Posting comments on our blog is pretty much the same as it is on here; at the bottom of the posts where it says “# comments”, if you click on it, it will take you to the comment section. Hope that helps!

Blessings,
E&K

Jess,I will pray for your friend.I have a friend who just lost his grandpa.A tree fell on his car.A verse I find very comforting is Psalms 30:5, “Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes in the morning,God’s anger last only a moment but His love last for a life time.”

Josiah,How do you do that bold print thing that you were telling Victoria about?

Alex and Brett,Did you like my idea?Please let me know?

Victoria,It was the baby.

Elizabeth Gruber, I love your blog.How do you post a comment on it though?

JoAnna,Happy birthday to your dad!

Zach Hunter,I know your out there.I really need to get in contact with you.

Nicole,I like your comments.

Amy,I am praying for your sister.

Everyone,My sister is much better.She is still on the moniter though.She hates it.Thank you for your prayers.

If there is anyone I forgot,I’m sorry.
Your Sister in Christ, Hannah

Jess: I will definitely pray for the two kids you mentioned, especially.

Thanks for your encouragement. I wish I could say I have talent, but truth be told, if I sit down and try to write a poem or come up with a story for a book my mind is just [ ] (blank). But when God wants me to write, I have no choice — it’s like a fire inside me. Kind of like when you feel drawn to read the Psalms or to spend time alone with God and worship. It’s like a tugging on my heart and He lays out the story and sometimes I even feel like I am the last one to understand, to an extent, where the story is going or what He is teaching. But then at the end I go, “Oh! It all ties together. I get it. I didn’t plan it that way at all, but He led me and He had a great plan.”

My dream when I was younger was actually to do artwork and I sometimes enjoyed music. Writing has been a surprise — something I didn’t have talent with so fortunately had to rely all on God’s Strength to do. I hope to get back into music someday with the mindset of not doing that on my own or in my strength, either, because writing has been so much more enjoyable to do and has gone better than the stuff I really used to think I had some talent for.

Ask God to purify you and empower you to write — or to do whatever He has planned for you to do — and ask Him to teach you how to rely on His Strength and His Power in all that He would have you do, whether you are talented at it or not. You may be surprised at what He has you do. And you will definitely be amazed.

Oh, and I was going to tell you this before, but my computer was running slow and I was out of time at the moment: Something I’ve learned over the past year is to give each relationship in my life to God and to ask Him to make it honoring to Him and to help me to accomplish His Will in it, and also, before you meet with a friend or friends or talk with them, put them, yourself, the conversation, and your time spent with them under God’s Authority in Jesus Name and ask Him to be in control. I’ve noticed a HUGE difference when this is done and have also noticed that when I forgot to do it then the person I was with would go off on really weird things that didn’t at all honor God or that I would start to say something (that I hadn’t prayed about) and God would cut me off some other way by allowing the phone to become disconnected so the person I was talking to missed every word I said that I shouldn’t have said in the first place.

Thanks to everyone who wrote about my comment! It is a huge encouragement to know that others are feeling the same way.

Nicole, I think you’re great at writing. I am also an aspiring author, but I don’t write half as much as what it sounds like you do! You’ve got great talent.

And since Hannah put a prayer point up, I will too.
A family my brother knows lost their dad in a motorbike accident the other day- obviously a very sudden death. They have two primary-school aged kids. They could really use some prayer.

Thanks again to everyone that responded to my comment. You don’t know how excited that makes me!

God has gradually taught me that I can be the one to initiate worthwhile spiritual conversations with friends - it doesn’t have to be someone else who starts talking. =) Sometimes it can be “weird”, but it’s worth a try.

Nicole: I really appreciate the thoughts you’ve shared. I think God is weaving together an incredible testimony in your life that can really minister to others.

Many people think that only the showy things — the things we see as “big,” because they are “great” and appreciated on earth — are what glorifies God. So they get bitter about the small things or refuse to do them, which in effect handicaps them from doing anything that is in reality big for the Kingdom because they don’t end up really knowing God — like knowing Him by fellowshipping with Him in suffering, getting to know how He feels about things or seeing His Perspective. They miss out on His Heart and so don’t truly learn what would please Him and glorify Him. They end up giving Him “gifts” of their own making that are ostentatious and are kind of like if an Aunt who doesn’t know you real well gives you a gift certificate for a store you never shop at or knits a sweater with your name on the front and a dinosaur on the back.
Many times we (myself included) think that God would be most glorified if we would do something that would really boost His reputation — make Him look “good,” you know. But we forget that He was PERFECTLY glorified through Jesus who was crucified, beaten, hated, called crazy, and mocked.

A while ago I watched a movie with Brad Pitt in it (don’t laugh). In it, his character is a CIA agent (I think it’s CIA) and he meets this lady and falls in love with her. I forget why, but she ends up in prison. The way his job is, he was trained to never go back for someone, but rather to forget about the person, keep moving and keep getting the job done. But he really cares for this girl, so he does his own thing, goes into prison, and attempts to rescue her. He’s caught while escaping, though, and put into prison and tortured. A rescue has to be staged then to rescue him and the girl. When they’re finally rescued, his face has been beaten and he’s barely recognizable, but he sees the girl — that she’s safe now, too — and he looks at her like he still totally loves her. When I saw this scene, something within me cried out, “I want to be loved like that! To be loved so much by someone that they would go through that for me and come out of it still loving me…” but then I felt ashamed because I realized that Jesus did, He does Love me that way, and yet I wasn’t struck by it like that until I saw that movie. It made me realize the kind of Love and Devotion that He has for us, and the kind that truly reaches the heart — the kind His Bride should have for Him. The love that isn’t just words and kindness and gifts that we enjoy giving, but that is also willing to endure whatever it takes to love, to give, to stand up for, to protect (to uphold and protect from compromise, as we should, His Truth, His Name, His own).

Thanks for sharing what God taught you — what you wrote while writing the book. It is good — really good. And I really like the questions. I look forward to reading what people will write in to answer them.

I haven’t considered writing my own blog. Thanks for the encouragement about my writing and to start one, though. God hasn’t led me to believe that it’s His Plan for me to, so far. Sometimes I write on my mom’s website — poetry and short stories — and I am working on several books right now. Some novels, some collections of poetry, one non-fiction about my family and what God has taught me so far, and a series of children’s books that my mom wrote most of, but that God gave me a poem for each and that I’m supposed to illustrate sometime soon. None of it’s published yet and my mom and I use different names than people usually know us by. It’s a lot of work and sometimes I’m up all night working. And the funny thing is, I never took a writing class (you can tell by some of the grammar and punctuation I use) and my mom never taught me to write, but when I was 13 and started seeking God I started getting these lines for a poem over and over again in my head, and when I wrote them down I got more lines, then more, for a several months, I think, I got lines to two poems. When I was 12 I had stopped believing that God exists or that He Loved me and I had asked Him to prove both within a month (then I threatened Him if He didn’t — not real smart). I waited that month and nothing happened — nothing was proven, nothing I wanted happened. I realized that I could go through with my threat or I could continue seeking Him and wait for Him to prove Himself and His Love to me — if He existed — in His timing, the way He wanted to. And I realized that it was actually encouraging that He hadn’t done what I wanted — if He was there — because if He had done what I wanted, when I wanted, then I would be controlling Him and He wouldn’t be God — I would be. So I waited. Not too long after, I got the poems. That wasn’t the proof I wanted, but it was better. I became a Christian and surrendered all — I had promised that all I was was His and to do whatever He asked, go wherever He called, if He did prove those two things. And I’ve never doubted His existence or His Love since. And if we believe those to things, really, everything else falls into place after that, if you know what I mean.

I thought this would be short, too. What do I know, really? Thanks for your time, Brett. I pray daily that God will Bless you and Alex as you honor Him.

“May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His Glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the Holy Spirit..”
EPHESIANS 3:16

Thanks!