By Rebecca Vickery

Refuge-(noun)- a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble.



I don’t know about you, but for me, these days have been so overwrought with trials in every direction.  There is not a physical refuge.  I cannot get away from the onslaught.  It is pervasive.  From within, from without, I am hard pressed on all sides.  



When I am in spatial peace, my thoughts attack with a million different what-ifs.  The present seems so volatile, so what does that say for the future?  And then I hear the refrain, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for today has enough worries of its own.”  And I repeat it for myself.  Thank you, Lord, for the reminder.


My heart is gently reminded back into the present.  And so it goes.  My heart and mind wander into anxiousness, and the Spirit brings me back.  Still… it seems the safe spaces are shrinking, my peace with it, and the enemy seems to be making headway across the board. I lift my eyes up to the Lord, where does my help come from?  And suddenly, the world entire halts for a moment.


It’s just me in the presence of the Lord and His presence surrounds me.  The voices of my enemies quiet for a moment.  The stresses of my environment cease for this moment.  My racing thoughts find themselves a stoplight.  There was a song written by Lifehouse in the year 2000.


“Find me here and speak to me.  I want to feel you; I need to hear you.  You are the light that’s leading me to the place where I find peace again.”


I have to be led back to that place.  Again, and again.  But the more I am led there, the more I want to return there.  He is my refuge.  A very present help in times of trouble.  HE IS.  I don’t know of another time when I have most needed him to be there for me.  And He is.  I don’t have to leave my geographical location to meet with him.  I simply have to do it. 


A few nights ago I was overwhelmed by my gratitude towards God for being there for me.  And I was reminded of a time when my heart was so prone to wander.  I wrote the following poem in response:
 

Eternal Father
Who was and is and ever more shall be
You have been my shelter Lord
You have been an ever present help for me
My refuge in times of trouble
Lord I’m done walking away
I want to go where you go Lord
I’m done having my way
I want to stay with you
 
You’ve been so gracious as I’ve sought my own agenda
You’ve brought me back when I’ve wandered far
But I have traveled that rocky cliff side
And I don’t to go without you, Lord, no
 
Precious Lord, please lead me on
Whatever way it is we need to go
And if it’s face first into the storm
Make me mighty like your buffalo
Through the ice, through the wind, the rain and snow
 
I’m done running off the other way, if you lead me onward
If you bid me stay
I will walk with you, with faith like a child
My hand in yours through the fierce and wild
I do not want any other way
 

In Matthew Jesus chastised Jerusalem, and laments “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing!”  


I want to be gathered.  I don’t want to be resistant when I could be finding shelter under his wings.  The Lord is not waiting to jump out and say “gotcha,” he longs to gather his children to himself.  How often have I allowed myself to spin out in anxiousness and sadness when I could have been seeking refuge with the most high God.


My friends, God is not absent.  Sometimes we forget how much of a privilege it is to simply BE in the presence of God.  To be found by Him and be known as His.  If this world pushes you to the end of yourself, meditate on Psalm 46 and remember that He is an ever present help in times of trouble.  Peace be with you.

by Peggie Potter
​     John 14:12-15 So after He had washed their feet& put His robe back on& reclined again, He said to them, "Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me 'Teacher' & 'Master"-& rightly you say for I am. So if I your Master & Teacher, have washed your feet ,
you ought to wash each other's feet. I have given you an example-you should do for each other what I have done for you .

     John 14:12-14  Amen, amen I tell you, he who puts his trust in Me, the works that I do he will do & greater than these he will do, because I am going to the Father.

      We praise & worship Jesus s our Savior & King for indeed he is !  But there is an equally important aspect of Jesus too
often overlooked: He is our example !

      Jesus was born human & walked in our shoes on this Earth, on & among His own creation & subjected to time which He also created. He knew hunger, fatigue, discomfort, & pain as well as heavy demands on His Person. He experienced poverty & need.
He came into this world as a helpless infant 7 left as God's sacrificial Lamb for all our sakes.

      Knowing this as well as that there is no way any of us could possibly pay Him back for all He has done for us, His one big
request of all of us is that we show the same selfless love, compassion, & concern-His servant's heart- He showed to each one of us .
 
     Remember that :
       He forgave us ! We are expected to forgive one another (Matthew 18:32). He gave of Himself to us ! We should do the same
​for our neighbors!

      He instructed us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31) He lived this example in that He provided healing &
sustenance. He laid down His very Life for us all because He "would that none should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life in Him" (2 Peter 3:9)- we too should feel this burden for the lost as well as members of His Body who were once LOST AS WELL!

    He forgave & even served those considered His enemies-from the Roman centurion & Samaritan & Syro-Phoenician women who sought healing for loved ones as well as forgiveness to those who persecuted & executed Him.

       It is true that living as Christ requires the same servant's heart as He had while on this Earth. And as in his case,
the eternal rewards make it all worth it, not only for ourselves, but for others who see Jesus' Love in us & as a result
give their lives to him as well !

      Hebrews 2:17-18  Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in all things, so he might become a merciful & faithful
Kohen Gadol (High Priest) in matters relating to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.

Believing
By Tony Driver

Matthew - Those who do not believe in me will be cast into darkness.

We should fill our hearts with His never-ending love. Fill our minds with His words. And fill our souls with His Spirit and serve Him with every ounce of our being.

And love our neighbor as ourselves. The promises of the path to Heaven shall be opened to us. And we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

And on that great day I hope to see you all there in that great kingdom with our Lord. 

Where there will be no more sickness, no more death, no more hate, no more darkness, only the light of our Lord forevermore.

​

​by Linda Hokit


        Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
    In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path. Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

      I have seen the Lord lead me in many ways over the years. Let me share some examples of how God worked in the past and fulfilled His promises in the present.
​
      PAST: When I was only one month old my parents traveled by car from California to Alabama. While driving, we hit what is now referred to as the Panhandle Blizzard of 1957. There were no hotel rooms available, gas was running out and people where dying. Late into the night, my father pulled into a gas station and asked for help. The owner said, he and his wife had been praying for a young couple with a baby they could help. That first trip turned into 7 we took adding my brother a few years later. As a result, I was familiar with many cultures and environments before I finished first grade!

     PRESENT: Later in my adult years I taught Conversational English, a form of English as a Second Language. During my missionary years I was the support person for a number of schools throughout the state of Alaska. My mentor, Louise had retired but was still teaching when she heard about a church in Georgia who was sending a construction team to Alaska. The leader of that team felt strongly that he should invite the Vietnamese pastor to come along. The pastor had no skills in construction but God had a plan. Louise heard he was coming, drove to a town where they were working and told the pastor why she believed he was in Alaska! She had been working with a group of Vietnamese for well over 10 years.

      They learned English but never embraced Christ. She called together all the Vietnamese she could gather at the last minute. About 5 adults came. Once they heard the Gospel in their language from a man who happened to be in the same refugee camp at the same time they were, they all accepted the Lord!

      PAST: On our last trip to Alabama, we attended Mt Zion Baptist Church in Huntsville. During VBS I accepted the Lord and was baptized. It was a large red brick church of about 2,000 people which was a bit overwhelming for a child who attended a church in California that was created from a ranch style  home. Bethany Baptist only had about 50 people, but it was the first place I remember at age 8 understanding the awe of God. My pastor came from an organization that ministered on the streets. He was a “chalk talk artist” and drew his sermon on Easter Sunday that year. Easter has been my favorite holiday since then.

      PRESENT: After I became a missionary, I received a card from a women’s group who sent me card on my birthday to say they were praying for me. It was from Mt. Zion Baptist Church. I wrote the ladies to say their church played a role in growing up a missionary and often spoke about the faithfulness of their church.
     
      The Alabama ladies participated in a tradition we have in Southern Baptist circles to pray for
missionaries on their birthday. If you would like to see the names of missionaries you can pray for, go to https://wmu.com/prayercalendar. You will see me there on the 23rd .

     PAST: Before I graduated from High School we lived in California, Alabama, Mississippi, Alaska and Colorado. We moved and changed our address 25 times. As an adult I moved 20 more times and have to date lived in 11 states and 2 Canadian Provinces. I arrived in Vermont 8 years ago. MISSIONARY PAST: Many people have asked where I served and what I did. Before, I was appointed I served in my church while employed as a paid worker for Girl Scouts, USA. About 8 years later, I went to Vancouver, British Columbia to serve during the World’s Fair and then moved over to Calgary to direct the Canadian Southern Baptist ministry outreach during the Calgary Olympic Games. That was followed by service in Alaska as interim Youth and Education Director and in New York as a Resort Ministries project leader. I received my call to ministry while in New York. At the time, Baptist Convention of New England had a seminary extension program in Boston sponsored by Southern Seminary. I became a Church Starter Strategist serving in New Hampshire and Massachusetts while going to seminary. After Seminary I went to Buffalo, New York to direct a ministry during the Summer World University Games, then worked at the New York State Fair Ministry we developed during my first experience in New York.

      Most of the work I did before seminary was related to meeting people in the places they play in order to bring them the Gospel, which is called Resort Ministries. 

      AFTER SEMINARY: After seminary I moved to Alaska as an appointed missionary. I was a Church and Community Ministries Consultant. I helped churches meet the needs of people in their communities while sharing the Gospel; I did this role twice before retiring. In between, I served in Stone Mountain, Georgia working to establish permanently ministries that were begun during the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta including a campground ministry at a local state park. After retiring from Appointed Missionary Service, I served 10 years with American Red Cross in Alaska and Vermont. In it all I can say,  God directed my path.

by Will Brannon

​Following God is a series of choices.The first choice is to accept him into your heart as your Lord and savior, when you do this you will be filled with holy spirit and your sins will be washed clean. Now what?

We have the spirit and must now walk in it. What does that look like?

These are just a few examples…

Do I allow my pride to seek its vengeance, or do I choose to forgive?

Do I spend time out partying, watching movies, playing mindlessly on my phone, or do I read my Bible?

Do I allow my laziness to reign over my decisions and stay home, or do I go to church?

Do I allow depression and intrusive thoughts to take over my mind, or do I choose to seek God, and allow the peace that is in Him to rule in my mind?

Do I put my life first, or do I deny myself in pursuit of service to Him?
 
Jesus tells me to deny myself, to bear my cross daily and follow him.

Some days are easy and my cup is overflowing with grace and joy, others I feel far from God, like I can't even feel, see or hear Him. I’ve learned that in those times if we stay true and do not stray from His path, that feeling is unfailingly replaced by a peace like no other. 

I will not lie, it can be hard to be in a world saturated in sin, such as the one we live in now. We trip and stumble on that sin, then feel shame and despair. But when we walk in the Spirit, we can see sin as it truly is, our eyes are opened to the Truth. We can take heart in the fact that those who do not have Jesus in their heart cannot feel that way. The simple truth is that feeling that way is our reminder that the Spirit lives in us, that the path isn’t closed to us, as I know it can sometimes feel. 

Here’s the corrected version:
Remember, we are all trying to walk the same narrow path together, but it’s not good enough to walk it. When we walk past others on the same path who are tired and weak, who have stumbled and need help to stand, we must stop to pick them up, help them walk, and give them encouragement. Otherwise, we are just stepping over God's children in order to get ourselves where we want to be.
Imagine your child falls down. Everyone ignores their pleas for help, walks around them, steps over them as they are too weak to stand, then those people come to you and say I'm here, I've finally made it. What would you say, seeing what they had done to your child? 

I have a pretty good idea of what God would say, but I definitely know what I would say.

Jesus told us about the importance of love, how we are called to love each and every person as we love ourselves. If we have no love in us and God is love, how can we say that God lives in us? 

Please my friends, understand you are not alone. God is with you and so am I. If you ever need someone to talk to, If you are struggling, I am happy to be here for you. I chose to devote my life to helping those who believe they can’t talk about things, feel doubt, feel weak, feel as though they can't stand. It's ok to talk about it. You aren't the only one with these thoughts, these feelings, these fears. We are all real people, we can't hide from what makes us human. Sometimes it's not pretty and that's ok. God has given me the strength and the desire to be of help. I hope anyone who's in need and wants to talk will approach me anytime. In church, after church, you can facebook me, we can chat in person, texts, email, whatever you most comfortable with. You only have to make the choice to open up.

I am not a professional, I'm just your friend in Christ.

     by Rebecca Vickery
​
      There's a part of me that always wanted to skip to the end of a stressful book. Things aren't
looking good, so I want to get to the end where there's hopefully resolution. Better that than
feeling the tension. Take me to the end where the wrongs have been righted, and
reconciliation has occurred. There are times when life gets hard that I want to do the same.
Can we skip to the redemption arc?
​
      I know God can make a way even when there seems to be no way, but walking in the midst of
it, that's how I become conformed to the likeness of His Son. If I am walking in my own
strength, then when I come against someone who is making life hard, then I might be inclined
like the disciples to ask, shall we call down fire on them? God, can you smite my enemies?
The living, breathing ones that surround me. Not the unseen enemy that makes those people
seem like the enemy. But if I'm walking in the Spirit, and being conformed to the likeness of His
Son, then I am interceding for those who, by their words and their lifestyle do actual harm to
the ones I love. I am asking God to bless my enemies, to bless and not to curse them, to forgive
them, for they don't know what they're doing. I'm following the examples of Jesus. If I skip to
the end, I would bypass my own redemption arc and miss the Lord using my circumstances to
draw me closer to himself.

      None of us desires suffering. But if we are suffering, it is not for nothing. Our suffering is not in vain. Jesus Himself pleaded with the father that if it was possible for Him to not have to face
the suffering on the cross, that God would do it another way. If there was another way, Jesus
would not have had to endure the cross. Likewise, if there was another way for this story to
happen apart from my suffering, I would not be suffering. In 2 Corinthians, the Bible offers us
encouragement with regards to suffering.

      Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an
eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is
unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
I don’t need to skip the end. I know that in the end, God will make all things right. I will never
share another uncomfortable conversation with a loved one that ends in confusion, heartache
and frustration. I will never feel the brokenness of my body and the weight of this world on my
heart. I will hunger no more, I will thirst no more, and He will wipe away every tear from my
eyes. But in the meantime, my “light and momentary troubles” (that neither feel light nor
momentary) are accomplishing for myself (and my family members) an eternal glory that far
outweighs them all.

      What comfort and peace I find in those words. Not only are my troubles momentary, but they
are achieving something eternal for me. I cannot fully understand from this side of glory what 
it means, but I know from Romans 8:18 that I can consider that our present sufferings are not
worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. That which is yet to come will be far
more glorious than anything I have had to endure on this side of things.
​
      Someday, we will witness the restoration of all things. In the meantime, we are called to be
ministers of reconciliation making peace wherever peace is possible. What a charge we have
been given. BUT, He who called us is faithful. We do not have to rest in our own strength to
get us to the end of the story. We can fix our eyes on the author and finisher of our faith,
knowing that HE is the one who will get us to the end. 1 Corinthians 1:8 says, “He will also keep
you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In Jude
it says that He will keep us from stumbling and present us without wrinkle or blemish to the
Lord in the end. So as challenging as it seems to be a minister of reconciliation in a broken
world, Jesus has my back and is interceding for me that my faith may not fail me. I don’t have
to skip to the end of the story, I can trust in the savior who will give me the strength to endure.
Hallelujah. To Him be the glory, both now and forevermore.

by Kadeen Edwards

       Rest is not to be found in figuring your life out, but in trusting the One who has it all figured out for your good and His glory.


     “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭26‬ ‭NIV‬‬


     Rest is one of the best parts of being a child of God. It is a gift that God has given us. Yet it sometimes seems out of reach. Rest is what God did on the seventh day and what he wants us to do.

     The reality of me not taking rest is saying to God I know what you said but I don’t trust that you have all things in your hand so I am going to do it my way. Which every time I do it my way it leads to exhaustion and anxiety and not much accomplished. When I trust God and rest in him, it seems that even more than I could think or imagine gets done in my rest and I have peace.

     So after reading this and processing what I have written, I think to myself why am I not resting in the times he’s called me to rest? I know that he gets it done…

​     Our God never sleeps nor slumbers. So now I have a choice to rest and receive his peace or be exhausted and accomplish little. I know that he does more than I can think or imagine when I rest in him. This year, I am going to learn to receive this rest.
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