that will be with them long after they put the book down. With characters you can’t help but care about, Michele Huey weaves a story of intrigue, faith, and—most importantly—love. A delightful read.” (Robyn Whitlock, reader and critique group member)


“Michele T. Huey has created a compelling, complex character in Vangie. Your heart will break for her and rejoice with her. Kudos to Huey for setting her novel in the context of the Vietnam War, which is all too often ignored in women’s fiction.” (Melanie Rigney, author, Sisterhood of Saints)

“More than a novel, The Heart Remembers is a compelling witness to the power of love and a God who never forgets our deepest longings. This story takes root and grows true faith.” (Virelle Kidder, conference speaker and author of six books, including Meet Me at the Welland The Best Life Ain’t Easy)

“A riveting love story that spans forty years and two continents, readers of The Heart Remembers will find themselves cheering for nurse Vangie and Dust Off pilot Seth as they fall in love in Vietnam, shouting ‘finally!’ when Seth proposes, and reaching for a box of tissues when Seth’s helicopter is shot down and he is declared Missing in Action, just as Vangie learns she is pregnant. And that’s when the story is just getting going! A twist of events forty years later kept this reader asking for more. Romance, heartbreak, laughter and suspense, all rolled up in a book that is guaranteed to keep the reader turning pages into the wee hours of the morning.” (Kathleen Deyer Bolduc, author of three books, including The Spiritual Art of Raising Children With Disabilities)
Download from Amazon
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Print copies available at the end of March

To order your autographed copy, email me: michelehuey@hughes.net 

March book giveaway

Enter to win one of three Minute Meditations: Experiencing God in Everyday Experiences I'm giving away this month on Goodreads.

Click HERE to enter.

God the Eternal One

The ABC’s of knowing God better: the letter E
      
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Eternal One. – Genesis 21:33 (NIV)
      
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men. – Ecclesiastes 3:11b (NIV)
      
      
There’s a scene in Macbeth in which Shakespeare, who wrote the play to get on the good side of King James I, uses an apparition of a line of eight kings, the last one holding a mirror, to imply that the family of James I would hold the throne forever.
      
Forever. Eternity. That’s a long time. In fact, it isn’t time. Because time is measured – in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia. Eternity cannot be measured. There is no time as we know it in eternity.
      
The apostle Peter tried to explain it when he wrote, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).
      
We’ve come to the letter “E” in our series of knowing God better using the letters of the alphabet.
      
God is ETERNAL. His being spans past, present and future. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” he says in Revelation, “the One who is, who was, and who is to come” (1:8).
      
God had no beginning. He always has been.
      
God IS, present tense. Contrary to the belief of nineteenth century German philosopher Freidrich Nietzsche, which has echoed down through the centuries, God is not dead.
      
God will always be. A mirror facing a mirror into infinity.
      
What does this have to do with us?
      
For the answer, I turn to God’s Word:
      
“He has placed eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
      
“The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
      
God Himself breathed life into us.
      
We are not just physical bodies walking around on the planet. We are also mental beings because we have a brain. We are emotional beings because we have a heart that feels joy and pain and everything in between. We are spiritual beings because we have a soul that God breathed into us, a spirit that is restless and empty until we anchor ourselves in the One who made us and Who calls to us to know Him, fill our empty selves with Himself, with His life, and spend eternity with Him.
      
“Lord, Thy madest us for Thyself,” wrote St. Augustine, “and we can find no rest till we find rest in Thee.”
      
“Since we were made for eternity,” one commentator notes, “the things of time cannot fully and permanently satisfy.”*
      
Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman whom He met at the well reverberate through time to us today: “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life” (John 4:14).
      
“He has placed eternity in the hearts of men.” God has placed in each of us a longing that cannot be satisfied with anything but Him.
      
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart,” God tells us (Jeremiah 29:13).
      
God is eternal, and He wants to share eternity with you.
      
Have you found Him? Are you seeking?
      
He isn’t far – only a breath away.
       
      
Thank you, Father, that You loved me so much that You made the way for me to spend eternity with you. Amen.

Special-Tea: Read 1 John 5:11–12      
*From study notes in the NIV Study Bible, (c) 2002 The Zondervan Corporation.