{{item.title | uppercase}}

“You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek You;
I thirst for You,
my whole being longs for You,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.”
Psalm 63:1 (NIV)

A Word for 2023

At the start of every year, I see friends share about finding their WORD for the year. Usually, there is a quiz offered to help you find your own word. Deciding it must be important to have a word, I have started the quiz many times only to exit pretty quickly feeling like a failure as I try to answer their questions.

This year, I decided to just ask the Lord to help me. Because I can get pretty ‘wordy’ I was not at all surprised when the Lord gave me THREE.

Seek – Focus – Perspective

There’s a lot to study and learn about seeking, keeping our focus on God, and working on our perspective, so I am starting my 2023 study with ‘Seek’.

Since the homegoing of my husband, Steve, six-and-a-half years ago, I believe I have ‘sought’ the Lord more than ever before in my life.

Jesus not only has promised me but has fulfilled His promise…

“And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13 (NKJV)

But what do we do when we know God’s truths, and our hearts still grieve?

Jesus is our Living Hope.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
I Peter 1:3 (NIV)

Jesus is coming again.

“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
I Thessalonians 4:16 (NIV)

Jesus is our eternity.

“After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
I Thessalonians 4:17 (NIV)

And His Word tells us…

“Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
I Thessalonians 4:18 (NIV)

When the pain still comes, seek the Lord.

There are times the missing of my husband just simply overwhelms me. We did not lose love when grief came into our lives. If there were no love, there would be no grief. So, I have learned to just stop and stand still in that moment letting the love of the Lord and memories of Steve wash over me – cleansing me of the sadness of grief.

When we seek, He answers.

About six months ago, I shared an intimate message the Lord sent me through a beautiful sunflower that sprang up in a new flower bed I planted.

God’s message was loud and clear through that sunflower… “I’m here. It’s all going to be alright.”

Soon after, I found myself undergoing tests because of severe pain in my abdomen. The results of those tests showed a cancerous tumor in my kidney along with a gallbladder that needed to be removed.

It has been six months since that surgery and time for follow-up scans to be done.

Fear and anxiety robbed me of peace.

The day before the scan, I stopped and prayed. “Lord, I trusted You before. I wish I could find another sunflower like You sent me before, but it’s 35 degrees outside and there’s not a sunflower to be found anywhere.”

As I said my “Amen” and began to dress for the day, I heard the sound of a message coming through on my computer.

My tears began to flow as I opened the message and saw that God had sent to me the most beautiful sunflower with the words…

Face the Son

I received the results of the follow-up scan yesterday:

No mass in the kidneys

It might not have been the season for sunflowers to grow in my garden, but God used a new friend, a recent widow named Adriane who loves sunflowers like me to get His message to me.

We can always trust the Lord to answer us as we seek Him.

Our wonderful Father God, thank You for Your promise that we will find You if we seek You with all of our hearts. Thank you for keeping Your Word. Amen