This coming Monday we are launching our first Bible Study Series for MEN. They will be studying Terry Looper’s, ‘Sacred Pace’. Terry is a wonderful friend and mentor to our ministry  and today he offered to not only donate some books for the local guys, but even more to be a part of our study by introducing his book LIVE next Monday night and then closing out the study teaching the last lesson for us in May. I LOVE it when God doesn’t just prove we can trust His promises, He shows off!

She awoke and the horror of the past few days came back to her in a sudden flash.  The trial, the crucifixion, the burial...all of it flashed before her eyes and she wondered how she would go on without Him, without her friend, teacher, and most importantly Savior.  But just as that thought crossed her mind, her heart took over and the memories shifted and transformed to another time and place…

The time had come, the journey had begun. There was no turning back now. He had known His assignment from the start. There was only one way out and it was through the cross. On that night after Jesus finished His last supper with His disciples, including the very man that would betray Him...I wonder...what was going through His mind?

Do you know that scientists believe we have over 3,000 thoughts every hour?  The sad truth is an alarming percentage of these thoughts are unhealthy ones, circulating in our brain over and over again every day, causing us to doubt who God is and who He created us to be. They keep us boundaried, shut down, scared and insecure. These negative thoughts are wreaking havoc on our lives.  It’s time for us to jump into the ‘war’ that is already in progress for our minds and life. It’s time to partner with God and take the best of what neuroscience and scripture have to offer, wage our own war and fight for control to win back our thought life! The battle for His ‘true’ peace is on...especially in these unprecedented times. This is why SOULWELL Ministries is launching our first ever ZOOM Bible studies for both women and men.  Our passion is to watch Jesus transform lives and change legacies, one soul at a time. We believe there is no better time than NOW!

These are strange days we are living in.  How many of us started 2020 being sure that this year was going to be so much better than 2019?  I saw a meme yesterday asking if anyone had unplugged 2020, waited 30 seconds, and then tried plugging it back in.  I chuckled, but deep inside I thought, “God, this year was supposed to be different!” Yet we find ourselves surrounded with chaos, death, disasters and sickness.  

This decade has been defined for me as one of getting to know God. When I say that I don’t mean to know Him so that I know where I’m going when I die. I mean to know Him as a friend and to know His physical presence. To know that no matter how hard the day is (or the hour or the minute) that He holds it all together in His hands. To know that He is big enough for the wrestling and the tears and the really hard questions. These 10 years I have grown to know that He is never far from me and my thoughts are never far from Him. When the hard days come, and they still do and always will this side of heaven, I can take a breath and listen to the waves of the inhales and exhales and know that He is within me and all around me. Jesus alone is my source of strength and security.  I didn’t know that in 2010 like I know it now, almost on a cellular level.  

So I stand at the end of this decade facing forward to a new one. And again death is on the horizon. This time it is the death of my biological father who I haven’t had a relationship with in 11 years. The questions are multi-faceted this time. The anger simmers below the surface and the tidal wave of grief is sure to come. These things I know because I have walked this road before. However, this time I walk with the knowledge and belief that my Savior walks in front of me. Step by step leading the way, catching the tears, preparing my heart for the inevitable. I am different now. I am more steady. I am more aware. 

Join us for our next day retreat! We will practice both visual and written art forms as a way to connect to God in prayer. Visio Divina is translated as “divine seeing.” It is related to the prayer form Lectio Divina (divine reading), but instead of Scripture alone, the form we will practice utilizes both scripture and visual elements to help set your mind on prayer. It allows God to speak to your heart through image.

Rainy days always make for good days to spend in the presence of God. Soft clothes, coffee, candles, snuggly blankets and the quiet just seem to usher in His presence more easily. Maybe it’s because the hustle and bustle of the usual day to day activities in my life are easier to put on hold on rainy days, or maybe the quiet rainfall softens and slows my heart. Whatever the reason, I found myself sitting in my office this morning begging God to come and abide with me. I listened to the rise and fall of my own breath in rhythm with the rain and the gentle breeze. A peace began to settle over my heart, mind and soul that deepened with every breath I took. I found myself settling in and cocooning myself within a feeling of pure love, grace, and mercy. He was here, Emmanuel, God with me. I knew I was safe and secure in the palm of His hand and that there was nothing I couldn’t reveal to Him that He didn’t already know.

In 2017, Natalie and I started out on the ride of our life with God.  We had NO idea where God would take SOULWELL Ministries, or what we were doing.  What we did know is that God was calling us to step out in faith and we were determined to TRUST JESUS no matter what the cost.  God has led us every step of the way. Daily He shows us what we need to know before we even know we need to know it. It’s amazing to see how He uses every part of our skill sets that we have developed over the course of our lifetime and perfectly blends our hearts and personalities as we give our all to serve Him.  And when He doesn’t show us how to do something or we feel stuck, He connects us to someone who not only knows what we need to know, they are eager to help. Truly, Jesus has been showing off for us over and over again.

Her eyelids crusted with dried tears slowly flutter open. She stretches and squints in the bright morning light and as she takes her first deep breath of the day, the reality of yesterday settles into her heart and mind like a boulder sitting on her chest. Her beloved son is gone! He is laying cold and alone in a tomb. She can't comfort him or see him anymore. She will never hear his voice again or have him near. His beautiful spirit will never occupy the same space as hers. The hole in her heart aches with longing. She can barely breathe as she gasps for air and realizations of him being gone fly like arrows towards her hitting their mark every time. With every arrow the reality of his death becomes more confirmed in her spirit and yet there is a piece of it that struggles to protect itself from the truth. 

My husband died in 2011.  It was such a dark time in my life.  I sit and think back on those days and I honestly don’t even recognize the person that I was back then.  I had become a product of my environment. I had allowed the world around me to invade my thoughts, and it had manifested itself into taking me from who I was created to be, to a person that was full of lies, manipulation, hatred, grudges, and darkness.  I have a biography of sorts that I wrote at the urging of my counselor in the later part of 2011. I read it now and I don’t even recognize my own words. I am not the person that I was then...by the grace of God alone.

When God breathed His very breath into us we changed.  We became. He shaped us and formed us from the ground and then He breathed life into us.  From the very beginning, His breath transformed what was nothing and formless to living, breathing creatures.  As we look around we can see Him creating and transforming nature. He transforms the seasons around us and within us.  We watch and trust that oxygen changes to carbon dioxide and breathes life into trees and flowers. Our breath gives life to creation itself.  The Word says:

To this day we are aware of the universal agony and groaning of creation as if it were in the contractions of labor for childbirth. And it’s not just creation. We who have already experienced the first fruits of the Spirit also inwardly groan as we passionately long to experience our full status as God’s sons and daughters—including our physical bodies being transformed.  For this is the hope of our salvation. Romans 8:22-24 TPT

There are times in all of our lives when we have no idea what God is doing.  He takes us to hard times and hard circumstances, and we look around and think, “Where are you, Lord?”