God will never reject you

“My heart has heard You say,
“Come and talk with Me.”
And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.””
Psalm 27:8 NLT

“Speak Away”
Written by Taylor Agan & Hunter Leath
Sung by Maisen Smalley

ABCs of Jesus’ Love

Visit this page anytime and let me know if you’d like to add to the words describing Jesus’ love along with a verse supporting it. Remember, there is also a print-out of the original list.

This month I have added another “R” Word:

❤︎ Reconciling Love ❤︎
“But all these things are from God,
who reconciled us to Himself through Christ
[making us acceptable to Him]
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation
[so that by our example we might bring others to Him]“
2 Corinthians 5:18 AMP

Books

I am not always able to keep up with the abundance of books that promote hope, healing, and freedom, so I haven’t always read every one I post here and on the Books Page. Though many are on my long wish list. 🙂 Many will be from recommendations of online friends. If you ever know of a book that is not listed and that supports this website’s mission, please let me know. 🙂

Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa Teurkerst

“The enemy wants us to feel rejected . . . left out, lonely, and less than. When we allow him to speak lies through our rejection, he pickpockets our purpose. Cripples our courage. Dismantles our dreams. And blinds us to the beauty of Christ’s powerful love.” (Amazon)

With gut-honest vulnerability, Lysa shares her own deeply personal experiences with rejection. She inspires us to give our hurts to Jesus and to live from a deep assurance that we are fully loved in Him.

I have really been blessed by this book. In case you missed it, here is my blog post that discusses it further: Rejection Hurts and Living Loved.

Hope Harbor

♥ Links That Inspire Hope and Healing ♥

♥ Perfectionism and Claiming Shame (Article by Brene Brown) – “Feeling shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we’ll experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: ‘It’s my fault. I’m feeling this way because I’m not good enough.’”

♥ How Shame Contaminates Our Lives – and a Path Towards Healing (Article by John Amodeo) – “Whenever shame enters the picture, we inhibit the free expression of emotion, with the exception of anger … shame is the emotion most difficult to admit and to discharge.” – “As the saying goes, we can’t heal what we cannot feel. Healing shame begins by recognizing how it feels inside.”

♥ Leaving the Lies of Shame Behind – A hope-filled blog post by Terri Fullerton who grew up in a home riddled with domestic abuse – “Christ didn’t shame me. He knows why we are where we are. He reached out his hand to grab hold of me. Like the woman at the well, he called me to a place of honesty. For me, an important part of my healing has been naming the lies and replacing them with the truth.”

Nature Retreat

“We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.
God is the friend of silence.
See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…
We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
~ Mother Teresa

➺ 50 Cute Baby Wild Animals – Video of adorable photos of baby animals

➺ Lirralirra: The Magical Mystery of Birds -A gallery of intriguing images of wild, unbaited birds in natural light by Kim Wormald

➺ Insects and Spiders Photo Galleries – Thousands of spectacular macro photos in various categories of insects and spiders by M Plonsky

Quotes

❤︎ “God is too good to be unkind; He is too wise to be mistaken. When you cannot trace His hand, you can always trust His heart.” ~ Charles Spurgeon

❤︎ “Courage means not allowing your limitations to eclipse God’s possibilities.” ~ Christine Caine

❤︎ “The presence of fear does not mean you have no faith. Fear visits everyone. But make your fear a visitor and not a resident.” ~ Max Lucado

“Look at the sun shining in the window,” my counselor once said as she reminded me to notice the “little” signs of hope that God is still with us. I looked up at the small window up in the corner of the room. Sunlight streamed in, but I hadn’t noticed it.

It appears every day, so what’s so special about it? How does that give us hope? Sometimes our eyes are either so glued to our troubles that we can’t see past them to the miracles of life and God’s provision, or we are so accustomed to seeing a miracle that we become blinded to see what a gracious gift it is.

When we were on vacation, we took a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi River. My husband and I got excited every time we saw a bald eagle. A young man in front of us asked, “Don’t you see them where you live?”

“No… More hawks than eagles…”

“We see them all the time in Osh Kosh, so I guess I don’t pay attention to them much anymore.”

Little does he know that God sent me a lesson in those words. Blessings surround me, and yet I don’t pay attention to them anymore. I expect they will always be there, and I don’t see the miracle in them being there at all. Our loved ones, our homes, food enough, our freedoms in this country, our senses, and so many other gifts enfold us. And what a wonder that God speaks daily to us in the miracle with which nature runs its course – the sun by day, the moon by night, all creation speaking faithfully to us.

God never fails to keep nature running like clockwork. The sun lightens our world day after day, even through the clouds. Imagine how cold it would be without its rays of warmth. The moon and stars shine in the darkness of the night. The laws of all creation continue day and night. We can always count on the changing of seasons guided by the never-failing love of God. Nature flows faithfully in all its beauty, each and every creature and created thing a nonstop sign that God watches over every little detail and is with us 24-7.

Just as God doesn’t abandon His creation, He never leaves us or pushes us aside. He is as likely to reject us as He is to abolish the laws of nature.

“I am as likely to reject my people Israel
as I am to abolish the laws of nature!”
This is what the Lord says:
“Just as the heavens cannot be measured
and the foundations of the earth cannot be explored,
so I will not consider casting them away
for the evil they have done.
I, the Lord, have spoken!”
~ Jeremiah 31:36-37

We can find hope in the harmony of nature. God doesn’t abandon or reject it, but He delights in it and nurtures it. He has promised the same for us, but we need to stop our busy lives and look for it, feast our eyes upon it, and let its hope penetrate our hearts.