Learned Along the Way

Today's Jesus Calling reminded me of one of the first passages I memorized in college, John 15:4-7 The devotional shared that God alone prepares us for the day, and the future. I have been really thinking about God's sovereignty the past two weeks. God sovereign over nature and natural disasters. God sovereign over our enemies and the circumstances of others' choices around us. God sovereign over our culture. God sovereign over our decisions and free will, if we submit both of them to Him in our times of temptation and decision-making. God sovereign over our natural bodies and inclination to sins, in a debate over dealing with the inclination towards sin. God sovereign over me, as it is a DAILY conversation and surrendering things to Him, that don't grow me or satisfy me in relationship to Him. Today, the devotional made me reflect that God has been sovereign over my past, my memories, and my walk along. As much as I wanted Him to give a huge revelation of what I was...

I Want to Live Again... Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" is one of my favorite movies. As anyone will tell you, it gives me tears every year I watch it. My grandpa, Leland Crandall, introduced me to the film one Christmas. He told me he watched it at least once every year. I remember being in junior high, and wondering, "Why would Grandpa watch the same movie every year?" I got to thinking, "Well, we all do it with a Frosty, or Charlie Brown, or Rudolph, so..." I remember watching it as a young teen, for the first time. To give some context, I was not a Christian,   I went to church because my mom and dad went. I didn't even know if I really believed in God. I mean, I said prayers at night and tried to read the big King James, red-lettered family Bible we kept in the living room, but didn't really get it. My friends, Stephanie and Kathy, invited me regularly to youth group, but I never felt like I fit in there either. I didn...