Truth Compendium

Showering with a "Ducha" This morning I was reading Hebrews 11:13-16. It says:   All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country— a heavenly one . Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Having just returned from a trip to Honduras, I could relate to being a “foreigner and a stranger.” I also will admit that by the end of the week, I was ready to return to my home country. But as I pondered the passage it didn’t take long for me to realize that as a believer I really wasn’t home yet. Later, as I wound the old kitchen clock that...

I like words. Sometimes for entertainment I will read a dictionary!  This is a practice I developed after I got my first dictionary in high school; I’d look at all the definitions besides interesting pictures!!  Since then I have compiled a small dictionary collection; besides the one from high school with all the presidents pictured up to Richard Nixon , I have my Mom’s, Fred Stroop’s, and a Webster’s unabridged dictionary given to me by a dear friend who heard I liked dictionaries! I even had my Dad’s Japanese dictionary from WWII--I finally gave it away to someone who had lived there and could read it. So when it came to prayer I got tired of using the word “help” when praying about specific needs. I didn’t want to get bored, or tire God with my repetitive prayers by repeatedly using the word “ help.” So I undertook writing a list of words to use in its’ place. Here is the list I wrote down:  “guide”; “direct”; “convict”; “enrich”; “strengthen”; “illuminate”; “...

Overcoming Obstacles to Faith Sheila Zimmerman, writing for Betty Hawkins I’ve known Betty Hawkins for a while, but it has only been recently that I decided to undertake this difficult task: to write her story in such a way that it doesn’t turn into a book, but to give enough information to attest to the fact that God worked a miracle in Betty’s life. Our church has been learning from the book of Joshua about the victories God that brought about in his life, and in Israel’s history, as they undertook the initial conquest of Canaan. How would they get past the massive walls of Jericho? Pastor Bruce asked people in the congregation to write their own personal stories of victory and post them online for others to read. When I told Betty I thought she should share her story, she asked me to write it for her. Born in 1951 in Shanghai, China, Betty was the middle child between two spoiled siblings. Irene was the oldest. She could play the family’s piano all she wanted whil...