Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday 5-19-2022

Love In Action

Thankful Thursday’s morning car ride with my son led to conversing about morning routines. We each have our way of getting awake and preparing for the day ahead. But I shared a piece of information as a reminder to him. Each morning while we are still sleeping, my husband goes around to each sleeping person and gives them a light kiss.

This is love in action. It usually happens while we are unaware of it.  But it is a sign of care, value, and worthiness exchanged between the both the giver and the recipient. Small actions of attention such as an unaware kiss, a squeeze of support, or eye contact with a smile hold huge impact in the edifying of each other. And sometimes a verbal reminder of those actions of love help us to be fully present in receiving them.

Hebrews 10:24

²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,

Blessings!

Thankful Thursday 5-19-2022 Experience Opportunities:

All are invited to Worship both online and in person. Worship services occur at 8:00 am, 9:15 am, & 10:30 am. Christian Education will occur at 9:10 am. To learn more about online worship, click here. Or want to revisit a message that really spoke to you? Check out our Sunday Sermons.

Want to be part of a prayer group? We come together in a collective effort to support and lift up others during your time with God. Join our new Facebook group: Gravel Hill Prayers. It is a closed group to be mindful of the private and sensitive requests made. And it’s purpose is for you to be a prayer warrior both interceding where others are asking for assistance in prayer and requesting prayers for situations that need lifting. To join, please send an email to Katie.

Thankful Thursday 5-12-2022

The Blossom of Our Heart

Thankful Thursday greets us with the warmer weather and beautiful spring time flowers. Outside our azalea bushes and lilac bushes bloom with brilliant colors that bring a smile to my face each time I see them. The dogwood tree brightens a corner of our yard with a gorgeous pink.

I’m grateful for these displays of brilliant color shining in the spaces where they are planted. They provide a reminder that a call waits for us to answer: shine brilliantly for God in this world. When we root ourselves in His word and nurture ourselves with an atmosphere of people also grounded in His word, we grow in through each of the life challenges we face. The attitude with which we approach those challenges blossoms as the flower of where our hearts are based.

Matthew 6:21

²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Just as the roots of the flower provide the nutrients for its bloom, so too do the roots of our thoughts and beliefs provide the nutrients for our actions in life.

May your roots lead to a brilliant bloom for all to see.

Blessings!

Thankful Thursday 5-12-2022 Experience Opportunities:

All are invited to Worship both online and in person. Worship services occur at 8:00 am, 9:15 am, & 10:30 am. Christian Education will occur at 9:10 am. To learn more about online worship, click here. Or want to revisit a message that really spoke to you? Check out our Sunday Sermons.

Want to be part of a prayer group? We come together in a collective effort to support and lift up others during your time with God. Join our new Facebook group: Gravel Hill Prayers. It is a closed group to be mindful of the private and sensitive requests made. And it’s purpose is for you to be a prayer warrior both interceding where others are asking for assistance in prayer and requesting prayers for situations that need lifting. To join, please send an email to Katie.

Thankful Thursday 4-28-2022

His Love Endures Forever

Thankful Thursday bursts with blustery winds outside. Cooper, my dog, loves the fresh crisp air. As I watch him joyously sniff the air, I’m challenged to appreciate the experiences I am currently in. It is spring. It is supposed to be a bit warmer and I wrestle with my desire for wanting warmer weather now. The challenge of appreciating what we currently have while also modifying expectations from what was to what is (and maybe even mourning the loss of those expectations) meets us each day.

One way to meet this challenge: read my Bible every day. You may ask: How does that help with changing expectations? Great question! The Bible offers reminders of the steadfast love within which God holds you and me. His goodness and mercy resonate throughout scripture as we see different people in the Bible faced ever-changing situations. King David covers a plethora of lift circumstances in Psalm 136 all followed by the reminder: His love endures forever.

Psalm 136

Blessings!

Thankful Thursday 4-28-2022 Experience Opportunities:

All are invited to Worship both online and in person. Worship services occur at 8:00 am, 9:15 am, & 10:30 am. Christian Education will occur at 9:10 am. To learn more about online worship, click here. Or want to revisit a message that really spoke to you? Check out our Sunday Sermons.

Want to be part of a prayer group? We come together in a collective effort to support and lift up others during your time with God. Join our new Facebook group: Gravel Hill Prayers. It is a closed group to be mindful of the private and sensitive requests made. And it’s purpose is for you to be a prayer warrior both interceding where others are asking for assistance in prayer and requesting prayers for situations that need lifting. To join, please send an email to Katie.

Thankful Thursday 4-21-2022

Rooted

Thankful Thursday sees blooming flowers, trees, grass, and weeds in my flower beds. As I do each year, I have begun working my way through each bed, bit by bit, removing the weeds, old leaves, and debris. During yesterday’s removal time there was a bit of a breeze. So as placed the items I was removing onto a pile for the eventual compost pile, I noticed the wind had differing impacts on the items I placed there. As the wind blew, the rooted items laid anchored on the pile; however, the dead leaves blew along to and fro.

The winds of change in life blow upon us all. And when those winds hit me and I have not been intentional in my routine of getting into God’s Word, I feel blown about like the dead leaves. But when I have been rooted in His Word, it is then that I walk through life with confidence. I know that no matter what is happening in life, God’s promises are steadfast anchors onto which I can hold. And you can too.

Psalm 136:1-3

¹ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
² Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

Blessings!

Thankful Thursday 4-21-2022 Experience Opportunities:

All are invited to Worship both online and in person. Worship services occur at 8:00 am, 9:15 am, & 10:30 am. Christian Education will occur at 9:10 am. To learn more about online worship, click here. Or want to revisit a message that really spoke to you? Check out our Sunday Sermons.

Want to be part of a prayer group? We come together in a collective effort to support and lift up others during your time with God. Join our new Facebook group: Gravel Hill Prayers. It is a closed group to be mindful of the private and sensitive requests made. And it’s purpose is for you to be a prayer warrior both interceding where others are asking for assistance in prayer and requesting prayers for situations that need lifting. To join, please send an email to Katie.

Thankful Thursday 4-14-2022

A Lot Can Happen

Thankful Thursday falls smack in the middle of Holy Week. Recently I’ve seen people sharing the saying: “A lot can happen in seven day.” Four pictures typically appear with this quote: a palm frond, a crown of thorns, a cross, and an empty tomb.

Humans used the palm frond to praise Jesus. The crown of thorns mocked Him for not being the King they expected Him to be. The cross was used to get rid of Jesus and all He represented. Once His breath was gone, His body was placed in the tomb to seal Him away. Just because humans tried to be done with Jesus, does not mean He was, is, or will be done with us.

Thankfully Isaiah 55:6-9 lets us know:

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found,
    call upon him while he is near;
⁷ let the wicked forsake their way,
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God’s thoughts and ways are greater and higher than any human can ever try to reach. He is kind of like bubble wrap to our lives. In spaces before we arrive, protecting from all angles, and remaining after we have moved. No matter what you and I as humans think about God and His actions, we will never be able to fully understand them, but we can fully experience them.

Thank God for that! Because no human would have every positioned themselves the way Jesus did. And because of that gift of grace, we can choose to be with Him now through the human praises and ridicule on this side of heaven, and forevermore.

Blessings!

Thankful Thursday 4-14-2022 Experience Opportunities:

All are invited to Worship both online and in person. Worship services occur at 8:00 am, 9:15 am, & 10:30 am. Christian Education will occur at 9:10 am. To learn more about online worship, click here. Or want to revisit a message that really spoke to you? Check out our Sunday Sermons.

Want to be part of a prayer group? We come together in a collective effort to support and lift up others during your time with God. Join our new Facebook group: Gravel Hill Prayers. It is a closed group to be mindful of the private and sensitive requests made. And it’s purpose is for you to be a prayer warrior both interceding where others are asking for assistance in prayer and requesting prayers for situations that need lifting. To join, please send an email to Katie.