On Christmas morning do you like opening the biggest present under the tree or does your eye get drawn to the smallest one you can see? 

When it’s your birthday and everyone begins singing that familiar chorus, do you wait with anticipation for a large wrapped gift or a beautiful small box with a tiny ribbon around it?

We tend to believe that the bigger the box the better the gift. But that is not always the case. Sure, a big box can hold a wonderful gift, but often a small box contains a treasure of great value!

Miracles come in all sizes too! I must admit, that most of the time I only ask God for the big miracles. They seem to be on my prayer list for months and years at a time! I think I just assume that God only wants to deal with the big stuff.

This week however, God surprised me with a miracle that would fit into a small beautiful box!

If you read last weeks blog you know that my husband turned 60! We love him so much and wanted to celebrate him BIG! We had been planning for months to surprise him with a ski trip to our favorite place, Lake Tahoe! 

His kids were going to fly in, we had reservations at our favorite sushi restaurant to surprise him, and we would head up the mountain!  It was March and the roads should be clear and easy to travel. Everything had been put into place, tickets were purchased, reservations were made and we were anticipating the joy of celebrating him for a full month ahead of time. Surely the constant rain and snow we had experienced for the last two months would stop! 

As the time drew near, I nervously kept checking my weather app! It kept showing rain and snow. We kept praying and praying and praying! We were asking God for a break in the weather to be able to celebrate and honor the man we love so much.

Two days before we were ready to leave the weather app showed partly cloudy on Wednesday and sunny on Thursday! We would be traveling up the mountain on Wednesday and skiing on Thursday. We headed toward the mountains and kept praying!

In Lake Tahoe it had been snowing for weeks on end! There was so much snow that even as they tried to remove it, there was no place to put it! Highway 80 is the one we would be traveling. It was closed half day on Wednesday and opened up as we approached it! We made it through to our hotel. The mountain we were skiing had been closed that entire day! Thursday morning we woke to sunshine and the mountain was re-opened! We skied a beautiful ski day together on Jim’s actual birthday! The following day we made it down the mountain with partly cloudy weather. We arrived home safe and sound and realized that God had given us a miracle wrapped in a beautiful small box!

As I spent my quiet time with God that next morning, I was struck by the obvious truth that he had given us a small miracle. The rain began to pour again that day and the snow began to fall again in the mountains! As I praised him for this beautiful miracle of time spent together that he gave us, I thought about the big miracles that I had been praying for for over a year!

In that still small voice that only God speaks in, He reminded me that all miracles come from Him! He had blessed me with this small miracle to remind me that HE is still with me in the waiting for the big ones!

TRUTH BOMB

SMALL MIRACLES REMIND US THAT GOD IS STILL WITH US WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE BIG ONES!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Are you always grabbing for the big box to open, or are you willing to take hold of the small boxes that God sends your way? 

It may very well be, that God has sent you a small miracle, beautifully wrapped in a box of His love and caring and affirmation to keep you holding on and wait for the bigger miracle just around the corner.

After all, only God can give a miracle and every size holds as great an importance as another!

Speak Truth Love

This Truth Bomb Tuesday special edition is coming to you on Thursday for a very special reason!

Today, March 16th 2023, I celebrate one of the greatest gifts I have ever received!  

Do you ever remember a time when you received a gift so undeserved and so unexpected? In fact, the gift came at a time when you expected anything but!  

In the fall of 1982 I found myself in a brand new city, at a brand new University, in a brand new dorm room all by myself. I was introduced to my roommate, and she asked me if I wanted to go to a Bible study that was held on our campus. We went together and walked from our dorm room to the campus Commons. As we rounded the corner, I looked up and saw the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on. 

He was tall, dark, and handsome! And completely unassuming! He had on dark 501 jeans and a short sleeve plaid shirt. He said absolutely nothing! His friend, who was with him however, greeted both of us with energy and enthusiasm. We walked inside, and soon learned that the tall, dark, handsome man was leading the study. I was attracted to him initially by the way he looked, but when he began to teach the Word of God, he grabbed hold of my heart!

Fast forward two years and we were engaged and married! The next 38 1/2 years would find us in full-time ministry, on the mission field, and gifted with the two most wonderful children in the world! Who would give us two more children, their spouses and our four perfect grandchildren!

Life has not been perfect, God never promised that, but it has been BLESSED because of the incredible gift that God gave me in Jim Swaney! Today he turns 60 years old! 

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭17‬ 

TRUTH BOMB

True gifts come from above!

I believe with all my heart that there are gifts in this life that only God can give. And when he chooses to give you a gift, it is always good and right!  

Jim is that gift to me! Because of him, I have the other greatest gifts in my life… Our children, our grandchildren, and our ministry!

Jim is strong of character and absolutely unwavering. He is the most intelligent man of God that I know and yet he is humble to the core! He is fun and he is funny, he is truly the master of puns! He is the great adventurer, always looking for the next challenge! He loves God most, but loves his family next with all his heart! He is faithful and true, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, the love of my life!

Today, I celebrate the life of Jim Swaney, and I praise my God for the incredible gift of him to me! Happy Birthday!

Speak Truth Love

I hope you didn’t just scroll past my Blog or stop reading because you saw the word WAITING!

I guess if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve hung in there at least through a few sentences. So will you stick with it just a few more? If you do, you may learn that WAITING isn’t all bad!

Now when it comes to waiting in line at the grocery store or Target or even the post office, I am right there with you. I mean nothing is as frustrating as standing in a line at the grocery store that runs clear through to the produce department, when there are only two checkers working! You stand there patiently staring at 10 or more counters with no one working them. Am I the only one that thinks this is absolutely ridiculous?

After all, the Bible says that patience is a virtue, and I know it is one that I do not have!

WAITING is hard. We want what we want and we want it now! Is it all our fault? I don’t think so! We’ve been raised in a microwave, fast food, drive-through, Amazon prime, culture! 

Even if you can’t find it on Amazon prime you could pay for something to be delivered to you quickly! I have to admit that my husband and I ordered something online last night, as we are making a trip up to the mountains soon, and needed it quickly. We paid more money so it could be delivered to us quickly. We simply didn’t have the time to WAIT!

But WAITING Is not always bad. So much can be learned and achieved when we learn to WAIT!

The key to learning to wait is to not give up HOPE! And I believe that the key to not giving up hope is to remember that God is who He says He is, and is the same God during the WAIT!

There is no doubt…WAITING is hard!

So do we give up, and lose HOPE, or do we keep trusting in the One who has always been faithful in the past? Do we trust Him to do what only He can do in the present?

Now I know that waiting in a grocery line, or a Target line, or even in a post office line is one thing. But WAITING, and WAITING, and WAITING for something week after week, month after month, or even year after year can be nothing less than EXCRUCIATING.

These are the times that our faith is put to the test. These are the times that waiting can seem HOPELESS!

Praise God, we are not alone in this!

Hannah waited year after year with a broken heart because she could not have a child. She had a husband who loved her and a God she prayed to faithfully! Still she WAITED.

“I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.” I Samuel 15-16

Hannah testifies here to Eli the priest that she has continued to pray even though she has great anxiety and vexation. In an earlier verse it tells us that she goes to the house of the Lord to pray year after year!

Hannah does not stop praying to the Lord through her WAITING.

Hannah trusts and has faith in God even with a broken heart and no quick answer.

Hannah WAITED through her grief and heartache, God heard her prayer, saw her, and finally answered her prayer! 

But not before years and years and years of WAITING.

I do not know what you WAITING for.

But I do know, that just like Hannah, you can wait and hope when you wait on God!

TRUTH BOMB

YOU CAN WAIT WITH HOPE WHEN YOU WAIT ON GOD!

God always will give the right answer. It may not be the answer that we desire, but it will always be the answer that we need!

Hannah received her answer after much WAITING from God.

Hannah’s prayer gives us a glimpse into the kind of faith that never loses hope even in the WAITING!

“There is none holy like the Lord:

For there is none besides you;

There is no rock like our God!” 

I Samuel 2:2

Our God is Faithful and True in the WAITING and out of it!

Speak Truth Love