Today I am in sunny California. I just finished a wonderful retreat with ladies at First Covenant Church in Sacramento and then flew down here to Burbank to see my new granddaughter again for a week. My sister and I had the opportunity to meet and fellowship with some relatives from my mother's side that we did not know about our entire lives. It was so much fun to connect with them and to share stories of our mom's and connect the dots on our family history. My sister discovered that our grandmother, Jolan, emmigrated from Hungary when she was only 15 years old (although she stated she was 17). Our cousin had a photo of her during this time. It was so interesting to see the family resemblances and photo's of our mother when she was just a child.

This week I'm taking a week off from answering a question so I can fully be present to my family but I want to leave you with a thought I just read out of an excellent book called Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God by Francis Frangipane. It is this.

“We guard our ignorance with our arrogance presuming our thoughts must be right simply because we think them.”

How profound is that? Ponder and chew his words for a while. The apostle Paul says we are transformed by the renewing of our mind and so our thoughts, even when powerful, need to be open to reexamination and review because they may be lies from the pit of hell. The psalmist says, “My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught.” (Psalm 55:2) and Proverbs tells us to guard our heart, above all else, from it are the welllsprings of life.”

So readers, share with one another how you guard your thoughts and reexamine what you're telling yourself so that you are transformed by God's truth!

See you next week!

Warmly,
Leslie