Gateways to Joy

Tonight I watched Sara Frankl's memorial. Sara is the blogger who passed away this Saturday due to a debilitating form of arthritis. So many people talk about Facebook, blogging and Twitter in a negative way, always saying why they "don't" participate. I understand totally. Yet I always share, though we should indeed play it safe, this new means of communication...networking, is my mission field. It's the way God is allowing me to minister to people I wouldn't otherwise be able to talk to. I'm writing this to show you the love God's people bestowed on Sara, blogger and friend to many, and vice-verse. These are some of the tweets that other's used, mostly bloggers, to express love to her during her final days and hours. Choosing Joy Tweets. There is also a beautiful write up about her and the mark she made on many of us. Tonight I watched a live stream of her memorial and yesterday her family allowed a live stream of her funeral. ...

How many of you have someone in your life that you find difficult to love?  Could you be that difficult person to someone else? This thought plagued me this morning as the Lord and I sat "just talking".  I'd told the Lord a few weeks ago that I didn't care for a particular person's personality and that I was glad I no longer had to deal with them and all of their drama. "Out of sight, out of mind." So I went ... on my merry little way. God reminded me of something this morning though. "I am still required to love the difficult!" The more I pondered on my difficult relationships the more I saw where I learned something about me.  Could it be that those "difficult" people served a purpose in my life after all?  And that all the fuss and fight wasn't null and void? The more I began to focus on the various relationships that I've had and have in my life that have caused me anguish, the more I see how the purging has...