Encouraging Christian women with chronic illness and rare disease to believe hope is never inappropriate.
Bible Study Methods and Devotions
Often, real change happens in small increments that we may not notice. This is true for physical healing as well as spiritual healing. Becoming more like Christ happens in one moment (salvation) and in a lifetime of moments (sanctification). It is the work of the Holy Spirit who is constantly healing and shaping our hearts, but if we’re not careful, we’ll miss it entirely.
No wonder the Bible repeatedly commands us to “remember,” “remind,” and “write down” the faithful deeds of the Lord.
“I don’t need easy, I just need possible,” she said. For Bethany Hamilton, world-class surfer and shark-attack survivor, those hope-filled words are empowering. They echo the words of Jesus: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). We have a tendency to forget to factor in God’s grace and power when we think of doing hard things or seemingly impossible things. But Scripture is full of people like Bethany, doing the impossible because our all-powerful God extended His power to them.
Devotionals are a great way to start a habit of meeting daily in a Quiet Time with God. If you’d like help starting a daily devotion time, please email me or leave a comment below. I’d love to help you. I’m thankful for quality devotionals that lead me to a scripture and give me something to think on during a busy day or busy season.
Here are a few devotionals that I’ve had my hands on recently.
A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie
In this book, you will find a morning prayer and an evening prayer for every day of the month. In other words, two prayers each day for 31 days. There is also a special prayer for Sundays. These prayers, rooted in scripture, were written in the first person, making them an easy prompt for your own prayers. They are a perfect way to begin and end your daily time of solitude.
Daily Light - compiled by Samuel Bagster
On each page of this book you will find a selection of only verses or phrases of verses for each morning and evening of an entire year. The verses and phrases of verses are specifically chosen on a theme. Sometimes, the connections are obvious, such as being on the theme of grace or resurrection. Sometimes, the connections are more hidden and there is a bit of fun in deducing them. I particularly enjoy this book in the evening, reading it just before going to bed, directing my final thoughts on scripture alone.
Chronic Illness & Spinal Cord Injury
AFO’s require wearing shoes 1-2 sizes bigger than your foot and often require the removal of the insole. On top of that, a person wearing an AFO should be in a shoe with ample support for the whole foot, a backstrap or heel cup so the shoe stays on, and a sole that makes firm contact with the ground but without too much tread (which could be a tripping hazard).
After two years of searching, I have found a few options worth noting. For my fellow shoe-lovers with limits, I’ve listed 5 options that meet my requirements for shoes I can wear with an AFO.
It wasn’t until the storm came and beat against the man’s house that he could see for himself that his foundation was secure. How will we know if our foundation is solid as a rock? By seeing how well it holds up during a storm.
We think our chronic illness is a 605 pound, bar-bending beast and we cannot find our way out from under it. But it is as light as a toothpick for our all-powerful God. Why do we try to handle our beasts alone, in our own pitiful strength? We are fools to do that when God is standing beside us ready to lift a finger and lighten our load. He is more than able.
Congenital blindness is untreatable (v.32). In the opening verses of John 9, the disciples don’t question if the man born blind can be healed by Jesus because they assume a congenital defect is beyond a miracle. Instead, they use the man’s predicament as an opportunity for Jesus to clarify a debated question. “Who sinned to cause this blindness,” they ask, “the man or his parents?”
We have an innate desire to connect cause with effect. But from Jesus’ reply we learn that causation is not as important as purpose. Jesus answers that neither the parents nor the man sinned—the blindness existed so that the wondrous signs of God could be displayed.
It took 17 episodes for CT to recount the losses at Mars Hill. Yet Chad’s story is different. His story recounted losses and blessings.
Chad’s story caused me to stop and consider a list of blessings, silver linings, from my chronic illness. The silver lining of chronic illness is learning there is a purpose we cannot see in the pain we cannot escape.
When we invest our hope in God, we get his unfailing love in return. Of course, the only way we ever come to the place where we can put our hope in him is through his grace. We cannot do it in our own strength. So, God gives us the grace to love him, then he gives us his unfailing love in return. Sounds like he’s doing all the work, right? Exactly.
It is embarrassing to be loved like that. Brennan Manning calls this, “irrational love.” It makes no sense. He gives his love and we don’t have to do anything for it. Nothing. God loves us because he loves us. That’s it.
Why would a perfect God love us despite our many imperfections? It’s a mystery.
We all need to be loved and cheered on by personal cheerleaders, especially when we are suffering and feeling alone. We need to be reminded that we are unique and worthy of friendship. The best cheerleaders in life are the ones who celebrate our victories and help us find joy when we can’t find it on our own.
“It’s ok if your heart needs more time to accept what your head already knows.” - anonymous
What a great way to describe what we all feel when we’re suffering.
We can’t make our hearts accept what our heads already knows. It’s not something we can do. It is the shaping and molding work of the living God. He will do it.
For as long as my lungs have bled, I have wanted a doctor with enough wisdom to explain why my body continues to grow bad blood vessels and how to stop it from growing more.
On the other side of human limits we find hope in the infinite strength and wisdom of God. Where man’s abilities end we can find a new beginning — to trust “in the name of the Lord our God.”
Speaking & Videos
Caregivers have their own unique stories. Here are TWO video interviews for Caregivers. If you have a loved one living with chronic illness or a friend in crisis, we love you, and these interviews are for you.
Blogger and undiagnosed disease survivor, Katherine Smith, bubbles over with joy. How does she do that? Well, it’s a God-thing.
We chat about living with chronic illness (Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis and Adrenal Fatigue), life behind a face mask, and how our community can best support us during times of isolation.
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Homiletics is a fancy word that means “the art of preaching.” To study the Bible using Homiletics means to break down a passage to learn the specific facts, themes, truths, and applications such that, by the time you finish you could teach it. This is an excellent way to study!
In this article, I will outline the specific steps to Homiletics, then I will show you how I used them to study Mark 4:35-41.