Debbie W. Wilson

Refreshing Faith

How to Successfully Partner with God

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I’d stayed home from church because I wasn’t feeling well. Instead of a relaxing morning, an inexplicable urgency burdened my heart for someone I’d never met. Months earlier a friend had confidentially asked me to pray for this woman, but what did this mean? Was she in trouble? Why was I feeling this now? What was I to do?

“Should I ask for her number and call her?” I asked my husband when he returned home.

“I think you pray. When you need to do more God will show you.”

Monday morning Larry called from work. Sunday afternoon the woman had left a message on our ministry phone line. She wanted to meet with me.Continue Reading

When You Dread Father’s Day

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When Father’s Day is difficult, what do you do? My friend Yvonne Ortega shares some suggestions to remove the dread of Father’s Day.

Her excellent book, Moving from Broken to Beautiful Through Grief, offers more tips to help people navigate the stormy waters of grief. Now, here’s Yvonne—

Father’s Day will be difficult for me this year. My father passed away two months ago. What about you? Perhaps your father also died. A friend of mine lost her father and her stepfather. Father’s Day will be difficult for her too.

Maybe your father or stepfather is ill and could die at any moment. You may be planning the viewing, church service, and burial or cremation.

Perhaps your father physically, emotionally, or sexually abused you. Maybe your father divorced your mother when you when you were a child and disappeared. Father’s Day will be difficult for you too.Continue Reading

Why I Know We’ll Be Happy in Heaven

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Much to my mother’s chagrin, I loved blue jeans and climbing trees when I was a girl. I’d shimmy up the trunk of a tall pine the neighborhood boy couldn’t reach without standing on his bicycle. My trees were forts, castles in the clouds, and hot houses for daydreaming.

My arms and legs no longer scale trees or swing from branches. But I still feel the magic when I peek through leafy limbs.

Our kitchen sits over our garage. The Crepe Myrtle growing beside our garage doors spreads its lovely branches in front of a bank of casement windows. When I look out from my kitchen table, my heart smiles. I’m living in a heated and air-conditioned tree house.

I wasn’t thinking about how much I enjoyed the view from trees when we picked out our house plan or when we planted the Crepe Myrtle. But God remembered.Continue Reading

How to Stop Negative Self-Talk

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Years ago, a knowledgeable guide delighted our group of moms and kids on a fieldtrip to a local historic site. But I sensed her emptiness and wanted to talk to her about the Lord. My conversation didn’t go as I’d hoped.

Accusations pelted me as I drove away, “Why did you say that? You really botched that. You’re a poor excuse for a Christian.”

Have you ever left a conversation where you wanted to help someone know God better and been besieged by negative thoughts? Or maybe you attended a Bible study and left feeling like you shouldn’t have opened your mouth.

Have you ever wondered what’s up with that?Continue Reading

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