Podcast interview with Ginny Owens

Listen to this episode of the Ready to Thrive podcast, featuring Christian music recording artist Ginny Owens! It will inspire and encourage your heart. God loves you, dear heart!

Devotionals for the Heart: A lesson on faith learned from computer updates

Necessary Updates
A devotional by Erin M. Handley

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” 

–James 1:2-4 (ESV)

Some years back, I remember witnessing my computer install a series of updates that took so long, I thought I would never see the end of it.

At the time, my computer was my lifeline. I used it for work, school, and to stay connected to friends and family; sometimes using it for close to 20 hours a day. One night as I attempted to shut down my computer, I noticed it was ready to install a few updates. The notification stated that the device should not be powered down or unplugged, and I obliged by placing the computer to the side and allowing it to finish updating as I continued to get ready for bed.

About twenty minutes later, I noticed it hadn’t shut down and was still installing updates. I thought it was strange but didn’t think too much of it; I went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I noticed the computer was still updating. So far, this update had taken close to 10 hours, and I found myself beginning to panic. Something had to be wrong. If it took this long, how much longer would it take? I didn’t want to stop it for fear of messing it up and making things worse, so I waited.

Finally (somewhere around hour 15), the updates were complete, and the computer powered down. In pure shock (and with much hesitation), I restarted the computer. It powered on without any issues and worked properly just as it had the night before. The incident was strange, but after a few days of pondering, I let it go.

Months later, I was reminded of the prolonged update. Then, it hit me: Updates are downloads that the device receives for the purpose of improving the device. We don’t always have control of the updates we receive or when we receive them, but we know that when we get them, it’s to benefit and extend the life of the device. I remember applying that idea to my spiritual life trusting that the Lord knows what we need, when we need it, and He performs updates regularly in our lives to better us and His Kingdom. Great! Duly noted.

Fast forward to the year 2020.

The world seemingly stops and is turned upside down. Sadly, some of our lives turn upside down right along with it shaking loose any permanent entities we believed were tethered in our personal lives. Some of us lost jobs. Our educational systems were stretched beyond reason. Friends and families found themselves at odds as they recognized differing stances on race, politics, and religion. This is all in addition to the entire world fearing, suffering, and grieving through a pandemic many of us were not prepared for. We’ve seen so much death, destruction, and hatred in the year 2020, that it’s hard to see us returning to the world we once knew.

If you’re still reading, I want to encourage you with this:

Remember when you found yourself in that season that just wouldn’t end? The tests. The trials. All the times things just wouldn’t seem to go right … and remember how God not only brought you through it, but how He grew you through it? How in the midst of the chaos, He nurtured you in that season of waiting so you could be better on the other side of it? Maybe you haven’t experienced that season before, but you’re definitely experiencing it now. The season where you find yourself questioning if ‘this’ is what you signed up for or even if ‘it’ is worth it.

Trust me. It is.

You’ve been equipped for it. Just as that computer took so much time to install the necessary updates to keep it running smoothly, you may be in a season where He’s installing His necessary updates within you. And it may seem like you’re simply sitting and waiting, and that’s okay.

Whether you’re in the season of downloading (learning) updates or installing (applying) them, waiting can be the hardest part – but the hardest part is usually what makes the process worth it. Trust that He is equipping you with everything you need to be used for His glory.

~*~
Author Bio:

With an ever-growing desire to continually learn the Word of God and present teachings based on Biblical principles, Erin M. Handley is committed to her calling of teaching and inspiring others to ‘be more by doing more.’ With this in mind, Erin mentors young women and appreciates seeing the growth and change in the lives she impacts.

While she sincerely enjoys mentoring and speaking to young people, she is most passionate about educating and empowering women from various stages of life about biblical womanhood and how to live out those principles in today’s world.

For over 15 years, Erin has worked with youth and adolescents in the fields of mental and behavioral health, education, and ministry. When reflecting on her experiences in ministry and non-ministry settings, her most memorable encounters have been those that allowed her the opportunity to teach the Word of God in a way that is most relatable to the audience she served in that moment. She has enjoyed writing since her youth, but only recently felt the call to share her writing with the world.

With an undergraduate degree in English and a graduate degree in Ministry and Pastoral Counseling, Erin M. Handley has been fortunate to be able to leverage her gifts and her passions throughout her career in Education. Aside from reading, writing, and mentoring, Erin enjoys dancing, interior design, cooking, and most other activities which allow her to utilize her creativity.

Devotionals for the Heart: Pruning

Pruning Season
A devotional by Sharon Musgrove

“Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” – John 15:2 (ESV)

Gardening brings me awe and great joy. The activities of creation are entertainment to me.

For as long as I can remember, the outdoors has been my place of respite, a break from the to-do list that always seemed to originate indoors. For some, rest is found in coming in. I prefer spending quiet times in the yard because it is here that I witness how God has structured the laws under which life exists.

Three years ago today, I wrote about the importance of rest, likening winter to a Sabbath time. We require time and seasons for renewal. God designed it this way. Our lives include both day and night. Stopping our work is a commandment written in Exodus 20:9-10 (ESV), which says, “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work...” God blesses the “setting down of the load.”

Years have come and gone, and as I have come through yet another winter season, I know that it is time to address the garden’s needs before spring shows up.

It’s time to prune.

Like a fruiting plant, I am maturing. This is the year that God has pointed out the time to cut back is at the end of the rest period. It’s at this time that the leaves are absent, revealing the true state of the branches. The bare bones of the plant show what has not survived heat of summer, damage of harvest and the bitter cold of winter.

I’ve come through a tough year. There is damage done, yet there has also been wonderful fruit. According to God’s cyclical design, rest was a requirement. And I took it. Slowing my pace, going on vacation, and taking naps were all a part of that rest. Reading replaced studying. I invited prayer. I shared with trusted people. I listened.

The rest has given me the nurturing to be ready for cutting season. I scrutinize my bare bones and know that I cannot be fruitful if growth continues in certain areas. I’ve been holding up dead weight. These areas must go.

Yet there are parts of me that have been strong and faithful. Parts of my life that have produced great fruit year after year. It makes sense that these “tried and true” parts should be preserved...right?

John 15:2 tells us that God trims both the nonproductive and the productive. One for being dead weight, the other to make room for more. All pruning for the purpose of more fruit.

What goes? The new shoot or faithful stock? The Gardener chooses. How will I respond?

If I hold too tightly to the fruit of my past, I will resent the cut. Be resentful of the Cutter too. I will not rejoice in the new fruit because I am focusing on the loss rather than the intended gain. If I have faith in God, I will accept His choice in pruning, perhaps grieving the loss, without becoming angry and resentful.

Pruning demands faith. Faith in the Gardener, not in the fruit.

The purpose of winter is renewal of the soil. While little happens outside, everything is happening inside. The building up of the soil is the building up of faith. Look closely. Cuttings become compost that replenish the soil. Everything is useful, there is no waste in the garden. And timing is everything.

I hope that you can glean from personal seasons of fruitfulness that God is faithful to produce fruit through you. I pray that you trust in His wisdom of rest and reliance for renewal of your heart. And I pray that your growing faith produces feelings of assurance and hope, in the midst of pruning season.

~*~
Author Bio:

Sharon Musgrove is a self-proclaimed sociologist. The opportunities opened to her, over the years, have led her on a fascinating journey observing human behavior. 

She has a diverse background in business, fitness and health industries. This background led her to a unique position writing curriculum and teaching for two private, Christ-based, residential recovery programs. Both recovery programs served women primarily from the homeless community.

Sharon has traveled multiple times to Kenya, serving on medical teams and teaching in the rural Maasai communities. She's been privileged to participate in Leadership camps for maturing young women. These annual camps have a mission of encouraging and empowering the impoverished, underprivileged, and often abused young Maasai girls.

Easily identifying personally with the brokenness of the women she's served, Sharon now sees all people as needing more encouragement regardless of cultural or socioeconomic status. Within these ministries, Sharon has witnessed the transformative power of loving words spoken to the broken-hearted. Sharing God’s love and witnessing its transformative power has become her passion.

In her leisure time, Sharon enjoys her garden, health food, travel and a good story. She and her husband, Jeff, make their home in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. They have two grown children. Currently, Sharon is writing her first Christian historical fiction novel utilizing her study, experience, and understanding of self-destructive behaviors.

Devotionals for the Heart: Seasons

The Land and The Promise
A devotional by Patrick E. Craig

"And He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey." ~Deuteronomy 26:9 (KJV)

There is something about an agricultural town that is unique and wonderful, for with the deep link to the land comes a settled-ness and a sense of permanence found nowhere else. All the bright days of youth in such a place are held in the mystery of God’s eternal circle of life and death, winter and spring, summer and fall. The cycles of the seasons dictate the deepest feelings in the heart of one who dwells there, with days marked, not by events, but by smells and colors and sounds and all the other sensory signals.

The temperature of a morning’s rising can tell you everything about the day ahead, be it the coolness of a daybreak in spring, the heat of the long, languid days of summer, the crisp bite of a fall day, or the chill of winter that pushes you with icy fingers back under the welcoming warmth of the lovely down quilt. The lilting chirp of a robin outside an open window, or the haunting call of the Canadian geese heading south can manifest the procession of days more surely than any calendar. The solemn silence of a winter night, with feet softly crunching on the fallen snow as you make your way toward the light in the window ahead, or the grinding of the machinery and the smell of the thick harvest dust; it is these things that mark the passage of time and bind one surely to the beloved land and the life so graciously granted by the Master of the Vineyard.

My home in Idaho is such a place. It is especially beautiful in the fall. The leaves of the trees turn bright red and fall to the ground and children pile the leaves into forts. Mornings come armed with the warning bite of winter yet to come and the air itself is alive with the promise of families gathered at festive tables and the wonder of frosty nights that delight the heart with cathedrals of starry splendor. Soon the soft snow will blanket all living things in the quiet death of winter.

But those of us who live on the land are not afraid of death, for we have our God and his promises, we have the land and the fruit of the harvest each year, and we have the children, our inheritance, and, at the same time, a down payment on the continuance of our lives. And above everything, we have the simplicity of our way. And it is enough.

~*~
Author Bio:

Patrick E. Craig is a lifelong writer and musician who left a successful songwriting and performance career in the music industry to follow Christ in 1984. 

In 2011 he signed a three-book deal with Harvest House Publishers to publish his Apple Creek Dreams series. His current series is The Paradise Chronicles. The first book in the series, The Amish Heiress, a romantic suspense novel, was published by Patrick's company, P&J Publishing, in August of 2015 and remained on the Amazon Top 100 best sellers list in three categories for seven months.

The second book in the series, The Amish Princess, a historical romance novel, was released in December of 2016 and was on Amazon's Hot New Releases for over a month. Harlequin recently purchased the print rights for both books for their Walmart Amish series. Patrick also just released Cracking The Indie Egg—A Recipe For Publishing Your Own Book and it is available in most major digital bookstores.

Patrick and his wife Judy, make their home in Idaho. They have two married children and five grandchildren. Patrick is represented by the Steve Laube Agency.

~*~
Connect with Patrick:
Website - www.patrickecraig.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PatrickECraig
Twitter - https://twitter.com/PatrickECraig
Amazon Author page - http://tinyurl.com/n6sfagg

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Music Monday: Kari Jobe's new album, "The Garden"

    

Kari Jobe
"The Garden" (Listen to the song here)
(Summary courtesy of MergePR)

It’s said for everything there is a season. Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall. One by one, we experience these seasons throughout our lives. Our souls grow dark and weary in the thick of winter, and just when we think we can’t endure another cold night, we recognize the first signs of spring. Slow and unexpected, welcome shades of green break through the frozen ground. Sometimes our Creator uses His own creation to remind us that even amidst winter’s chill He is always at work. For it’s in the unseen where life’s most beautiful moments take shape. Worship leader Kari Jobe knows this to be true in her own life, and on her fourth album, The Garden (Capitol CMG), she invites listeners to drink of the wellspring of hope she’s found in the midst of unimaginable tragedy. 

Jobe has earned the right to speak from experience. She’s become a trusted friend to listeners throughout a career that includes more than 1 million albums sold, a GRAMMY® nomination, multiple Dove Awards and praise from the New York Times. She’s amassed 173 million career streams and is the most-followed female CCM artist on social media with a following that exceeds 3.5 million. Beyond the stats, Jobe’s timeless songs have carried countless listeners to the feet of Christ over and over again. Her voice has become a soundtrack to people’s lives, and The Garden is well-equipped to bring healing in the midst of pain.

While The Garden planted the songwriter back in the studio following 2014’s critically-acclaimed live recording, Majestic—which won a GMA Dove Award for Praise and Worship Album of the Year—the new album is also rooted in a series of personal transition and remarkable grief for the singer and her family. In the past two years, Jobe married her husband Cody Carnes and moved from her hometown of Dallas, Texas, to Nashville, where the couple bought their first home and had a baby. With due dates three months apart, Jobe and her sister, Kris, were excited to be pregnant at the same time. Yet, in the midst of happy life changes, heartbreak struck. Seven-and-a-half months into her pregnancy, Kris gave birth to a stillborn daughter, James Ivy. Jobe, four months pregnant with her son at the time, was devastated.

“It just shattered my heart. It was so, so hard,” Jobe shares. “It wrecked me—just the weight of unanswered prayers. I was trying to walk in peace when I didn’t feel peaceful and find my rest when my spirit didn’t feel rested.”

Aching for her sister, Jobe was simultaneously anxious for the safety of her own child. On February 18, 2016, a healthy Canyon Carnes entered the world. “It’s hard to celebrate life, but to be grieving with your sister,” Jobe admits, adding that knowing Canyon’s name ahead of time gave her strength through the remainder of her pregnancy after the loss of her niece. “God gave us his name even before this whole thing took place,” she says. “Canyon means a deep ravine for water to flow through. Canyons are formed through storms, so the fact that God gave me his name was so peaceful to me… I was thankful He gave me his name for that season.”

While the birth of her son was undoubtedly a milestone to celebrate, her sister’s loss weighed heavy on her heart. Yet, a reminder of God’s kindness came in a surprising way. As Jobe held Canyon in her arms, she stood looking out the kitchen window of her new home. And there in her backyard, she glimpsed the first signs of spring. When she and her husband purchased the house, a garden that resided on the property was overgrown; and though they knew it needed to be tended, they were advised to wait and see what it produced. The result was a breathtaking bounty of harvest. That day, Jobe made her way through the garden—a stark reminder of God’s faithfulness in all circumstances. Looking up, interwoven in the archway, she couldn’t help but smile as she saw what only God could produce: thick, green ivy lacing its way overhead, immediately reminding her of her niece’s namesake.

“Ivy is the most resilient plant there is. It can grow in the harshest of climates; it can grow in the harshest of situations,” Jobe explains, adding, “I’m standing in this garden. There’s ivy growing, and I just started to realize, ‘God, You’re moving in a way that is different than what I asked for, but You are moving.’ He’s at work and doing things we can’t see.”

The experience yielded the title track for Jobe’s new album and fresh healing for her soul. “Those seeds were planted years ago for it to be the way that it was that day for me, because it wasn’t just last year that they planted all this beautiful ivy. That took years,” she observes. “Something in my spirit started to rustle. Life was coming back. What felt dead in my heart was starting to wake up. It was like I’d been in this place of being numb in my walk with the Lord, but something just started blooming in my heart.”

Her unanswered questions began to grow into songs. As Jobe declared God’s goodness over her own circumstances, He began to transform her heart. “These raw things were coming out of my mouth, so I just started writing,” she shares. “I Will Sing,” written while she was still pregnant, became the first song she penned for this album. Jobe spent the next several months pouring out her emotions one track at a time, collaborating with friends, and eventually recording half of the album in Redding, California, and the other half in Nashville. She and her husband wrote together frequently, and Cody adds vocals on numerous tracks. In addition, Jobe co-wrote with acclaimed songwriters, including Jacob and Amanda Cook of Bethel Music, Brooke Fraser Ligertwood, Ben Fielding, Jason Ingram, Mia Fieldes, Martin Smith, Henry Seeley and Josh Silverburg, among others. In addition, she covered two songs that she claimed in the midst of loss: Jesus Culture’s “Miracles” and Elevation Church’s “Here As In Heaven.” Jeremy Edwardson (Jesus Culture, Bryan and Katie Torwalt), who helmed Majestic, produced the project.

While songs like “Fall Afresh,” “Heal Our Land” and “Closer to Your Heart” reveal congregational anthems like many of the offerings that have defined Jobe’s career, most of The Garden’s 14 tracks speak to hope in the midst of loss, peace in the midst of uncertainty and God’s presence in the midst of pain. “Oh The Power” vividly recalls another garden where suffering took place, the Garden of Gethsemane. “Jesus went to a garden in His last moments to have intimacy with the Father. It was like He wanted to be surrounded with something that reminded Him of when there was no sin and there was no separation from God,” Jobe says, referencing the garden where mankind began—in Eden. It’s a heavenly space she hopes to invite listeners into with her new album, which, on a sonic level, feels like an overarching narrative backed by a sweeping cinematic score, meant to be savored from start to finish.

“The garden is true intimacy with the Father, and it’s a place where He intended for us as humankind to be surrounded with His creation. There’s life in things that He’s created,” she offers. “I want to lead people into intimacy with the Father. It’s something that’s so important as we walk through stuff in our lives.”

Today, Jobe and her family continue to discover restoration through glimpses of God’s goodness. “The healing that He’s been bringing to my family and the way that He’s met us in our pain, it’s made me realize how many people are going through really intense pain and disappointments and trials,” Jobe offers. “There’s a lot of people who have lost babies or family members out of traumatic experiences. My eyes have been opened to that in a whole new way.”

She’s also viewing her platform in a new light since giving birth to Canyon. “I feel more of a maternal instinct now in my worship leading, even declaring things over people,” she shares, adding, “At the end of the day, my favorite thing now is just to be on the floor playing with blocks and reading books. Nothing else really matters. If I just became his momma and a wife, I’m fine with that. I just feel more settled than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

In the time leading up to The Garden, Jobe has experienced both indescribable joy and unimaginable pain. Life and death, side by side. Yet, through it all, she’s found God to be inextricably faithful because she’s learned to trust the Gardner and the beautiful, unseen ways He tends to our hearts.

“Everyone who’s seen something grow out of the dust realizes God was up to something in the midst of pain and questions. He never promised that it would be easy or that it would be pain-free, but that He would never leave us or forsake us,” Jobe offers, adding, “I’m more aware of His presence than I think I’ve ever been. God has surrounded us with things that will be life-giving if we take a moment to realize it. God’s always at work in our lives. He truly does go before us and prepares the way for the journey ahead.”

~*~

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