Browsing Tag

Comfort

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Faithful Diggers in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

Posted on June 1, 2023

Shout-out today to the wonderful folks over at the Riverview church in Moncton, New Brunswick. This small group is eclectic in race, ethnicity and background, but they are one in Jesus! Tony and LaBeth Brewer are working with the church in this beautiful spot. and this church is blessed in a big way to have them there. We got to hear one of the good brethren there deliver a great message about wisdom. Then Tony taught us about the way that Jesus is here with us today and about the dangers of removing bits of scripture from their original context. He gave us a good lesson on how to exegete a text and then, in the afternoon Bible class, we were fed from Exodus 3 and warned about the excuses Moses made before God at the burning bush. It was a rich and blessed way to start the week. 

And about feeding…I guess it was the fifth Sunday fellowship meal, but it was a culinary potpourri that we will not forget. Steak and veggies on rice with a Cameroon kick that had us all going back for seconds, a shoulder roast that had been preacher-smoked (Glenn Colley-southern style, only Tony Brewer has got this thing down!), Canadian chili, several different yummy cabbage slaws, a pasta salad and ginger punch and more, more, more!  We were fed—the Word and the pig, the hospitality and the hugs. It was a wonderful part of my family that I was so happy to get to meet and know. 

 

The diggers in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

And, there were diggers there! In fact, they are over there having a Digging Deep class even as I write. I am humbled and amazed at the way the Digging Deep group gives us so very much in common even after we have the most important thing in common. It was the best kind of conversation, discussing the aspects of comfort that we share in Him. Assembling is truly one of the very best parts of God’s designs for the kingdom.

Speaking of assembling, these folks had almost every single one of their members from Sunday back on Wednesday. That’s a feat. They are bursting out of their little building and two more  Christian families are on the way over  from other continents to immediately place their membership here! This group is also busy planning for and intentionally working for their upcoming Friends and Family Day near the end of June. They have got to get into a bigger facility. Praise God! If you’re one of those people who has recently contacted Glenn or me looking for a place to safely put your congregation’s foreign mission money, here you go! Message me and I can help you! (It would be so fun to take a group of folks up there to help them build that building!)

Also, I love it when I hear “Our firm plan is to be self-sufficient in a short period of time. We want to invest our own money and not have a pipeline to the U.S.” That’s the loud and clear message from this church. especially its preacher. This family is living sacrificially for the end=game of self-sufficiency.

 

Sisters at Moncton, here’s that recipe you were wanting for the blueberry cobbler we brought over from the island. Don’t make it too often, or you will have to put some first-class seating in that auditorium!

Ingredients:

2 cans of crescent rolls (unbaked)

2 cups of blueberries

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

8 ounces cream cheese

Unroll one package of crescent rolls and line the bottom of a greased  9 X13 casserole dish. Mix the blueberries with the granulated sugar and layer this mixture on top of the crescent rolls. Mix the powdered sugar with the cream cheese using a mixer. Then spread this mixture on top of the berries, Then unroll the other package of crescent rolls and place on top of all. Cut up one stick of butter and place butter slices all over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or till brown on top. Then dig deep into this dessert. It is a real comfort food. =)

P.S. We traveled back over on Wednesday night for a Bible study together. They invited us for seafood at their favorite local eatery. Our schedule for the day was inflexible, so we couldn’t make it for supper. (We had to eat in the car.) The kindness of Christians anywhere on the planet is not surprising. But it is very comforting.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                         

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Is He in the Fire?

Posted on April 26, 2023

This month of studying the comforting power of prayer has once again called me to self-examination. Do I fully rely on the Lord to keep His promises when persecution or trials come my way or do I make myself physically ill in worry over things I cannot control? Do I pray daily and directionally as a matter of routine (to click on “completed”) or am I passionately interested in talking to Him? Maybe most importantly, am I putting my own efforts behind the things for which I am asking or am I putting my own ideas and effort first and then praying, just in case my ingenuity doesn’t work? In other words, am I just praying to “cover all the bases”?

I have dear sisters who are suffering through persecution from those in the body (similarly to Nehemiah when his own countrymen in Jerusalem tried to stop the wall-building). I have sisters who are grieving the loss, both physically and spiritually, of adult children. I talked with a sister yesterday who is on her way to file for divorce after the painful discovery that her husband is living in adultery. I spoke with a young friend earlier in the week who is standing, almost alone, for righteousness on a college campus where there are lots of others who should know truth and should be coming to her aid.  I spoke with a mom who is fighting for the mental and spiritual health of her young and innocent daughter against the missiles of the devil in our world. These things are just at the top of a long list of unimaginably painful paths.

Let me say this with great affirmation. I do not always get it right. But one thing I have learned in the past couple of years is this: My current estimation of how earnestly God is working to aid my cause or the cause of truth/righteousness is not accurate. There is just no way the human mind can, in a time of trial, comprehend the providence that is occurring in events that are hurting His people. There will be days in your life when you will cry out in anguish to Him and then, as you go through another heart-wrenching saga or a day of unexpected and sad plot twists, you are tempted to think He did not hear you at all and that, indeed, He is not listening.

And then there will be another day: A day when you see, and you do so rather clearly, that God had to bring you through excruciation (each hard thing had to transpire) to bring you to a point of victory, vindication or rejoicing. He had to bring you through decisions that you could not control–decisions that, at the time, seemed defeating and cruel; that, in fact, those agonizing decisions, events and persecutions that you loathed, were the very ones that ended up working together to be the deliverance from the situation, the enemy, the fiery trial that was the curse in your life.  As many have said, “God does not always save you from the fire. Sometimes He saves you through it.” It is the very hard thing–the thing that is a test of your very endurance– that is required to bring about the end result that is productive and, yes, comforting.

It’s important to remember that:

  1. The spot of comfort may not even occur till heaven. (That’s hard to think about on time’s side. But one day, all people will “get” the rapidity with which all struggles find their final cold, hard, stop and transfer, in a defining moment, to eternal bliss or eternal damnation. This life is just a breath.)
  2. It’s impossible to recognize the good in the pain when you are in the hottest part of the flame. Faith does not consist of being able to understand or figure out. It’s trusting till you do, even if that time is not on this side of the great Judgment Day!
  3. The day when you DO finally see that every ridiculously hard thing was required by His providence for the ultimate victory and rest for His own, brings a measure of comfort you would never have experienced without the hard things.

I am not a wise woman. But I am blown away every day by the amazing wisdom in the Word. I can do anything for this short lifetime. May He keep giving me the good things, easy and hard, soothing and painful, heart-rending and heart-mending, until He takes me home. When you’re through the fire–whenever that is– the warmth of the very flame that tested you feels so very good!

Psalm 37! Just take the time to go and read it. He says it so much better than I could even begin to say it!

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Seizures of Horror ( A current Digging Deep study)

Posted on March 28, 2023

In the section called ZAYIN of Psalm 119, the passage says this in the ESV: 

Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,

who forsake your law.

Your statutes have been my songs

in the house of my sojourning.

Has hot indignation ever seized you because of wickedness in your circle of family or friends? The KJV calls it horror that seizes the righteous. I know if you have lived very long as a child of God, you have experienced this spiritual seizure. The word of interest here, translated hot indignation or horror, means a glow of wind or anger, a consuming famine, a burning or raging heat. Has sin that affects your household ever made you feel that way?

The word is found one more time in the Psalms. It’s in chapter 11, where the psalmist says this: 

The Lord tests the righteous,

but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

Let him rain coals on the wicked;

fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.

For the Lord is righteous;

he loves righteous deeds;

the upright shall behold his face.

The scorching wind of this passage is the horror or hot indignation of God on the wicked. This is the prayer of the righteous man…that God would allow a scorching wind  to be the portion (or inheritance) of the wicked. 

Notice one distinction as we think about this word. 

Hot indignation seizes the righteous. But there’s a remedy. The horror is sandwiched between these two verses: 

When I think of your rules from of old,

I take comfort, O Lord (v. 52)

…and…

I remember your name in the night, O Lord,

and keep your law.

This blessing has fallen to me,

that I have kept your precepts (vs.55-56).

But the horror of the wicked is described as their portion (their allotment by providence or law.) It (along with fire and brimstone and snares) is what has been reserved and allotted to the enemies of God. It’s their inheritance (Psalm 11:6). 

It’s a temporary seizure with a remedy vs. a portion or final allotment. I choose the seizure of temporary horror inflicted on the people of God. I do not want the portion of horror that is eternal. When it’s the darkest and I am terrorized by the enemies of my Father, I will remember His name in the night. I take comfort in His name.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

When I fall, I shall arise…

Posted on March 10, 2023

Today I take great comfort in  Micah 7. My dear friend, Leslie (pictured on right) texted today and said “I am praying Micah 7:8 for you right now. No words are enough to relate my thanksgiving for prayers in my behalf, in good times and on darker days. Our connection to heaven is the greatest power on the planet. The world around us has such an arrogant sense of what makes greatness. Greatness is enthroned in majesty and I call on that greatness. I know if I bow my knee to the gods of entertainment, sports, prestige, money, friends or career, I will bow in shame and regret when every knee bows. I want to bow in praise and thanksgiving. 

Here’s Matthew Henry on verses 8-13. I love the words of the Holy Spirit here and I drank in this commentary today. 

Those truly penitent for sin, will see great reason to be patient under affliction. When we complain to the Lord of the badness of the times, we ought to complain against ourselves for the badness of our hearts. We must depend upon God to work deliverance for us in due time. We must not only look to him, but look for him. In our greatest distresses, we shall see no reason to despair of salvation, if by faith we look to the Lord as the God of our salvation. Though enemies triumph and insult, they shall be silenced and put to shame. Though Zion’s walls may long be in ruins, there will come a day when they shall be repaired. Israel shall come from all the remote parts, not turning back for discouragements. Though our enemies may seem to prevail against us, and to rejoice over us, we should not despond. Though cast down, we are not destroyed; we may join hope in God’s mercy, with submission to his correction. No hindrances can prevent the favors the Lord intends for his church.

Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, Jehovah will be a light unto me.

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Extra Digging about Joseph and Jesus…

Posted on January 30, 2023

Thinking about the Digging Deep study of Joseph and God’s comfort this morning. There are some key comparisons that can be made between Joseph and Jesus. Can you add to this list? 

Both were rejected by their brothers. 

Both were highly favored by their fathers. 

Both were persecuted for righteousness sake.

Both were providers of sustenance. 

Both were exalted to royalty.

Both offered forgiveness. 

Both were facilitators of entry into the promised land. 

Both resisted strong temptation. 

Both were stripped of robes. 

Both were tried before human courts and found guilty and were incarcerated. 

As you think about this, think about the psalm from which our  monthly study is taken: The key phrase is “…for thou art with me.” Closely on the heels of this phrase in Psalm 23 are the words “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”   In a very tangible, real way, God prepared a feasting table for Joseph in the presence of His enemies  near the end of the book of Genesis. 

This morning, take comfort—rest—in the knowledge that your trials can be ingredients, being prepared and mixed and served, at last, before the enemies of the cross. They can be integral to His plan of victory for you. Take heart!

(Bonus dig: Can you find the passages in Genesis and in the gospels to substantiate these comparisons between Joseph and Jesus?)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Colley House Gift Cards are Here! Annual Christmas Contest is Now!

Posted on November 22, 2022

I’m happy to announce this new gift idea from The Colley House. We’ve never offered gift cards before, but here they are! Available in several different denominations, printable and digitally downloadable, it’s one easy way to get the best kinds of gift materials into the hands of people you love. Just in time for the holidays, you can surprise people across the miles with gifts for the soul! 

Find them here.

Next, here’s the holiday contest for this year! With a nod to our DD study of COMFORT this year, I’m asking for your best Holiday comfort recipes. Submit the recipe for your favorite holiday comfort food and, in 50 words or less, tell us why this recipe/food brings you joy, nostalgia, good memories and/or comfort during the holidays. We’ll choose five great recipes, share them with you, and award those who submitted them! Five winners will each receive $25.00 digital gift cards from The Colley House. We’ll try to share lots of the submitted recipes via this blog! 

Deadline for submitting your recipe is December 5th. Winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Submissions must be sent to byhcontest@gmail.com. Any submissions sent to any other address or text number or message will not be retrieved. (You ladies are all over the board and I cannot keep up with you!)

I hope your early merry is coming on you unexpectedly! But there are many readers who are struggling. Death has take loved ones of several who read this blog in the last few days. I am shocked and saddened at the early passing of some great Christians. I am profoundly thankful for the hope that anchors those left behind. There are others who wake up every day to a different kind of “lonely”. Some are finding themselves in marriages that are being ravaged by sin. Some face Satan’s attempted manipulation in intense ways.  Some are keeping vigils in the NICU or in the Pediatric ICU. Some are saying the slow good-bye that accompanies a parent with dementia. Some are battling cancer. Some are realizing that their children may never come back to holiness. The list is not exhaustible. But our God is good and He knows. I am praying for sisters who are fighting the depression that comes with holidays that are not filled with “merry.” I hope you are studying with me the “Father of Mercies” this month and trying to remember that the trials of this life are preparatory and brief, in comparison to our “stay” in the place where tears are banned!

I anxiously await that place.