Hope For Today

If you would like to listen to today's devotion instead of reading it please click   here Dear Friends,  Don't Give Up! Have you ever been discouraged during your Christian life? Have you ever felt like giving up?  One of the areas I can become discouraged is to do with the calling I believe God has given me. I find it hard to keep going when I don't seem to be getting anywhere, when it doesn't feel as though I'm making any difference or impact for God. And I start to think that maybe I should just give up because I have little to show for it. Or I tell myself that I must have misheard God and this isn't what he's called me to. When it comes to my writing, I am writing for God and my desire is that it will be a blessing and a help to those who read it. Yet, there are times when I think that I'm doing little good with it; so perhaps I should stop and find something else to do instead. I compare myself to other writers (yes, I know I ...

Hiding God's Word In My Heart If you would like to listen to today's devotion instead of reading it please click  here Dear Friends,  Do you struggle to memorise Scripture? It's been a long time since I was really serious about it. Years ago, I would regularly and easily learn Bible verses when I attended Sunday School and children's clubs at church.  Now I find it so much harder. I'm sure it's partly because of my age and partly due to having M.E. which has negatively affected my ability to concentrate and retain information. However, neither of these reasons are good enough to excuse me from trying to memorise God's Word.  This year I'm taking part in Kristi Woods' Scripture Memory Program. ( http://kristiwoods.net/ ) The aim is to memorise the whole of Psalm 34  one verse at a time through 2018.  Why should you and I memorise Scripture? Basically, I believe it's for our good. God commands it. Jesus modeled it whe...

Vocaroo Voice Message Perseverance Dear Friends, I am looking into making recordings of my devotional blog posts available for those who would prefer to listen rather than read. Today recording is on my latest post which has the same title. If this works and you do listen, I would be very grateful for any feedback you can give me. Vicki

Dear Friends,  PERSEVERANCE It has become my habit for the last few years to choose a word and/or Bible verse for the year. I first learned about one word for the year through email devotionals I received from America, but the practice is becoming more and more popular here in England too. When I say, I choose a word and verse, I don't mean that I randomly choose a word just because I like the sound of it and neither do I choose a word based on what someone has chosen. No, in the wind-down of a year and in the first few weeks of a new year I spend time with God, asking him to reveal to me what he would like me to focus on for the coming year. When I do this, both the word and the verse have far more meaning and relevance to my life and I know God has good reasons for drawing my attention to them. This year, the verse came before my word. I was in church one Sunday morning when the worship leader shared one particular verse. Immediately, God drew my attention to i...

Dear Friends, Wishing You A Joyous New Year You've probably offered and received greetings of 'Happy New Year' several times in this past week or so. But I wonder, what is your response when you hear those words? Are you excited at the start of this new year by the new opportunities that will come your way? Are there things you are looking forward to? Perhaps you have mixed feelings about the coming year. Or maybe you're dreading what the future will bring and you're feeling anything but happy. Happy is certainly not a word I would use to describe how I've been feeling. Actually, there's been times when I've been quite unhappy and battled with mild depression (an ongoing struggle of mine). The last few months of last year were quite tough for one reason and another and it ended with almost a month of constant migraines in December which continued on into the new year.  Having said that, I did enjoy four consecutive migraine-free days over C...