Author: carriedinthecross

I am a young woman who grew up in British Columbia. In BC was all I ever wanted; I had my poodle (Max) and all my friends, Saturdays at the Vancouver Aquarium and Sunday afternoons at one of my favorite beaches it was paradise. But God had a different plan for my life and my dad's job landed us in Alberta and now where I remain, in small town Souris Manitoba. The transitions from paradise to prairie were difficult and I will admit that now 10 years later I still refer to home as Abbotsford BC. Through this crazy pathway trek across Canada I have had one true constant, God; and though none of it was easy, everything that has happened in my life has formed in me a true lasting friendship with the one I call Immanuel. Because no matter how far from home we are God is with us, and thanks to God I have found an almost completely over looked beauty in Manitoba. If you open your eyes you will see that God has planted wondrous things everywhere you go.
Christianity · Devotional

The love of Christ

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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?- Romans 8:35

Many things can separate us from the love of friends, neighbors, spouses and even family. But nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We are His and He is ours. No matter what we do or say, even if we are not Christians God loves us. Just because you can’t see the sun doesn’t mean it’s not there. God loves us! All of us! And no one and no thing can change that. Not even we can change that. We may want God to leave us be at times, and want to do things our way without having to consider what His will might be, but even when we are like that God stays close and waits until we see that we need Him and He knows best; and all the time He is waiting on us He is loving us, because nothing can separate us from the love of Christ!

Laughing at yesterday
Christianity · Devotional · Uncategorized

Laughing at yesterday

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I know it is not scriptural, really, but when you think of it- discontentment can be such a subtle sin that we don’t even realize that it is there.
If only we could all laugh at yesterday and then forget all that went wrong and move on. We are all weak, and prone to sin, but the sins of yesterday are past and as long as we have asked for forgiveness we are all saved from them. As long as you can laugh at yesterday and smile at the possibilities of today nothing will hold you back.

We must learn to take our contentment from God and hold tight to His unchanging hand.

As my mother says: If we truly lived in contentment and fully trusted God how peaceful our lives could be. – Lynne VanBeek.

We can learn to not be discontented by trusting in God and knowing that somehow all things that happen to us are for our good, though we may not see it until the very end. Trust is Faith and Faith in God draws us closer to Him.

Little is Much
Christianity · Devotional

Little is Much

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Better is little with the fear of Jehovah, then great treasure and trouble therewith-Proverbs 15:16
One of Tolkien’s poems is about an Elvin treasure that has a deep magic upon it; Magic so deep that eventually the elves leave. During this poem a dwarf finds the treasure and delves deeper and deeper into the mountain until he is old, deaf and blind. A young dragon comes and kills the old dwarf taking his treasure. Latter the dragon is old, deaf and blind, when a young knight comes in and slays the dragon taking his treasure. Next the same happens to the knight and when the crusaders come he is also slain. The crusaders leave the treasure untouched and soon it is forgotten. A treasure that takes the very soul of a person, dragon, dwarf, is also like a coveted sin. Many have sins that they know deep down are wrong but they will not yield them. Those sins will eventually cause them great trouble. It is better to have a little and trust fully in God and serve him than to have great riches and power that eventually consume and destroy you.

Christianity · Devotional

Remembering who HE is

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I love how Jerimiah 33:1-3 first states who God is. ‘He who made the earth, who formed it and established it. ‘

Only after this does Jerimiah say the promise of God. ‘  Call to me and I will answer you, and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

Jerimiah doesn’t forget WHO God is, before declaring WHAT He will do.

It is so easy to treat God like a genie in a bottle who grants a wish and appears when you rub his lamp. We forget that God is awesome! In the true definition of the word. We forget that He IS the almighty, the I Am, master, king, creator of the universe. God is so much more than a wish granter, the only reason He pays attention to us is because He loves us. He doesn’t have to help us, He wants to. Let us not take advantage of God’s love and forget who God is in the process.

Set Free
Christianity

Set Free

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What good is it for a man to gain the whole world but to lose his very soul? –Matthew 16:26
In The Voyage of the Dawn-treader, the group of main characters land on an island in search of provisions. While all the others are searching Eustace wanders off and stumbles across a dragon’s hoard. In his blind greed Eustace starts taking bits of treasure. But a dragon’s treasure is cursed and the boy turns into a dragon. Nearing the end of the book, Aslan has Eustace climb into a pool, Eustace tries to wash the scales off himself but fails, only when Aslan helps him do the layers and layers of skin finally come off.
In our lives sins pile up and cling to us, like a forbidden treasure, we keep on gathering more sins until we are so laden down that everyday is a struggle. Only when God offers to peel off our layers of sin will we finally be who we were created to be. We can’t remove the sins ourselves we must have Jesus to remove them by the purity of His sacrifice. By dying on the cross our sins were washed clean, and through knowing Jesus personally we can be made free from the bonds of this world. Sometimes it is painful to have the scaly sins stripped away, but in the end the healing balm of Christ’s eternal presence in our lives soothes the hurt and we can see how much greater it is to be scale free. Without Jesus we are trapped, with Him we are free.

JESUS
Christianity

JESUS

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When did we become so afraid to say the name Jesus?

Jesus is our savior, He is our King, He is our friend; but are we His friend? If we are afraid to say we love Him, to call Him as ours then are we His friend? This world is changing, in some ways good, in some ways not so good, but where will Jesus fit into all this change?

We can go right back to Jesus’s  ministry as a man here on earth all the way up to His ministry through Christians in the present day and we see many common strings linking these times. The one I am going to touch on is the string of trying to get rid of Jesus.

The High Priests of the courts back in the days of Herod tried and failed to rid the world of Jesus. I say failed because He rose again and then ascended into Heaven where He now reigns until the day when He returns to collect His people.  Jesus was crucified in as brutal a fashion as you could crucify a man, and yet He lives. Even if you ignore the fact that Jesus rose again, even if you believe He stayed in the tomb His ministry never died. Wheather Jesus rose again or not (I believe He did) Jesus’s ministry lived on. In countries that tried to squash it by killing His believers, through ages of people trying to rid the world of the name Jesus, He has survived, both literally and in narrative. So where does He fit in now?

In a world where hate mail is a common thing since the creation of FaceBook and Twitter; In a world where people mock, slander, insult and swear at you if you say the name Jesus, where does He fit in? Where He always has. In the whisper, in the quiet, in the yearning and crying of our hearts for someone who loves us, that is where Jesus fits in. IN the magnificent, the crouch of a lion or the roar of the ocean waves, that is also where Jesus fits in; He is in everything if we look for Him. Why are we afraid to say the name Jesus? Our ancestors never were, or at least it didn’t stop them. Throughout history people have died and suffered for the name of Jesus so why are we so afraid in a country where people can’t hurt us with more than just their words? We need to remember that Jesus is there when we speak His name, we are not standing alone, and we need to feel privileged to say the name Jesus and know that He is there. We don’t need to be afraid, people’s words hurt, when they call down and insult Jesus it hurts, but He is used to it and we need to be willing to stand with Him anyways.

What we want isn’t always what we get
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What we want isn’t always what we get

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Commit thy works into Jehovah, and thy purposes shall be established. –Proverbs 16:13

It’s too true; every time we try to do things on our own there is a 50/50 chance that we will fail. Even if we succeed the accomplishment wont be as great as it would have been if we had included God.

Make your life easier, pray before you proceed to take on a new task. Once you’ve prayed, take the task on with vigor knowing it will be in the hands of the almighty.

Don’t waste your time and health on the stress of doing things without God; if He wants it to happen it will happen, and if He doesn’t want it to happen there isn’t anything you can do to change that.

Take heart though, even if what you want isn’t what God has planned, what He gives you in exchange will be far more wonderful than anything you could have imagined.

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Passion

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Blessed are they that keep his testimonies. That serves him with their whole heart. – Psalms 119:2

When you get a passion, you search it; you think of it often and always are happy to be involved in it.
If we make Jesus our passion we will be able to know him better and to serve Him wholeheartedly because he is our passion. When we do this in order with His laws we will be blessed for following His will.
When you make Jesus your passion, it is easier to see that you are also His.

When we are lost
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When we are lost

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We have all had times where we feel lost. Lost about our job, lost about our relationships, even lost about our connection with God. In these times it’s easy to wander about searching for answers and trying to find God’s purpose. Like Stitch in Lilo and Stitch, we can find ourselves searching for a place we belong, for a family. It’s normal to be confused about our purpose because it’s something that God holds tenderly in His hands and we don’t always see how where we are or what we are doing helps on our given life path. It’s easy to feel as though we are slipping and there is no one around to catch us; but God is always there reaching out His hand. Don’t think that you are the only one who is questioning your purpose, many people are and all people have done so at some time. God does not leave us purposeless; He gives us a purpose and a belonging. We belong in the family of God as His chosen children, and our purpose is to do whatever it is we are doing right now, because it is what God wants us doing right now. And what we are doing right now has a purpose of it’s own in helping make our future.

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Let it go

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Let the sun not go down up upon your wrath- Ephesians 4:26

It’s not easy to let go of anger. Some hold grudges for many years of their lives, and seek revenge wholeheartedly.
As Indigo said in the Princess bride, ‘I have been in the revenge business so long I do not know what to do now that it is over. ‘
Now we cant all go and become the dread pirate Roberts, but that just shows what holding on to anger leads you to.
As Elsa sings ‘ let it go, the past is in the past!’

Leave the past in the past, carrying the burden of anger, and sometimes hate, does not hurt anyone but you. It weighs you down and as you get weighed down you get more and more angry. So move on, not for them, but for you.