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Faithfulness

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

On the Second Day of Digging Deep…(and Rebecca Mears)

Posted on August 7, 2024

On the first day of Digging Deep, a Digger said to me… A new deluxe edition for me…

On the second day of Digging Deep, my true love gave to me…two giant swag orders and a new deluxe edition for me.  

Rebecca Mears (on the right in the photo. Her sweet Mama is on the left), got through chemo, transfusions, a transplant from her brother Moises, and so much more, several years back, while sticking with Digging from her sick bed and hospital and place of begging.  Yesterday I got this message from her: 

I did not have a study group , it was just me, but I finished it!!!!

Sorry the picture is on my bed since I am sick right now , but so happy that I was able to finished it!!! Wonderful Bible study!!! I did all the practical applications, all the dig-a-bits and all the podcasts.

That’s just a little encouragement as so many are nearing the finish line. It’s just a finish line toward THE finish line: 

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

  the apostle Paul

Carry on toward the big finish whether or not you are doing this study. He is so very faithful!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

My Latest Little Bundle of Answered Prayers!

Posted on May 17, 2023

Last Wednesday night, I got to hold Chloe Annette Moon for the very first time while watching the utter joy and pride on the faces of big brothers John, Enoch and Titus. Chloe was all of four days old. She’d already traveled in three states and her mother and daddy brought her miles and miles out of their way (after picking up the boys following her delivery) to attend the gospel meeting where Glenn was preaching in Cookeville. They were on the back row in that little building, but as soon as the “amen” was said, two little white-headed boys literally bounded up to my second-row pew. Titus, who’s the oldest and now is five years old, said “Miss Cindy! Miss Cindy! We got a new baby and it’s a gull one!” 

It’s beyond humbling and instructive to me that they gave this precious little bundle fresh from God the middle name Annette– after me! I want to be a woman she can emulate and I hope I can watch her grow into a maidservant for Jehovah. I can’t wait for that! 

It’s also extra special to me that Chloe’s first name was chosen this year directly as a result of our “God of all Comfort “ Digging Deep study. In lesson two, here’s what we inferred, without reservation, about Chloe, a one-verse-wonder of a godly woman! 

We only read about her in one verse in our Bibles. But we know some things about her household. 1) They aptly and wisely identified problems and took them to the right place for answers. 2) They were a credible and faithful source of information to the great apostle, Paul. He did not question this report but, instead, addressed the problems. 3) Chloe had much to do with the salvation of many at Corinth. These are more than assumptions. Chloe’s household had the ear of Paul. What kind of mothers today can produce households which would be counted worthy to profoundly influence whole congregations in the direction of truth?  (From “God of All Comfort” by Cindy Colley)

May Chloe Annette Moon always go to the right place for the answers to life’s big questions. May she be a person of credibility, because of her consistent honesty and impeccable integrity. May her influence lead many souls to be around the throne. May she love her family, both in her physical house and in God’s house, enough to do hard things for their eternal good. May she truly respect divine inspiration in all of its general principles and all of its specifics, just like Chloe of Corinth. 

And may her brothers always adore her the way they do right now. 

What a blessing last Wednesday night was for this weary traveler! 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Lessons from Memory

Posted on April 3, 2023

I was driving my husband’s recently purchased pick-up truck through a veritable monsoon between Jacksonville, Florida and Columbus, Georgia. I stopped at a McDonald’s in a little town called Dawson, Georgia. The pickings were slim and I needed three things: a fish sandwich, a restroom, and a safe parking lot where I could put my seat back and sleep for fifteen minutes. But when I tried to start the truck after that little nap, the starter wouldn’t even turn over. I had left the headlights on and my battery was dead.

My husband was in Texas that day recording some material for World Video Bible School, but I caught him via phone just before he began taping. He said my plan to cross that highway on foot and go in that O’Reilly’s and ask them to come and test the battery was a good plan. So I did. The bad news was that they did not have enough employees to spare one for my battery check. I had to turn right back around and cross that highway again, to no avail. “We’ll send somebody over when our courier gets back in a little while.”

So, of course, I crossed back over and did that thing that never helps very much….I worried. Once I got to Columbus, I still had to load and cover some furniture items with a tarp and then make the last leg of my trip back to Huntsville, Alabama before I could sleep that night. It was afternoon already. (…And I really needed to play with the grandchildren in Columbus for a few minutes, too!)

I went inside the McDonald’s. Two old codgers sat there chewing the fat over their afternoon cups of coffee. I thought it might be worth trying, so I said “You don’t have a pair of jumper cables, do you? I left my lights on and I can’t get the auto parts folks to come for another little while.”

One of them said he did have some and he’d go get his truck and see if we could “start her up.” He uttered a profane word or two, but in a few minutes, I was excited to be ready to roll again. I jumped out of the cab and shut the door to run around and thank these two men one last time before leaving. Just as I did close the door, I heard that familiar electronic sound of power locks. I had just automatically locked my keys, purse, and phone in the truck…and it was running! I ran back around to confirm what I already knew…every door was locked up tight. I looked at one of the old friends. He said, “Ma’am, this just ain’t your day, is it?”

“We ain’t got no locksmith in our town.” (Of course not. Of course, they don’t.) “But the sheriff’s a friend of ours. That’s who we’ll have to call. He might have to scratch up your truck a little.” (Of course he will. Of course he will scratch up my husbands new/old truck on it’s very first trip out of town.)

But, at this moment, I was thankful for my new “cussing” friend and I started a conversation while we waited for the sheriff… about my husband—where he was and what he was doing out in Texas:

“Oh, he’s a preacher, then. Well, where do y’all live?”

“We live in Huntsville, Alabama. My husband preaches  in Huntsville for the West Huntsville church of Christ.”

‘Well, I have a great niece who lives in Huntsville…really in Madison… but I can’t think of her name right now….But what have you been doing all the way down in Florida?”

“Well, my son lives down there and his wife is having a baby. So I took a cradle that my husband made and I worked on the nursery.”

“Well, what does your son do in Jacksonville?”

“He’s a preacher, too. He preaches for the Lakeside church in Orange Park.”

“Well, why are you going to Columbus?”

I thought, at this point, about reserving some information, but these two old men just didn’t seem like perpetrators of injury. So I said, “Well, that’s where my daughter lives. Her husband preaches at the Edgewood church there in Columbus.”

“Well,” he responded, “I ain’t never heard of so much religion in one family.” Then he told me about something he’d watched with emotion on television—about a father being in thankful prayer when his son was saved after being wounded in one of the school shootings.

I said, “God is so good. I’ve been talking to him several times already today.”

He said, “I bet you have. You’re needin’ to, I believe.”

(I noticed that this kind old man never cursed again. He complained about the heat and humidity. [By now, the rain had given us a short respite.] He complained that his sheriff buddy was off-duty today. He complained about the deputy taking so long. But he never used that colorful language again.)

The deputy did not have the right tool (Of course she didn’t), so we waited a while more for the back-up car to come. I was glad, that if this kind of stupidity on my part was going to emerge, that it did happen in a sweet little town where the back-up patrol was called in for the Jimmy tools.

I could hardly watch while they did the truck-scratching work. I thought of my husband’s excitement the previous week, as he told me about this new white truck he’d found “without a scratch. Somebody did hit the bumper, so the man just bought a brand new bumper to replace the old one. I mean, Cindy, this truck is pristine. I think I’ll buy this truck.”

So, instead of watching,  I went inside and bought gift cards for the men who were being so very patient and kind to me. (I did have one credit card in my pocket.) These sweet men tried to refuse the little gifts, but they’d already told me that they eat breakfast together there at McDonald’s, with the sheriff and a few more men, every day, so I knew it was a practical little thank-you gift. I insisted.

Before long I was driving on toward those sweet grand-babies. By now I looked like a homeless granny without a shelter bridge. The driving rain was back with a vengeance. But, you know, grandchildren don’t notice drenched hair or wrinkled clothes. They’re just looking to see if you brought a surprise. So I’d stop and get a frosty just before I got to Wood Duck Lane. But I would not, under any circumstances, kill the motor or get out of the truck. I’d use the drive-through.

 

The take-homes:

  1. Worrying really never does avail much. Praying does (James 5:16).
  2. People often say they can’t help cursing. “It’s just such a habit.” That’s not true. Knowledge is power.
  3. Never close the door on a running vehicle. (especially if you have a child locked inside in a carseat….Can you even imagine?)
  4. There are lots of people who have crusty outsides, yet very benevolent, patient insides. Those people may be good candidates for conversion. some of them have not seen “much religion” and maybe you could show them some.
  5. Pristine material things will never be pristine for very long, anyway. So don’t sweat it so much when you are forced to help them along to the destined place of rest…the scrapyard.
  6. My husband is the best. His response about the door?…”Well, It’s not really that bad.”
  7. Sometimes you have to tell your husband you scratched up the truck. You should remember that on the days when he leaves his socks on the floor or scatters his popcorn on the rug under his chair.
  8. Good days are relative. You just need to look around (at cancer, at automobile accidents, at children lost to death, etc…) to realize that sometimes when “This just ain’t your day.” it really is very much your day. 
  9. Grandchildren make everything better—the one on the way in Florida and the ones who love ice cream in Georgia. But some of you were already ahead of me on this one. Thank God for them every day. Pray for their heavenward progression every day. Just do not let days go by without praying for each of them by name.
  10. Son-in-laws are good, too. Mine helped me tie up that furniture, a piece he had re-finished for a family member for Christmas. He then insisted that I was not going to drive home that night without him testing and replacing my battery. (And not even one curse word under his breath.)
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Extremism about Attendance?

Posted on October 13, 2022

Shelby Camp, Lewis, Roman, Kinley (l-r)

I heard this question from someone last week: “Do you really think that taking children to a second worship service on Sunday in a congregation where you don’t regularly attend should be a priority over spending quality time with a close family member?” I’ve thought about that a lot. 

The answer is “yes.”  A simple yes. Quality time in corporate worship of the One who sustains us is always more important than spending that time with any human being or in any material effort. But the important and overarching truth is that children need consistency. They need to see consistency in our ordered lives for the Lord, above all. They need to see, over and over and over again, that every single time the saints are assembling at regular times, we are there. They need to expect this and they do not need to see exceptions made for schedules that can easily be altered to accommodate the consistent pattern they’ve come to observe in our families. It takes something pretty big for our families to give consent to miss school, tournaments, performances and activities that have involved a lot of financial investment. How much more should parents take advantage of this extremely tangible and obvious display of devotion to God? As a matter of fact, when they see us making an extreme effort to be at every service or make a provision for a worship time when traveling, in lieu of the one we are missing in our home congregations, they are even more impressed at how important the spiritual things are in our hearts. They understand that every relationship pales into insignificance compared to the one we have with the Father we adore. They understand that every activity is in the background of, and is influenced by the commitment we have to our older Brother. They come to know that, in a world that rushes and presses our schedules, “there’s a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God.”  They know. They see.

My friend Shelby Camp had a tiny newborn in the NICU on a ventilator on a Sunday morning last spring. She and her husband Billy made the decision to go to worship God on that day instead of going to the hospital. She said this: “Why would we go to the hospital, where we can do nothing, when we can go and worship the One who can do anything?” 

She said it all. 

Going to worship as a matter of course is not extremism. It’s Daniel praying in the window toward the holy city. It’s a staunch commitment to never change the course of our sanctified lives because there’s an inconvenience or even a threat. Daniel could have reasoned it was way more important to continue his work for God’s people, in a land given over to idolatry than it was to bow in front of the window. He could have hidden to pray in an inner chamber. But it was matter of course and his example still talks, from a den of lions, to our families today. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

They Did Not Know…But God Did. (2-22-22)

Posted on February 22, 2022

It is 2-22-22. This fun date/number sequence has not happened in a hundred years. On that day, a woman in what is now Fort McClellan, Alabama, a sharecropper’s wife, was beginning to suspect that she was going to soon bear her 10th child. She would have been sad to know that this little boy would grow up to travel around the world in a military endeavor designed to stop a holocaust. She would have been happy to know that all her boys and girls would put on Christ in baptism. She would have been so glad to know that all 14 of her direct adult descendants through this unborn boy would be in the greatest kingdom in 2022,  and that 7 little children a hundred years later would be on the trajectory of heaven. I’m thankful that, through his new mercies on each of the 36,500 mornings between the two 2-22-22 dates, this grandmother’s  arms were around me many times. I’m glad the generations often touch to the third and fourth in a line. On that 2-22-22 date, there was another woman who was yet seven years away from bearing her only girl child to survive childbirth. This little girl was not born into a Christian home. But someone came to that household and shared the gospel. From that simple sharing, and in that 100 year lapse, came ( to my best count) nine elders and 13 ministers/preachers of the gospel. In the raising of the little boy born in ‘22 and in the sharing of the gospel in the little girl’s house, nobody thought they were doing profound things. While, relatively speaking, human beings don’t do profound things, still, when we humbly strive to do His will in our homes and in sharing the good news, God provides (there’s providence) an increase that’s just beyond our small scope of expectation or even our mental acumen.  One of those women was so busy picking the cotton, making the biscuits and gravy, trying to feed a family of twelve, hand-washing their overalls and building the fires to keep that house warm, that she didn’t think a lot about the scores of souls, like me, who would be influenced by her choices. The other, on 2-22-22 was desperately trying to put her life back together, with three small children, after an unfaithful husband had walked away multiple times. I’m glad she persevered, listened to the glad tidings and, eventually married my grandfather.  She surely did not have any idea about the 9 elders and 13 ministers. She didn’t even know the little boy at Fort McClellan who would marry the little girl she would bear in her second marriage. She didn’t know that, while she was sometimes wondering about the source of her next meal, God knew that two of her sons, who wore patched coveralls and often ate just cornbread and milk, would grow up to desire and share in their pulpits the sincere milk of the Word. She did not know those two little boys would baptize hundreds. But God knew. God knows about you, too. He can take the toughest, darkest times of your life and make something good for His kingdom. It could be, that on the next 2-22-22, your posterity may have brought many souls to glory. Right now, you are just busy feeding, nurturing and loving on your children and sharing the good news as you walk through simple doors He opens. You could be struggling through unfaithfulness in your marriage, persecution, poverty or betrayal . But your influence may be profoundly outdoing the mundane choices for good that you are making. He can make so much glory when his people just do the next right thing.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

2020: What was I thinking?

Posted on December 31, 2020

I looked back this morning at what I wrote as 2020 dawned. Three observations:

1.  I thought flash flooding in Huntsville was the “lion” of 2020.

2.  A little Christmas stomach bug was a hijacking virus.

3.  I thought I was returning to a routine for the New Year.

One simple statement is enough:  this mind-blowing wisdom from the Holy Spirit…May I allow Him to guide me through every day of 2021:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

And below is the innocence and naivety of my “Happy New Year” message one year ago….I needed the “Come  now” of James 4:13-16. One thing I got perennially right, though. There’s still a blessing trail for me and every reader. Here are my musings one year ago (and notice in the group photo that Ezra was the only one having a 2020 premonition):

In Huntsville, Alabama, 2020 brought great torrents of rain. Glenn and I telephoned 9-1-1 from our car last night to report some pretty serious flash flooding across streets that were still open and being treacherously navigated. As he made the call, on this evening in which the last of our sweet holiday company had flown back home, I thought “This is a pretty apropos ending to a torrentially blessed, but chaotic season. All we need now is to be stuck in this raging deluge.” 

But they say, “When it comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb.” Maybe there will be some “lamb” days—some gentle and serene days in 2020 for work and contemplation and especially for Digging Deep (https://thecolleyhouse.org/digging-deep). I’m ready to put the house back together and search for some semblance of routine. Remember, the December podcast is next Tuesday night!

We had a ton of fun company in this house (that included a suicidal squirrel…https://thecolleyhouse.org/and-prior-to-the-lesson-this-morning), a lightning storm (that took out our largest backyard tree, our internet, Roku, modem, router and a window in the cabin), a virus that hijacked our Christmas morning plans, and one awful day when they could not hear a heartbeat from my grandchild that’s still in the womb.

But you know, there’s always that blessing trail (https://thecolleyhouse.org/the-blessing-trail). All of our children, viruses and all, were here with us. (My husband is going to speak at a baby’s funeral this very morning.) We are wealthy enough to be extremely dependent on our internet. The most stressful part of its absence was that I was falling behind on my Digging Deep research and my communication with the greatest group of encouraging sisters in the world! My husband, who was standing only a few feet from that giant oak tree, is alive and well (although his hearing may be a little worse for that wear)!  Our baby was just hiding the heartbeat, after all, and went galloping like a champ during the next, more intensive sonogram. The man, who came to work on our internet, took the time to talk with me about God’s plan of salvation, about baptism for the remission of sins, and he even tested the internet by going to our West Huntsville page. He says, “My wife and I will definitely be visiting your church. It sounds like you are teaching just the Bible and that is a rare thing.” The blessing trail, now and always, just goes on and on. He is so good.

He is good, not just to those like me who are in a season of extreme prosperity in so many ways. He is good, even to those who are suffering horrible reversals today. It’s my prayer during 2020, that I can behave, EVERY day, as though I really believe He is glorious and good. When there is stress and when there is peace; when there is encouragement and when there is sharp criticism; when there is devastation and when there is exultant joy; when there is danger and when there is safety—may I constantly be reminded of his supremacy and ultimate blessing in my life as His faithful daughter (Romans 8:28). 

I know the Digging Deep study will help me to keep my mind focused in exactly this way. I’m going to invite someone to do this study with us this very week. I hope you will, too. As women are making their New Year’s resolutions, it’s a great time to ask them to jump in and make this a deeper year in His Word.