Terrie's Tender Touch

In May 2004, my first grandchild was born! He was a miracle indeed - he is the son of my only daughter Kellie who is a cancer survivor. I praise the Lord each day for His love, grace and mercy, and for all of my precious children, and now grandchildren. Today's post is the devotion I prepared for Kellie - Mark is starting kindergarten this week! Kellie’s Baby Shower May 22, 2004 For Mark David Bybee Born: 5/13/2004 at 2:27 PM 4 lbs. 1 oz, 16 inches Born 6.3 weeks early As I prayed and pondered what I might say today, the Lord led me to Psalm 71:6-7 “By thee have I been holden up from the womb; thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels; my praise shall be continually of thee. I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong refuge.” As I read these verses, I thought of your life Kellie and how God has held you up. He did finally take you from my womb to be born 12 days late – so that you could be my very special birthday gift; then years later when He carried us t...

Several years ago, during the early 90’s, there was a recession. At that time, my husband had just sold his design/build firm because he had surrendered to God’s call to the ministry. He was not on staff for any church, so he was doing freelance work for various churches—in any case we did not have a steady income, but God was certainly providing. Our daughter had just completed her 18 months of chemo-therapy, the lease on our car was up, and we had sold our home with no gain. We moved into a nice home, and one of my brothers had a car that he was not using—so we were driving what my kids dubbed “the clown car.” They called it the clown car because it was compact sized, and we were a family of six...so they imagined people watching this little vehicle pull up and then see all six of us dismounting, comical, but probably embarrassing for the kids. My husband and I started praying for a van. We were looking and looking and praying and praying and we finally found one—we thought. ...

When I was a young mother back in the day… I diligently sought the Bible to see what God wanted me to do so that I could raise my children the right way. That quest led me to places I never thought would make a difference in the lives of my children, but now that I am not a “young mother,” and my children are grown, there are some things I have noticed that I believe the Lord showed me to help me with regard to raising my own children. I do not claim that I am by any means an expert in raising children, or that I was a perfect mother; but I have learned a few things that I would like to share with you. These are notes from a devotion I gave to "my girls" upon the birth of one of my grandsons - it is my prayer that it will be of help and a blessing to you. When I was first became a Christian and started reading my Bible, I earnestly believed that the Bible was like a cookbook. I thought I could look up a subject and find a complete recipe for the answers I was seeking. I r...

Many years ago when my children were all still quite young I recall an incident that happened one evening as we were on our way home from church. At that time we lived about 25 miles away from church, so especially on Wednesday evenings it seemed so late by the time we got home. On this particular evening – we ran out of gas! We were on the freeway, and I might add in not the best part of town. At that time, people didn’t carry cell phones – car phones were for James Bond, or in the movies – not something your every day family would own. Fortunately we were not too terribly far from an exit where there was a gas station. My husband had to leave our family in the car while he walked to the gas station. When my husband left we prayed for his safety and then waited. I guess I didn’t realize how terrified my oldest son was until my husband safely returned and my son said, “Wow, we should tell everybody about this – they would get saved!” In other words, he thought it was such a tr...

When I was a little girl I had the terrible misfortune of being involved in a car accident – actually I was involved in auto accidents twice! The first one seemed to be so minor that I didn’t think I had any injury at all – until as an adult I had back problems and was questioned by doctors if I had ever been involved in an accident. The accident I am recalling today happened when I was 6 years old. My mother was driving – a man ran a light and side-swiped our vehicle. My face hit against the dash board, and I had to get stitches on my face – on the left side just below my lower lip. A few years later, when I was 9 years old I started having problems in the area where I had been stitched; apparently there was scar tissue growing that not only made my face look different, it was rubbing against my teeth and it became a problem to eat. As a result of the problem I had to have surgery to remove the scar tissue, and they did a kind of plastic surgery so that the scar would not be visible. ...

Revelation 19:9, “And he saith unto me, Write Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb…” Solomon 2:4 says, “He brought me to banqueting house…” (this is equivalent to being called to the marriage supper of the Lamb) “…and His banner over me was love.” A banner is like a flag that is lifted up or held high to stand for something. It is conspicuous or easily seen. To be called to the banquet is a blessing, but this goes further, it is saying, “I want everyone to know that you have been called and you are here because I (God) love you. To be invited to a banquet during the time that this was written went like this… 1. A servant would be sent to invite you- Christian, we are God’s servants and we are instructed to go; to invite others to the marriage supper of the Lamb. 2. Only those that receive the invitation and accept it can come. Only those that receive Christ as their Saviour can go the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Heaven) 3. After they accept the invit...

As Christians, we are commanded to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior. The thing about growing is that it includes change, movement, and often pain. When babies get teeth, they have a multitude of symptoms. Youths suffer through “growing pains.” And we, as Christians, if we are growing, must also endure difficulties as we grow. The biggest difference between our growing pains and those that children and youths incur is that we can choose not to grow. When things become too difficult we can, as many Christians do, reject growing and just find a comfort zone and stay there. That’s why there are so many more folks at church on Sunday mornings than on Sunday nights, its why churches all over America have just a small percentage of folks that go soul winning; its why pastors drop standards that once were held even in the public school system. If you can imagine that not that long ago things that many churches allow, even embrace, were against public school rules in th...