Why Did God Make Me As I Am?”

A happily married woman with two children lost both of them. They were buried in the same grave. After that, she suffered a deep emotional collapse. For years her family fed and cared for her as though she was as weak and helpless as a little child.

One day her aunt, a joyful Christian, took her turn at feeding her. The distraught and despondent woman said, “Auntie, you keep on saying that God loves us. I used to think so too; but if He loves us, why did He make me as I am?”

The aunt kissed her gently, said with the wisdom of years, “Dear, He hasn’t made you yet. He’s making you now!”

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply; The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”

Eddie and Alice Smith

A Sign In The Heavens

Ziglar's Cloud

The daughter of Zig Ziglar reminds us that even at the darkest times we are given reason to rejoice.

By Julie Ziglar Norman, Alvord, Texas
I’d turned on the car radio for the long drive home that afternoon last November. My favorite preacher was on, but I wasn't really paying attention. My mind was on my father. I’d just visited him at the nursing facility where he’d been for the past few months, his health failing.

He was 86. His spirit remained strong but the light in his eyes had dimmed and I had to wonder if this was the last time we’d see each other. My dad, the motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, was known the world over for his energy, optimism and faith. The interesting thing is, he came to that faith in his mid-forties.

It was the night of July 4, 1972, not long after he left a successful career as a salesman to pursue public speaking full time. He’d grown up in a church-going family but he had more doubts than belief.

That night he was out in his swimming pool when he was struck by the urge to pray, as his friend Sister Jessie had been encouraging him to do. Was God real? he asked. Was he truly present in our day-to-day lives? Dad lay back in the water and stared up into the heavens.

All at once a shooting star streaked across the sky. He was startled and elated. A warmth filled him, like the light from the star. He knew with the utmost certainty the answers to his questions. And he knew that he needed to share not just his energy and optimism in his speeches but his faith.

Dad often talked about the sign he saw. Maybe that’s why I looked up myself that afternoon, driving home from visiting him. Clouds were skimming across the Texas sky. Then I saw it, a cloud in the unmistakable shape of a Z.

Z for Ziglar.

I pulled over, grabbed my cell phone and took a picture. It wasn't till later that I realized the camera function must have been set to video. I showed the recording to my brother and sister when we were keeping vigil in Dad’s hospital room. He’d been rushed there on Thanksgiving with pneumonia.

“We’re sorry, but there’s no hope,” the doctors told us. Dad would have argued that meeting his savior was more than hope enough. My prayers were for his time on earth to end peacefully. That was how he died six days later, in his sleep.

The family met to plan the funeral. Dad had spelled out exactly what he wanted for the “big church memorial,” as he called it—down to which Bible passages to read and which songs to sing. But for the private graveside service that would come first, he gave free rein to his pastor, Jack Graham.

Someone suggested that we get a better quality image of the Z cloud for the memorial program. I found the video on my phone and pressed “play.” Who was talking in the background? I hadn't noticed it before.

I turned up the volume—it was the preacher from the car radio. He was quoting from I Thessalonians 4:13–18: “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope...”

Hope. That was what Dad was all about. “Hey, y’all, listen to this,” I said to my family and played the video again. We’d have to tell Pastor Graham about this after the graveside service. He would be as moved as we were.

The next morning we gathered at the cemetery. “Years ago I committed to memory certain Bible verses,” Pastor Graham began. “Verses that I believe God wants me to share with you today.” He started quoting the Scripture.

My brother and I looked at each other, stunned. Then we said quietly along with Pastor Graham, “...that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.”

Dad was in his eternal home, and like Dad, I had looked to the heavens and had seen a sign telling me with the utmost certainty that I would see him again.

Article from Guideposts

http://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/stories-of-hope/a-sign-in-the-heavens?utm_source=Inspirational%20Roundup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2013-6-29_nl_a-sign-in-the-heavens

Fixing Bicycles

I love stories. One of my favorites is about a little girl who was late coming home for supper. Her mother made the expected irate parent's demand to know where she had been.

The little girl replied that she had stopped to help Janie, whose bicycle was broken in a fall.

"But you don't know anything about fixing bicycles," her mother responded.

"I know that," the girl said. "I just stopped to help her cry."

Not many of us know anything about fixing bicycles, either. And when our friends have fallen and broken, not their bicycles but their lives, NONE of us knows how to fix that. We simply cannot "fix" someone else's life, even though that's what we would like most to do.

But like the little girl, we can stop to help them cry. That is the best we can do. And that is a lot!
- Murray Lancaster

Stand by Me

God may not take the storm away but He promises to stand by me through the storm. As long as He is there with me, I can face all types of storm. Rev Albert Kang.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death [or through the darkest valley], I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."¹

Kim Sherer writes: "One night while my young son, Ryan, was sleeping, a storm began brewing outside. After a loud clap of thunder, I heard him wake up so I headed toward his room to comfort him. He asked me to stay with him until he fell asleep. As I lay there I realized he hadn't asked me to make the storm go away, but to stay with him. 

How many times, I wondered, have I asked God to take away the storms of life, when instead I need to ask him to stay with me and help me weather them more peacefully?"²

Good point Kim makes. As the hymn writer, Charles A. Tindley, put it so aptly:

   When the storms of life are raging,
   Stand by me (stand by me);
   When the storms of life are raging,
   Stand by me (stand by me);
   When the world is tossing me
   Like a ship upon the sea
   Thou Who rulest wind and water,
   Stand by me (stand by me).

   In the midst of tribulation,
   Stand by me (stand by me);
   In the midst of tribulation,
   Stand by me (stand by me);
   When the hosts of hell assail,
   And my strength begins to fail,
   Thou Who never lost a battle,
   Stand by me (stand by me).³

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for your promise that no matter how dark the valley I have to walk through, you will always stand by me and never leave me or forsake me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Psalm 23:4 (NIV).
2. Kim Sherer. Cited on www.TFTD-online.com
3. Words and music at: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/s/t/standbym.htm

<:))))><
By Dick Innes
http://actscom.com/