Mine is the Night

Recently, for my daily devotions, I was studying Ruth, and I found it ironic that the day after I finished Ruth I picked up Mine is the Night by Liz Curtis Higgs. Those of you that have read it, you will understand what I am saying, and if you haven't I recommend that you read it.

Mine is the Night


A beautiful story of young widow returning home with her widowed mother-in-law and begging for assistance from family members from 10 years past. It is a story of hope and love and survival. When they arrive they find that even Anne has little money to live off of herself, let alone support two other people. It is not long after Elizabeth is forced to sew for money, that people begin to question Elizabeth's husband's past and shun her for it. Will Elizabeth's job be enough to support them, or will they be required to look for another higher paying job? When Elizabeth let's her heart get tangled, will anything come of it, or will it just be broken once again by one she loves? Join Liz Higgs on this journey of love and survival in Scotland, in a time of judgement and distrust.

Honestly, I could not put this book down, and if you have read the story of Ruth, you will understand the correspondence of Ruth and Elizabeth in the novel. I recommend that you read it and find out for yourself, but I give this book a 4 out of 5, so maybe it isn't such a bad read after all :)

Like Dandelion Dust

I just finished watching an absolutely amazing movie! The title is "Like Dandelion Dust". I don't know if any of you have seen the movie or read the book, but both are absolutely amazing.

It was jam packed with lots of scenes of frustration and tears and you could feel the tension and pain as two families struggled to keep their little boy. The question I kept asking myself is what would I do. At times you may be frustrated with the adopted family, wondering why they are doing the things they are doing, but somehow I could see what they were trying to do. I recommend you check this movie out. Honestly I cried through 3/4 of it and I am not a 'crier' by definition. The only thing I did not like was that God was not the center of the movie as he was in the book, but I guess you can't appease everyone.

Anyways. I just recommend that you check it out because it may change your life.

Why!!??!!!?!

This summer I have been staying with my grandparents in Saskatchewan, helping them clean up the yard. It all started that I needed a job and they needed the help, so out I came. I have to say that I have had so much fun this summer, but it has also had some trying moments.

For example, my grandpa has Alzheimer's and Vascular Dementia. If any of you don't know what that means, well, in short form, you forget memories and you forget the purpose for something. People with dementia have problems with memories, perception, emotion issues, cognitive skills, and speech. The sad thing is, for both of these there is nothing that can be done to help, just wait and hope that the pills you are taking are helping.

Everyday I see him fall further and further down the rabbit hole. He wont know what some tool is for, or how to say something. Often times you are left standing there while he struggles with his words and you just want to push them out. Yesterday we were cleaning the garden and I was picking all of the Fat Hen, which is a weed that can reproduce off of a single leaf. My grandpa was attempting to assist me but he was trying to pull them out with a huge spade and was therefore loosing them and covering up other ones at the same time. It took half an hour to convince him to let me do it by myself, but then he insisted on helping me find them. He would point at the weeds and I would pull them out. Only he didn't know which ones were Fat Han. He has been weeding this particular weed since he was a little kid and at the age of 86 he didn't know which one it was. The day before this he said he was 96 and that his wife was 33, which is completely inaccurate.

The thing that saddens me the most is that he used to be so smart. My grandma cries a lot because she misses him. It almost never is him anymore.

I keep asking myself why him? Why should he be the one that looses almost everything he holds dear? It is almost never fair in life, and everyone knows that, but still we ask that most important question. Why. So often people wonder and wonder, and I think that to find the answer people have to turn to God for the answers. Yes bad things happen, but that doesn't mean that God caused them to happen, our bad choices did. When it wasn't our choices or even any one elses, it just shows the frailty of life. Our human bodies are not made to last forever, and this is due to our sin in the Garden of Eden. We are fragile. We break down. Just because someone gets a disease, doesn't mean that it is because they did something bad to deserve it. It could be caused by the bad air due to pollution, or just nature. God allows stuff to happen to teach us a lesson, but that doesn't mean that he wants us to get hurt.

He loves us dearly, and I have found that in the hardest trials, that the stories of Job and to Lamentations are a great help. They are the stories of sorrow and sadness. Of suffering and pain. There are in the bible for a reason. To give us hope, and to let us not feel like God is cruel or that it is all our fault. Lean on God, even in the hard times and you will find strength.


"Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will rund and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary." - Isaiah 40:31

Cleaning House

I was cleaning the yard with my family today and I realized that even when things don't seem to be that dirty, when you polish it, it looks that much better. I live on a farm and I know that it isn't any excuse, buy our yard is ridiculously messy! We were pressure washing the driveway, and before hand I said to my parents that there was no need to do it because it wasn't that dirty. How wrong I was. We took away more than 6 wheel barrels full of dirt and sludge. SIX. Things usually end up being dirtier than they appear.

My family may be messy with how clean we keep our things, but I believe that there are worse things than a messy outside, and that is the inside. If we hide or keep something from others, we don't realize how dirty it is until we clean it up. Just like a window that is dirty, often times we don't notice how filthy it is until we clean it.

For example, I realized that recently I had been extremely short tempered with everyone around me, and I didn't even realize that I was. No matter what anyone at home did, I was not happy. I felt horrible inside, but I didn't know what was going on, so I just went on doing what I was doing. I went to church on Sunday morning, a bit miffed because I did not feel like going. I felt like it was a chore, too much effort than it was worth. The moment I walked in the church doors I was wishing I wasn't there, when suddenly it hit me. I didn't have to be there. I didn't have to do anything for the church. I did it because I wanted to. Those people inside the church did not deserve my horrible attitude. When worship started, the songs we sung were, "I'm coming back to the heart of worship" and "Jesus Messiah". Boy was I convicted.

I realized that everything I did was supposed to be for Jesus. The words,"He became sin /Who knew no sin
That we might become His Righteousness/He humbled himself and carried the cross," hit me hard. Right then and there I asked God for forgiveness. 

It was in that moment that I realized that the reason why I had been so extremely rude lately was because I wasn't reading my Bible. I was stressed about final exams, keeping good grades, what I was going to do after graduation, and it caused me to falter. Inside I knew that I needed to read my Bible, so I felt guilty about what I wasn't doing. I am happy to say that I started to read my Bible, and the day seems brighter. It is strange how God works in miraculous ways. 

This same thing goes for secrets or things that you have hidden. When you try to hide something it just itches. I was recently at a friends house, and I touched poison ivy by mistake. When I didn't put something on it right away the marks grew and began to be itchy. The more I touched it, the more it hurt. This is the same as something you have hidden in your closet, something that you need to get out. When you don't fix the problem , you lie more, become moodier, and many times fall away from God. 

If you have something that you are hiding, don't hide it because in the dark it festers and grows until you don't even realize the main cause of the pain. 

"I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Trust everything with the Lord God, because he is the only one we can lean on. Don't try to hide something from him, because, well, he sees all!

On My Way Out

Today I found out that there was an opening in the bible school program that I want to get into and I realized once again God's power. I am signing up late and I wasn't sure on what would happen, and he pulled through. I know that sometimes he doesn't pull through in our prayers, or at least for what we are hoping, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't love us. No matter what happens, He is like our father. When we wanted to do something when we were younger, our parents would try to prevent us from doing it, but often, we would have to learn the hard way.

I remember one story of my younger brother. He was 2 years old when we were living in Saskatchewan. We had an older style toaster oven that we had on a small table in the dining room. One night, after supper, he walked up to the toaster and twisted the knob that was on the front, inadvertently turning on the toaster. Next,  he pulled down the door and stuck his hands inside, exploring, like any good toddler would do. I was washing dishes in the Kitchen when I heard him yell and ran into the other room. He had gotten third degree burns on his palms of his hands because he placed his little hands on the burner. My parents had told him numerous times not to do that but he was a kid, and he didn't know better. 4 months later, after his hands had healed, he did it again, obviously not learning from the first time.

In our lives we are just like this. We feel like we should get what we want, and when God doesn't give us the answer we want we adventure out on our own, exploring. This, too often than not, causes us to get burned and we say, "Why God," when it was our fault in the first place. Other times it is others that sinned which causes our lives to be drastically changed. It isn't God's fault, but those around us. Satan uses these situations to get the better of situations. God isn't our piñata that we can hit around and eventually get candy from. He is like a parent, giving us some things, but keeping others away, trying to teach us right from wrong.

God doesn't always answer our prayers, sometimes he closes a door that we really wanted to be open. In Jeremiah it says that God has a plan for us, and it isn't to harm us. It is amazing to think that no matter what happens He knows what is going on.

I know in my life there has been many times where I wondered where God was in my life or what he was doing. One of my favorite poems, Footsteps in the Sand, says it all. The one line that says, "When you have only seen one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you," is my hope for the future. No matter what happens that hurts or makes us feel like there is no hope, is when God is there holding our hand.

If you feel like God has hurt you in a way that you can't be healed, you are wrong. God didn't hurt you. Either it was by your own doing, or the doing of others around you. God allows things to happen to teach us a lesson, but he doesn't cause it to happen. This concept has taken me years to understand, and I know have years to comprehend it even more. Life throws curve balls, and I think it is time that we leaned on God for guidance in deciding whether to swing or wait. If you swing too soon or too late, it is strike out, so wait for God and he will help you hit a home run, even if you don't feel him beside you guiding your hands.