IN THE MIDST
By Donna Churchill

I feel so without hope…….
but I know that’s not true.
I feel so defeated…….
but I know that’s not true.
I feel so alone…….
but I know that’s not true.

     I feel sad, exhausted, lost, sick and 
without direction, but I know these 
emotions are all temporary.

     But for all these emotions I feel, I
need you.

I need your grace.
I need your mercy.
I need your love.
I need your truth.
I need your presence to surround me,
to carry me.
I need you…….because in the midst,
I know
that you are sovereign
that you are faithful
that you are grace
that you are mercy
that you are love and I know
that you will never leave nor
forsake me.

Take my hand, LORD,
be my guiding light
shine in my darkness,

I know you are 
good
I know you are
truth
I know you are
Beautiful Savior
I know you are
my refuge

I know you are
the strength of my heart.

In the midst, I know
You are all this and more.

I trust you, LORD, I trust you

In the midst, I know
You are a God who can be trusted.

Lift me up, LORD, restore my soul

To you I bring my broken heart.



“Whom have I in heaven but you
And there is none on earth I desire
Beside you
My heart and my flesh may fail
But God is the strength of my heart
And my portion forever.”
Psalm 73:25-26

By Mary Spence


My husband suffered an unexpected medical problem this past holiday weekend. We had set the entire weekend aside to work on fixing our old kitchen floor which was falling in. We  spent the entire day pulling up the old floor and rebuilding it together. Our second day without water and inches from having it flowing again, and boom! Diversion. We spent the entire night in the emergency department. One procedure after another as the hours crept by until the decision was finally made to admit him to the hospital. By midday on Sunday he was tucked into his hospital room safely so I dragged myself home thinking only of a nap before heading back to the hospital. My beautiful daughter tucked me in for a few hours sleep. A few hours later we headed back to the hospital pausing on our way back to shower at church, thanking God for the blessing that our church building is.
After seeing that he was tucked in for the night under the watchful eye of a distantly related nurse we arrived at home and crawled under the covers. Monday morning he woke me up calling to say he couldn't eat or drink because he might be having surgery. Rushing to make a cup of coffee for the road,  I realized the milk was warm. When I opening the freezer I discovered everything was thawed out. Thinking quickly I transferred anything salvageable to our camper fridge and freezer with my daughter's help. Barely holding it together, I climbed into my car to rush back to the hospital. Tears started to flow as I tried to remind myself how strong and resilient I am. But then I remembered how loved I am. I cried out to the Lord, begging for help to get through the tidal wave of obstacles coming at us rapid fire.


One of my favorite lines from scripture is this: "But God... ". I walked through the doors of the hospital floor directly into the arms after a fellow daybreaker that God had placed directly in my path. By the time I reached the side of his bed, the urologist swept in to announce that he was going home that day.
Within hours  I got a call, our pastors had water restored at our house! My mother was on her way to order us a new fridge.  Each wall we came up against revealed a solution we could never have expected. Each trial I had tearfully handed over to Jesus that morning was knitted together to reveal a new direction. That night my mother wrote to me "Read Psalm 100 before you go to bed."
Psalms 100:1-5 NIV
[1] Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. [2] Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. [3] Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. [4] Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. [5] For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.

I know whose I am. I know He is God. I am created by Him and we are His sheep. As a shepherd watches his sheep, He is watching over us. So I can give thanks to Him, even in these times of trial. ESPECIALLY in these time of trial.

So I am thankful for every hand and every voice who came out of the woodwork at just the right time this past week. For the texts and calls and those who came even when I i aisted I was ok. For the church building and the church family. My family. And for my Shepherd. Thank you.

By Peggie Potter-Balaun

In 1 Samuel 9-14 there is the account of Saul of the tribe of Benjamin being anointed 
and appointed by Jehovah God to be the first king of Israel and how he disobeyed the
command of God to completely annihilate the pagan Amalekites. Now before we wince
at the thought that the loving God of Israel would make such a request please keep
in mind several things:
First, the Amalekites had been determined to destroy the Hebrew people since their release from slavery in Egypt.
Second, they were a cruel pagan people who regularly sacrificed their own children to idols. The Word of God says that a nation who practices such things is cursed (Jeremiah 22:3) and those who practice such things are already considered dead (Galatians 5:19-21 and Romans 1:32 ) This was also before the age of grace and Father God, thirdly, was intent on keeping the nation He had covenanted with to give birth to His Son Jesus, the Messiah and Savior of the world !
  King Saul's failure to obey God led to the escape of the Amalekite king Agag's pregnant queen whose decendants became known as the Agagites.
   Fast forward to the time of Judah's captivity in Babylon . Under the Persian king Xerxes' rule an evil man know as Haman the Agagite persuaded the king to rule that the Jewish people living in the Persian empire should be annihilated. A young beautiful Jew, a Benjamite and her cousin and guardian Mordecai, discovered this plot shortly after she became King Xerxes'queen. Unlike king Saul, Mordecai and this brave young woman risked their own lives to expose this plot ! They succeeded, where king
Saul centuries before had failed potentially leaving the Jewish people vulnerable to
genocide at the hands of an evil Amalekite/Agagite !
   People tend to forget that our omniscient God knows the beginning from the end as
well as the past from the future. It is, therefore, never a good idea to disobey Him.
As the old hymn says,"trust & obey, cause there's no other way...". We don't always
know why God asks certain things of certain people. We must indeed always trust
that Father God knows best !