Are You Listening?

Listen, this is important. There is never a time during which Jesus isn’t speaking to us. Never. There is never a place in which Jesus isn’t present. Never. There is never a room so dark…a concert too noisy…a wasteland so desolate…or an office so sophisticated…that the ever-present, ever-pursuing, relentlessly tender Friend is not there…speaking words of guidance…tapping gently on the doors of our hearts…waiting to be invited in. Few hear His voice, few follow His guidance and fewer still open the door. But never interpret our avoidance or numbness as His absence. For in the midst of this world full of fleeting promises of fame, fortune and pleasure, is the timeless promise of His presence. Hebrews 13:5 says: ‘Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.’ and in Matthew 28:20: ‘Surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.’


There is no amount of noise so loud or place so remote that the voice of God cannot be heard…if we but listen.

~ V

A Matter of Perspective...

Please watch this short video...


Satan is a liar. He wants you to believe that the reality of life is filled either with hopelessness and darkness or you get what you want in life by the power of your fist and the cunningness of your mind. He wants you to believe that there is no God...or if there is, that He's so far removed that He couldn't care less about you. Psalms 56:8 tells us, "You number and record my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle--are they not in Your book?" How precious are tears to God? So precious that He has recorded every single one of them in a book and has stored them in a bottle. You matter to God and the ONLY thing that separates us are our misconceived perceptions and sin.

"Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely." 1 Corinthians 13:12

Without God...without Jesus, we are blind to the truth. That truth being that you don't have to live in darkness...that living in Christ, you yourself, become a light in this dark world. That living in Christ, your life now has meaning and that you are loved. You don't have to be blind

There will come a day when there will be no more tears (Revelation 21:4) and I wonder what God will do with the bottle of the tears of His children that He has collected? Will He toss them into the sea of 'forgetfullness', Will He use them to fill the rivers of heaven? I don't know, but I do know that they are VERY precious to Him, not nearly as precious as you.

~ V

Customer Dis-Service

By now, many of you know that my wife was in a minor auto-accident earlier this week. She was driving to one of her client's houses on a very narrow, back-country road when a truck rounded a corner and they both started sliding headlong towards each other on the ice and snow. They barely missed a head on collision, but the truck ripped Lisa's driver side mirror off and they both ended up in the ditch...on opposite sides of the road. Long story short, Lisa's car needs a new tie-rod, wheel and some repair to the steering gears. I'm just thankful she wasn't hurt! Cars can be replaced...people can't.

After Lisa's accident, we had to call roadside assitance. It's a service that Lisa got when she purchased the car, which actually is pretty nice because they will tow you or change your tire or even bring you some gas if you run out. In talking to the customer service rep, she was having a difficult time figuring out exactly where we were in order to dispatch someone to help us. The conversation went something like this:

Customer Serv Rep: ...Ok, and where's the car located?
Lisa: MV Road
Customer Serv Rep: Did you say that's in "this town"?
Lisa: No, it's near "that town"
Customer Serv Rep: Are you at the car now?
Lisa: No, we're on HWY Y. The car's about 3 miles down on MV Road...I can't get cell phone service there.
Customer Serv Rep: I'm having trouble finding MV Road...what's the road next up from there?
Lisa: LP Road.
Customer Serv Rep: No...can't find that either...are there any other major roads close by?
Lisa: No...wait, highway X is close by.
Customer Serv Rep: ...OK, so the car is on HWY X...
Lisa: ...No.
Customer Serv Rep: ...OK...I don't understand how HWY X is related then...
Lisa: Uh...you can't find MV Road...you asked for a major road that might be nearby...
Customer Serv Rep: Oh...yeah.

Now, we DID get the needed help, but that little exchange reminded me of the following little comic I ran across a week or so back about customer service...









I'm sure most of you, at some point in time, have had the 'pleasure' of placing a call to customer service as well and I'd like to ask you to share your FAVORITE customer service call or moment!

Look forward to reading yours!

~ V

New Year, New Look, Another Try

Lisa and my daughter Hope, both told me last night that they missed my blogging and that I should write again. So, I brought up the site...d...