In 2011, I asked the Lord what I could do to express the creativity he put in me.  My talents did not lie in being musical or artistic, but I knew I must have some way to express creativity.  I thought to myself, God is creative, so as his child I must be, too, in some way.  When I asked the Lord about my way to be creative he impressed upon me to write.  Specifically, the impression was to write  a series of 40-day devotional-journals with the title of the series being Redeeming Grace.  Over a period of three or so years I completed the series.  I absolutely loved doing it.

I have loved God’s word since my teen years.  I have read and studied and shared it with others individually, in small groups and through preaching for over 50 years.  The “assignment” to write the devotional-journals was pure joy for me.  As I wrote I thought of the people I have served with through the years:  the young people from the various youth groups I have been honored to know, the adults I have served with and ones I will never meet who somehow get a hold of one of these little books.

As I wrote the devotionals, I prayed for the ones who would read them.  I prayed for them to be drawn closer to the Lord through their reading and meditating on scripture.  I still pray that for myself and others.  God’s word is so precious and taking time in it with the Holy Spirit as guide is food and drink for the spiritual life.

(The picture on the cover of the book above is one I took from above the area where the sermon on the mount likely took place.  It is a field now, but a natural amphitheater and the seven springs of fresh water are nearby.  The Sea of Galilee is there with Mount Arbel in the background.  My husband and I were in Isreal in 2007.  We visited another couple who had business there and we stayed with them in their rented cottage on the Sea of Galilee.  It was the pilgrimage of a life time.)