Happy Wednesday! 

I learned a valuable lesson today. When your professor says there will be an online component, that is code for check your e-college each day so you are not two papers behind the first week.  I have never been late with a paper in my entire Brite career and now I have two late papers.  When I discovered this oversight I immediately began to make amends by writing to the professor and telling him the papers would be completed asap and that this would never happen again.  Perhaps he will find some forgiveness and grace and not count it too badly against my grade.  As a progress report, the first paper is complete and getting ready to be sent and the other one will be complete tomorrow.  There is an opportunity for an extra credit paper for Friday. I have done the reading and hope to get it turned in too. 

Also, our dear Basset, Jackson is going in for surgery to remove a baseball sized lump from the back of his neck.  They tell us it is just a fatty tumor.  Please offer a prayer for him, the vets and us.  Thank you.

Prayer:  Dear Lord, as I look ahead to today, I thank You for providing me with opportunities to bring hope to the lives of those around me. I pray that You will show me someone who needs to hear Your words of encouragement and hope. I look forward to all that You are going to do in and through me to reach them for You. Through Jesus Christ I pray, Amen.

“Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.”

Psalm 146: 5

I have spent my day reading and writing about those who have experienced persecution because of slavery and the holocaust.  How hard it must have been for these folks to believe in hope in God. The argument has always been, if God is good, then why can life be so very difficult? In my reading I have learned that the thing these people found so degrading was the loss of dignity.  They endured ghastly atrocities to their bodies, but being thought of as no more than animals to be bought and sold was the worst of all of the most difficult times.  Those were the times of deepest darkness.  Even through all of the horror, however, God remained faithful to His purpose for their lives, whether He welcomed them into the gates of heaven or allowed them to walk out of the prison gates and became free.  The point is that God does not like it when His people do such horrible things to others, but God uses those circumstances to produce hope—hope in Him and Him alone. 

It would be my prayer for each of us to never have in the past, present or future experience anything as life altering as a holocaust or enslavement, but even in our darkest of moments our story of faith can shine brightly and we can have hope that God is with us. When we share our stories of faith we help others who are facing difficult situations to know that God is the only God who can provide us with hope and ultimately lead us from hope to victory.

Take joy in the journey. Wear comfortable shoes and get some sleep.  Count your blessings and say your prayers. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni, Travis and Sarah.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com     

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am only moved by what I believe and I believe God.