Hope For Today

Dear Friends, The book "Lies Girls Believe and The Truth That Sets Them Free" by Dannah Gresh is aimed at girls between the ages of nine and twelve, although I think it would also be good for young teenage girls too. It’s definitely a book I wish was available when my daughter was younger.  Whilst your daughter reads this book, you would find it helpful to read the companion book “A Mom’s Guide to Lies Girls Believe”. (See my review of this book  here )  This book looks at lies about God and lies about myself such as I’m not good enough, and God doesn’t love me all the time. It also covers lies about sin, my family and other relationships, being a girl and about the future. It gives help on recognising the lies and replacing them with God’s truth.  What I like about this book is that it is interactive. It’s not just a book to be read but a book for your daughter to work through and write her thoughts in.  In the book, your daughter will me...

Dear Friends, "A Moms’ Guide to Lies Girls Believe" by Dannah Gresh is a book to help  Mums plant truths in their daughters’ hearts whilst they are young. We can’t make our daughters embrace God’s Word but we can plant seeds of truth in them.  There are three parts to this book:  Part 1: Getting Ready to Help Your Daughter – challenging the lies Mums believe.  Part 2: Lies Girls Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free – planting truths in your daughters’ hearts (main section of the book).  The author has researched the material for her book and carried out a survey of over 1,500 girls aged between seven and twelve years of age. The author identified from the survey the twenty most common lies girls believe and has included them all in this section. Such as lies about God, themselves, sin, relationships and the future.  Part 3: The Truth that Sets her Free – how to identify lies and replace them with truth . This is explained w...

Dear Friends,  What's In Your Hands? Last week we looked at the example of Moses and how he initially responded in fear when God called him to serve him. (You can read it  here )  This week we are continuing with the example of Moses and exploring how God wants us to respond in faith, not with fear. We read in Exodus 4:2-5 :  Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?”  “A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.  “Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.  Then the Lord told him, “Reach out and grab its tail.” So Moses reached out and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand. (NLT)  The question God asked Moses is the same one he is asking us today:  “What is in your hands?”  For Moses, it was a shepherd’s staff. He was a shepherd and had been for forty years. He knew how to care for, p...

Dear Friends, Don't Let Fear Hold You Back Have you ever made excuses for not doing what God is asking of you?  If you have, you’re in good company. Today I want to look at the example of Moses. God has been teaching me so much through the life of Moses. I've been finding it both a challenge and an encouragement. The Bible tells us that Moses’ parents knew God had a purpose for their son. I believe right from a young age, Moses knew that God had chosen him for a specific purpose. He had a heart for God’s people and identified himself with them.  One day when Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his relatives, the people of Israel. He saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite. So Moses came to the man’s defence and avenged him, killing the Egyptian. Moses assumed his fellow Israelites would realize that God had sent him to rescue them, but they didn’t. Acts 7:23-25  (NLT) So Moses fled to the desert and after living there for forty ye...

Dear Friends, I recently finished reading "Still Emily" by Emily Owen and I have to say it's in my top ten books I've ever read. It's a book about an incredible woman of faith (I don't know she would describe herself that way, but it is my opinion of her. Why not read her book and see for yourself?) She was diagnosed at the age of sixteen with NF2 (Neurofibromatosis Type 2) of which I knew nothing about until I read her book. It is a really terrible illness which has robbed her (and her family) of so much. And yet, Emily never gives in to it. She doesn't let it rob her of her faith in God. Neither does she allow it to define who she is. Her faith and her identity as a child of God shine through and she is still the same person she was before her diagnosis. I think there are two reasons why she is able to overcome such hard struggles. First, because of her faith in God which she was grounded in from a young age, having been brought...