You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
The Message
God blesses those people who grieve. They will find comfort!
Contemporary English Version
Great blessings belong to those who are sad now. God will comfort them.
Easy-to-Read Version ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When we put our faith in God, He assures us that our grief and mourning will not last forever!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ANOTHER TRANSLATION OF ISAIAH 61:2,3
The LORD has sent me to comfort those who mourn… He sent me to give them flowers in place of their sorrow, olive oil in place of tears, and joyous praise in place of broken hearts.
Contemporary English Version ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Thank y’all for stopping by to visit Little Things. May your life be filled with little blessings, little chuckles, and little deeds of kindness (both given and received)!
♥ I am so VERY grateful for the friends God has brought into my life –
truly some of my bestest blessings! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.
Phyllis Diller
A smile is a powerful weapon; you can even break ice with it.
Author Unknown
You’re never fully dressed without a smile.
Martin Charnin
A glad heart makes a cheerful face…
Proverbs 15:13a
What if the only things we had today were what we thanked God for yesterday? Author Unknown
Sometimes it seems the things we find hardest to be thankful for are actually what God uses to bring us His best blessings. me
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Thank y’all for stopping by to visit Little Things. May your life be filled with little blessings, little chuckles, and little deeds of kindness (both given and received)!
♥
…and may you always be thankful enough to smile
…even if you have to smile through tears. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Before you leave, here’s a blog you might enjoy.
I just read Lissa Rabon’s post from the Texas Hill Country.
Our state’s severe drought continues, and her family has been searching for hay for their cattle.
Her husband finally located some in Louisiana,
and it arrived this morning.
I think they’re pretty gratefulandjoyful about today’s delivery!
Lissa’s post includes some very interesting first-hand information about the cattle and drought situation,
as well as wonderfully descriptive comments about her relationship with their animals. “The Louisiana Round Bales have arrived…”
♦
– and here’s ONE more I just found –
MJ has a heart-warming post on the joys found in everyday life on Joy
♦
OK. I’d better let you go.
I’m sure I could find more good ones to share…
but as my southern sistas would say, “I have to wash the supper dishes!”
Hope y’all have a good weekend!
I first read this verse over forty years ago while I was a college student.
Apparently it made quite an impression, because I have remembered it ever since!
I have used it many times when writing personal messages to family members and friends.
Through the years, I have come to understand that
prayer at it’s best is constant communication with God.
Whenever someone comes to mind,
perhaps it’s because they have something important going on at that particular time
or because they have a special need in their life.
Perhaps it’s God prompting me to pray for them!
For me, this little poem expresses it quite well.
If you have someone on your mind and would like to share this with them,
please feel free to pass it along.
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Thank y’all for stopping by to visit Little Things. May your life be filled with little blessings, little chuckles, and little deeds of kindness (both given and received)! ♥ “God bless you with His love…..and keep you in His care!“ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
God’s blessings don’t always come to us in the form we expect,
and sometimes we feel that God has abandoned us and forgotten about us,
rather than that He is blessing us.
In these times, we must remember that
God may be using the trials we are going through
to prepare us for something better…
for blessings that we cannot even imagine.
‘The faithfulness of the Lord never ends!’
This is a new song, “Blessings,” by Laura Story.
Some of the meaningful lyrics include…
“What if your blessings come through raindrops?
What if your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you’re near?
What if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise?…”
For an overview of Laura Story’s life, <click here>
As we come to the conclusion of a week of catastrophic suffering in the southern United States,
there are people who continue to be overwhelmed by loss of loved ones,
loss of homes and employment,
and who are suffering the pain of personal injuries caused by the horrific storms.
For them, life will never be exactly the same again!
There are thousands of others up and down the center of the heartland
who live in the shadow of the rising Mississippi River
and face an ongoing threat that their part of the levee will be breached…
and that they will be caught up in a flood of epic proportions.
Whatever kind of struggle you are going through,
I pray that you wake up tomorrow morning
aware that God’s love and faithfulness have begun afresh in your life for another day.
And let us not forget to pray for all these others who need God’s blessings, too.
My first memory of this Scripture is from junior high school – about fifty years ago!
Wow!! That’s a LOT of blessings!!!
In my church youth group, we used this for our benediction at the end of every meeting or get-together of any kind. Whether we were in our home church, in a district or conference-wide youth meeting, or out in the woods at church camp, we would all stand in a circle, cross arms, hold hands and repeat these verses. This closing prayer became a very special tradition.
Then I graduated from high school and went to college, where I was a member of the college concert choir. We sang this benediction at the end of every concert. In the spring each year, we went on a week-long choir tour somewhere in the southeastern United States. Every night, at the conclusion of our concert, all alumni in the audience who were former choir members were invited to come down and stand with us to sing this benediction. This larger group would then include singers from their early twenties to “elderly” alums — and most of the older sopranos, altos, tenors and basses would all remember how to sing their individual parts! It was a heartwarming experience to carry on this tradition, standing side by side with people who had been students like us many years before. Even now, if a group of us are gathered together, and someone starts singing this familiar hymn, we will all automatically chime right in — to ask God’s blessings one more time!
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