January Hope Breathers

January 28, 2023 Trudy Den Hoed26 Comments

God’s Wings of Faithful Love

❤️❤️❤️
“Like a bird protecting its young,
God will cover you with His feathers,
will protect you under His great wings;
His faithfulness will form a shield around you,
a rock-solid wall to protect you.”
Psalm 91:4 VOICE

Jesus Longs For Us to Find Refuge Under His Wings of Love
Blog Post Excerpt and Prayer from 2019

“Though a bird will give its life for its young, there are times when it has no power against much stronger enemies. That will never happen with God. He is invincible. There is no enemy too strong for Him. We can always find refuge under His Almighty wings of safety in the storms of life.

And there will be storms, because we are part of this sinful, fallen world. As long as we are on this earth, physical, mental, and emotional losses in various forms will continue to cause heart-rending grief, anxiety, and fear.

We all need a Shelter, a Refuge, a Safe Savior in these storms.”

Lord, thank You for loving us so much and longing for us to take shelter in You. Please help us to trust You with all our hearts. Take away all the roadblocks that keep us from fleeing to find refuge in You. Take away all the trust issues we may have in our hearts. Take away all our self-sufficiency. Please help us to snuggle underneath Your wings of loving care with all our restlessness, anxiety, and fear. Help us to picture Your protective wings around us whenever we step forward into places or situations that make us feel so afraid and untrusting but yet will help us on the road to healing the brokenness within us. Help us to be dependent on You and Your all-sufficient grace in whatever struggles we go through in this life. Thank You that Your wings of love and safety are invincible.

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Learning To Tell God the Truth

“…We are crafted for communion with our Creator, built to share both the marvels and the mess of this life with the One who knows the beginning and the end.

Lament isn’t merely complaining about God. It’s being honest enough to bring our complaints to God. It’s not raging behind God’s back. It’s turning back to the One who is able to handle our anger and our questions, our discouragement and our despair.

Lament is processing grief in the presence of Love…”

Alicia Bruxvoort in It’s Ok to Be Messy: Learning to Tell God the Truth

We Have True Value in God

“The devil has convinced so many people that they are worthless. Each of us needs to stop and remember the cross – at the cross we will discover our true value – for it is here that we discover the price God was willing to pay for us, the depth of His love, and how much we are worth to Him.” ~ Roy Lessin

“Just think, you’re here not by chance, but by God’s choosing. His hand formed you and made you the person you are. He compares you to no one else – You are one of a kind. You lack nothing that His grace can’t give you. He has allowed you to be here in this time in history to fulfill His special purpose for this generation.” ~ Roy Lessin

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” ~ Brennan Manning

Nature Retreat

“There is not one blade of grass,
there is no color in this world
that is not intended to make us rejoice.“
~ John Calvin

My brother got up early one morning and took this spectacular slice of beauty!

From their home in Arizona, he zoomed in the distant mountains. More beauty!

Another slice of beauty from one of our sons when their family visited Maui.

Our daughter caught this amazing two-sided view of a sun dog, caused by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere.

October Hope Breathers

October 27, 2022 Trudy Den Hoed39 Comments

Remembering God’s Faithfulness

“Everything about God is great, vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word. To every declaration of promise or prophecy the Lord has exactly adhered, every engagement of covenant or threatening He will make good.” ~ A.W. Pink

“There is more safety with Christ in the tempest than without Christ in the calmest waters.” ~ Alexander Grosse

“The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you today and every day. He will either shield you from suffering or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.” ~ St. Francis de Sales

“In the darkest hour, when I cannot breathe
Fear is on my chest, the weight of the world on me
Everything is crashing down, everything I had known
When I wonder if I’m all alone

I remember, I remember
You have always been faithful to me
I remember, I remember
Even when my own eyes could not see
You were there, always there…”

Nature Retreat

“The natural world provides humanity with untold gifts.
It cleans water, pollinates plants and provides
pharmaceuticals, among others.
Thirty trillion dollars worth of services,
scot-free to humanity, every year.”
E. O. Wilson

Pollinators Are Important

I loved going to this pollinator plot. Sometimes we don’t realize the impact pollinators have on our environment. And it inspires me to be a pollinator of love and kindness in this world. 🙂

Did you know that squirrels stash away so many nuts that they forget where some of them are hidden? These forgotten nuts often grow into trees, meaning they play a role in conserving our ecosystem!

“The squirrels hoard nuts
and the bee gathers honey,
without knowing what they do,
and they are thus provided for
without selfishness or disgrace.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Nature Soothes the Soul

July 27, 2022 Trudy Den Hoed22 Comments

As early as I can remember, nature was a solace to my soul. There was always something that drew my heart in and calmed me. Even before I appreciated the Creator of it all.

When I couldn’t be outdoors, photos of nature drew me in. As a child, I loved a large nature scene in our living room. I remember it had trees and water. It was such a calm scene, far from all the evil and pain in this world. When my thoughts were jumbled, troubled, and confused, I loved to imagine myself sitting on the bank feeling the coolness of the water on my feet.

I’m now 66, but I still imagine myself sitting or walking in calm nature scenes. 🙂 When the cold winters keep me housebound, I sometimes search out old photos, including the one above from one of my favorite nature retreats. Now wouldn’t it be lovely to sit on one of those rocks and soak in the sights and sounds?

Here are a few more pics from this soul-soothing retreat:

“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?” – St. Augustine