Whispers of Truth

          Not many people write letters anymore (if you don’t believe me, ask the struggling post offices all around the country). Rarely is there time for a setting down of thoughts and ideas and plans and hopes and dreams and experiences on a sheet of paper. Instead, we email, text, or call each other in the rare moments we can spare in the middle of doing something else that is urgent or pressing. I’m grateful that God took the time to write letters to us, each one filled with the truth, wisdom, and encouragement we need to know Him and run the race well. In this we are blessed because without His letters we have no way of knowing Christ and His sacrifice for us.           While receiving a letter or talking on the phone with someone we love is pleasant, it is not anywhere near as satisfying as speaking with that person face to face. John expresses this thought in the Second Letter of John when he says, “Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper

A love I didn’t initiate, A plan I can’t comprehend, A mercy beyond compare And one that will not end. A bond between two  That makes two one When one is neither   worthy or pure-- The yoking together of unequal parts to forge a new covenant Between the judge and the convict-- One gives, the other takes Until the taker learns to give. Cut into His hands, Engraved on my heart. Unbreakable.

Psalm 145:14 “The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down” (NASB).           Today’s events proved rather unusual in the life of the Pates. When a voice came over the PA system in the library (where my 9 th grade English class was meeting for library orientation) and said that I had a call, I knew that something was up because that only happens when there is an emergency.   My husband informed me that he had sustained a fall off of a disk harrow at work and had hurt his leg and needed the insurance card. He was calm, so I remained so too and simply prayed for him as my class continued their orientation. Ten minutes later, I took the card out to him and saw that he had massive swelling above his right shin where he had fallen onto a disk as he stepped off the harrow. He spent most of the day in the ER making sure that there was not a fracture, but he is fine—just extremely sore and in some pain. Even so, God is good. Greg had stepped onto a tire that he forg