Let's Pray!

August 20, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Greetings, Dear Friend! Let’s pray some Scripture together!

Father, I am Yours. I will seek You and Your strength. I will seek Your presence continually. (Psalms 105:4, 1 Chronicles 16:11)

Lord, I thank You for being present and active in my life. Help me to acknowledge You in all my ways trusting You to direct my path. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Help me to listen for Your voice behind me saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

Lord, I know that I am unable to fulfill Your purposes without Your power. Apart from You, I can do absolutely nothing. (John 15:5)

Do Your work in me so that You can do Your work through me. You give me the want-to and the ability to do what pleases You. (Philippians 2:13)

My Shepherd, And Yours

August 13, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Psalm 23

Because the Lord Himself is my Shepherd. I will always have all that is essential for my life.

He brings me to places of abundance and peace. He soothes my inner struggles and renews the hope of my heart.

He leads me to walk in the paths that please Him. He guides me to go in the way that honors Him because He calls me His.

When my path unavoidably passes through the evils of earthly life and the darkness of death dims the way ahead, my heart is at rest because I know You are present in the pain. You comfort me with your correction. You lead me within the loving limits of Your long-proven pathways.

Celebration

August 6, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Today, Lord, I celebrate You:

In the sun and the heat,
In the cold and the chill,
When the sun rises over the mountains,
When the sun sets beyond the ocean.

I celebrate You:

In the voices that I hear,
In the songs of the birds,
In the faces that I see,
In the colorful variety of flowers.

Legalism or Love?

July 30, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

'So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. ' Colossians 2:16-17

I recently had the privilege of bringing someone to take their driving test. They had already taken the written test and gotten in their practice hours. Now they just needed to convince the evaluator that they were not a threat on the road! They had to demonstrate a knowledge of the rules and the skill to keep them. Thankfully, they passed! Now they have the freedom and privilege of driving solo. It’s both a relief and a responsibility.

Imagine someone saying, “I don’t want to drive. There are too many rules! They won’t let me drive as fast as I want, and they won’t let me drive on the other side of the road. If I can’t drive my way, I don’t want to drive at all!” Sounds pretty foolish, doesn’t it? When someone is going for their driver’s license, they accept the noes as part of the package. They recognize that the noes are part of order and safety so that driving can be a useful and enjoyable experience for everyone. They focus on the freedom of driving, not the restrictions.

Why is it that Christianity has become known as a religion of noes?

Happily Ever After? Really?

July 23, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

I have loved you with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31:3

I was 14. He was almost 18. It was my first "real" relationship. I remember the moment he said "I love you. And I've never said that to anyone before!" I believed him. He believed himself. We were happy. What else would we be?!

It lasted almost a year. An eternity as far as teenage relationships go! When it ended there was no amicable separation or catastrophic blowout. I saw him kissing someone else. He knew it and stopped calling. I was cast aside. His love for me had come to an end. Where was the happy ending every romantic movie, book, or fairy tale promised me? Was it my fault? Was I not lovable?

Romantic love. It seems like everyone wants it. It certainly is big business, but is it good business? Does it promise something it can’t deliver? Romantic love sells products, movies, and experiences. An entire TV channel is devoted to romantic movies! Every single one has a happy ending. But it doesn’t really happen, does it? You've been hurt by the fractured fairy tale, just as I have been. If we all know that "happily ever after" isn't reality, then what is it in us that cries out for love that lasts forever?

Experts recognize that the need to be loved is basic to every human being. If that is so, then there can only be one reason: We are God-wired for love. Why? Because you and I are made to be loved by Him. he has hard-wired us to want to be loved unconditionally, unceasingly, and unapologetically. The problem is that, as in so many other areas of life, we look for that need to be met in an earthly and natural way, rather than in a heavenly and supernatural way.

Are You A Forgiven Forgiver?

July 16, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. Colossians 3:13

There are those moments that become engraved in memory. Often, they are the most beautiful moments. The proposal. The graduation. The birth. But sometimes, they are the most painful moments: The breakup. The failure. The loss. This was one of those kinds of moments.

It isn’t necessary, or wise, for me to share the details with you. It was a moment of great loss, loss of position, loss of hope, loss of future. The loss was a decision, someone else’s decision, and the result of things out of my control. I understood the outcome but had hoped that there might be a different way to resolve the issues. Yet here it was. Loss. Pain. An uncertain future.

Thankfully, within a few months, hope was reborn and a new future began to take shape. I didn’t feel anger or resentment toward the one who made the decision, yet whenever I heard a message on forgiveness, that moment of loss was the one that always came to mind, even years later. I found that difficult to understand. I once heard a message that forgiveness is like peeling an onion and we sometimes have layers of hurt to forgive. That makes sense, but this wasn’t one of those situations. So, why did it continue to come to mind?

Are You Worth The Risk?

July 9, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:5

What could have been one of my most terrifying childhood memories has become one of my most treasured moments because someone decided I was worth it.

At ten years old I was already comfortable swimming in the deep end of the pool. In fact, I loved it! One of my favorite games with a friend was to push ourselves from the surface to the bottom of the pool and then back up. We had spent summer mornings at swimming lessons for the past several years. I knew my way around the water and had a great time splashing, swimming, and playing water games.

My dad has always wanted to see as much of the world as he can. When you have a family, traveling can be cost-prohibitive, but Dad found that renting a camper for our summer vacations gave us the opportunity to go further on a smaller budget. One of his favorite activities was planning our itinerary and determining which new places we would visit.

My ten-year-old summer we took our first trip to the Midwest to visit with some college friends of Mom and Dad. They had a really cool house with a gas fireplace that opened into the rooms on either side of it. For someone who had never seen a gas fireplace before it was awesome! The house was situated in a community that had a pool and tennis courts and other recreational activities.

One afternoon we all went to the rec center, Mom and Dad, their friends, their friends' kids, my siblings, and me. We kids had no complaints about playing in the pool while the adults watched tennis in an adjoining area. The adults were within easy distance of the kids but didn't feel the need to be watching us every moment. We were all old enough and comfortable enough in the water.

This pool had something that made it especially enticing: A water slide! Our family had a pool, but not a slide. Every one of us got in line for turn after turn, sliding and splashing into the water. We relished the excitement of whishing down the slippery slide, hanging in the humid air, and then plunging into the cool, chlorinated wet.

I had been down the slide a number of times without incident. But this time when I hit the water, I became disoriented and couldn't find which way was up. The taste of chlorine filled my mouth. I was flailing my arms trying to find my floating balance and heard myself making unintelligible noises. "Help!" I realized it was my voice calling out.

Through my panicked splashing, I saw my Dad turn and start running toward me. Before anyone had time to think, he dove into the water, fully dressed — glasses, watch, sneakers, and all — and pulled me to the side of the pool. We both got out dripping, and out of breath.

Tribute to a Transformed Life

July 2, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

'For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him, you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 'Colossians 2:12

Can people really change? That’s a question that gets knocked around quite a bit. I am here to tell you that they can, and they do. They absolutely do! God is in the business of transformation. With Him, lives are transformed. It’s true!

My wonderful husband reached a memorable birthday milestone this week and he is proof that people can be transformed. Tom is my best friend, my confidante, my challenger, and my cheerleader. I would not be here now doing this if he had not challenged me to keep moving forward in discovering my own purpose, and the more that God has for me.

Tom and I have known each other since we were eleven or twelve years old. Maybe even earlier. We don’t remember meeting each other. We knew each other before we each committed our lives to Christ. I knew him well then and I can testify to the transformational power of God. He is not the same person I knew. He is not even the same person I married. He is a different man. The old life truly has been buried and the new life is continually being created.

I knew Tom before he committed his life to Christ, and I have had a front-row seat to the transformation that Jesus has made of this man. He started as a depressed and frightened, unstable, quick-witted, and sarcastic attention stealer. He has become a confident, compassionate, articulate, and trustworthy leader. That has not come without cost. There have been struggles as he emerged from that cocoon of chaos. But now he soars. He really soars!

If you don’t mind, I’d like to shift my talk to Tom right now. Listen in as I share with him some of what I have learned from watching his metamorphosis.

Transformation requires hope in Christ as an anchor, even in the darkest times.

Random or Not?

June 25, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

“All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Tom and I recently returned from a trip to a conference in Springfield, Missouri. I usually try to take time to reflect after a conference and try to grasp what God may have been saying to me through the time. I journal and think and try to grab a truth or two. Well, here’s my takeaway from this one: There is nothing random in God. If I believe that God knows all and sees all and that God has a plan, then even the things that seem random to me are not random. And if they are not random and are part of God’s plan, then how I respond is important. Still working on that one!

Even trips to Starbucks are not random!

Where You Were Is Not Where You Are

June 18, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

'For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. ' Colossians 2:12

When I look back on certain times in my life, I can feel the blush begin to burn in my cheeks. No one else would notice it, but I feel like I want to crawl under my bed or disappear completely. Do you ever feel that way? I remember things I said or things I did that I would never do now. I wish I could go back and just relive that whole circumstance from my current perspective. I would have made completely different choices and saved myself a lot of grief. I would have saved the people around me some grief as well. What about you?

I hate that squirmy feeling! But when those memories surface, and they are going to surface for all of us, I need to stop and remember something. That old life is gone! I have trusted in the power of God through Jesus Christ and from the moment I did that, my life has been different.

So, should I completely forget my past? Should you? Then those blush-making memories would disappear, right? None of us like to feel that uncomfortable feeling! But what if you and I allowed those crawl-in-a-hole memories to lead us somewhere else? What if we actually took the time to recall and reflect? How can those memories lead us forward? What if remembering your old life could lead to compassion for others, recognition of your own growth and gratefulness to God for your new life?