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Prayer

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep: Things You Need to Know…

Posted on September 15, 2025
  1. The first video podcast for MORE is on Tuesday,  the 23rd of this month at 7 CST. Leslie Hamby is joining me on a brand new set with brand new equipment. You can find the podcast info  and all other sites you need here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/digging-deep-introduction?fbclid=IwY2xjawM054BleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHt7hJ_ezia7Dr85bqkMzVwx7MMbR3qtiBDP2BOuxBJvJDP3FC853MguTSxat_aem_RpCXab5FUdNGNcsc8X_4tQ.     I hope you can watch live, but, if not, the archives are always on the Digging Deep in God’s Word youtube channel. 
  2. Dig-a-bits will remain audio for the time being. Most of you prefer listening while you are being productive (a.k.a. driving your children to all the things), so we will keep those audio-only for the time being, at least. You find those linked in the intro link above as well. They are also always on the DD facebook page.  
  3. Watch the Digging Deep in God’s Word FB page if you are on facebook for help with passages, questions, and updates. For those of you who are in a group or zooming with others, please help by identifying those who are not on facebook and being sure they know any pertinent study information. 
  4. INVITE! It’s an easy catch-up through November, so please think of those who may have been affected by recent national tragedies or events and who may be ready to investigate the Word. There is not a better place to start than by a rich study of the God of More.
  5. Pray for Digging Deep. It’s just a tool for disseminating the most important information that women can know prior to our universal appointment with death. But it is one effective tool and it has proven to reach souls for heaven. Praise Him for that, but pray for its continued reach. I think I ask too much and too personally, but pray for me, too: that I can balance all the jobs and delegations of tasks and still be faithful in prayer and devotion and in ministering to the physical family He’s given me. Pray for joy for all the diggers as we apply His word. Pray especially for those in difficult places where believers are in less safe spaces. There are groups in tougher places.
  6. Help each other. I know you do this naturally. I see it all the time. But take an extra look this month at those you know who are digging and take the time to say a word of encouragement, especially to those who are new or young in faith. That’s compassion and it is also evangelism in a pure form. Digging Deep is deeply evangelistic, at its core. Heaven is always the goal. 
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

This CARDIGAN!

Posted on July 12, 2025

Promised a pic. So here it is. It’ll be on the site (www.thecolleyhouse.org) on the 19th of July and I will have a few in Branson next week. It’s 58% cotton and 38% modal and 4% spandex. Mine is 27 inches long. (I love long!) It’s roomy, but I would still say it’s true to size. It has just a little stretch–enough to give with movement, but not enough to look extremely casual. It’s a true black with a khaki/gold embroidery. I  love it!

Please ask the Father to bless the upcoming PTP conferences. I’m not the “counter” but I’d say we will be in the midst of around 8K Christians in these combined conferences. I can’t even grasp the wonder of that kind of togetherness for the kingdom people. Please pray for every message delivered and every activity. Pray for safety for the travelers and for tender hearts in every room. Pray for the kids, that all the fun and games will be wonderful and under the great umbrella of putting a faith in them that will take them through the testing ground of life and to the throne of eternal life. Jesus loves the little children! (https://www.facebook.com/502291383/videos/pcb.10159173392501384/1313854342902868). Pray for Celine and Drew as they do all the things they for for the littles (and for others, too!) Pray for Digging Deep, that it can grow in every way that is His will. Pray for digging souls, especially those who are outside of Christ. There are lots of diggers in that category.

Pray for me. Is that okay to say? It’s sure not all about me. (One of my lessons next week is called “7 Suggestions for Overcoming the ‘Me Mentality’.) But it seems I  constantly need his grace and strength these days, more than ever.  I want to stay the course, but on some days, I am so weak and faltering. As I study for these lessons at Branson, I realize, even more than ever, my great dependence on Him, my constant need for forgiveness (that He constantly provides)  and the mess that I’d be without Him!  I’m praying for you, too… every digger.  I am wholly convicted of the power that’s in our  pleadings.

And, knowing I will leave someone out, especially pray for my little friend, Eli, who is battling for his life (…we go way back!), my friend Dan, who is far from home and battling a rare form of cancer, my friend Rayford, whose kidneys are failing (but there is hope), and my friend John, who keeps struggling after being hit (as a pedestrian) by a van. And I know you are praying for the mothers and fathers and families in and around Kerr County, Texas. I keep trying to put myself in the shoes of the mothers who left their little girls at camp, never to see them alive again. I can’t go there for long. Cody Michael and Project Unify has boots on the ground there now. The devastation is big. You can find info about this work here: https://www.1615ministries.com/project-unify.  As I understand it, Project Unify is a work under the elders of the New Antioch church in Hillsboro, Alabama.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“Well, God can hear my words…”

Posted on March 10, 2025

Don’t forget to make your guess! Lily’s weight and birth time. Instructions here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=19056&action=edit

And speaking of the babes/ It’s always “out of the mouths of babes”…

We have three with us this weekend, while Hannah is speaking at a ladies day at the good Sandyville church near Parkersburg, WV. When three are here it’s a noise competition and a general knock-down/drag out—not of people, but things. Today, I’m actually taking them to explore a nearby cave. I think the damage today will be under the earth and who will know? I think if Eliza Jane says “I a-uh-dentally” one more time, I’ll…well, I’ll probably grab her up again and tickle her. (Actually, I can no longer pick her up, which makes me very sad! But she is off the charts—both weight and height.)

So, it was 3:53 am and I was about done. I’d already been up with Ezra, who had a bad dream, when Eliza came pitter-pattering to my bedside and cried “I had a bad dweam!” 

I must say here that I didn’t really believe her. I really thought that it was all those other times she’d said that and I had lifted her into my bed and snuggled her back to sleep that had driven her to imagine that her benign dreams were a little bit “bad”; bad enough to come and climb in. I lifted her up and put her between Papa and me. That cast on her right arm is “to be reckoned with” in a double bed with three people! (It is a “violet” cast and she is so proud of it.)

Eliza then whispered “I don’t think you can hear my wuhds.” 

I said, :I don’t need to hear your words. We are not talking. We are going to sleep.” 

Then she softly whispered “Well, God can hear my wuhds.” 

I woke up then, for maybe the first time. “Oh, yes, you go ahead and talk to God. I can hear, too.” 

The she whispered, “Dee-ah God, PWEASE, oh PWEASE, don’t let me have any mow-ah bad, ‘cary dreams. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Well, I was pricked. I had doubted the severity of her dreams. But, I did go right back to sleep (With my arm securing the otherwise unruly cast) in spite of my conscience-ache . 

In the morning, I asked her if she could remember her dream. 

“Oh yes. It was mama and me and somebody else. Mama spilled a bag of cookies and a whole bunch of dogs came and ate dem all up. When dey finished eating dem, dey attacked us.” 

I said “Did they bite you?” 

She said “Dey didn’t get us. We ran and ran and while we runned, I waked up.” 

Lord, Help me to be more trusting of the innocent ones, more sympathetic and comforting in their little trials and more assured that You hear our whispers. And help me to remember that sometimes the innocent ones who need me may be bigger people, too.

Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish (Matthew 18:14).

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Praying for JoJo

Posted on February 21, 2025

On April 12, 2023, this blog introduced JoJo Walker. You can read about her here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/we-can-add-a-little-blessing. She’s suffered for a long time from cerebellar ataxia. It’s taken much of the normalcy from her life for many years and it seems that it’s soon to reposition her to a place where she will never suffer with it again. She’s a digger and the local sisters in the dig made JoJo feel connected during a time in which Covid made many, including JoJo, feel very isolated and disconnected. Two years ago, she rededicated her life, one that had become somewhat distant and discouraged. Since that rededication, she has been digging and preparing for eternal life. Her husband has been encouraged, too.

Earlier this week, JoJo had a relatively good day. She was responsive and alert. She listened to the hymns she had requested: “The Greatest Commands” and “Someday.” Best of all, she and her husband requested that she be sent a copy of this month’s Digging Deep study. This was quickly done and Mrs. JoJo and company studied through the passage about that very sick woman being loosed from that eighteen-years of being bowed over.

All of the faithful will be loosed one day from every malady, every disease, every heartache and every enemy. The alternative to living in pain looks very good to the Christian. I think it is interesting that the description of the woman’s loosing is used in regard to our Lord in Acts 2:24:

Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

On that Sunday morning following the crucifixion, our Lord was loosed from the pangs of death. The resurrection loosed our Lord. His resurrection looses us, too, from the pangs of death and all its attendant afflictions. Because of it, we are, ultimately delivered from the  trials of this life.

Will you be loosed from the pangs?  Raised in corruption, glory and power?

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power (I Cor. 15:42, 43).

When I first wrote about JoJo, I was given permission to share her address. I do so again now. I think cards will be a blessing now, especially to Mr. Roger. May He richly bless us all as we prepare to be loosed!

Roger and JoJo

700 Lyon Ave

Mount Sterling, Kentucky 40353

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley Caleb Colley

I Found my List!

Posted on September 9, 2024

I have not been this excited to find a piece of paper in a long time. Last July, when I was speaking in Branson at Polishing the Pulpit, we discussed our troubled children, specifically the ones who seem bent on the deconstruction of Christianity in their lives. I promised, then and there, to pray, for the next year, for any children whose names were given to me that day.  I, in turn, asked for prayers for my children and grandchildren. The prayers of sisters are a powerful resource. Lots of names were given to me after I finished speaking that day. I left a sheet of paper on the stage just in case someone wanted to add a child’s name. 

I’ve grieved since that time because I lost that extensive list of children before I got home. I looked and looked. While I prayed for the group, as a whole, I could not pray for them by name. I did not even know enough to apologize to the mamas who had given me the names of the precious souls for which to pray. 

Saturday night, I found the list! While studying for another event, I began to look through some file folders that were stacked, believe it or not, in my pantry. (I know. You probably are not blessed to have a combination pantry and office.)  I was elated when that sheet of paper peeked out of that folder deep in that stack! Fifty-two names assigned to eternal souls that are extremely loved by women of God, have been added to my prayer list in the front of my Digging Deep book. Thirteen of the names are children who live together in a children’s home in Mississippi. 

Two of mine, with Kathy, @ PTP-Branson

It was my grief that I lost the list. It’s my honor, now, to pray for these children by name. I know what it’s like to plead for the children we love! Every name is representative of a life, full of value and events and circumstances and challenges. Each one represents an eventual departure from this life to an existence in one of two places. I wish I could pray every single one into heaven. I cannot. But I can pray for wisdom for their mamas. I can pray for opportunities to influence, for people in their lives who can help them see the need for Christianity always, and for extension of life for those who are lost. I can pray for their families. 

I know that my prayers are not more powerful than yours. But our prayers together are a particular way we can spiritually encourage each other and access THE power that can do more than we ask or imagine. To the mamas who asked me to pray, I’m so sorry I lost that list. And to the mamas who pray for our family, many thanks from a deep place!

Prayer changes things. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“Shleeping” in a Palace

Posted on July 10, 2024

Here we are at Polishing the Pulpit-Branson 2024! All the children, but especially Eliza Jane are so excited to be “shleeping “ in a palace. “I never shleeped in a palace afore!” I never did either and, believe me, after 12 hours in that car with those three, their mom and I were ready for some “sleep” in a palace or standing up in a barn. Literally, the question “How many more hours?” must have been asked 50 times from those back seats. Not exaggerating. It started when we were twenty minutes from the house. 

But now is the good part: blending voices, hearts, and purpose with hundreds of like-minded Christians on this hilltop, overlooking a beautiful lake. It seems, in my finite nature, to be inching toward heaven itself! 

Yesterday, on the way here, we got stuck behind a couple of auto accidents. One was an old tractor in the median that had obviously been careened hard by a larger and more modern vehicle. The helicopter was already there for the life flight. Ezra said he would lead the prayer: 

“Dear God, please help that man to be okay. Please help him to live. If he dies, please help him to be a Christian.” 

That’s the nine-year-old view of life and fatalities. That’s pretty much my view, still, except, of course, the “help” for eternal salvation, must be accessed through the blood prior to the time of the death. 

We all agreed that nothing is ultimately “bad” for the Christian. Even a horrific end to this life is not horrific for the follower of Jesus. It is better than ever. 

And that’s the hilltop on which we find ourselves, today; looking out over the promised land and knowing the sojourn is short. We find ourselves preparing, with hundreds of Christians, to bring the Father glory and honor the Son and, to find, in the Words of the Holy Spirit, strength for our journey toward the real palace of our King. 

I cannot wait, Eliza!