Browsing Tag

Faith

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

You took the challenge! Keep Inviting…

Posted on August 31, 2026

                                                                                                           A part of the St. Mary’s, WV group

I’m still amazed by His response to women who seek souls. He is faithful to give us opportunities to influence for heaven if we want them. 

A few days ago, I encouraged you to invite people to the new Digging Deep study. Because you are women who are not about self-glory, never pretentious and always humble, many times, what you do to make Digging Deep impactful for eternity, is never posted or applauded. But I have heard privately from so many of you, because you need books or because you are just trying to encourage me, or because you are so excited about the Word and hearts. We are just small voices in our communities. Oh, but God, He does MORE than we are imagining (Ephesians 3:20) and His providential hand is still working though our meager invitations. It’s the Hand of God!

I’m going to send a couple of examples. I take no credit for these souls being strengthened. I’m just a tiny connector between women and the ONE who gives us our hope. We’ve been reminded a lot this week of the brevity of life. One thing matters and you inviters have cued in on that. 

( I will say that, in my tiny little algorithm, I’ve seen about as much Digging Deep this week as I have Dolly…and that has been a great encouragement!)

From Tara Pearce: 

After you posted the Just Invite Them post, I took that challenge!  I shared the post, invited in my friend group, and put a notice out to all the ladies in my congregation to join me in an evening study group. 

We have a Tuesday morning ladies study, which I am not part of because I’m a working girl!  

This class has decided to do the same study as well!  

Altogether we have ordered 30 books so far!  A few from our smaller surrounding congregations have joined. 

I’m so excited for this and nervous for myself leading it!  So thankful to be able to learn and share God’s word!

From Angie Parsley: 

Hi Ms Cindy! We met this year, briefly at PTP during the final charge. You sat next to me and I told you about me having a Hannah and a Caleb like you and my daughter Hannah being baptized the night before our final day at PTP. I did a count today of all the women in our congregation in St Mary’s WV. I believe I counted 53. I decided to do a personal invitation to join the study for every woman in our congregation instead of making a mass announcement and hoping people would join in the study. I’ve been sending invites all day. I still have 29 more women to invite and I already have 18 committed. I’ve encouraged everyone to invite at least 1 friend or family member so I’m sure this number will continue to grow. I’m so excited for the spiritual growth that is coming to our little congregation of 100. I write you this as I want you to be encouraged to see all the great things happening all over the world and in our little corner of WV. I am so excited to get started…

And then there was this update yesterday, from Angie and St.Mary’s: 

Our total count committed to the study as of this evening is 43. There are still a few more we are pretty sure that will join, just waiting on a response back. I also encouraged everyone there tonight to invite at least 1 friend. Those responses are already coming in. Lord willing, I’ll send you a picture of everyone when we meet. The picture I sent is now only half of our group. This is so encouraging!

And from Lori Morris:

Also after your post about sharing the study I shared it to our ladies text group and got several who want to join! I think we’re even going to have a livestream group! First time at this congregation!

Great things ARE happening and I AM encouraged. But they are through HIS hand and for HIS glory. I’m so thankful to be in His hand with you. Keep inviting all year, but let’s magnify our efforts through the month of September! I don’t even know what He can do through all of you, but I know it’s more than I can dream up and it’s whatever is His will!

The voice of rejoicing and salvation

Is in the tents of the righteous;

The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.

The right hand of the LORD is exalted;

The right hand of the LORD does valiantly (Psalm 118:15,16).

 

To Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us…to Him be the glory in the church forever (Ephesians 3:20).

Goodbye, old friend. We will keep you our hearts.

Today, we are leaving behind the “More” which has blessed my life in ways I cannot fully know till heaven. It’s the Word of My Father. But I do know enough to be sure that I don’t want any portion of my life to go by without being deep in the Word. It’s my sustenance in the spiritual famine around me. I look around at what this world is exalting and descrying and I know that I have so much MORE!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Nail This Down: That Day at McDonald’s.

Posted on May 27, 2026

He was nine years old and we were sitting in McDonald’s in Jasper, Alabama. The kids were in the play place and I think I was reading the Bible, preparing for a lesson. Out of the blue, nine-year-old Caleb sauntered up to the table where I was sitting. Sweaty and red-faced from running and jumping, he asked this unforgettable question: “Mama, we have hundreds of books on our bookshelves at home. How do we really know this one is different? How do we know this one was written by God?” 

It’s the question we had to go home and research. I’d accepted the evidence long ago, but now, I had to have Apologetics Press and others, to help me solidify, from internal and external evidences, the faith of the most important little boy in the world. 

But it was also the question that Caleb Colley has spent the rest of his life, thus far, answering. As his wife, Rebekah, said yesterday “It’s what he lives and breathes.” Caleb loves God and he’s so matter-of-fact about the bedrock of His faith. Confidence in the Word and our God’s ability to preserve it for our understanding today is grounded in the abundant evidence around him and he is constantly examining that evidence. 

His new book, Nail This Down, is the product of the original question and the years of study in knowing its answer. This is the book that, studied beside the Book of Books, can lead a skeptic from unbelief to faith in God, His Word, and His Son. It can show that the kingdom is identifiable in our world today and that anyone can be part of that church and headed to heaven with God. It’s challenging and assuring. I’m hoping to spend time in this book, in a way that I rarely can afford to do…because this book can give me needed assurance. 

And so we are full circle. The little boy who asked me the question that day in McDonald’s, is answering some for me through this volume. He’s long since left our home (and I will add, seeing him in a McDonald’s today would be a rare event.) We met in Mississippi earlier this week and his own sweet eight-year-old said “Mammy, can you just come home with us?” And Ellis, who’s five, cried and cried when we parted ways. Parting ways is always the hardest part of any visit. But our God is coming full circle all the time, and I’m so thankful that He’s bringing us all home together, in a place where there will be no parting. 

He nailed that down at Calvary. It’s a blessed assurance. 

(The book is available here: www.thecolleyhouse.org

…and it will also be at both Polishing the Pulpit venues.)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Lads. My Heart is Full.

Posted on April 6, 2026


My heart is so full. Knowing the preparation that goes behind the thousands of children who participated in scores of events prior to and at the Lads convention, I’m overcome with gratitude for what parents and grandparents are contributing right now to the church in the latter half of the 21st century. Unless the trumpet blows beforehand, some of the kids who were shining this weekend will still be working and shining for him as the wise and elderly in the body, even as the calendar page is turned to the 22nd century. Faith works…and the faith that worked for the events of this last weekend will still be working for generations. My heart is full for the legacy so many are working to leave. 

I will be gone to the brighter side in a few years. But I am praying those living room speech practices, the big allotments of time we spent in reviewing and repeating Bible bowl answers with four of our grandkids, the way Colleyanna achieved getting the rhythm and beat of 4:4 song leading, the verse that resonated in our hearts over and over as Eliza rehearsed it: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded!” (James 4:8)—-I am praying that these little things will grow like the mustard seed, into glory from their lives to their Lord. I am praying that the 100 verses memorized by five of my children this year will grow into bigger and bigger faith, because I trust him when he said “Faith comes by hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17)

(l-r) Colleyanna, Lily, Ezra, Ellis, Maggie and Eliza Jane

I trust him! Ellis’s speech was about his favorite thing…nutcrackers. He explained how some nutcrackers are fake. They cannot “really quack de nuts.” He said it’s the same way with Christians. Some are fake and some are real. Then he said that he wants to be like Daniel, who was the real thing. He wanted to follow God even when it was hard. How I am trusting God, that as their parents pour time and the Word into the children, who are my six grandchildren, that the product will be a faith that works! My deepest desire in this life is to be with all of them in the next.

At the Nashville convention alone this year there were 10,000 participants! Ten-thousand PARTICIPANTS, excluding the non-participating people who were attendees. Although, I cannot bear to think about one of these 10,000 being lost, I know the devil is both busy and crafty. He desperately wants to break the chain of faith in your family. But the way that he responds to our drawing near to God is by fleeing. Did you get that? As Eliza’s verse says, the devil flees when we draw near to God! When you pull your children into the Word, you put the devil on the run. How can we be sparse in our time in the Word while we generously give it to soccer, baseball, school work and entertainment? When we draw near to the things of this world while excluding the eternal things, the devil loves it. He doesn’t have to flee. He just presents himself and entices our children through the unimportant things we love. He presents secularism in the schoolwork. He presents worldliness in the entertainment and he presents misplaced priorities in the sports…IF we are doing these things to the exclusion of getting our kids in the Word! 

So gratitude from a deep place in our hearts today for the army of parents and grandparents, mentors and ministers who spent massive amounts of time preparing kids for the spiritual stuff that makes life worth living and draws them near to God. They can’t all yet understand the power that is working in them, but they will know, one day soon, that it is the power of an  unyielding faith that will lead them over Jordan and safely to the throne. I’ll be waiting with expectation for them!

Ezra and our brother, Roy Johnson

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging: Daniel was victorious, but it still wasn’t pretty…

Posted on January 30, 2026

As it relates to our Digging Deep study and  as this month closes, I wanted to ask you to consider the possibilities given in this article. Daniel is nothing short of an amazing leader. He had suffered exile from his homeland, likely castration, intimidation over his desire to please God in his diet, the knowledge that his three closest cohorts were being thrown in a fiery pit for the faith he shared with them, the threat of death, along with all the other princes because an ego-centric  raging king wanted men to tell him what he had dreamed, and the wrath of the last Babylonian king when Daniel, himself, was forced to tell the likely drunken king that his kingdom was being torn from him.  All.Of.That….

Before the lion’s den. 

And so Daniel just kept on praying.

And then there was this. Pretty sure I would’ve said “Okay, I can’t do this anymore…There has to be another way….How long can this keep happening?…Really, Lord?…Are you hearing me?”

But not my friend, Daniel. He really is my friend because he has taught me more about forgiveness and prayer and perseverance this month than I can put in this short writ. I love that man, Daniel! 

My daughter, Hannah, reposted this and I saw it today. I want to be sure you see it, too. It’s a motivating thing to ponder. 

Finish up that study and have a great weekend!

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=25781080388192742&set=a.251879328206199

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

This Hyperactivity All Over Again…

Posted on January 16, 2026

I’m up at four this morning to dig and as I began to do that, I ran across this. I wrote it almost exactly one year ago, well before I had firmly decided to write a study about the God of More.  The challenges are slightly different this week, but still just as intense, if not maybe a little more so. So this…still: 

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20,21).

Happy New Year! As I sit here in a coffee shop to write, it strikes me how often I become “stressed-and-a-mess” over the negatives in my days that are really insignificant beyond nothingness. This week we postponed a Christmas ( a BIG one, cancelled due to sickness) that was supposed to be at our house, We are without internet for ten days at our house. We have an extra child at our house (a pretty needy one, at that). We have a couple of majorly huge issues going on in our house, that require our minds as we navigate them. And, at our house, this week, someone called to say some very harsh things to my husband in some very harsh tones. 

“Our house”  was in the above paragraph five times. It’s so important for me to remember the huge blessing in that phrase. “Our” means it’s not just me against the world. There are five good (and young) sisters, locally, that come to mind as I type who don’t talk about “our house” in the same sense that I can speak of it. There’s no male spiritual leadership, no wage earning man, no strong child disciplinarian, no protector and no one in the home who loves these sisters as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5). But I live in “our house.” And the blessed implications of that are huge. Those of us who do enjoy it should never be smug about or take for granted the insulation that separates us from the harshness of the unrighteous world around us. And we should minister to those who do not have the godly leaders in the home. 

And then it’s our “”house”. The place of belonging. The system of familiar life, The shelter from the rain. The warmth in a cold winter. The presence of beds with blankets and firm pillows, electricity, food in the fridge, and clothing in the closets. It’s a place where the grandchildren who are not sick can isolate from the ones down the street who are fevered. It’s a place where they know there are bikes on the porch and games in the basement. More than that, our house is a home. When I walk in that kitchen door, there’s music even if it’s completely silent, because there is praise in my heart. He lives at our house. The aroma of the potpourri in the tiny counter crockpot fills the air with the fragrance of cinnamon and fruit and reminds me of of how much he has given me. I delight in His law and I can bring forth “fruit in my season” (Psalm 1). There are little twinkling lights that will stay there much longer this year while we wait for that fun Christmas time with family that will, prayerfully, happen in about a month. They are fun and they tell me, when all of my neighbors are turning their lights off, that maybe letting mine twinkle all through January will remind me that the real light, that should shine in and from my house, should remain every day of every year. 

While I thought about the immensity of the blessings in our house, I remembered  that I serve the God of more. I looked up the Greek word for more abundantly in Ephesians 3 and I find that the word is hyper. That’s right, It’s the word we use today to describe a child who is way above and beyond excited. It’s the word we use to tell the doctor about a wild allergic reaction on our skin…”I am hyper-allergic/hyper-sensitive  to______________.”  When a child is focused on some object or outcome and cannot be distracted, we say he is “hyper-fixated.” Our God is way outside the realm of the norm in his care for us.  When I try to describe his ability to answer my pleas, I understand He is the “hyper” God.  He is able to do “hyper” (abundantly more) than I can ask or imagine. 

It’s a new year. I’ve decided to do some things that might be helpful for me, personally. I’m going to drink some protein every morning. I’m implementing some new prayer habits and I’m starting the Digging Deep writing process much earlier this year. But more than those resolutions, I’m going to remember that, while there is so much that I cannot control—sickness, technology, sin in the lives of others, to name a few—I serve a Father who is “hyper-able”. I can take all the little inconveniences and mishaps to Him at any given moment, and I can know that He is working with unlimited ability toward the end that He already sees with clarity! And he works in “our house.” I cannot focus on the end of the anxiety yet, because I cannot see the resolution. But I can focus on my “hyper” God and know that He is able to do more than I am asking or thinking for our house! Happy New Year! Your God is able!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

A Prosperous New Year to You!

Posted on January 5, 2026

As long as I can remember, our family has traditionally eaten black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. I remember my grandmother telling me (in fun) some folklore about how for every pea you eat on New Year’s, you’d get a nickel during the year. (That’s close, anyway.) 

Vogue.com says:  Black-eyed peas are enjoyed on New Year’s Day as a way to invite good fortune and prosperity. The beans represent coins, the greens they are served with symbolize paper money, and cornbread is for gold. Black-eyed peas are also traditionally cooked with pork, which signifies progress because pigs root forward.

Neither I nor my grandmother ever thought black-eyed peas were really connected to my fortune in any given year. But it’s fun (and delicious) to have them on New Year’s Day, anyway. (And I did put bacon in them, but not because pigs root forward. That makes me laugh.)

As I washed them, I thought about how many I’d eat if I really thought I’d get a nickel for every one I ingested. I’d have to return to Sam’s for at least one more big bag. I went down a little ADHD path in my mind about how wonderful it would be if black-eyed peas could really give me prosperity, and about how I know the things that give me prosperity in the most real and eternal way. I thought about Deuteronomy 30 and what God said to Israel about returning to the place of prosperity: 

Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you, and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

God told Israel he would prosper them if they returned and obeyed. But notice the promised  prosperity involved both circumcision of the heart and a resultant love for God with all of heart and soul. I want to prosper this year, but not in accumulated nickels. I want to prosper in circumcision of my heart that I may love him with everything I have. 

Romans 2:28-29 gives a little more insight into this prosperity of a circumcised heart: 

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

There will be many accumulated dollars this year. Praise will be given by peers for prosperity in many human endeavors in 2026. I want to find the praise that is not from men, but from God. 

May you have a truly prosperous New Year!

 

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