Browsing Tag

Rest

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

A B&B with Neither B nor B.

Posted on June 19, 2026

Yesterday. It was pretty crazy. Finally having launched on this trip to Jackson, Tennessee, we turned that car right around and went back to take care of a last-minute need that one of the grands had, back on Powell Street. We launched again. Finally, at about 10:30 pm, we got to the place where we’d reserved a room. It was a loft in a restored old building in the old and eclectic part of a small town. It was beautiful, but it had not been cleaned, Not at all. The used sheets were piled on the bed and the towels were in the bathroom floor. By the time we contacted the owner, it was very late and the owner was in Florida on vacation. 

My husband has probably never used this particular app before to find lodging. (For the record, even though I texted “Airbnb,” it was not that particular  rental company.) In fact, I know he has not used this app, because he dowloaded it as we “relaxed” there on the sofa, trying to figure out what we were going to do. This text to our daughter, Hannah, reflects his freshman B&B status. It was comforting to know we were providing her entertainment, even from across the miles.

Options were dwindling. The owner directed us to a closet in the hallway where the cleaning supplies and fresh towels were located and to a container in the bedroom closet where some fresh sheets were stored. He said he could send someone over the next morning at 8:30 am. Well, we really didn’t plan to wait till then to sleep. 

We changed sheets. We are sharing one towel and one washcloth that were still unused, while we are pondering the fact that our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, of late, have been sleeping on cold floors in their coats as they shelter from bombing. We are so, so incredibly rich. 

This morning, I am happily eating my protein bar and having a glass of water. I guess the last guests used the K-cups, too.

Tonight, with His blessings, we will walk into a little auditorium and watch Maggie, who is 8, deliver her one line in the play “Nemo”. She will, of course, be the brightest star on the stage.  We will burst with pride and replay “the line” for days. We are grandparents!

And then, tonight, we will turn right around and make the trek home. We will arrive late, once again. This weekend we will both begin events where we actually get to teach God’s word for a week—to people who have asked us to do it! No fear, no intimidation, no bombing going on outside these facilities, nor hunger happening inside them. There will be an abundance of all the people and things we love!  There will be  hospitality, hugs and harmony.  It is hard to believe that the prep work for what we do is spending time in the Word! We get to do our favorite thing to prepare for our favorite times of fellowship. (And sometimes, we call that “work”!)  All we need is unlimited time. And that’s coming up, too!

We just need rest and time…those two things. And heaven is the epitome, the ultimate, the infinite of the unlimited– in both! We are so so incredibly rich! 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Best Week-Starter!

Posted on January 11, 2023

My week began in the usual way. I was walking through the auditorium at West Huntsville getting ready to go sit right behind the most amazing youth group I’ve ever seen or known. As I walked around the back pew I noticed a couple of visitors. Headed their way to say “hi”, recognition registered and I knew this was Lisa. I have not seen her in ten years. She got up from that pew and came and put her arms around me (in a big bear hug) and said “I am back. I wish I had never left.” Well, that is all I needed to hear, to know that this minute would be the best one of my year so far and, quite possibly, the entire year to come. I said, “Do you want me to walk down this aisle with you and let this church know you’re turning this page?”

Lisa said, “Well no. I’ll do that later.” But when we began singing after the lesson, I felt someone  poke me from the side aisle and Lisa said “Let’s go.” She humbly and succinctly spoke truth:

I should have never left. 

I made a bad decision because I listened to the wrong people. 

I failed. 

This is where I need to be. 

But Lisa is truly successful. True success is “living your life and going to heaven.” Oh, she knows there are very hard things that result from ten years away. But she also knows that the only way to dilute the negative results of walking without the Lord is to penitently, powerfully, and  publicly say “I’m going to walk with Him from this day forward.”  And she can walk with Him on streets of gold one day. That’s success.

Lisa is a Christian. If you knew the back-story of her life and how we met, she would amaze you as she has me. She’s extraordinary. But God knows all our back-stories. He knows every temptation to which I’ve succumbed and every lesson I’ve learned the hard way (and there are many). He’s been with me on the mountain-top and in my deepest valley. He knows when I am very weary and swallowed by sorrow. He knows me and He still says “Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”

Rest for the soul is what Lisa (and Cindy Colley) is needing. It could not have been a better Sunday morning. Because of that other Sunday morning beside a tomb outside Jerusalem, there’s everything Lisa needs to have the real expectation of heaven. I want to live my life so that I will know and love Lisa always. There are others who have left Him for whom I am praying daily. It’s no shame to profoundly mess up in our lives. We all have. The shame only comes when we choose to continue in prideful living without Him.  I’m so thankful for the empty tomb and the real treasures in my life that came from that tomb.

 

Real Things

 

Sometimes in the dark times I can’t find my way.

Someone I thought honest just chose to betray.

Pain is raw every morning

From those who are scorning.

And obstacles obscure my way.

 

I know I can find things that still give me hope,

But others are weighty at the end of my rope.

The devil throws darts

That still wound my heart’s

Deepest places. I struggle to cope.

 

I’ve messed up profoundly. I can’t win days back.

Times that I’ve squandered or courage I lacked.

But my course is secure now–

Steady and sure now.

I can’t let the world’s din distract.

 

I’m done with facades of quick fixes and pleasures.

With searching through cheap things that glitter, for treasures.

I’ve charted a course

With Sustainer and Source

Of joy that is real–past all measure.

 

Take all of the things I pretended were real.

Give me Jesus and let me be quiet then until

There is heaven and peace;

From life’s turmoil, release.

Let me know You and let me be still.

c. colley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The REST of Your Story.

Posted on December 2, 2021

Don’t forget to send your best service idea to byhcontest@gmail.com. Send it by midnight on December 10th.  You could win this amazingly expensive bracelet (not, really…but cute and handmade by me)! We will all win if we take some ideas and implement them in our routines for living (Details here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/this-years-holiday-contest),

Next, be sure to watch the podcast tonight at 7 CST here:  https://livestream.com/whcoc/for-women. Spoiler alert: If Jesus washing feet doesn’t get to your heart, you may not be reachable. 

Next, here’s a little Christmas bundle in the store. If you buy the new Digger’s bracelet AND the Digger’s tea towel, you pay just $15.00 plus $3.50 shipping for both. It’s two great gifts in one!  Regular price is $18.00 plus shipping.  Order here:  https://thecolleyhouse.org/store#!/Digging-Deep-Holiday-Special-Bracelet-Tea-Towel-Combo/p/420561757/category=20688312

Finally, I’m realizing this year that there are many sisters who are hurting through this holiday season. Covid has claimed. Politics has pained. Budgets are bursted and, worst of all, sin has separated. Hope, joy, love, peace, and cheer–all the things we see on the greeting cards this time of year–are found in Jesus Christ. Love Him, praise Him, serve Him through the rest of 2021 and throughout the rest of your life. And one day, through His advocacy, you will have the REST of your life. Rest from trouble, rest from sin’s consequences, rest from persecution, rest from sickness and death. REST. He said “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” 

Stick it out in faithfulness through the TESTING ground and you can be wrapped in peace in the RESTING ground. Heaven will surely be worth it all!  

And, not as importantly, but extremely therapeutically,  try to find the holiday sparkle in a child’s eye every remaining day of 2021. That sparkle will keep you pressing forward! Children are the best people on the planet today! Happy Holidays!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: “More of Gravy than Grave”

Posted on January 27, 2015

images-11In some bizarre and horrific case of mistaken identity, my husband had been convicted of a crime worthy of the death penalty. Surgeons had inserted an electronic device into his neck that, upon detonation, would shock and kill him. The surgeon’s blue markings were still all over the side and back of his neck. We knew his time on earth was short, even though we were uncertain of exactly which breath would be his last. Sobbing and speaking in hushed tones, I asked him to kiss me goodbye. He gently pulled me in to him and…I woke up.

It had been a long series of flights from Huntsville, Alabama to Honolulu. An energetic and wonderful crowd of Christians had met us at the airport with multiple beautiful leis and hearty welcomes at about 8:30 pm last Monday night. To our weary bodies, it felt like midnight, though. After collecting our luggage, getting a rental car at a different location and finding our way, with lots of help to our very comfortable lodgings, the Christians (Yes, they know about souther hospitality. They are 2100 miles south of the mainland!) brought wonderful Popeye’s fried chicken and shared a sumptuous feast with us, complete with sweet Hawaiian bread and mashed potatoes and gravy. I loved it!! The thing is, we usually don’t eat so sumptuously even when it is dinner time, much less when our body clocks are at 2 a.m. But we were famished and it was delicious. I guessed, though, as I awoke from that dream, that, like Scrooge said, ”There was more of gravy than grave” about that nightmare.

So I turned over and went right back to sleep (after checking Glenn’s neck just to be sure) and dreamed this time that one of the sites for the Lads to Leaders convention had suddenly become unavailable, so we were planning to have the convention at my house. I was, in my dream, pretty much okay with this, just working the sandman’s hours away in my methodical middle-of-the-nightmare psyche, figuring out just where each competition would be held, how we could stagger the awards ceremonies, where I could store the trophies till Easter, how many families could share the cabin and how many children could sleep on the hammock.

Food. Now figuring out how to feed that crowd was proving the biggest challenge, but lots and lots of Popeye’s Fried chicken—that would be just the ticket.

So yes. I think jet lag and drumsticks were barging right into my dreams. As I awakened the second time, I thought surely the sun was almost up; after all, I had lived through a crime, surgery, a painful good-bye, and the meticulous planning of a home convention.  But alas, the only lights in the window were from the corridors of the apartments next door. I found a red clock on the wall. It was just 2 a.m.! Glenn awakened just enough to turn over and groggily ask “Is everything okay?…Come back to bed.”

“Everything is okay…yeah…but this night is eternal…It surely seems like it should be morning by now.”

I’ve thought about eternal night several times since then. I’m never afraid of misshapen stuff in the closet floor in the day time. Our old house creaks and shudders all through the bright morning and afternoon hours and it is never alarming at all. I do not worry about family members from whom I am separated while I am busy ironing or washing dishes or shopping; only when I am lying awake at night listening to my husband breathe. It is then that I think about how I may have misspoken with a sister and perhaps she thought I was angry. It is in the dark when I reconsider what I said in that ladies day speech that may not have been entirely correct. It is in the night, when my husband is out of town, when I wonder if I actually locked the basement door or blew out the candle in the kitchen. In the night. There are a thousand  unanswered questions and every tiny hitch in my world is blown exponentially out of proportion.

Even when I was a little girl and my mom told me it was bedtime, my response was to cry and say, “But Mama, I don’t wike to sweep.”  But I do “wike to sweep” now. More than you can imagine, I like to…. Rest is what keeps my perspective optimistic, my body rejuvenated and my schedule bearable. But, in my world, rest and night-time almost always coincide. So every now and then, there are anxieties, imaginary noises and even nightmares before I get to the restful part of the dark hours.

I think about heaven a lot. Predictably, for the first time ever, I’ll have rest without darkness. I am going to love that. All of the complete rejuvenation, all of the anticipation of complete newness every moment, all of the joyful relationships without any of the angst, dread, fears or overblown complications of the night. I will rest…in peace.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them (Revelation 14:13).

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever (Revelation 22:5)