Browsing Tag

Peace

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Are You Happier Now?

Posted on May 6, 2024

I was seventeen. I’d wake up in the morning and listen to “Layton and Dearman In the Morning” on WERC radio in Birmingham. I had just about three choices of music for my drive across the metro area to school. Today I have thousands of choices that I can activate by voice and stream to various spots in my house without moving a single device. I can regulate the music using  the watch on my wrist. At 17, my mom would hurry me to the breakfast table, lamenting that the eggs and biscuit and gravy would be cold if I didn’t come on. There was no quick microwave reheating. Sometimes I would ask my dad to let me go to the office with him and deliver me mid-morning to school because I had to finish a research paper or project. I’d need transportation to the big library downtown and I’d have to take note cards for documentation. There was no googling or running computer references or printing from an online document. If I needed to reach a parent while at the library, I’d have to hunt a phone and I’d need change. I had eight track tapes—just a few —of the Carpenters, Barry Manilow and John Denver in my old Impala and I had a machine to play them that covered the entire top of my chest of drawers. It would be a few months before I would meet my future husband, and, then, when we were apart, our calls, from rotary phones, would be strictly timed, because every minute was charged. Often we would wait till after eleven p.m. to talk, because then the rate dropped to half price. I couldn’t order most things from home. I couldn’t just ‘erase” or delete an error on the sheet on which I was typing. I had to actually get out white paint and a brush and paint over my mistakes, and they were many. Further, my typewriter seemed to always be running out of usable ribbon. If I needed a copy of something I was typing, I had to travel to the library and pay for Xerox copies to be made. If I missed The Brady Bunch on Friday night…well, I just missed it. There was no retrieval of a missed program. In Birmingham, racial unrest reached phenomenal proportions and Vietnam was still at the forefront of the news programming in that little one-(teeny) bath, three bedroom house I shared with five other people.

What hits me hard, almost every day, is that I have so much more now—technology, funding, convenience, living space. But all of that has not made life easier or better; just different. This is not a lament. It’s a praise. 

I praise Him that happiness is independent of the physical circumstances, and is, instead, found in Christ. If you are significantly happier today than you were ten years ago, you likely put on Christ in that interim. When this reality hits hard—that the presence of more ease is not the presence of more peace—I praise Him for the constitution of real contentment. Contentment in Christ spans years, and changes and accumulation or loss of possessions. It remains mostly unaffected by whatever is happening “out there” and rests squarely in what He is doing through the Word, “in here”—in my soul. 

Someone else expressed it better: “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11).

I’ve never truly learned to be abased. I’ve abounded in His mercy every day of my life. I’ve never been hungry as was Paul. But I’ve lived long enough to know that happiness never emerges from wealth, health, what eases the plans or what pleases the palate. He is the source of contentment. I’m thankful for the consistency factor of contentment in my Lord. He provides. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep Preview–I need this 2022-23 study!

Posted on May 23, 2022

I know there’s no one who really gets excited year-to-year about Digging Deep to the degree that I do. I’m very thankful to a benevolent God for the privilege of studying with His women around the world. And I am so thankful for those who are willing to help in the details of publishing this study; this year, especially Lindsey VanHook, Jennifer Benavides and Glenn Colley.  Just like for every grandmother, every grandchild is the favorite, every digging deep study is my favorite one yet. The study for the coming year has been born in the fire of trial, but borne along with hope and trust in the One who provides a peace that passes all my understanding. I love how His Word consumes and envelopes all of me: It is the antidote for emotional injury, the motivator for thanksgiving in the midst of blessings innumerable, the purifier of tainted thoughts and intents, the parameter of faithful living, the “edge” in my fight against personal wickedness, the spiritual inertia that keeps me from stopping cold in my journey to heaven and the hedge that makes me exchange hate and revenge for hope and restoration. And that’s just the beginning. The Word is the power of God for my salvation (Romans 1:16) and the thorough furnisher of my every good work (2 Timothy 3:16). My Father is simply unbelievable in His benevolence through Bible study.

Here’s a snippet from next year’s study. This “appetizer” from preparing the questions we will answer next year is making me hungry already (Matthew 5: 6). I hope you can travel this road toward heaven with us beginning September 1st. The Word never disappoints. (You don’t have to do Digging Deep to get to heaven. But you do need to dig deep.) Share and invite and encourage and promote. Here’s the excerpt:

God was with Abraham on Mount Moriah. His angel was in a thicket. He stayed Abraham’s hand (Genesis 22). God was with Joseph in the household of Potiphar. He ran with him to a place of purity and impending imprisonment (Genesis 39:21). He was with Moses, even talking to him from a burning bush. He knew about the shoes Moses was wearing and the rod he was carrying (Exodus 3,4). He was with Joshua, even being repetitive in His admonitions to be courageous and in His promises of going with him wherever Joshua proceeded to go (Joshua 1). Joshua must have felt great trepidation at the task ahead. God was in charge of cake- burning and the level of fleece moisture when he was accompanying Gideon (Judges 6). He was with Samuel. calling to him multiple times in the night (I1Samuel 3)  and later, making sure he knew what was what in the succession of kings and their anointing (1 Samuel 10,16). He was in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5), in the jail in King Zedekiah’s house (Jeremiah 32:2,3), and in the dungeon (Jeremiah 37:16) with Jeremiah. He was the fire in his bones (Jeremiah 20:9). He was with Hosea when he was forsaken by the wife God had commanded him to take, even having named his children (Hosea 1).  His name is not in the book of Esther, but he was in charge of gallows assignment in that amazing saga (Esther 7). He manifested even a bodily presence in a den of hungry lions (Daniel 6). He was in charge of keeping their mouths closed. He took on flesh and walked with His parents to Jerusalem (God was a child with parents!…Luke 2), with the devil on a desert mountaintop and on the temple’s pinnacle (Matthew 4), with Peter on water (Matthew 14), and with the apostles at a well in Samaria (John 4). He rode in the middle of a bunch of common people on a clothes-covered donkey outside of Jerusalem (Luke 19:35) and he walked to the garden, the house of Annas, the Praetorium, and to Golgotha (Mark 14,15). He walked from a tomb and then with two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24) and he walked to Bethany with the apostles when lifted up to the heavens to go away to prepare my place (Luke 24:50). This Jesus is with me. He lives in me as I emulate Him (Romans 8:9,10). He has called me, through His word, to the cross and, by faith, I have seen the empty tomb. I will rise, too, one day, and ever be with my Lord. That is ultimate peace. He is at my right hand. I will not be moved. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2021

Merry Christmas from the Colleys! We wish you …

  1. Time in the Word. Our lives will all be better, richer, more holy, more hopeful if we can all spend lots of time studying the roadmap to eternal bliss. The bliss starts now in lots of ways for those who choose searching out and doing life His way. Anger, bitterness, regret and loneliness  start now, too, for those who know His will and choose, over and over, to reject it. Open the book in 2022!
  2. The heart of a child. There’s joy in little things for those who are open to changing for Him and who are still wanting to “grow up and be…” Choose to forgive. Choose to forget. Choose to dream. Choose to change in all the right ways. 
  3. Health and energy for your challenges. There are some things over which you have no control. Sometimes life blindsides us. We pray calm and peace for those who are connected to our family in Him this year. But when you have “those days” (and maybe weeks or months), we pray that God will give you an extra measure of strength and patience to bear the load. He is good like that!
  4. Obedience to His gospel. No matter the reason you’ve never been washed in immersion and added to his one church, put that reason away. Make the trip to see me and let’s talk. Let’s make now the time. Some readers have been wanting to make this most important change for a long time. You cannot even know the feeling you will have of freedom and hope and family if you choose this washing and future faithfulness. I can help you find a group of His people who are following His specified New Testament plan in your corner of the world. I can help you from afar to be faithful and to be in heaven one day. It’s really all that matters! Take the plunge–in a literal way–now!
  5. A Matthew 25 mission. “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me.” For us, this has been the year of skipped vacations, missed outings to the catfish restaurant with friends, postponed husband/wife dates and missed movie nights. When it’s Christmastime at the Colleys and “It’s a Wonderful Life” never happened on our screen, something was terribly awry. But, for every missed appointment, there’s been someone who is least, who needed us. Do you know what a blessing that is?! Jesus has been right here with us and we have had the most amazing privilege of doing something for Him! Choose to “wash the feet” of the one who girded the towel in that upper room! You will not find joy like that in any other way. And when you just can’t go on serving, drink a cup of caffeinated something and go a little bit more!

If you can unwrap and treasure these five things, clean up that Christmas mess, hug your loved ones tightly and move on with hope to 2022, it will have been a great Christmas. Play with your new drone, make a cake with your new red mixer, marry that Christian man-of-your-dreams who gave you that new ring for Christmas, do whatever it is you do with that antique wooden mechanism that you can’t even identify, or step out in those new leather riding boots. Play with the little (and big) things you unwrapped. But pray with the big, eternal gifts you are unwrapping and internalizing as this challenging year comes to its close. We pray His peace for you. But remember, peace doesn’t always come in a quiet place with candles and soft music. Jesus said “My peace I leave with you” (along with a promise of persecution and suffering) to 12 men who were being given the biggest commission ever known to mankind (John 14).

Merry Christmas from the Colleys!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Caught Praying on the Monitor

Posted on July 4, 2016

13344646_911796716419_9022849487098569765_nCaught on the video monitor the other night, Ezra, who was twenty months old, at the time, was praying. In his own crib, in his nursery, door closed, and darkness gathered round him, he listed his little litany of people , ending with Baxter (his cat) and ended with a simple, but very audible “Amen”.  I know God heard little Ezra, because he’s the God who takes time for the little ones (Mark 10:14). 

What makes a twenty month old talk to God when He’s all alone? You know what does. It’s pretty simple. It’s night after night of “practice”. It’s doing it when he’s not alone each night. It’s story time with parents who know it’s important, for the development of faith in God, to talk to Him every night. It’s intrinsically knowing that, in his daddy’s arms, hands folded talking to God, all is right in his simple little world. That’s why Ezra knows how to pray. That’s why, however simply and trusting, he talks to God when he thinks he’s all alone. 

One day you will think you are alone. There will come a time when you are facing your own alone-ness and darkness. You might not know yet exactly what that darkness will be. It may be the loss of someone you love. It may be that someone you love disappoints you deeply. It may be the loss of your health or wealth. It may be the fall of your freedom or encroaching national enemies. It might be loneliness or divorce or addiction. It might be sin.

When your darkness comes, will you be able to talk to the Father, even from the darkness—when you need Him most? The answer is yes…if, like Ezra, you’ve been talking to Him every day in the light; if you’ve spoken with Him daily from your safe and happy place when surrounded by those you love. 

The simple faith that gives us the solace and strength of prayer in the dark times of our lives is not instantly gained when we need it. It’s developed during the good times. It’s having a relationship with the Almighty that’s constant and secure through the ups and downs of regular and normal days. That’s what gives us the peace and assurance of knowing He hears us when life gets irregular and abnormal…and sometimes even, very nearly, unbearable. I have friends  who use prayer as a panic button. I have other friends who never need a panic button because they’ve got the security that comes with a life time of communication through prayer and Bible study. They deeply understand and cling to the promise of Romans 8:28…that He’s making every day, and even the darkest night, turn into ultimate blessings for them, as His children.   They are secure when they are alone and life is dark, because, like Ezra, they’ve  “practiced” when times were easier and gentler. 

“Amen” is a very comforting word. It means “let it be so”. I’m glad “amen” is in little Ezra’s limited vocabulary. I’m glad he says it already to the One Who transcends everything Ezra will ever learn or know in both majesty and power. But that One is also the One who knows how many little red hairs are on His head (Luke 12:7). He knows his down-sitting and his uprising (Psalm 139:2). He knows Ezra’s litany of loved ones and He even knows His cat, Baxter. Are you talking to the One who loves you that much? You should be living in that kind of sweet security right now. Someday, when night falls, you will very much need the sweet security of prayer. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Peace and Silence… NOT the Same Thing

Posted on July 23, 2015

brigitteIf you haven’t seen the following video, you should watch. Brigitte Gabriel’s  point is well articulated and her logic is irrefutable. Radicals are the movers in society. The peaceful majority within any movement which contains a violent element quickly becomes very irrelevant.

As I think about her statements about Russia, Nazi Germany, Japan and China, I strongly agree with her logic  If the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and opposed to terrorism, why are they (the peaceful majority) not rising up against their own people, in the name of peace, to save innocent lives?  At the very least, they should be publicly descrying the frequent ongoing attacks by Muslim terrorists around the world. But such a public outcry by peaceful Muslims is rarely occurring. In its silence, the majority has become irrelevant. The radicals…the killers…are the ones who are making a tragic difference in the world today.

Have you ever thought about the fact that the “peaceful majority” of God’s people can, with its silence, become irrelevant? I am not suggesting that we should be a violent people as we oppose sin in the world around us. I am suggesting that we must be doing spiritual battle all the time. Paul said as much in Ephesians 6:10-12.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

We must never be satisfied to be silent as the devil seeks to destroy our families and congregations. We become irrelevant to the lost people around us if we fail to stand up and be counted for truth and righteousness. It is not enough to just “think” that the world around us is becoming more vile; to be sad in our hearts that our culture is given over to immorality. We must continue to speak the world-changing message of the gospel even when it is vehemently opposed by a segment of our society. We have to continue to say that homosexuality is vile affection (Romans 1), that those who are have left their spouses for reasons other than fornication and have remarried are living in adultery (Matthew 19), that abortion is murder, that Jesus Christ is the exclusive way to the Father (John 14), that faithfulness to God involves faithfulness to His church, and that there are indeed New Testament laws (absolute requirements) regulating worship and daily living for those in that church.

Bottom line: Being peaceful and being silent are two very different things. I can believe all the right things, but become irrelevant in the battle for holiness in my community and in my congregation if I am not willing to speak truth at every opportunity to my sisters and friends. If I know truth, but I am afraid to post, speak, write, tweet, and/or text truth, then I, by default, contribute to the victories of evil. Granted, there are varying degrees of opportunity for God’s women. But all of us have some venues in which we can and should be, peacefully but vocally, standing for truth, whether in a blog or simply in a conversation with a friend who is straddling a politically correct fence.

The relative silence of 2.3 million Muslim people living in the United States when 19 radical Muslim hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center, attacked the Pentagon and took the lives of 2,996 people is still deafening.

Let us be peaceful, but let us NOT be silent.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Right Turn

Posted on January 19, 2012

For four days now I’ve been wishing for a right turn. Right is the way I turn now to go to my dad’s regular hospital room and left is the way to the ICU, where he has spent the past three days. I’m thankful for all the turns in life through which the Father leads because I have that wonderful assurance of Romans 8:28. “All things” (the good things and the bad things) “work together” (are assimilated) “for good” (to be in the best eternal interests) “to those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose” (for faithful Christians). That makes every turn the right turn for me.

Lots of you already know that my father has been hospitalized since Friday afternoon. For many prayers and kind words and visits and snacks and meals and cards, we are very thankful. Dad’s main problem is pneumonia now and I covet your prayers for some easier breathing. I think the brewing pneumonia and resulting lack of oxygen to the brain last Friday morning was the cause for his disorientation and confusion, As he later said, “Cindy, I have just never been so inept and confused in my whole life.”

I said, “Dad, could you not even think to call me?”

“I could not think of the answers to any questions and I didn’t know what to do.”

So he went to the church building. In all of his confusion, he just put on his coat and tie, grabbed his glasses and his Bible and, in auto-pilot, he drove to the side of the building where he normally parks his car. There are six turns and about five stop lights between his house and the meeting place of the Jacksonville church of Christ. According to the surveillance camera later viewed, he entered the building at 10:24 A.M. and then proceeded to the auditorium. Still confused about why it was empty (apparently thinking it was time for one of the assemblies), he spent the next six hours, likely losing consciousness and falling, struggling to get up and becoming more and more desperate. Thankfully Homer Smith, one of the shepherds of the church, began to wonder about why his car was there and where he was. I was notified and I began asking everyone who might know about where he was until Homer, our new MVE (most valuable elder) found him and called the EMTs, who took him to the ER, where he was later admitted to the ICU.

He’s not out of the woods, but an enzyme count of 14,000–so very dangerously high–has dropped to 800. That’s impressive. He is completely coherent. That’s way better. His breathing is nothing but wheezing! That’s the part, for now, for which we need prayers. It’s really hard to watch and hear him breathe so laboriously.

But there is a blessing trail here. I can quickly enumerate ten of the many blessings about the whole episode:

  1. Win or lose the battle for life on this earth, the battle for life—the real battle–has already been won.
  2. There are ministers of the Father all around His people and they are extremely caring. They are servants with an attitude; the attitude of Matthew 25: 31-40.
  3. Eighty-nine years of relatively good health is a great record. Just being in this hospital or even on this internet makes us aware of so many whose trials are so premature compared to any we might be experiencing. Dad is the only surviving child in a family of eleven children. He’s been very blessed.
  4. When my dad “can’t think of any of the answers to any of the questions,” he goes to the place of worship. (That’s kind of like the Psalmist in Psalm 73.)
  5. There are lots of colder, more desolate places to be unconscious than in the church building.
  6. The proximity of excellent medical facilities in almost any region of our great country is a blessing we consistently count on.
  7. The presence of skilled doctors, nurses, technicians and even smiling volunteers is a very good gift from the Giver of all good gifts.
  8. Cousins, sons-in-law, husbands, fathers-in-law and brothers-in-law who are elders and preachers in the kingdom are double-kin and that’s special. I have about twenty-one of those and they are wonderful.
  9. Dad, the “lost” sheep, was found by a shepherd.
  10. “Clinically improved,” the term used to describe Dad today, is fun to hear and I love turning right.