Do You Have a Discouraged Heart?

I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer. Psalm 17:6

"How are you feeling today?" can be one of the worst questions someone can ask you. At least if we want to be honest with them. We are taught to have the joy of the Lord and to rise and shine as Christians and never be down or discouraged as believers. I am not sure about you, but this seems like a tall order to complete some days. Our strength does come from the Lord, (Nehemiah 8:10), but there are still days when life seems to grip our hearts and lives and we become discouraged.

I have a saying that I use over and over in my life. "I NEED A POST CARD." To me a little postcard in the mail from a friend can be such a blessing. It can tell me how they are doing, that they are on vacation or maybe they send a friendly hello with verse of Scripture to encourage me. A postcard always brings a smile to our face and brings a little joy.

When life gets me down and discouraged and my heart is heavy, I find myself asking the Lord to send me a postcard of hope, encouragement, direction or whatever I think I need for that day. Sometimes I have asked for a certified letter instead when things are really discouraging.

Is your heart discouraged today? Do you need a postcard? We need to be in the Word daily to read and hear His Words for us and we need to be in prayer daily to share our hearts with Him. You might say that this is too basic and yes, we already know to do this.....but are we doing it? Sometimes when our hearts are discouraged, we have stepped away from the Word and prayer without realizing how far we have gone.

I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; and give ear to me and hear my prayer. (Psalm 17:6) When I pray and then ask for a postcard, it is exciting to know that I will get one from the heavenly postal system. It is always awesome to see the notes that He sends my way.

God is always moving in our lives. We do not always see it at the time and, of course, hindsight is 20/20. We need to keep moving forward, and if we hit a roadblock of discouragement, ask for a postcard of direction, yell out for help and wait for the heavenly mail system to deliver just what you need.

Lynn A Wilson

UPCOMING EVENT
May is fast approaching and we will be hosting our 2nd annual Family Freedom Walk on Saturday, May 8th. You can help in two ways. 1. walk - call guest services to obtain a walk package, solicit sponsors and come to the walk. 2. (this is a fun one) Sponsor Victory Call for the walk. We are having a friendly competition between the 2 groups of devotional readers (Freedom Fighters and Victory Call). Our goal is to raise more funds for the Victory Call team than the men raise for the Freedom Fighter's team. If you would like to join the fun, simply go to this link on our website https://01.secure.elexio.com/donations.aspx?id=366346&websiteurl=http://www.americaskeswick.org&siteid=2184 fill out the information and indicate in the "DESIGNATION" area : Family Freedom Walk: Victory Call or if you prefer make your check out to America's KESWICK and put in the memo line: FFW/Victory Call and mail to : America's KESWICK 601 Route 530 Whiting, NJ 08759. ALL DONATIONS MUST ARRIVE NO LATER THAN WEDNESDAY, MAY 5TH in order to be counted for our TEAM. Come on ladies, we can do it!!!