Old Things New – God’s grace

How I Started Blogging & What I’ve Learned

August 25, 2017 by Patti 38 Comments

“I can hardly wait to see what God is going to do with your lives,” said a friend to me one day.

Are you kidding me? Our lives? My husband and I were in the midst of our season of Great Pain, and it was just the beginning of a long process of restoration. I couldn’t possibly see ahead to the day when God might be able to use us for anything good.

Words are powerful though, and the respect I had for this dear friend of mine made me want to live up to her expectations. Her words helped me in my battle through the pain to the healing waiting on the other side.

This blog, Old Things New, began as a result of that healing.

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Freedom Friday – Jesus Robes Whom He Restores

August 18, 2017 by Patti 30 Comments

I recently spoke with a young woman who felt as if her life choices had disqualified her from God’s help to overcome her circumstances.

All I could say to her was that I didn’t know who the God was that she believed in, but that the God I know is compassionate and loving, and that His son Jesus knows exactly how we feel because He experienced our pain – every single bit of it – when He hung on the cross and sacrificed His life for us.

Her words back to me were, “Please keep telling me that.”

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Happily Going Grey

August 15, 2017 by Patti 45 Comments

I have this friend. She has an opinion about what I “should” do in nearly every area of my life. The only areas where she doesn’t weigh in are in more private matters, but that’s only because I keep them private. Do you have anyone in your life like this friend of mine?

Not too long ago she asked me what I thought about letting my hair go grey. When I gave her my reasons for coloring it – I like my hair the color it is, it has more body and looks thicker when I color it, my husband likes it and doesn’t care about the money I’m wasting :), I feel younger without the grey – it was as though I hit a nerve as she began giving me a long list of reasons why I SHOULD go grey, topping the list off by telling me I can’t really like the person God created me to be if I can’t accept the way He created me.

Wowsers!

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Freedom Friday – Focus on God Destroys Fear of What Surrounds Us

July 28, 2017 by Patti 27 Comments

A God smile just for you 🙂

Faith in God includes having faith in how He acts - Pastor Jeremy Havlin Click To Tweet

Hoo boy! That can be hard when He doesn’t seem to be acting the way we think He should, can’t it?

Perhaps you have an impossible situation in your life that you’re asking God to fix. You can see what needs to happen to fix the problem and maybe you’re even telling God what you think He should do, as if He doesn’t already know the end from the beginning.

Welcome to FREEDOM FRIDAY – A devotional, emotional, spiritual and sometimes hysterical series that I will be sharing on occasional Fridays, in addition to my regular Old Things New posts. Why? Because though once bound in chains Christ has set me free – FREE to live, to love, to dance, to sing, to be who God created me to be!

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Freedom Friday – Lavishly Loved by God & Me!

July 7, 2017 by Patti 34 Comments

It was a long night spent tossing and turning. One of those nights where one thinks of every negative thing that has happened, or could happen, or might happen once in a million years, but still, it might happen!

Every once in awhile I have a night like that and when I wake up the next morning the feelings linger. My tired state of mind often leads me down a road of self-doubt. Self-doubt leads me to God-doubt. Not doubting God’s existence, but rather, doubting that there is a whole lot for God to love about a person such as me.

“For Heaven’s sake Patti,” I say to myself, “you are a 61-year-old women – near old as dirt – who should have a bit more confidence in God’s love for you by now.”

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