​The prelude to what I’m going to share is related to the events of this week. 
A very dear friend of ours who has been like a son to us, got very ill earlier in the week. We have known Frank since he was 19 years old and he has been a part of our family through all these years. He is single and without parents.  Because of Covid, he has lost most of his income, as he is self-employed. When he got so sick, thinking it was food poisoning,  he called me to ask for ideas to help him, however, by Wednesday I knew he was in trouble. He needed medical attention and that’s when I sent Dave on a mission to get him to a hospital. He was very lethargic and unable to talk on the phone. 
By the time Dave got him to the hospital he was fading in and out of consciousness. The nurses came out and got him in a wheelchair and rushed him inside. Dave, of course couldn’t go with him. 
Long story short, he was in terrible shape. His heart was beating 200 beats per minute (V-fib) and they had to jump start his heart to get it back into rhythm. It’s called cardio version. They sedated him and got him to a cath lab to do this and then up to ICU. As he got to the ICU he coded. His heart stopped and they had to do CPR to resuscitate him.  He was in systems failure, which means his kidneys were failing, his liver, lungs and heart were failing, it was a cascade effect from the virus that attacked his body.  
After five minutes they got him back and he was on all kinds of lines and tubes trying desperately to keep him alive.  (We found this out after the fact when the Doctor called us that evening!)
My desperate prayers for him were profound. The heaviness of this week, with the elections and the horror of all that has been taking place in the news and with our country has weighed me down and, honestly, it’s been crushing! Now with Frank so ill, I just felt completely crushed. 
 
My go-to when I battle is the keyboard. I pray and sing and reach out to the Lord with everything in me. The very first song that came to me started with these lines:   “My heart was distressed ‘neath Jehovah’s dread frown, and low from the pit where my sins dragged me down. I cried to the Lord from the deep miry clay and He tenderly brought me out to golden day!
He brought me out of the deep miry clay!
He sets my feet on the solid rock to stay. 
He puts a song in my happy soul today, 
A song of praise – Hallelujah!”
 
I played every song I could think of that Frank knew and loved. My confidence came and I knew that the Lord had told me “I’ve got this!”
 
Steadily, Frank has been improving but at this moment is still in ICU. 
 
The heaviness returned Friday and my spirit was restless. One of my devotions for the day came from Romans 1:21 – which says:
“21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
 
This spoke to my heart by saying:
 “You know me! You know that I’m God but you are not glorifying me as God and you’re not giving thanks to Me! Because of that I will let your thinking become darkened and by your withdrawing from me you can have your thoughts and you will find yourself in despair and depression!” 
 
I realized that it is so easy to fall into that despair of “why” and “how” and “Oh, my goodness, NO!”
But! I know God! I know He is not done! I know that He always has the last word and sometimes it’s at 11:59 PM!
I get to choose!  We celebrated Shabbat with deep prayer for God to come into His own! I want Your way, Father!
(By the way, the Torah portion this week was about Abraham taking Isaac up to the mountain to sacrifice him!)
 
Then today, Shabbat, as I awoke to another day of the pressure and anxiety of the situation I found myself reading from Philippians 3:7-10 out of a Bible called “The Names of God.” This is what it said:
“These things that I once considered valuable, I now consider worthless for Christ. It’s far more than that! I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Yeshua my Lord. It’s because of Him that I think of everything as worthless. I threw it all away in order to gain Christ and to have a relationship with Him. This means that I didn’t receive God’s approval by obeying His laws. The opposite is true! I have God’s approval through faith in Christ. This is the approval that comes from God and is based on faith that knows Christ.  Faith knows the power that His coming back to life gives and what it means to share His suffering. In this way I’m becoming like Him in His death, with the confidence that I’ll come back to life from the dead!”
 
Here’s what I heard the Father say to me – “You have seen me raise the dead this week! Frank died on the table! But I didn’t leave it at that! He’s alive now and will continue to be alive as long as I say he is! Remember that Jesus was in the grave and the enemy declared himself to be the winner! That was Saturday! But Sunday morning I declared something entirely different! I’m the One who declares things! 
(I heard Him say to me -) “Look at Me!! Look at ME!! Watch Me! I’m not done with this yet and I have something more for you to know. “
 
(This message is for the Church)
 
“You are on short time. I am watching for your response today (Sunday). You are at a crossroads. If Mr. Biden takes the presidency the Church will run back and hide again in their fear and despair. Your work will be harder and you will be more persecuted than ever. If Mr. Trump remains the President, you will need to understand that My grace is for you to step up and be more diligent to reach the lost for the Kingdom’s sake! You have to know, your window of opportunity is closing. I’m listening to your prayers! But, again you have to see that Romans 1:21 is critical for you!”
My message from today is burning in my heart to the point that I have to get this down for all of us! 
Don’t underestimate our Father!! He is working and He is listening for us to give Him Glory and thanks!
 
This is my song for today –
 
“My Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and Righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ Name!
On Christ the solid rock I stand! All other ground is sinking sand!
All other ground is sinking sand!” 
 

​This morning in my devotions I’ve run across something amazing that I need to share. I would dearly love to call someone and just talk it through, but this morning, you’re it!
I’m doing a study with a group of young ladies that I dearly love and we are studying with a book called “Life Principles for Worship from the Tabernacle” by Wayne Barber, Eddie Rasnake and Richard Sheperd.  As with any Bible study, it’s only as good as it draws you deeper into God’s Word. I have at least 3 Bibles, the Jewish Commentaries and a Hebrew Dictionary to study with. So, get ready for this, it’s amazing!
 
I’m studying in Genesis 22, the story about Abraham and Isaac and the testing of Abraham. But here’s the little background – In Hebrew there are 2 letters that are profound and untranslated. Aleph Tav are the 2 Hebrew letters. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and Tav is the last letter. Aleph always represents God in His greatness, the “oneness” and the underlying silent power of everything. Tav is the last letter that in its’ ancient form looked like a cross. It represents a covenant or a sign, so the two together mean “God in His covenant”. I find this is so mind blowing and especially because there is no translation for this, but it shows up everywhere in the Hebrew Bible. But it is there strategically and specifically! For example, in Genesis 1:1 it shows up before “the Heavens”. In other words, God has made a covenant that impacts the creation of the Heavens! Get it?
Whenever you see the aleph tav together, look for why it’s there. There is something significant to where it’s placed. Now go to Revelations 1:8 where Jesus shows up and identifies Himself as the Alpha and the Omega! May I just say very emphatically that JESUS WOULD NEVER HAVE SAID THAT!!! He wasn’t Greek and wouldn’t have spoken those words! He said “I AM THE ALEPH TAV!”  (Explosion!!) (New assignment – go look up everywhere Aleph Tav shows up and see why it’s there!)
 
Okay, after that has soaked in a minute, now go to Genesis 22. You can look all this up easily without all the commentaries that I have by going to Biblehub on google. Go to the interlinear place and put in Genesis 22:4 and watch where the aleph tav shows up. 
Here is what it says by the word picture – “Abraham lifted up his Covenant eyes and saw the Covenant Place from a distance!” The testing of Abrahams’ faith and why he could obey was that he had raised his Covenant eyes to see!
 
Let me know what this does in your heart, please – Be Blessed
Jerri

​Rainy days and Monday’s. . . Actually, I really enjoy a rainy, overcast day and today is a good one. I’m reflecting on Matthew 24 where Jesus is teaching His disciples. 
Now, imagine this; these boys are really boys. They haven’t hit what I’d call “their full statue as a man” yet. They are young men with a background of hard work in a possibly poor community. They live by the Sea of Galilee and they didn’t go on to study with a Rabbi when Jesus called them to follow Him. 
So I’ve said all that to say in Matthew 24 Jesus has taken these young men to the most incredible place, the Temple, it was probably a very overwhelming time. Then to hear that the Temple would be destroyed could have been crushing. They knew that Rome was over their heads and that there was conflict going on everywhere and then Jesus had been very challenging to the Pharisees, so they were aware of the troubling times they were living in, but to imagine that the Temple was going to be destroyed, unthinkable! 
Well, Jesus goes on to describe the end times with more detail and they hear Him say “You will be hated by all nations because of me!” I’m thinking, “Where do I sign up for this?” "Really, after all we do to help people and feed them and heal them and now they’re going to hate us? And what’s this about persecution?" And with every sentence it just gets worse! I can only imagine what they were thinking. 
 
Today, we would love to be appreciated for everything we do to be a blessing to our world. The amount of money that goes to feed the poor, the missionary efforts, the youth and children’s arena’s where we poor money into reaching our teens and children. Wouldn’t it be nice to just be given a little nod of approval? But, that’s not why we do what we do, and that’s not where we live – to be approved of. 
The reality is this: we can do no less than what we are compelled to do because of how God loved us and gave Jesus to disciple us and then die for us and our sins. 
This is our hope – it’s going to get worse! And we will know He is working because we belong to Him and He gives us strength, courage and power by His Spirit to live above this world. Jesus said; “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33)
 

​I just finished a great book by author Lynn Austin. It’s called “Return to Me”. I know it’s fictional but it’s based on the life of Zachariah, the prophet. It really is a well written book and gives lots of insight into the life of those exiles who returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. I highly recommend this book. 
What my “takeaway” has been from this book is the treacherous assault of our culture on Christianity. It really is clear that we are continually surrounded by lifestyles and choices that are clearly wrong. So, here’s my take-away:
I have spent the last 4 days at Disney Land. We’re watching people from everywhere just immerse themselves in the “happiest place in the world.” You can seriously dive into the emotions driven by the music, the sights and smells and take on the idea that really, everything is good here. The food is great and expensive; over indulging is the theme there. Every set of Mickey Mouse ears at least $25.00, and they’re everywhere. You can really be anything you want to be! 
If we are to gauge our economy on what’s going on here, let me just say – we are the richest country in the world. It’s amazing. It looks so good, so happy and yet it is all a deception. It’s nothing to wait 90 minutes in a line for a 5-minute experience, because you can be so manipulated by emotions. 
 
The book shares the same struggles of a group of dedicated Jews who have returned to their land to rebuild when they are assaulted by a culture of compromise. They have to redefine their identities and what their values are. They are also tempted by all that is around them. 
 
Walking with the Lord is neither popular nor easy. The fact is it really is a covenant relationship with a Living God who calls to us in love and with purpose. 
I’d love to hear your thoughts!

One of the things that has intrigued me for a long time is the matter of time. As I read and study I come across this "thought" over and again: "And the time came..." "it happened at the appointed time..." And yet God lives inside and outside of time itself. The essence of Shabbat is that God invites us into His realm of "timelessness." We are the ones who have to live within it. Time tells us what to do and when to do it. Our bodies are clocks that tick off time and grow old to the beat of time. 
But going to the thought that God lives within it and around it is, again, intriguing. It's like He's already done this and He knows the outcome so why am I frustrated? What do I have to offer that He doesn't already know and have in control? 
To know that at His appointed time He accomplishes the most amazing results and His redemption!

I was on my way to work the other day and I was telling Him that I imagined that He was so sad at what is happening in our world. Immediately, and I mean it was instant, I felt an overwhelming joy. He spoke to my spirit and said, I'm letting you see how great is my Redemption for people. In all of this madness and confusion, "I am still speaking, working and moving to redeem the world and I am letting you be a part of it! You get to see and participate in My redemption for people!"
Wow! The flood that filled me at the point was incredible. For every breath He gives me, for every moment I get to live He gives me opportunity to be a part of His great love and plan for this world!
Are you a part of that? I bet you'd love it!

We've home about 3 weeks now and I finally got through the jet-lag, the sick week and the "down" time. Sometimes it's hard to understand how your mind deals with what you're body is doing and going through. I just wanted to post a couple of things about the recent trip to Israel. 
What an amazing time to know that God is working in huge ways. He is using the hard things in life to get the attention of people and He is turning hearts towards others. Here's what I mean by this. 
Israel is being turned upside down with individual acts of terrorism in their country. The Arabs who live in Israel are insecure by the attacks as well, not knowing how they will be treated as a result. It's really like the way things are going here in the U.S. The racism is ramping up in such dramatic ways we will be unsure of our own safety with others of another race. Our world is upside down, but the great thing is this - the arrogance of humanism and the redefining of our culture is really playing out that it doesn't work! We will never be able to be our best until we realize that He is our best and not us. 
I've also been thinking about this idea of pro-choice verses pro-life. I guess it's because I've been pondering about our ability to make right choices in life generally. Pro-life, Pro-choice, It's really not a matter of abortion - it's really a matter of us getting to make the decisions. We've had the opportunity to choose since Adam and Eve. But the real problem is, we don't want to live with the consequences of our choices when it doesn't work out like we've thought or wanted. Think about this - have you ever made a choice where you found out that it was the wrong choice? I can't tell you how many times I've prayed for something and then told God "but whatever you want" only to later thank Him that He didn't do what I asked. My choices are not always good ones or right ones, but sometimes I still find myself angry because I didn't feel like I had a choice. Then I stop and remember, I always have the choice, but it seems like my life goes better when I surrender my choices to One greater than me who knows a whole lot more than I do. 
This week I was at the Women's and Children's shelter helping serve supper. I met a young lady with 2 small children and one on the way. I asked about her circumstances and who did she have to help her with her children when she delivered her baby next month. She told me that other than her mother who would help for a couple of days, there was no one. She said that her other children's dads didn't want anything to do with them and this baby's father didn't either. She said, "I think I've learned some hard lessons that I'll have to make better choices in the future." Sometimes the hard things that happen are there to teach us that the easy way isn't necessarily the best way. 
Israel and the Arabs are hard places and they are faced with hard choices. What a great place for the Lord to give wisdom and watch Him perform the miracle that we so desperately want to see. How great is that?

I wake up to quiet. I enjoy drinking a refreshing cup of coffee and knowing that I don't have to worry about incoming rockets that make me race to a bomb shelter. I know that I am blessed and I am so very thankful. But I also know that my freedom didn't come without costing someone their way of life to change things. 
We are so blessed and it is so nice to relax and enjoy it that it's hard to image why a person would sacrifice this way of life to help others enjoy the same luxuries that we have. 
But I know that we are blessed to be a blessing and that becomes a crossroads for me. 
It would be so easy to lean back and talk about what needs to change and complain about the government and the politicians who seem to making all the decisions for our country, but now I'm going to beg to differ!

I AM NOT THE GOVERNMENT! I AM NOT A POLITICIAN! I believe that when Jesus set me free that I have become a person with a different perspective and a different outlook. I don't need to get a vote on it and I don't need permission to make a difference. I can because I have been called, chosen and empowered to live above what is going on in this world. 

I can make (MY Choice, My decision) this world a better place! Because I know that God's love and favor rests on me (by Jesus' sacrificial atonement) that I bring that to my world that He puts me in. Wow, is that ever empowering to me! I get to bring a bit of Heaven to earth! Maybe not to a crowd, but maybe to a little person who needs me to look into their eyes and let them know they are important.

What are you doing to bring Heaven to earth? 
Just saying. .  

Well, there's not a drop of rain in the forecast, but I thought that I'd pretend. You see, what happens on a rainy day is that you do things that you can do when it rains, when you can't do the things you'd do on a sunny day. Now really, does that make sense? 

It's my birthday today! I'm packing for a big move into another house, getting ready for the CUFI summit and trying to stay sane and calm with little expectations for anyone other than myself. I'm thinking about the Torah portion for this week and wondering about the Israelites getting ready to inherit the Promised land. What would they want to take with them? What would they leave behind? What will it be like to live in a land that God had planned for them to enjoy?
I'm looking at some of the same things. What will I want in my new home? Will I want all the stuff from the old places? What are the real keepsakes? What are my treasures? Will they be something I can pass on to my children and theirs?
I don't think of myself as a hoarder, but in some ways maybe I am!
A new adventure, a new opportunity, another day of looking forward to what God has in store for me and will I be able to meet the challenges that He gives me?
My first call this morning was from one of our church friends who told me her husband passed away last night about midnight. A true reminder that God is the real answer in our lives!
How's your journey going? Are you packing? Moving in? Reorganizing? Or are you preparing for what God has ahead for you in the lessons He's teaching you? Whatever your journey is today, may it be Kingdom focused and filled with the Spirit of Jesus!

Sometimes reading the newspaper and listening to the news gets to be a little too much for me. It's not that I don't want to know what is going on, but sometimes I get tired of the opinions and perspective of those who are telling us what is going on.
This last week has been an especially heavy week with lots of situations that are easily overwhelming and scary. I know that my natural response would be to help fix them all. But there comes a moment when there is nothing anyone can do. It's just going to be what it is. I certainly can't be in every place at one time and if I were it wouldn't necessary be a good thing, because then I really would want to fix it.

But this is what happened and I need to share it. It really comes down to having the right mindset. If there is one (1) thing that I can give to the Lord it is my praise and worship. That's the only thing I can give Him that nobody else can. It's in my hands to give. So, I have to decide if He's Sovereign and if He's really trustworthy. Once I put my wholeheart into that and realize that if the enemy can distract me and rob Him of my joyful love and praise, then the battle is lost to worry and stress. You see, mindset is really everything! Then I realize that my weapons against whatever is going on is my joyful trust and praise. And what happened really was amazing. The joy in my heart towards the Lord started overflowing until I couldn't help but worship Him like I've never worshipped Him before. I know this must seem crazy, but I can tell you, my prayers weren't asking for God to fix things, but to reveal Himself in the midst of things because it was a perfect opportunity for people to see Him.
Then I called a time out with my "league of extraordinary women" and we prayed! We didn't beg, we rejoiced and filled our time with confident declarations! We rejoiced and agreed with each other that God is and will always be bigger than any problem or issue. We asked for His perspective that is "the Kingdom is coming to earth" through each of us as we allow Jesus to grow in us. You should have been here. It was great!

And now we watch Him! He isn't nervous! He isn't taken back by all the bad news. He's waiting for the Sons of Glory to be revealed! That's us! Where are we? Let's rejoice that for every set back there is a come back. For every piece of bad news, there is the Great News! God is not at a loss, but He's looking for those of us who will stand and be warriors to declare to this world - We are here! Full of the Holy Spirit and with great power and authority in Him!
Bad news? - Look for the opportunity and the Kingdom perspective - what will God do in this? Yeah God!