Greetings from Austin Street

Blessed Sunday to you all!  All is well here at 811.  Bruce and I spent the afternoon at Walmart in the Photo Center printing pictures of our Alaskan vacation.  We both printed collages to get more pictures for a bit less money. I finally began to go just a bit bleary- eyed and stopped after a while.  I am almost finished.  I also was a witness/participant to excellent worship services today. I love being double blessed!  I would also ask you to pray for a woman who waits on me at the office supply store where I ship. She has cancer that has metastasized throughout her body. She is receiving chemotherapy with the goal to get the tumors to an operable size. Her attitude is first rate and she has lots of family and work support.  And she is in need of our prayers.  Thank  you.

And the candle has been lit…

Dear God, It is by hope that I long for your presence and by faith that I come into it. Lord, it is by faith that  I came into relationship with you. Your faith which is far greater than mine is the love that eternally binds You and I together. Because of Your great faith and the gift of faith you offered at the moment of my salvation nothing can separate me from your love and grace. My hope is continually in you. I am so very grateful.  Thank you Lord. I love you Lord. In Jesus name, amen.

I heard the most wonderful children’s message this morning.  The scripture passage was from Romans 8: 39, “…nor any created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Followed by the brief parable of the leaven. Matthew 13: 33, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”   The children’s minister had some flour in a bowl and added yeast.  She stirred the yeast into the flour very well and then handed it to a child with these instructions, “take out the yeast.”  The child replied, “I can’t.” (this is going to find its way into a sermon someday!)

WOW!  What a perfect demonstration of the love of God . Our relationship with God is founded on faith. It is faith that brings us closer to God. It is faith that binds us to God and it is faith that makes us align our purpose according to God’s purpose for us. It is faith that in prayer that takes our needs, desires, groans, joys and victories and in turn carries God’s power to us. It is faith that brings us to God and brings God to us. In this most intimate of relationships as we faithfully come into the presence of this loving and faithful God taking him at his word as he speaks to us. God’s faith in us is unshakable even through our failures and shortcomings. Faith first enters our heads when we believe and makes its way to our hearts opening the eyes of our souls and just like the flour and yeast nothing can separate us from the love of God.

“To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.”

Hebrews 11: 1

Take joy in the journey praying as we go. Wear comfortable shoes and get some sleep.  Love you all, Bruce and Gaylene