Browsing Tag

Encouragement

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

A Package of Pure Encouragement

Posted on September 23, 2024

First, remember podcast is tomorrow night here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/live-digging-deep-video-podcast.  Subsequent podcasts for the remainder of 2024 are October 22nd, November 19th and January 7th (December’s podcast). This represents one change from our original plan, so mark these dates! And next…

I may have cried when I read this little package of mail delivered to me last Wednesday night by our church secretary. It was a letter from  Jennifer Allen, of McCook Nebraska, accompanied by letters from various places in Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, and Alberta, Canada. It seems Jennifer and some of the ladies in McCook Nebraska have done the study for several years. It just fed my soul to learn that God’s Word was changing women’s lives in that remote ( to me, anyway) place. 

Then Jennifer went on to say that there were women in the larger area who did not have groups with which to meet. SO Jennifer and her daughter decided to start another group via Zoom in which these ladies in somewhat discouraging situations could find sisters who are in the Word. Jennifer’s mother-in-law and several of her nieces, and two sisters-in-law were able to join that Zoom group. As a result of these two women, there are two groups in these small churches that are presently struggling through a hopeful formation process. Please pray for them. 

Marissa is a digger from McCook who has studied along for years. She recently moved a couple of hours away and now has eighteen ladies in her own group in her new (and very small) congregation. The McCook ladies are planning a field trip to go and visit the new group! 

Jennifer’s youngest daughter moved to Kansas and now has about 12 ladies signed up in her new group in that place. No wonder we are running out of books down here! We just had no idea how God was blessing in areas to which we have never even traveled. He is so amazingly resourceful. I praise Him for the chance to navigate His wonderful blessing of the Dig! I praise him for the highways of evangelism that he paves for all of us! He is so very good to Digging Deep! 

So my husband came in as I was reading through this voluminous pile of mail, that I really had forgotten had been in my purse for a couple of days. He said “Oh no. What’s wrong?” 

I said, “Everything is right. You have to sit down here and let me read you this envelope of encouragement.”  

He kept interrupting to say things like “ Oh Wow! I do not think about places like this when I am packing those books. God is really blessing this work.”…and “Aren’t they just so sweet to you?”  

And then there’s this mustard seed necklace that one of them made (yes, made) for me. I will treasure it and think about the trees in Nebraska and Kansas and the Dakotas and Canada whenever I wear it. My faith was small, like a mustard seed 14 years ago when God started this digging phenomena. I had no idea I was any part of any group, much less an international dig into the Word. that would continue for more than a decade now. I did not do any of this, though. It was only my tiny mustard seed, that God used to “move this mountain.” 

I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 

I realize that Jesus was speaking to the apostles here and that their moved mountains would truly be miraculous;  but I’m telling you, sisters…God can providentially move mountains, too and He is moving mountains of sin as far away as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). He is moving hearts of women to come back to the places of blessing where He has called us to be. He is applying the blood of Jesus to souls of women who were lost before they came to know a few diggers in their areas. He is moving!… through a Bible study that I never even knew, back in 2010, was emerging. I am truly amazed that I get to watch, up-close, the hand of God moving through Digging Deep. It is absolutely nothing I did or will ever do. He just showed me what HE could do with an insignificant little beginning that I thought was “one and done.”  He just gave me this work to do. I praise Him for this providence. I praise Him for the many women who are helping to make the Dig deeper and better in so many ways, from tech to organization aspects, to inviting, to prayer. I praise Him!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

We can add a little blessing!

Posted on April 12, 2023

I hope you can take a minute today to read the following letter I received from my dear old friend Nancy Cooper (on the left the photo), of Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Nancy lived across the hall from me in Scott Hall on the FHU campus back in some really fun and preparatory days of our lives.  I plan to love her for all of eternity (if there could ever be an “all” in an “eternity” modifier.) Nancy is now an avid digger, encourager and kingdom worker. In fact, there’d be a great hole in lots of hearts, families, and in the church in Mount Sterling, if Nancy were not present in these entities.

She’s very encouraging to me about Digging Deep. But, as you know, any good that comes from Digging Deep is not to my credit. God saw that it was begun, that it reached a lot of women and he is responsible for its continued growth. I’m just a broken tool that He’s redeemed and made new and that he continues to bless in His hand. The picture and the story below are precious and I knew you would want to be a part of encouraging this lady. I got Nancy’s permission to share her letter with you and then I asked if it would be okay for all of us to send her cards of encouragement. She said that would be wonderful… that JoJo loves to get mail! Let’s be sure she gets some and that her husband is reading lots of cards to her.

Here’s Nancy’s letter. It blessed me and it’s an honor to get to send this card and to pray for this sister. Pray she’ll be attending again soon. Pray she will be encouraged in the faith by her new relationships. Pray for her influence at home. There are scores of you who are extremely good at sacrificial prayer and writing encouraging cards. I know this, personally! (You can even substitute this card for your “practically speaking” this month, if you’re over-the-top busy.)

Here’s Nancy’s letter:

 

Good Morning Cindy. This is a picture of my good friend Jojo Walker and me taken last May at my daughter’s Derby party…hence the hats. The party is just a fun time to stuff your face and watch the derby together. Jojo is a year younger than me. She grew up in a neighboring congregation, but we went to school together and church camp every summer. Several years ago she was diagnosed with cerebellar degeneration with ataxia.
She is wheelchair bound, pretty much blind, has only limited use of right hand…no left…very little understandable speech. Her mind is still very sharp.

Anyway, Covid really isolated her and her husband. Even more so for her, because with this condition she can’t take vaccines. Through Covid she began calling me. I gently tried last spring to encourage her husband to get her out a little. So by August, he agreed she could come to Digging Deep. I pick her up each time and sometimes she comes to my house for a while after class. She has a wonderful sister who helps oversee a lot of her medical care. So they were just able to get a wheelchair accessible SUV, which makes transport soooo much easier and much safer for her.

But my real message here is that Digging Deep has opened up her world in sooooo many ways. She now has Christian sisters who never knew her before. She got a new phone and I am working with her to help navigate it so I send your dig-a-bits.  So she has a way to get fed spiritually through the week. Reading is just out. Her husband is a very good, devoted man to Jojo. He is amazing at all he does for her complete care. But he is not a Christian. Jojo asked me to set up a meeting with our  preacher after our study on Tuesday. She rededicated  her life.

Our preacher encouraged her that while Roger is not receptive right now, she can be a great influencer just continuing her studies and being a good wife. Roger has been diligent to bring her to church until Covid. So just another story, Cindy, of the impact Digging Deep has had on another soul. I am very hopeful that, by May, Roger will bring her back to church. She has friends now, sisters who support her, something to look forward to each week, a way to be spiritually fed between worships, and the topic of comfort could not have been more appropriate for her.

So just wanted you to know just one more precious soul fed and comforted through your hard work and dedication which we all count to God’s  glory!!!
Much love and admiration!
Nancy

She would so love a card from you.
Here is her address:

Jojo Walker
700 Lyon Ave.
Mt. Sterling, Ky 40353

Diggers, you’re the best! Thanks in advance for being a channel of His goodness to this sister!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Carol Dodd…A Name in the Book

Posted on May 2, 2022

I know God knows best, but I wish Carol could have lived a little while longer because, unlike most people diagnosed with cancer, she came into her spiritual prime AFTER that diagnosis. Not that she wasn’t a force for the devil to reckon with prior to the cancer, but, with all the spiritual tenacity that was characteristic of her whole life, she determined to spend the last months of her life influencing, patterning and preparing for the time when she “being dead, yet speaks” (Hebrews 11:4). And she does speak with clarity now. She went to her long home (Ecclesiastes 12:5) on Saturday morning early and left many of us just longing for the reunion we will know one day. More people will enjoy the reunion because Carol lived. 

Carol was never self-serving and so the book that was published, of her deep Bible studies and lessons presented to women, was presented to her as a surprise. The first run quickly sold out and we have a very limited supply of the second printing. If you want one by which you may remember Carol, but most importantly draw closer to the God she served, order here: www.thecolleyhouse.org

Let me emphasize that all proceeds will be given directly to Don. Although we have the books and are mailing them, no proceeds will go to The Colley House. It’s an excellent book for personal study or ladies classes. 

She was pretty special. She loved Christmas, Harry Potter, eating Mexican food with us and Digging Deep. Most of all, she loved God. She knew this life was a testing ground. She passed. I know she did. That’s the blessed assurance. There is nothing to mourn except for the selfish realization that I will miss her constant encouragement sorely. (And then there’s the painful reality that so many others will miss her in countless ways; especially her devoted husband, Don.) She truly cared about my children. She loved my grandchildren. She taught them and many of your children and grandchildren. She was the brightest source of encouragement that I’ve known in this world in a very long time. The chasm of this void will be deep for many. We should pray for each other as we walk through the valley of the shadow of this death (Psalm 23:4). He is with us.

Once pretty early in our relationship, Carol thought I had unfriended her on Facebook. In typical Carol fashion, she fretted and worried and finally came up with the courage to ask Glenn why I had done that. She was surprised to find that, upon investigation, she had accidentally unfriended me! I laughed so hard. I’m glad there’s another book in which the only erasures are done with God’s blotter.

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels (Revelation 3:5).

A recent letter to encourage a child…It did encourage him.

I’m glad that book will be opened and, once closed, my time and bliss with sisters will have no bounds. Praise Him!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

A Little Good News!

Posted on April 21, 2022

I don’t know about you, but it’s a temptation for me to fail to count the blessings when the schedule is overrun with things I’d rather not be doing. But, when I go to God in the hard times, it becomes obvious to me that there are no fewer blessings in the hard times than there were in the good times. God’s still present. He is still doing what He has always done for me–sustaining and making me lie down in the green pastures…restoring my soul. Sometimes, it’s even obvious to me that He grabs my most arrested view of His mercies when I am drowning in conflicts and commitments.

A few months back, you and I wrote letters of encouragement to Christians in a struggling Vermont congregation. When we finished, we got the great news that Sally Bristol had obeyed the gospel. We’d been praying for growth in that church and God was answering and giving the increase. We praised Him and we wrote Sally letters of encouragement. Remember Sally?

Roger on the left and (preacher) Jason Floyd on the right.

Well, the gospel is powerful and now, after almost two years, Sally’s son, Roger Bourne, Jr.,  has given his life to Christ in baptism and he, too, has risen to walk a new and blessed life! Praise God with me today as He is still hearing and answering. I believe Roger is the second of two men who have been baptized in recent weeks. If you’d like to send a card to Roger, or even another one to Sally, you may do so at this address:

℅ church of Christ

 524 South St

 Bennington, VT 05201

You may want to encourage the local preacher Jason Floyd and His wife Sarah, as well. Sometimes, those of us in areas with several and large churches forget the enormity of the struggle in cold and sparsely “Christian-populated” places like Vermont. I am traveling to New Hampshire in a couple of weeks to speak to ladies and I can tell you, they are eager for fellowship and learning from the Word. I can’t wait. I know they will bless and encourage me in their zeal and faith.

And, as always, if your kids helped you encourage this church a couple of years back, be sure you show them the newest Bennington brother! Maybe they will want to write again! Here’s the link to read about the baptisms: https://www.facebook.com/214031105408084/posts/2826593250818510/?sfnsn=mo

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“There’ll be days like this…”

Posted on October 7, 2021

“There’ll be days like this,” my mama said. There have been a few times in my life when things that are pretty routine have become infrequent. Things like putting on make-up or cleaning the trash out of my car or making a path through my living room or actually calculating whether there are too many carbs in this meal I’ve prepared. Some of the days of care-taking for my parents were like that. Some of the days when I was finishing a degree and some of the days when my children were very young. These kinds of days and weeks don’t always text ahead and ask if I’m ready for their visitation. Often it’s just a series of unexpected events that together make life suddenly and abruptly frantic and chaotic. 

Such are the days of this autumn. It’s my favorite time of the year, in any normal year. But this year, there are family members with Covid, large projects for which I am responsible, and lots of extra people in my house due to circumstances that I did not plan or execute. I still love the colors outside, the chill in the air, the football games I’m not watching, the fall trip to see the leaves that we’re not taking this year,  the pumpkin spice, and the autumn decorations in the bins downstairs that I’ve not had time to open. In fact, I praise Him everyday for the beauty and provision all around me. But I just prioritize and pray He will help me get the things done that really matter—eternal things—and not worry about the rest. 

Last night Glenn prayed that God would not interpret the despair that sometimes overtakes us, in seasons of distress or busy-ness, as ingratitude, because “…you have blessed us immeasurably and we don’t want to ever appear as if we don’t know that.” I’ve been thinking about how we make sure that we are not viewed, by God or man, as ungrateful. I think there are two or three obvious ways. 

  1. We keep sharing the good news. We cannot ever get so busy or burdened that we are not evangelistic. We have to keep passing out those cards inviting people to study. We have to keep taking time to meet up with the new converts and trying to nurture infant faiths. We have to take children with whom we have influence, in our laps and look straight into their eyes and talk about how great God is every day. We can’t forget, even when we are needing to hurry and get home, to find the visitors at our services and welcome them and make ourselves available to answer their questions. I think, in these ways, we show our Father that we understand that our greatest blessing has remained untouched by any adversity this life may throw our way. 
  1. We verbalize to God. Sometimes it helps me, in the busiest times of life, to pray on my knees, or to pray out loud while driving. In the times when there’s little sleep and lots of bustle, prayer sitting in a recliner or lying in bed, can quickly digress into unintelligible sentences. Speaking our gratitude to Him every day with clarity, is one way we magnify Him (Psalm 69: 30).
  1. We look around for encouragement. Now, I know that, when you’re feeding a crowd for every meal around your own table, you may not be taking as many meals to the grieving or the sick of your congregation. When you are struggling financially, your service has to be on the skinny. When you’re sick, spreading love may also be spreading germs. But Ola Mae is a nonagenarian with Covid and she continues to make and send cards of encouragement to many people in many places. Carol is in the fourth stage of cancer and she is the number one encourager, to the Colleys and many others, through the written word. Mark is suffering from Crohn’s disease and his heartfelt teaching and admonishing through song in every worship service brings tears to my eyes when I sit near him. Glenn was pretty sick earlier this fall, but I have watched him just keep on faithfully administering that role of being the meat in the sandwich generation while getting back on his feet and back in his pulpit. Lin has had some serious health complications this fall…some major medical tests being done—but she keeps right on heading up more than one ministry in her congregation and homeschooling her children and she even spoke at a recent ladies event. Teresa has seriously struggled with multiple health issues, but spoke from home via zoom at a great ladies day last weekend. Betty and Bill both had Covid this fall, but they are right back in their pew now and serving as the leaders of our group of active seniors. Paul is dealing daily with parents who are not long for this earth and he, too, is balancing parents and kids in stressful times, but he calls every day to encourage my husband. I’m just saying, look around. You will find many examples of extreme gratitude and you will find many reasons to get on your knees and thank the good Lord. 
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley Digging Deep Bible Study

March On!

Posted on March 5, 2021
Wow! Time’s getting by. I hope you’re “March-ing on!” There’s one more D.A.B. still to be posted for February. It’s about capital punishment, once more, (which really has something to do with both Feb. and March…so good.) It’s time to get four more up on the seventh command about avoiding the destructive sin of adultery.
The March video podcast will be early (the sixteenth) and Holly Smith, who is a deep Bible student, joins us that night. I’m excited about some new equipment and expertise which is allowing us to use more cameras, a better mic, and better dual transmission on both Facebook and Livestream. That podcast is just eleven days away!
Please pray as the study for 2021-22 is being written in the last half of this month. Be thinking of whom to invite to join us this next year. All systems are go, so far, for Polishing the Pulpit in August in Sevierville, TN, where the topic for next year will be revealed. I’m always excited about that because it’s a personal source of strength for me as I get to see so many women genuinely excited about the Word in their hearts and actions.
Also remaining in the month of March, Glenn and I will be traveling to Jacksonville, FL for a gospel meeting and Hannah and I will be speaking at the Brushy church in Centerville, Tennessee on the 20th. The preliminary plans and the flyer for the November, 2022 Italy/Israel trip are being prepared. I hope to have those to you by mid March. Additionally, many of our churches will be making final preparations for the Lads to Leaders convention. As my husband is consumed with making sure his bases at the Nashville convention are covered, I am reminded to pray for all of those who are trying to make our conventions happen in the most challenging of times for gatherings and fellowship. This is just a hard task and prayers for wisdom for those who are working so hard to make this happen are the one thing we are all privileged to offer. I have seen firsthand and frequently the value of this program in young lives and congregations. It’s a providential tool that has impacted thousands and continues to ultimately lead to souls in heaven. So pray about this.
I’m not forgetting to pray for the legion of women who are hurting. Shirley has lost her husband, and so has Joan. Carol is fighting cancer. Nina is praying hard for a sick grandchild. Another Carol is having tests done. Patsy is awaiting medical test results, too. Maggie is suffering in several ways. Terri is having an amazingly hectic month. Dene’ is praying hard for several members of her family. Jen is praying for the children in her world. Tammy is struggling, physically. Mariah is a brand new Christian and working to be victorious. Amy is determined to keep her family in the Word while in, but not of, the world. Sarah is helping another family who is trying to do that, also. Lisa is going the second, third and fourth mile in taking care of people who need her. And my list could just go on from there. I know your’s does, too. If I know anything from this list that grows each time I open my phone or laptop, it’s this: We all need Digging Deep. The Word sustains, clarifies, strengthens and gives us joy. We need those things in this time when (perhaps it’s just my perspective), but it seems there’s an almost measurable and tangible increase in suffering and sorrow around us. You can be in the Word without Digging Deep, but I know that I’d be less equipped to be diligent in study without a concrete plan in my calendar.
Finally, pray for our country. Oh yes, pray for America. But I really mean pray for the country of our truest citizenship. Pray for the Kingdom that has its governmental headquarters in heaven. Pray that we can shine in this era of chaos and rebellion against the authority that emanates from heaven itself. Pray that we can find our way with the light of His Word to that throne of ultimate authority. May we do so with boldness in a world that largely mocks our devotion to King Jesus! Each of us is just one person, but our God is the God of loaves and fishes!