Denise's Dailys

So, I've encouraged Robbie to write on here, but he's a very busy guy. He hopes to get on later tonight. I really don't want this to be just a place I go to write out my thoughts. I have one of those places already. It's called my journal. :) We need you to get involved here, and share your thoughts, concerns, encouraging verses you've been reading in Scripture...whatever you want to share. Just keep it family friendly, of course.

For today, I feel like God's on the verge of doing something really huge around us right now. I don't mean just in the world-although He's definitely preparing the world for something ginormous right now with all that's going on, but I'm talking about in our little world. God is preparing our hearts and opening up our thoughts to think about Him in a bigger way than we ever have before. He's used our pastor, books we've read, and situations He's placed us in, and is gently urging us to dream Big, ask Big, and expect Big things! I think it may be called growing our faith, but it seems different this time. In the past, the faith-growing has mostly been out of hardships. Amazingly, our all-powerful God can also grow faith just by expanding our minds.

Oh Papa, expand our minds today. And may the gap between my little world and the huge world around me grow more narrow as I see Your hand in all of it, and as you place us in situations where we have opportunities to reach the world for You!

Random Thoughts

One of the things we learned this weekend at our ministry orientation has to be shared with everyone. We were talking about "ministry" and how often we've said we have a ministry called Higher Ground. Well, we were wrong. That is one aspect of our ministry. Actually, every follower of Christ has a ministry-it's called life. Every breath we breathe is our ministry as believers. So if you are one God has sent to work in a business office or teach or work at the grocery store or wherever--you are a minister of the Gospel. Every hour. Every day. All the time. So live that way. And never feel you are not as worthy or as set apart as a pastor or missionary. God has set you a part for a special purpose that only you can fulfill-your calling.

And by the way, your calling isn't as much about what you do as it is about Whose you are! Great stuff.

Chronic Illness

For nearly 5 years, I have been trying to connect people with similar needs. I would meet someone in New York with the same physical symptoms as someone in Michigan and say, "I wish you could talk to them, because you may be able to help each other." So one of the purposes of this blog is to allow people to share their needs and reach out to each other for advice, prayer, and support.

When dealing with chronic illness, it's easy to feel alone and like no one understands. We know we have a God who created our body, and He knows our body better than we could ever hope to. He is also gracious enough to give us other believers to walk with us through the struggles and pain and to help us understand our own bodies better.

Let's share together here. Feel free to let people know what's going on with you and how we can pray for you. If you have specific questions for folks, ask them. Let's love on each other!

Denise

Welcome

Welcome to Higher Ground's blog. We've been wanting to start this for a long time. We are praying God uses this to bring together His children to share burdens, offer encouragement and support, make connections, and just love on each other the way we're supposed to be doing.

We've all got a lot going on with the economy, the war, and just trying to live out our faith in this corrupt, ungodly world. We are sinners just like you are, and we are thankful every day for His grace and forgiveness. Not only that, we're thankful for His presence in our lives helping us making it through, growing us, and stretching us. And even beyond that, He gives us a precious body of believers, our brothers and sisters in Christ, to help us along in the path. What a caring Papa. We are supposed to connect with each other. That's what the "church" of the Bible is for.

Please join us here frequently to share your hurts and triumphs, your prayer needs and questions, and what God is doing in your life. Maybe we all can help each other grow just a bit more.