“NEW HOPE Dissected, Let Us Hear” by Dianne H. Timmering

He who has ears, let him hear. Matthew 11:15

I wrote two days ago about the NEW HOPE alignment for my mother’s condition and wanted to share with you two responses from individuals, both of whom have been on the prayer chain. Alicia Heazlitt’s mother has been on our prayer chain for Multiple Sclerosis with which she was diagnosed when Alicia was born. We have been praying, asking for her healing and Alicia told me today that her mother is on a new clinical trial medication and doing as well as Alicia can remember–new joy, NEW HOPE. Another stakeholder with whom we had prayed who had a skin condition, is also on a new medication (felt the leading of God to try it) and the condition is almost completely gone.

So as we cry out and ask, maybe if we dissect the quest for an answer a little further, maybe listening is the key. Maybe sometimes the miracle is in the listening. Maybe the solution is in hearing His direction.

Dearest Lord, Help us have ears to hear your solution and the patience to wait. Help us not to lose HOPE. Help us to hear your magnificent voice which is sometimes muffled behind the grief and bouts of hopelessness. Help us to hear You, always. Help us to know Your ways. We love You. We trust You. Amen.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

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“God Finally Answered My Prayer – NEW HOPE!” by Dianne H. Timmering

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber . . . Psalm 121

As many of you know, my mother has Parkinson’s. The medication she is on fluctuates her blood pressure to such highs and lows; she has recently been in the ER twice but was easily discharged. Her life is an odyssey of wait and weakness, uncertainty and wondering. She says it feels like death. All the while, my family and I of course have been praying (crying out) for her wellness, AND a solution to the blood pressure issue, to dig, to root cause the situation and do something about it. We needed outside help and the fix wasn’t ready or easy or even obvious.

My father is her care giver (they have a modicum of home health) and he is worn out by the day to day as well as the moment to moment. My prayers flew high, but God’s answer was thus: I’ve got it. I hear you. Wait. Trust Me.

Wait for what I thought? And then it happened. The moments aligned–the right ER/hospital team who said we must check her into the hospital and figure this out (HOPE ONE).

She is hooked up to monitors and oxygen and let me tell you, she has never looked better, full of life and color which has been missing for months (HOPE TWO).

The doctors continue to say, Let’s get to the bottom of this (HOPE THREE).

We have already discussed with the “care” manager where she will go for post acute care and rehab for her weakening body and a local SHC center is poised and ready to help her (HOPE FOUR).

The team God has built around her is our NEW HOPE, the trusting assurance that she will heal. He answered. He knew. Let us trust Him when there is no easy answer. Wait and smile. Pray and believe. Help us, dearest Lord when our hope fails. Send ready help when we just don’t know what to do. Maybe you have already answered; and it is the solution which comes next.

The LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore. Psalm 121

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“Don’t Hold The Blessing” by Dianne H. Timmering

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:38

If you have a blessing to give in word, deed, approach, touch, smile, apology, forgiveness, hope, resource, love, peace . . . If you know you possess it for another, let’s not hold it back; free it from your grip. Perhaps it is not ours to keep; perhaps it is only ours to give.

Love to all for a very blessed week. Psalm 91.

It will be a good week, one filled with comfort and healings, and miracles.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“Stand Up” by Dianne H. Timmering

The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. . . . From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:42-48

Have you ever thought about the fact that you have a blessing to give. Have you ever considered that you may be holding onto it for some reason. Maybe it’s a word, a deed, an encouragement, a prayer, a glass of water, or to stand up for another? What if someone desperately needs what we have to give? But the noise of the world busies our lives so that we cannot hear that still small voice who suffers. Are we listening? Or do we assume our unimportance and therefore, know, yet do not act upon it?

Dearest Lord: Help us to hear the cry of need; petition our hearts for the voice of the hurting. Thank you for the abilities and resources to bless another. Open our eyes. He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 14:35). Thank you God. We love you. We trust you. And by the way, we are trying not to worry. We are practicing! Amen.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“When There Is No Ready Answer” by Dianne H. Timmering

Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.  Proverbs 4:27

Sometimes in our “no worry” practice there is just no ready answer. This is painful for many of us who like answers and tend to be problem-solvers. But it is that act of faith and realm of trust which rings near like a distant church bell that grounds time in joyful pause and we know, God is with us. Trust me, He says. I’ve got this. Keep your head down, keep going, He says. Don’t look left or right just keep to My path and My ear and My voice and you will hear Me brightly and I will listen to your need, my precious one, He says. And I will solve it. So we practice.

Dearest Lord: When worry leaks to waning trust, or holes of trust lead to worry, ring a distant bell. We love you. We trust you. Amen.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“Let Us Practice” by Dianne H. Timmering

Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Luke 7:22

Last night I had a worry about a family member and I heard God say, let us practice “no worry.” So I put it to our new test–the practice of release, the practice of letting it go, the practice of praying about it, of not allowing it to pass through too many emotional gates so that it blew up in worry and then I couldn’t do anything about it except brood and wonder. In other words, I nipped it by recognizing what it was, prayed about it, got the answer to “be still” and offered it as a package upon the feet of the king. And then it happened, a peace consumed, a knowing wafted into the walls of my ears and the beat of my chest and I forgot the worry. And I knew suddenly it was His. Even more than that, inside the prayer, I knew God was working, really working on it. The answer I needed was being said. And all is well. And all is good. Let us practice. Love to all.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“Do Not Worry – Practice” by Dianne H. Timmering

He will be like a tree that is planted near water. It sends out its roots beside a stream. It is not afraid when heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It does not worry when there is no rain. It always bears fruit.” Jeremiah 17:8

Do not worry . . . How to really do it? See how many times do not worry is mentioned in scripture (see below) and yet we separate ourselves from this promise; we sneak in a worry or two because we just don’t think that sort of freedom is possible. And change brings worry. Look at segmentation–it’s the epitome of change. Not to mention the challenges set forth by the new reimbursement landscape. So with so much change, how to trust? With so much change, how do we embrace the good seeds of change while uprooting the weeds of fear? Let us practice. Let us pray.

Going forward, Lord, I would like not to fear and not to worry. Help me, because distance from fear and worry is a “tall” order. But you know my anxiety. You know what surrounds me and I ask you to keep it from me, to silence the voice of fear with the stillness of your concrete faith–to know it, to feel it, to pray and then release it to you, to rely on you for the solution. Help me practice. We love you God. We need you. Amen.

Endless scriptures on do not worry. Here are a few–Matthew 6:25-27, Psalm 55:22, John 14:1, Matthew 6:34, Philippians 4:6, Proverbs 1:33, Isaiah 7:8, Jeremiah 17:8, Mark 13:11, Luke 11:11-22, 1 Cor. 16:10 . . . .

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“The Worry Solution” by Dianne H. Timmering

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? . . . And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Matthew 6:26-29

How not to worry? Let’s continue to dissect the issue of worry that in many cases we hold onto like it’s an obligation or a debt to pay. Yesterday we discussed and prayed to let it go at the feet of God. Yesterday we asked for help to do just that–and a hopeful sense of peace came upon us in the relinquishing of that which bound our heart in knots, if even for a moment.

What I find is that when I am able to let it go, a new peace sustains me like a bridge over water, the winds begin to whisper, the plan takes shape, God’s guidance emerges like the crystal gleam of a waterfall, and the solution pools at my feet. So I begin to solve, reach out, or remain still but I use His wisdom in the peace of the moment to dissolve the worry. If we listen, if we seek Him, if we ask, He will tell us what to do. Love to all for a very non-worry weekend.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“Are You A Guilt Carrier?” by Dianne H. Timmering

For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:11-12)

Are you a guilt carrier? Why is our memory long for guilt and short to remember God’s easy grace and mercy. You try and try to release it but still it follows you like a buzzing gnat. You know God has given “always” forgiveness but the guilt like a boomerang still comes back at you. You wear it like a hat. You had cross words, for example, with your daughter this morning and you think how could I have done that. Why was I so short with her. And then you say to yourself, I don’t deserve a good day.

But I say you do deserve a good day, the best day. Talk to God about it now, ask Him to help you forgive yourself; make it up to her when you get home. You can throw your arms around her, tell her that you love her, tell her that you are sorry and her arms meet you in a 360 degree embrace. God knows you; He knows our burdens and sores, that we are tired, that we get short tempered from fatigue, discomfort, sadness.

Don’t let guilt deceive you into anxiety or depression. Realize you can always do something about it and then once it has been released practice releasing it, not going back and picking it back up. For God has freed it from you, casting it into the sea of His forgetfulness (Micah 7:19). If He can let it go, so can we. Love to all.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality

“Ask” by Dianne H. Timmering

“Ask, and it will be given to you. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks will receive. He who searches will find. The door will be opened to the one who knocks. “Suppose your son asks for bread. Which of you will give him a stone? Matthew 7:7-10

Last Thursday morning I received a call from a stakeholder whose wife was having chest pains. They rushed her to the ER and when he called me they were there and the medical team was with her, telling him nothing. Later we found out that at that moment she had flat lined. It was about that time he had asked for the request to be put on the prayer chain. Voices of supplication went up shattering the heavens with the petition of need. Is the timing of our collective tune and the fact the medical team was able to revive her cause to consider the power of prayer? If we don’t ask, is God motionless to act?

How to petition? In thought; with a single prayer; with a collective hum; in confidence only to God . . . Let us raise our voices one by one, for healing for one for healing for all. Every time we ask, perhaps something good can only happen.

Let me encourage you to send prayers either for the prayer chain or that of a confidential nature (sometimes just speaking it out releases the burden) or just ask in thought. He hears. But let us ask. Love to all.

Dianne Timmering,
Vice President of Spirituality