Hallelujah

by J. Kirk Richards

Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world!
John 1:29

 

 

Happy Easter, Friends.

 

 

 

 

Peace, Be Still

Master, the Tempest is Raging  by Walter Rane

“Fearful heart – Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance…and save you.”
Isaiah 35:4

“He who commands the sea
has command of everything.”
-Cicero

Hello, my name is Julie.  I am a recovering worry-aholic.

I worry about health, finances, the future, and about my kids’ safety.  I worry about computer crashes, brain glitches, and what people think of me.  The older I get, seems each season brings fresh reasons for fear.  Ugh.

Now, the other half of me isn’t quite as unravelled.  On the flip-side I am confident, composed, enthusiastic, and faithful.  This is the side everyone sees. Yet, more often than I’d like to admit, clouds of worry billow in, getting the best of me.  And I am fearful.

Can a person be full of faith and full of fear at the same time?  In my humble opinion – Yes.

The presence of fear does not mean you have no faith.  Fear comes to everyone.  Even Jesus was scared (Mark 14:33-35).  And it feels horrible.  Fear puts gray in your day, sucks the life out of you, and robs you of contentment.

But what if you could change that?  What if faith – not fear – was your knee-jerk reaction to troubles?  How would that be?  Being stress-less.  Imagine – a day, a week, or a month with absolutely NO fear.

Eclipse

While we look not at the things
which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen:
for the things which are seen
are temporal;
but the things which are not seen
are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18

“I believe in God like I believe in the sun,
not because I see it, but because of it –
all things are seen.”
C.S. Lewis

A few weeks ago we experienced one of nature’s spectacles that was best seen here on the west coast of the United States: a solar eclipse.

What causes an eclipse?  Good question.  A solar eclipse happens when the moon moves directly in front of the sun, blocking its light and casting a shadow on earth’s surface.

It’s really quite a phenomenon when you consider the fact that the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, and 400 times further away from the earth than the moon.  Yet, when the moon sneaks its way in front of the sun with such perfect symmetry, both solar bodies appear to be the same size.  Amazing.

And, just a few Thursdays ago, the moon made a partial sweep across the planet, turning the sun into a crescent (a partial eclipse) and leaving strange shadows in what normally would have been the brightest hours of the day.  In rarer cases of a total eclipse, the sun vanishes into a mere halo of light, casting darkness below.

It’s no wonder that the word eclipse comes from ancient Greek and translates as “I vanish.”

Has some light in your world recently vanished?

Because of Him

 

He Lives.

Have a Joyful Easter, friends.

 

 

 

 

 
They are starting to put ads on our blog. We do not approve these and are not getting any residuals whatsoever, so I apologize for the content. I’ll see what I can do about it.

We Are All Survivors

December 1, 2013, a San Jose, California family took a single-engine Beech Bonanza plane from Oregon (where they had celebrated Thanksgiving) and planned to travel to Butte, Montana to drop off a son and daughter-in-law. The small plane was manned by father, Dale Smith, a very experienced pilot, and member of the Blossom Valley Ward in Almaden, California. Yes, they are members of the Church.

Also on board were his son and daughter-in-law Daniel and Sheree Smith, and his daughter Amber Smith and her fiancé, Jonathan Norton. The plane flew on a very clear day, but when it reached an area over central Idaho, Dale reported engine trouble and dropped out of contact. The plane had gone down. Now the search was on to find survivors in the rugged snowy mountain terrain.