Net Miles Of Smiles

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When thou passest through the waters,

I will be with thee;

and through the rivers,

they shall not overflow thee:

when thou walkest through the fire,

thou shalt not be burned;

neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

– Isaiah 43:2

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God’s word offers medicine for every one of our situations.  We will encounter scorching ‘fires’ and turbulent ‘rivers’, but if we allow God to walk with us we will not be scorched by the fires nor drowned by the angry seas.  We serve a God who says, “I will be with Thee”.

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Comments (0) Apr 26 2012

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 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

my God, my strength, in whom I will trust;

my buckler, and the horn of my salvation,

and my high tower.

– (Psalm 18:2)

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The story is told of a young preacher named Augustus Toplady who was taking a walk through the English countryside when a sudden storm swept across the landscape.  Toplady spotted a wide rock formation with an opening; a cleft where he sought shelter until the storm passed.  As he sat out the deluge, he contemplated the connection between his shelter and God’s help in life’s storms.

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He had no paper to write on but found a playing card on the floor of the cave-like structure and began to write the words of the hymn “Rock of Ages”.  Written on that stormy day in 1775, this hymn has been a source of strength for Christians ever since.

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Rock of ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee;

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy wounded side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Save from wrath and make me pure.

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Think of your struggles.

Do you need a place to hide?

Do you need Someone to shelter you from life’s assaults?

Do you need the assurance that you’ve been forgiven?

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As Toplady experienced, we can find shelter and assurance in God.

Don’t stand out in life’s storms alone.

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Comments (0) Apr 26 2012

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“Happiness often sneaks in…..

through a door

you didn’t know you left open.”

Comments (0) Apr 24 2012

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 Holy Spirit’s presence on the Day of Pentecost

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“Faith is inspired by the Holy Spirit,

and it will flourish

only as it is cherished.”

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Hebrews chapter 11 in the Bible is known as “The Hall of Faith”.

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Hebrews 11:1 

 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (KJV).

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The Bible uses the words faith and belief or believe interchangeably.

Eternal life is received by grace through faith.

Faith is the victory that overcomes the world …

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and without faith it is impossible to please God (1 John 5:4; Heb 11:6).

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Comments (0) Apr 16 2012

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The Rented Room
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Our house was directly across the street from the clinic
entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived
downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the
clinic.

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One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at
the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man.

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“Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I
stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing
was his face, lopsided from swelling, red and raw.

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Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come
to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a
treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no
bus ’til morning.”

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He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no
success, no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face…
I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more
treatments…”

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For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me,
“I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus
leaves early in the morning.”

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I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch.
I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready,
I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you.
I have plenty.”  And he held up a brown paper bag.

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When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk
with him a few minutes. It didn’t take a long time to see that
this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body.

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He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her
five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from
a back injury.

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He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other
sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing.

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He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was
apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him
the strength to keep going.

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At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him.
When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded
and the little man was out on the porch.

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He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus,
haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said,

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“Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a
treatment?  I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a
chair.”  He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made
me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children
don’t seem to mind.”

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I told him he was welcome to come again.

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And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the
morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the
largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them
that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh.

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I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m., and I wondered what time he
had to get up in order to do this for us.

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In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never
a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables
from his garden.

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Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special
delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young
spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed.

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Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these and knowing
how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

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When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a


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Comments (0) Mar 25 2012