Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

Does God cause bad things to happen to us?  This week, I've had multiple conversations with people about dealing with consequences.  They asked why God caused bad things to happen to us, so I would like to address this question head on.  This morning illustrated God's grace perfectly.  As I was leaving for church, I narrowly missed walking into a really big spider web stretched between my car and my husband's truck.  There was a very hairy spider sitting right in the middle of this web.  Thankfully, I missed walking into the web, or I would have alerted the whole neighborhood of meeting the itsy, bitsy spider.  I mentioned to my daughter that I would have to destroy the spider's web in order to leave, and she said a very wise statement.  "The spider chose to build his web in a dangerous place."   I very gently reversed my car so that the spider web fell toward my husband's truck.  The web was completely destroyed, but the spider lived ...

Have you ever talked yourself into believing something that is totally false?  In my county, the fire department was dispatched because a hole on a farm started spouting fire in a column over 10 feet tall and burning really hot.  Speculation ran rampant.  Was it a meteor?  A gas leak?  A volcano?  Did the farmer decide to rid his land of groundhogs?  Of course, there had to be someone that thought it might be aliens.   First of all, it would have to be the tiniest space ship ever.  We may laugh at something so ridiculous, but we all find ourselves listening to others and believing the worst.  My daughter loves to watch American Idol.  On of the sixteen-year-old contestants was very unique and confident.  As she began to move forward in the competition, hate mail began to come.  When people who are insecure see others who are confident, they tend to put the confident , unique people down to feel better about themselves...

I've noticed something that seemed to have crept up on me- wrinkles!!  My co-worker was creating pictures for a student in one of my classrooms.  She needed photos of everyone, so I became the victim of a drive-by photo shooting.   I smiled and felt great about the photo until I stumbled across the 8 x 10 laminated version of it a couple of days later.  Where had all of these wrinkles around my eyes come from?  I asked her what happened to the sparkly setting.  She just stared at me confused- sparkly setting?  Another co-worker pointed out that the softening filter only showed up on the selfie mode.  This picture had me obsessing over age.  When had all of these aging things come to my face?  Wrinkles, freckles, age spots?  My daughter was even nice enough to mention that she looks like me- only younger.  Haha.  Then I started looking at the goofy beauty products that people are buying to try to desperately hang onto th...

Our church is preparing for a VBS.  I know we are not on vacation, but we decided to do a back to school Bible school for the children in our little town.  Our children's pastors were working tirelessly to create an amazing VBS.  With the theme of Champions of the Bible, they made shadow images of characters from the Bible and walls of Jericho surrounding the church.  It was right before VBS when they led our kids in a game.  Our children's pastor, Sue, stepped into a drainage trench beside the church.  It had been covered by our post-hurricane grass so that she couldn't see it.  We prayed that her foot would not be broken with VBS looming.  Although bruised, she was able to walk with no broken bones.   Later, while taping shadow images on the walls of a room, the ladder she stood on shifted causing her to fall with such force that she bounced.   She felt the skin on the back of her leg tearing as she became entangled in the ladder. ...

My daughters were invited to a friend's quinceanera birthday party.  This is when a girl celebrates turning fifteen.  My daughters wanted to wear new dresses for this party.  I found Megan a dress right away, but I still hadn't found Aimee one the day before.  While visiting Trenton at college, I decided to look for a dress at Branson Landing.  My son and husband were troopers as I maneuvered them through teeny boppers and strollers in search of the perfect dress.  It was an hour before store closings and a long walk and still nothing.  By this time, desperation was kicking in.   Have you ever seen the movie scene where the guy is walking through the desert in search of water.  He sees a mirage and eventually is crawling through the sand wearing his pants as a hat.  I felt this type of desperation.  I would get a glimpse of a dress, only to find it was a mirage and was actually a really long shirt.  I had a moment with God b...