Finding Refuge From Pain

The Lord covers us with HIs protection like a mother bird protects her young from the ravages of the storm.

Pain is a constant companion for many of us with chronic conditions. Recently I’ve learned many other alternative methods to help ease the pain most of the time. Things like physical therapy, exercise, meditation, ice, heat, and even distractions all work to some degree.

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One way I find distraction can ease the effects of arthritis, torn muscles, and nerve pain is by creating digital images from Bible verses like the one above. I then like sharing them with my Facebook followers on the Resting in the Word page.

[You can find the page on Facebook by typing @ScriptureMeditation into the search box.]

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We all have moments of suffering and I don’t think for a minute that mine is worse or greater than any others. I only know that through it all, God is there with me. I’m never alone. Neither are you.

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To all of you suffering today, either physically or emotionally, I pray you will also find relief, for our loving Father promises us that, “Under his wings you will find refuge.”

I hope you’ll join our community on Facebook where together we are blessed by God’s Word every day. It’s also where you can see more of my inspired images, if you’d like. I’d love to have you!

Thanks for dropping by, God bless you! ~Connie

This week’s verse is from Psalm 91:4. “He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge.”

Letters From Christ

Translucent heart covering image of handwritten letter signifying the letter written on a Christian heart by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I’m just so caught up in living I forget about the big WHAT in “What am I living for?” 

This morning God used Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth to remind me of what our lives in Christ are meant to be….

Our lives are like a love letter from Christ, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God onto our hearts.

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This part overwhelms me: “Our Lives” meaning–my life? When I look in the mirror, do I see my wrinkles, faults and fears or do I see a love letter from Christ?

The awareness of my inadequacies rushes in to fill me with doubts until I cave in to the fact…it’s all true. I have faults–way too many faults to count.

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For me, to have a life that resembles a “love letter from Christ” would take a miracle. And it did. Starting a lifetime ago, when I first asked God, in Jesus’ name, to forgive my sins and create a clean heart in me.Through God’s grace, He did. The peace, freedom and love I felt washed over me like a Tsunami. I then asked the Holy Spirit to come live in my heart and show me how to live. The Spirit did. But I’m not a good listener; I keep messing up.

In fact, I’ve messed up so many times in my life, I feel like my life’s “love letter” would more likely resemble an old paper stuck to the bottom of a trash can– torn, wrinkled, and stained.

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But sometimes feelings can lie. I am a bit wrinkled, it’s true, but I know I’m far from worthless: I’m loved. So are you. We’re loved so much that we’ve been given the greatest gifts to help us through our earthly journey and beyond; God’s gifts of love, truth, forgiveness and peace written on our own imperfect hearts.

The letters from Christ? It’s our lives. WE are the living letters for all the world to see. But what if we still don’t think we measure up?

Then I pray the next time we look in a mirror, you and I don’t see the wrinkles, faults and fears that line our faces. Instead, we look at ourselves through the loving eyes of the Spirit of the Living God. Only then can we then see what God sees; the convicting truth and the purest love of all loves living inside us. When we see that, we’ll want share it; and when we share it… THAT’s our Living Love Letter for the world to see.

©2020 Connie Minnell, Resting In The Word

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“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”  

2 Corinthians 3:2-3 NIV

#verseoftheday #LifeinChrist