In a Battle? Perhaps You Did Something Very Right.

"But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded... do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. ... 2 Chronicles 15:7, 1 Peter 4:12


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When I started this blog in 2004? Oh, what a battle! 

Our computer began acting wonky. Freezing, blacking-out. 
Heck, my brain did the same! Meaningful sentences came to me, yet while typing, I'd forget their second halves. 
A perfect word would appear--then phhhht. Fade into my brain's white space where I could not retrieve it.

And remember how I (recently) felt horrified that my oldest posts screamed, "Debra forgot every writing lesson from high school and college"?

And let's not mention my own self-doubting thoughts nor that a couple folks told me sharing my personal life online was foolish, dangerous and prideful (I expected strangers to care about my life?, they asked). 

Wow, right?  Battle-like, indeed, and ok, sometimes I did get all --

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But mostly? I'd remind myself of Bible verses like this one:


"For a wide door of opportunity for effectual service has opened to me --along with many adversaries."   ... 1 Corinthians 16:9


So today if you are facing a battle, with voices chiding you to quit? May you remember that satan does not want us to bless anyone. Only after he sees our consistent determination will he step away and bug some likely-to-slink-away-whimpering, soul.

Whether you're starting a --

home Bible study group or
a way to help your neighbors or
prepping your home/family for all emergencies or
obeying God by getting out of debt or eating right or
beginning a cooking ministry, writing a book or volunteering, etc.--



--stay upon the battlefield where God placed you. Someday He'll say, "You've finished! Well done. Now let's move on to this new thing I've planned for you." 

And because 'greater is He who's within us', we can win those upcoming early battles, as well.

Satan fights us hardest on our most meaningful, legacy-type stuff. We must not let him win those battles.

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."   ... Isaiah 43:19


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Ooooo! I discovered a beautiful thing. A window, via our big screen tv, will sail me happily through winter by going here.

(P.S. Youtube can take you just about anyplace you wish to go. Seek, then find.) 

(Oh, and Tom's co-workers asked him for a photo of the new tv. He pointed to the two blue bowls and said, "Those illustrate Debra's Last Stand". Ha! I laughed like crazy because that's exactly how it felt to place them there.)  ツ













"For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15