The Most Romantic Day

February 14, 2025 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ 1 Comment

The most romantic day I ever experienced was not a Valentine’s Day at all. And the one pursuing me was not my husband … or actually any human man.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up and try again.

Back in 2007, my first husband left me.

It was one of those things that seemed to come out of nowhere. I mean, I was shocked because it seemed at the time that things were going okay between us. Although even at the time I wouldn’t have described our marriage as great, I certainly had no inkling that our marriage was on the rocks. Yet, before I could click my heels three times, I found myself in divorce court. Literally overnight I went from being a homeschooling mom of three children (ages 3, 5, and 6) to being a single working mom.

Let me guess … you are thinking that this story doesn’t sound very romantic so far. In fact, it really couldn’t be any less romantic!

Correct. But this is the exposition the story. Remember back in literature class when your teacher talked about plot? Every good story starts somewhere and that place is the exposition, when you get to meet the characters and become familiar with a bit of the backstory. This is backstory. Hang tight. Romance is coming!

As you can imagine, it took me a while to recover emotionally from that divorce, but by late 2008, I found myself emerging from a fog of disbelief. However, I was left with this feeling that as a woman I was used goods. What man in his right mind would choose to date a woman with three children? And yet, I couldn’t deny deep inside was a desire to be loved and cherished by a man.

In the spring of 2009, I met Jon Hamilton. We quickly became good friends and summer it seemed to me that maybe there was more than just friendship blossoming … but good gravy, I couldn’t seem to get any inkling if it was just me feeling those romantic feelings or if he was having them too. All summer and into the early fall, the tension built. Was this friendship turning into something more? Would he ask me on a date? Was romance blossoming? My heart did all the flips and flops that hearts do when you don’t know if you are falling in love or not!

One night, early in September, I remember having a late-night conversation with the Lord about my romantic confusion regarding Jon. At first, that conversation centered specifically on that whole situation, but after a few minutes, I confessed how I just wanted someone to love my soul, to love me for who I was – flaws and all. All my life I’ve struggled with feeling like I am worthy of such affections. And I asked the Lord straight up, “Am I worthy of such a love?”

As I ended my side of the conversation, I felt like even though the Lord had heard my heart, it was probably a prayer that wouldn’t be answered. I mean, why would God care that I wanted to be romantically wooed? Considering all the big problems people face, this one seemed like pretty small beans, even to me considering my current emotional state.

Maybe a week or so later, my birthday rolled around. It was a weekday so I had to work. I hadn’t been in the office long when my dad showed up. He was a school principal so seeing him walk into my courthouse office in the middle of the morning was a bit unusual. He seemed a bit nervous to me and kind of shuffled his feet around, hemming and hawing, like he didn’t know how to say something. Finally, he pulled a rather large box of chocolates from behind his back. He said, “A sweet birthday treat to remind you of how sweet you are to me.” When I let out a little gasp of thanks, my dad grinned with relief and said, “I hoped you would like it!”

A couple of hours later, the florist delivered flowers to me. A nice big bouquet – all sorts of beautiful buds in a nice vase. I honestly couldn’t think of a time when I had gotten a delivery of flowers. The flowers were from my sister. Our usual birthday exchanges were just phone calls.

At lunchtime, my coworkers surprised me with a birthday lunch of all my favorite foods. Each of them had made dishes from home and brought it to the office to surprise me — and surprised I was!

That evening, I came home to a mailbox stuffed full of mail. Would you believe that there was not a single bill in that pile? Not one piece of junk mail either. Nothing but birthday cards and a beautiful package all wrapped in purple (my favorite color).

One by one I opened the cards. I had never received so many. Friends and family. More cards than I had ever received on any one birthday, and each one arrived in my mailbox on the same day!

Finally, I opened the package. A sweet friend I hadn’t seen in several years had sent it to me. The card accompanying the package said she had seen the gift and instantly was reminded of my eyes. With trembling hands, I opened the small box to find a beautiful pair of earrings, gorgeous dangling ones with my sapphire birthstones set into the center.

And then, standing there in my kitchen, it hit me like a bolt of lightning to my heart.

Chocolates.

Flowers.

A lunch of my favorite foods.

Cards.

Jewelry.

I was being pursued.

Someone was loving my soul, flaws and all.

And in that instant I knew what God was saying to me. “Paige, your heart may long to be loved by a man, but I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I said, “You didn’t forget anything did you? Every single romantic gift a girl could want, You made sure I received it today.”

And it was as if the Lord whispered back, “You are worth it and far, far more to Me.”

About a month later, Jon Hamilton asked me to be his girl. The rest is history. Still, even as romantic as my husband can be, I know who the Perfect Lover of my soul truly is.

This valentine’s day, no matter if you are single or in a new relationship or in a long-standing committed marriage, I hope you know that there is One who loves your soul far more than you dare to imagine.

How Much Is Enough?

January 26, 2025 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ 1 Comment

Why is it that I want all the tote bags?

That’s a serious question.

Show me a good tote bag and I instantly want it. All the colors. All the patterns. All the styles. It really doesn’t matter because if there is a tote bag to be bought, I’ve got the cash.

Next question. Exactly what am I going to tote around in these tote bags I so long to collect?

I don’t know. My teacher supplies, I suppose. Even though I already have at least 3 really good teacher tote bags to cart all my teacher supplies from my house to the school and back home again, I need more. Yes, I definitely need more. I know because if I added fifty more tote bags to my collection and then you showed me another cute tote bag that I didn’t already own, I’d feel like I needed that one too.

The simple truth is that will never be enough tote bags in this world to satisfy my soul.

Or coffee mugs.

I need coffee mugs too.

How many coffee mugs does one person need? Okay, so let me clarify that question … how many coffee mugs for two people because Jon drinks coffee too?

Would fourteen mugs be enough? Fourteen mugs would mean both Jon and I could theoretically drink coffee every single day of the week without ever once taking the time to wash up the used ones. Based soley on that fact alone, logically somewhere around fourteen coffee mugs should be plenty to have in my kitchen cabinets.

I can tell you two facts right now:

I currently have far more than fourteen coffee mugs in my cabinets.
Fourteen coffee mugs does not seem like nearly enough. I definitely want more than that..

I have this deep desire to buy every coffee mug out there, until my cupboards overflow and I’ve nowhere to put them. At which point, I’ll box a few up for Goodwill and immediately turn around to buy myself more mugs for drinking coffee because the next coffee mug might very well be my favorite one ever but I won’t know for sure until I have it sitting on my kitchen shelf.

I know this to be a true scenario because just this week, during the Great Louisiana Blizzard of 2025, I packed up a box of more than twenty coffee mugs for the thrift store, but there was still at least another twenty on the shelf. For a few hours, I felt proud and rather righteous for my measly attempt at decluttering.

But now the coffee mug spot looks bare (even though I have twenty cups). And I have to wonder how long will it take me to fill up that space again with more coffee mugs?

And it’s not just tote bags and coffee mugs. We can’t forget the pens!

How many pens do I need?

As many as I can collect apparently because I cannot darken the door of an office supply store without buying at least one package of overpriced pens.

Felt tip. Gel ink. Clicker pens and capped pens. Colorful ink. Standard blue or black. Fat pens and thin pens. I need them all. Truly, there will never be enough pens to satisfy my needs for more.

Perhaps my great love for pens is because I am a writer, though I generally just type my words so that theory falls flat.

Maybe the pen fascination comes from the fact that I am also a teacher. But exactly how many pens do I really need for grading papers? I mean, I do grade a lot of papers, but not so much that the ink runs out on a regularly basis. I bet I could easily make do on ten pens a school year and not come close to running out of ink.

Trust me. I have a lot more than ten pens.

I have a pen cup by my chair in the living room. Two more pen cups on my desk at school. Another pen cup on my desk at home. And when I say “pen cup” what I really mean old coffee mug that I love and cannot bear to part with but I have other coffee mugs I love to drink coffee out of more so I now use it to stash away my pen collection.

Not only does my pen collection live in old coffee mugs, but I’ve got pens in my purse and pens in the console of my car and pens in the pockets of most of the jackets I own … and (of course,) lots and lots and lots of pens stashed in the bottom of every single tote bag in my possession.

I cannot get enough pens or coffee mugs or tote bags. The more I have, the more I want. Because pens and coffee mugs and tote bags cannot fill me up any more than the books stuffed onto the shelves in my home or the clothes filling my closet or the apps cluttering my phone.

I wasn’t made for things. As a created person, I was made for my Creator … for a relationship with Him and the rest of His creation.

That’s why the most filling things in this life come from being connected to God through His creation.

Petting a cat (or a dog), watching the birds flit around the feeders, sitting outside drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, planting seeds in a pot of soil, … all of these are things that bring us joy and peace into the chaos of our lives.

It’s why swimming or building a snowman or feeling the warm sun on our face leaves us feeling connected to the world where we live out our days.

And it’s why when we spend time with people, we feel that longing for connection melt away. And time spent in weekly worship, daily prayers, and reading Scripture bring joy and fulfillment to the soul.

It’s often said that the best things in life are free.

The last time I checked, pens and coffee mugs and tote bags all cost money. Even if I had enough money to buy all the pens and coffee mugs and tote bags the world has to offer, it wouldn’t do me a bit of good. You see, even though I’ve already got enough of them, the odd fact is there will never be enough of any of those things to satisfy my soul. It will always leave me wanting more.

Instead, let me spend time in God’s great world with all that He made. Let me enjoy others and bask in the laughter and smiles and hugs. Let me remember to enjoy my daily bread – the bread of His good world that sustains my body and the bread of His good word that sustains my soul.

And let me remember that there’s not one thing in this world that I need more of except for God.

But Him … I can always use more of Him.

Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His presence continually!

1 Chronicles 16:11

Blessings,

Hello Snow

January 19, 2025January 19, 2025 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ 2 Comments

Louisiana’s Gulf Coast is predicted to get a historical amount of snow this coming week.

Snow is not the normal winter forecast. It’s a rare event to begin with … usually just a light dusting that doesn’t even stick. If it does stay around for a few hours, it’s usually not much to talk about. Although we do more than just talk about such events. We truly shut down and empty the grocery stores in anticipation of this half-day weather phenomenon.

And now the weathermen are saying this week we will see historic amounts. Up to 10 inches in some locations. Most of the area will see 2-4 inches. Not only that, but this time the snow is supposed to stay around for 48 hours or more!

We are still 3 days away from our snow event, but today my husband sent me to the store to buy supplies for gumbo. He says there is no use having snow without a pot of gumbo on the stove. Apparently, everyone in Cajun Country is planing the same exact menu for our Louisiana Sneaux Days because when I got to the store the sausage was almost gone and the only chicken broth available was the store brand variety.

All day I’ve been thinking about the upcoming snow …

I’m excited! It’s so rare around here that I’m as giddy as a young child at Christmas. I’ve got my pajama pants picked out and my books stacked up. I’m ready to light our gas logs, put the gumbo on to simmer, and enjoy the beautiful snow!

And as I thought about the upcoming snow, I thought about some past snows when I was a child.

There was the big snow of 1978. That winter, I was 5 years old, but I can vividly remember so many details about that winter storm. We lost power in our tiny north Louisiana town, and because our house didn’t have a fireplace, my family went to stay with my grandparents. My aunts and uncles, most of whom were college-age, were all home, so it felt like one big party. We all stayed together in the living room of the house where the fireplace was located. I think we slept on blankets on the floor and on the couches. It was cold!

I can remember looked out the windows and seeing the enormous icicles hanging off the eves. My Uncle Ken went out to break one off for me. He brought it inside for me, and I held it in my mittened hands and licked it like a popsicle. One afternoon we went sledding down the big hill in my grandparents backyard. We didn’t have real sleds so we sat on cardboard boxes. I remember coming in from playing outside with my aunts and uncles, my face was red and my hands were stinging from the cold. I couldn’t feel my toes anymore! After my mom changed me out of the wet, cold clothes, my great-grandmother wrapped me in a quilt and rocked me by the fireplace. I fell asleep listening to my grandmother singing songs in the kitchen.

A few years later, we had another ice storm. By then our family had a fireplace in our home. Mr. Joe, our neighbor who lived across the street, built us a wooden sled. My brother and sister and I had to pull each other around our flat yard, but we had fun playing in the snow. Later, we used the sled to pull gallons of water over to Mrs. Owens because her pipes were frozen. One afternoon, my dad took us over to a nearby pond that had frozen over. We were able to walk a little way out on it. My brother went out a good ways from the shore, but I remember feeling scared I might break through the ice and fall into the freezing water. But my daddy promised me he wouldn’t allow me to walk on the frozen pond if there was a chance I’d fall through. I’ll never forget coming back home and my mother had made us the most delicious BLT’s with tomato soup. It was warm and filling and perfect for a cold day … one of those meals I’ll never forget.

And then I remember one Sunday morning waking up to falling snow. I was married, but Joel hadn’t been born yet, so it was probably 1997 or 1998. I woke up my husband, expecting him to feel as excited as me about the snow. He wasn’t. He pulled the covers over his head and rolled over.

At first, I felt disappointed and sad, but then I decided I would just enjoy watching the snow. I pulled a big comfy chair up to the French doors and sat there with a big cup of hot chocolate, watching the snow fall and thinking about the wonders of God’s creation.

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?

Job 38:22

Some of my social media friends aren’t happy about the snowy predictions. They are grumbling about being stuck at home or how they think it is better to be hot than cold. A few have even said the weatherman will be wrong and we won’t see nearly the snow he has predicted. (Personally, I really don’t care how much we get, I just want to see those flakes drifting down and see the white piling up on all the surfaces around our yard.)

My dad used to tell me I didn’t have to like the weather. I just had to live in it.

It’s the truth. God made the hot days and the cold days. He made the rain, the sleet, and the snow. It’s all part of His creation. And like it or not, as long as I live on this earth, I must deal with whatever the weather happens to be. I’m not in charge of the wind or the rain … or the snow.

Back to snow …

I love snow for many reasons, but one of the best is because it reminds me of a God truth. Snow reminds me of who God is … and while God is Creator of the snow, He is also my Savior and Redeemer. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

And that’s an important truth to remember.

God’s holiness cannot be in the presence of my sins. But I cannot take my sins away. I am not able to do enough good things or make enough sacrifices to pay that debt. And yet God made a way for me … and for anyone else who is willing to submit to His authority. He provided the perfect sacrifice to pay for sins. The blood of Jesus on the cross is all that is needed to remove the guilt stain of my sin.

There’s an old hymn we used to sing in my Baptist church back in north Louisiana …

Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;
I want Thee forever to live in my soul,
Break down every idol, cast out every foe;
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Refrain:
Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow,
Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

When the snow comes this week, I’m going to think about that hymn and sing it in my heart and be ever so grateful that God, who created snow, also saved my soul.

A Fresh, New Start

January 1, 2025 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ Leave a comment

I love a good beginning… the freshness of starting something new.

Like opening a brand new notebook, filled with nothing but 150 clean pages ready for me to fill with words. It’s free from eraser marks or scratch outs or edits. There nothing there yet, but I could fill it with something amazing and wonderful. It’s the wonder of the unknown.

Of course, the moment I start to write, I know I am going to immediately regret it. My handwriting is too imperfect. I spelled a word wrong. Maybe I should have used a different pen color or chosen a pencil instead. I second guess my topic anyway so I need to start over. And now this notebook isn’t new and fresh anymore. It’s got mistakes in it.

The perfectionist in me loves fresh start of all sorts. The idea of starting something new is appealing to me, mostly because there are no mistakes or imperfections in it … at least not yet.

New years feel like that too.

Every January 1st, I can’t help but think I have a whole 365 days right in front of me to achieve a goal, make a dream a reality, improve my life. Why, this time next year things may really be different! Maybe I can pay off my car or find a better job. I might get in shape, lose weight, change my hairstyle. I could write a new book, land a deal with an agent, write a best seller. The possibilities of what could happen are endless — and none of them have failed. At least none of them have failed yet.

We all have dreams for 2025. Big dreams. Small dreams. Elaborate schemes. Tiny ideas that have only just begun to spark in our brains. Maybe we have dreams we are afraid to speak out loud because we have been praying for an answer for so many years that we are scared that another year might go by without it being answered. Healing from a health issue, a desire for a child, a concern over a loved one, a big financial need you cannot envision being met, a marriage being restored. You know those kinds of hopes and desires for which the longing is so deep you find it hard to cling on to hope anymore. Those prayers are almost too hard to pray. And yet, deep down we can’t help but wonder if this might be the year our prayer gets answered.

We are all at the beginning of 2025. It’s full of all our hopes and dreams, desires and wishes, our deepest prayers. Nothing bad has happened to the majority of us. At least not yet. The year is still new and fresh and full of opportunities for good things to fill our lives.

I love the line in the book Anne of Green Gables:

Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it yet.

It reminds me of a promise God has give to His children…

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

Of all the things about God’s character that I love, perhaps this is my favorite. There’s never a time when we can’t start fresh with Him. He is always willing to let us have a do over.

Who knows what 2025 holds?

Not me. I am praying it’s a good year, one filled with joy and peace.

But God knows. He already knows everything tiny detail about every moment of this coming year. He holds it all, right now … all the good days and all the bad days, every answered prayer and the ones we wonder if He even hears us pray, every mistake we make whether its big or small. God’s already got every bit of 2025 in His care.

What a treasure to know a God so big and capable! I can go boldly into this new year, holding into hope, keeping the expectation of answered prayers, believing my deepest longings may come to be in this new year… and yet also knowing that whatever comes my way, God is with me. He won’t forsake me. And on December 31st, 2025, I will be able to look back over the days and know without a doubt every moment God stayed by my side.

And if I mess up or life gets out of control and I lose my cool or things just aren’t working out like I thought they might, I don’t have to wait until January 1, 2026 to make it right because I get His new mercies each and every day. Fresh starts are for every day with God!

Prayers to each of you for a happy 2025! May you have the hope and joy and peace of Jesus in your hearts every day, the whole year through!

From Coward to Warrior … a Lesson from Gideon

April 1, 2024 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ Leave a comment

Are you familiar with the story of Gideon?

It is found in the book of Judges beginning in chapter 6 through chapter 8. (If you have never read it or are not familiar with it, I encourage you to go find it in your Bible and at least read Judges 6: 11-16 BEFORE you read this blog post.)

At the beginning of the story, Gideon in a wine-press threshing wheat.

The first thing to jump out to me is that this is a rather strange place to be threshing wheat.

First, it’s a wine press, an area meant for pressing wine. It’s not going to be where you would expect someone to go to thresh their wheat. Secondly, it’s not going to be conducive to threshing wheat as you need a larger area to help separating the wheat kernels from the chaff. And finally the air flow won’t be good for threshing as wind is needed to blow the chaff away. Ancient wine presses were often inside buildings, and even if the winepress was located outdoors it was typically in a valley area near the vineyards so that it would be easy to transport the grapes to the wine press.

Gideon’s location for threshing his wheat is certainly not an ideal choice. So why is he trying to thresh the wheat in a wine press?

The Bible tells us Gideon is down in the wine press because he is hiding from the Midianites who have been laying his country to waste for seven long years.

In chapter 6: 1-10, you can read about how the Midianites were literally destroying all crops and animals and land belonging to the Israelites. In fact, due to this on-going oppression, the Israelites are completely poverty-stricken. So, in a sense, you can hardly blame Gideon for wanting to hide his wheat crop from the people who are systematically destroying his nation.

Still, it’s a cowardly position. Furthermore, Gideon’s actions clearly indicate that he is behaving from his own point of view of himself. He is basically acting like a coward because he FEELS like a coward. He sees himself as weak and vulnerable.

Then, out of nowhere, the Angel of the Lord shows up.

Biblical scholars generally agree that in the Old Testament, the Angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Christ. So this is actually God Himself coming to visit Gideon.

When God arrives, He greets Gideon … but instead of using his name, calls him “Valiant Warrior.”

This is a reflection of how God sees Gideon. Now remember … this is the same God who came up with the idea of Gideon in the first place, who gave him the exact personality and specific talents, planned out the details of his life, and then formed him. This is Gideon’s Creator talking to him and saying, “You, my son, are a valiant warrior — not a fearful farmer.”

I am a word nerd. So I looked up a bunch of synonyms for valiant and warrior.

Synonyms for valiant include courageous, fearless, plucky, bold, indomitable, gallant, gutsy. My favorite synonym for valiant was LION-HEARTED. Isn’t that a great word?

Synonyms for warrior include champion, hero, soldier, and trooper.

Just start combining words from the valiant synonym list with words from the warrior synonym list and you can get an idea of exactly how God viewed Gideon: Bold soldier. Fearless hero. Gutsy trooper.

And then there is my personal fav … lion-hearted champion.

Imagine God knew Gideon as a LION-HEARTED CHAMPION because He had put in him the spirit of the heart of the LION OF JUDAH (Jesus). Wow!

This is where it gets interesting. Gideon, who has just been called by a new title, doesn’t even seem to notice that at all. Instead he just wants to know WHY? He basically asks God why is this happening … To me and my family? To my nation?

He then asks, “Where is the Lord?”

Um … He is standing right in front of you, you valiant warrior!

That’s how I would have said it anyway …

But according to the Bible, the Lord does not respond with a snarky comment. That’s because He is far more gracious than me. But I digress.

Instead, the Lord ignores that line of questioning and instead says to Gideon, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”

Whoa … did you see that too?

God didn’t just say “go” but He said to “go IN THE STRENGTH YOU HAVE.”

The strength you have right now … not in the strength you feel you have or the strength you think you need to have. But just go with what strength you actually have right now. Even if it feels meager, just go. Step out in faith and start the process.

And God then tells Gideon what he is “going” to do: Deliver Israel from the Midianites.

God didn’t say “try” to deliver them, or “do your best” to deliver them. Just deliver them. That means the outcome is literally guaranteed.

And the reason the outcome is sure is because of that last part of what God said: “I am sending you!”

So what’s the lesson from Gideon?

First, God sees me far differently than I see myself. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t think of myself as a warrior in God’s kingdom. And yet, He says I am part of His army … an army that is engaged in spiritual warfare.

Secondly, He has a purpose for me, a job for me to do. One of the things I feel like God has called me to do is to write for Him. But after ten years working on the same manuscript, I am filled with more doubts than assurances that this is a true calling on my life.

The truth is that I often feel unequipped to do anything for God. I feel like a nobody. Who am I? Just a first grade teacher at a teeny tiny school. What makes me think I can write a book for His glory? What makes me think I have any real job that matters within the Kingdom of God?

The Lord said, “God in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the grasp of Midian. I am sending you!
Judges 6:14

But as God said to Gideon, I believe He says to each of His children, “Go with the strength, the talents, the gifts that you have right now (because I have given you all you need) and do the work I have put in front of you to do — because I am sending you to do it.”

And this is how God turns cowards into warriors …

The fact that every day I get to choose to be a warrior in God’s kingdom is a feat of God’s amazing grace!

Let’s go be brave for God.

Bold Prayers that Changed My Life (part 6)

November 16, 2023 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to speak to a women’s group for Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer. I shared with them Six Bold Prayers that Changed My Life. This post is the sixth in a series of posts that is based on that speech … and it will be the last post in this series as well.

You can read the earlier posts by clicking on the title. The first bold prayer is Lord, Bless Me. The second bold prayer is Show Me Your Glory. The third bold prayer I shared is Help My Unbelief! The fourth bold prayer is Not My Will, But Yours Be Done. The fifth post was about the prayer Forgive Them.

I will continue to share those bold prayers over the next several days. I hope you’ll come back to find out more about how these prayers changed my life and can change your life too!

Bold Prayer #6: Come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20)

The Bible ends with a prayer written by John … “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Isn’t that the heart of every Christian? The prayer of “Come, Lord Jesus” is written in our hearts from the moment of our salvation. We long to be with our Savior.

We know that this world is swiftly passing away. At some point, Jesus will return for His children. We don’t know when, but we are closer now than ever before. Each day that passes, we get closer to that moment when Christ will return.

It will be a glorious day! We all look forward to that moment when we are finally able to be with our Savior in Heaven for eternity.

However, it’s a bold thing to pray for Christ to come. I say this because when He does return for His children, the opportunity ends for others to repent.

This ought to concern us. We all have loved ones or friends who are far from the Lord. We should pray for their salvation as fervently as we pray for Christ to come. The big question is that if we are praying boldly for Christ’s return, are we also doing our part to win as many to the Lord as we can before that day arrives?

Many of us pray for preachers and missionaries and evangelists who spend their lives telling others about the love of Christ. We feel like it is our job to lift them up in prayer. But it is also our job to share the good news. God has called all of us children to share His love … even “to the ends of the earth,” to quote Acts 1:8.

And as long as our feet are touching the dirt of this old the earth, we are Christ’s witnesses, and it is our responsibility to share Him with others.

Maybe you are like me … a little scared and uneasy about witnessing to others. I feel tongue-tied and sure of where to start. My mind goes blank. I feel flustered. The truth is, I am just scared of personal rejection. But that’s not reason enough NOT to share Christ with others I know.

This brings me to a brave invitation … but also simple. It’s the invitation to “Come and See” found in John 1:46.

Jesus called most of his disciples with the words, “Follow me.”

But for Nathanael, it was different.

You see, Jesus found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” And then Philip found Nathanael and told him about Jesus. Philip said, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law: Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

Nathanael scoffed at his friend, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip didn’t get flustered or scared or angry at his friend’s response. Instead, he simply said, “Come and see.”

So Nathanael went with his friend Philip … and Philip took Nathanael straight to Jesus. Of course, once he met Jesus, Nathanael followed Him too.

Come and see.

How easy is that? It’s just an invitation. Everyone likes to be included. With the invitation to come and see, you put the other person in control. Come with me and see for yourself what Jesus is about …

Come with me to church.

Come with me to a Bible study.

Come with me to a concert … to a prayer meeting … to a church potluck.

When we invite others to come and see, and then we bring them to Jesus, we are allowing them to discover God for themselves. It gives space for God to work in their lives and to move as only His Spirit can do.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for sharing God in other ways. But it is a comfort to know that something as simple as “come with me and see for yourself” is an effective way to share Christ with others.

I am not a bold person. But I can pray bold prayers. My life has been changed by simple prayers that are bold to ask:

Bless me.
Show me your glory.
Help my unbelief.
Your will, not mine.
Forgive them.
Come, Lord Jesus!

And I am reminded that the lives of those I love can be changed by a brave (but simple) invitation to Come and See.

You don’t have to be bold to pray bold prayers. You don’t have to be brave to invite someone you know or love to come and see what Jesus is all about. All we have to do is be willing to pray those prayers and invite those people. God meets us right where we are (in our weak, weary, timid hearts) and draws us closer to Him because He loves to hear the prayers of His children.

Bold Prayers that Changed My Life (part 5)

November 14, 2023 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to speak to a women’s group for Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer. I shared with them Six Bold Prayers that Changed My Life. This post is the fifth in a series of posts that is based on that speech.

I will continue to share those bold prayers over the next several days. I hope you’ll come back to find out more about how these prayers changed my life and can change your life too!

Bold Prayer #5: Father, forgive them. (Luke 23: 34)

This is the prayer Jesus prayed on the cross.

It’s hard to imagine praying this prayer in Jesus’ situation. He has been deserted by his followers, condemned in a fake trial, beaten, and mocked and tortured, nailed to the cross between criminals, and now the soldiers are casting lots for his clothes.

He could have cursed them. He could have struck them all dead. He could have demanded them to fall down and worship Him right then and there.

Yet, Jesus prays, “Forgive them.”

Each of us has at least one story about how someone did us wrong.

The world tells us that revenge is the answer in such situations. But Jesus says His way is to forgive them.

Telling someone else to forgive is easy advice to give. Saying I’m sorry might be hard words to choke out, but it’s lots easier than actually doing the forgiving part. In fact, there are times when it just feels impossible to forgive someone who has really hurt you.

I’d like to go back and revisit the story of my divorce.

I felt intense hurt and grief when my ex-husband left me. I thought our marriage was happy. We had three very young children … 6, 5 and 3 years old. I was busy with them and taking care of our home. I had no idea he was unhappy or needed something more. When he stated he didn’t want to be married anymore, I felt as if I had been cast aside. I felt like I was worthless. It was as if our 14-year marriage and our children meant nothing to him. The pain in my heart was the greatest hurt I had ever known up until that point.

With time, the intense grief subsided, and my heart began to heal. And yet, forgiveness didn’t come easily. I wanted to forgive, but the struggle to do it was hard.

Three years after my divorce, I remarried my current husband. While my new marriage certainly brought a lot of joy into my life, it didn’t help me forgive my former spouse. I wanted to forgive. I prayed about a lot about forgiving. But my wounded heart still struggled to let it all go.

You’ve probably heard it said, “Forgive and forget.” Logically it seems like forgetting would be the more difficult part of that process, but for me forgetting actually came much easier than forgiving! For long periods of time, I would forget about the pain of unforgiveness in my heart, which oddly enough fooled me into believing I had also forgiven my ex-husband. Unfortunately, just as soon as I saw him in person again those old wounds felt fresh all over again.

While the act of forgiveness might lead to forgetting, unfortunately the act of forgetting doesn’t mean that you’ve truly done any forgiving.

I complained to my counselor about my inability to forgive my former husband. She told me to detach, although I wasn’t exactly sure how to detach from someone you must be in contact with to co-parent your children. But I tried.

My kids were becoming teenagers anyway so easy enough to just step back and let them handle their own interactions with their father. The more I detached, the more I wanted to detach. The distance grew and I suddenly discovered I felt less stress and worry than I had in years. This detachment idea was working!

But unfortunately, every time I saw my ex-husband in person, my heart felt all bruised again. Forgiveness seemed awful slow in coming.

Due to his military career, my children only saw their dad a few times a year. Furthermore, he often opted to fly the kids to visit him wherever he was stationed instead of traveling to see them in Louisiana.

As my daughter’s high school graduation approached, I wondered how seeing him in person would make me feel. It had been well over a year since the last time I had seen him in person, but I recalled that after his previous visit I knew had still not truly forgiven him. I sort of assumed it would be the same this time around, too.

The weekend of graduation arrived. My ex-husband was due to arrive in town the day before her graduation. As it happened, I was out running errands when he showed at my house. My husband Jon sent me a text to let me know, stating, “I told him to make himself at home.”

When I returned home, I walked through the door to find he had done exactly that. My former husband was sitting on the sofa, talking, and laughing with his children and completely enjoying himself in my home. That was just the beginning. He stayed that night for dinner, and arrived at our home early the next morning while we were still dressing for graduation. In fact, for the entire graduation weekend, my ex-husband spent most of his time hanging out with our family. To my surprise, I didn’t feel put out by his presence.

On morning after graduation, my kids left for a week of vacation with their dad. As I waved them off, I realized I had just spent most of the weekend in the presence of my ex-husband, and yet emotionally I felt okay. No annoyance. No anger. My emotions were totally in check, and I felt in control of myself, instead of being strung out or tied up in knots like I normally felt after interacting with him. No bitterness remained in my heart. No hardness toward him. My heart felt lighter as I realized somehow forgiveness had happened. I wasn’t burdened anymore!

Since that day 3 years ago, I have been in my ex-husband’s presence several more times. In fact, last year he was with us for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I can tell you that I have truly forgiven him for how he ended our marriage.

I don’t say this lightly … forgiving him was not easy for me at all. And yet, with God’s grace and help, I discovered that forgiveness is not something we do … rather it is a work God does in us. When we look to Him to help us forgive, God heals our hearts and gives us His perfect peace.

This prayer might be the hardest of these seven bold prayers to pray, but the peace it brings to us is worth it.

Bold Prayers that Changed My Life (part 4)

November 14, 2023November 14, 2023 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ 2 Comments

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to speak to a women’s group for Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer. I shared with them Six Bold Prayers that Changed My Life. This post is the fourth in a series of posts that is based on that speech.

I will continue to share those bold prayers over the next several days. I hope you’ll come back to find out more about how these prayers changed my life and can change your life too!

Bold Prayer #4: Not my will, but yours be done. (Luke 22:42)

This familiar prayer was prayed by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before He went to the cross and died for our sins..

Luke records Jesus praying, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me – nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.“

As believers, we know that Jesus had to go to the cross. It was the only way to bring salvation to the people. Jesus, divinely God, was the only one who could make such a sacrifice since He had lived a perfectly sinless life. He was able to take the punishment that belonged to us in our place, thus paying the price needed to redeem us.

And yet Jesus was also fully human. He still felt the pain and the emotions of this horrific event. Jesus didn’t want to have to die for all of humanity, and yet He was willing to do it if God asked Him to.When Jesus asked God if there was a different way, and then conceded to doing whatever God asked of Him because He trusted God to know what was best, He gave us the example of the ultimate prayer of self-sacrifice. Nothing we ever give up for God will begin to compare to this.

There are times in our lives when our desires conflict with what we know God wants us to do.

What times have you given up doing things your way and willingly done things God’s way? Or maybe you didn’t do it willingly, but God’s will prevailed over your will and when you look back you can see the blessing that came from it.

A long time ago, in what feels like another lifetime, I was married to a different man. He was an Army officer. In February of 2007, he deployed to Iraq and while there he wrote me an email stating he didn’t want to be married anymore.

I was shocked. I really didn’t know we were having marital problems. I was devastated. I felt rejected and abandoned. I pleaded with him not to leave. I begged him to stay and work on things with me. I was a stay-at-home mom to three young children. I couldn’t imagine becoming a single mother.

I prayed diligently for the Lord to restore our marriage. And I really believed He would. I got set up with a marriage counselor and did all the things she told me to do. I fully expected God to restore our marriage … and yet as the months went by, that didn’t happen.

Can I just tell you how surprised I was when He didn’t work in the way I was praying for Him too. After all, isn’t God for marriage? Doesn’t God hate divorce? I could not fathom why God would not save my marriage.

Seventeen years later, and all I can tell you is that I still don’t understand why. But I do see the blessings God gave me out of His plan.

Perhaps you have a similar story … Has God said no to something in your life that to you seemed like it should have been an obvious yes?

Trusting God with our lives is hard. We want to have things go our way, to pray that God works like we want Him to work. But God’s way is always best, even when it doesn’t seem that way to us.

God promises in Jeremiah 29:11 that He knows the plans He has for us … and that these plans are for our well-being, not plans for our disaster. He promises that His plans are to give us a hope and a future. In Romans 12:2, we find the Apostle Paul saying that God’s will is always good, pleasing, and perfect.

To this day, I will tell you that when I went through that divorce nearly two decades ago, it surely didn’t feel like it was giving me a hope or a future. It didn’t feel like a good or pleasing or perfect plan either. At the time, it felt like I was being ripped apart and torn into little pieces. My world crumbled around me and I couldn’t see how I would ever pick up the pieces. My life felt like it was over.

But I also tell people that my divorce is the best worst thing that ever happened to me. No, it wasn’t pleasant at the time. It was a terrible experience. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone! But God turned those terrible times into something beautiful …

I gave up many things during my divorce. I was no longer a stay-at-home mom, but rather a working, single mom. God gave me a lot of confidence during those years as He built up my stamina to tackle problems. I grew in my faith in Him. I saw Him provide time and time and time again for me and my children.

Later on, God gave me a new husband, two bonus daughters, a new home with a miracle story. He gifted me new dreams and a new purpose in life. My outlook was broadened significantly. My whole life changed because my first marriage ended, and in some ways it changed for the better.

I want to be very clear. I still think God is for marriage and that He hates divorce. But I know that sometimes God works in ways that do not make sense to us. That’s why it is a big and bold prayer to ask God to do His will in our life, instead of what we want … and to trust that His plans and His will is going to be good even when it hurts.

Bold Prayers That Changed My Life (part 3)

November 13, 2023 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ 2 Comments

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to speak to a women’s group for Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer. I shared with them Six Bold Prayers that Changed My Life. This post is the third in a series of posts that is based on that speech.

You can read the earlier posts by clicking on the title. The first bold prayer is Lord, Bless Me. The second bold prayer is Show Me Your Glory.

I will continue to share those bold prayers over the next several days. I hope you’ll come back to find out more about how these prayers changed my life and can change your life too!

Bold Prayer #3: Help my unbelief! (Mark 9:22-24)

The third bold prayer I wanted to share is from the New Testament, and it’s probably my favorite because I can relate to it so much.

In Mark chapter 9, Jesus meets a man who has a demon-possessed son.

Whenever the demon seizes this young man, he begins to foam at the mouth, grind his teeth, and be thrown to the ground and become rigid. The father has sought help before, even from Jesus’ disciples, but so far no one has been able to free his son from the demon-possession. So, the father approaches Jesus and says, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Jesus answered to him, “If you can? Everything is possible for the one who believes.”

Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”

Can you relate? Have you ever known God could do something and yet you had unbelief that He would do it for you?

The summer my youngest child turned 15 years old, I began to notice a change in her behavior. It was subtle at first. She was not as talkative. She seemed to be withdrawing from her friends and normal activities. She stopped eating some of her favorite foods, trading out Oreos for baby carrots and chicken nuggets for apple slices. As time passed by, she quit eating any meals I cooked and only ate small portions of uncooked vegetables, fat-free yogurt, and the occasional small bowl of oatmeal. If she was dieting, it was working because by early November, her clothes were hanging off her body.

But there was more to it. … something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Her hair had a dull look. Her skin had a strange color. She seemed lethargic, lacking energy to even walk across the room. Something was seriously wrong. Was it a physical problem? A mental health issue? Or maybe both?

One evening, my daughter admitted she hadn’t had a bowel movement in over 2 weeks. Immediately, my husband and I took her to the ER … praying the doctors could help us figure out what was wrong. That night, my beautiful little girl was diagnosed with anorexia. She was starving herself to death.

I don’t know about you, but I never had any sort of experience with eating disorders. Much to my surprise, the ER doctor sent us home that with a pamphlet titled “All You Need to Know About Anorexia” and the instructions “do your best to get her to eat.”

Let me say that the two-page pamphlet definitely was not all I needed to know about anorexia. In fact, it basically told me everything I already knew (which was not much) and nothing about what I really needed to know.

Secondly, the instructions to do my best to get my daughter to eat were the most pointless and unhelpful set of instructions I ever have been given. Have you ever tried to feed someone who doesn’t want to eat? Remember when your babies didn’t like a particular food … how they would clamp their little gums shut and not take in any of whatever was on the spoon? Imagine that, only with a 15-year-old girl. Getting her to eat willingly was not going to happen easily.

We began to see a lot of specialists … psychiatrists, nutritional counselors, dieticians. You name it. We spent that winter going from doctor to doctor seeking out help for our daughter. I read books. I scoured the internet. I made all sorts of enticing concoctions in a valiant attempt to get my daughter to eat something. Meanwhile, she continued to refused to eat and the pounds melted off her body.

In early January, one of the doctors casually said that if by her next appointment the following week my daughter had lost 2 more pounds, she would have to get a feeding tube and go into a psychiatric ward for a 3-month stay. Just the week before, she had lost 4 pounds total, so I felt like this was a done deal. I begged the doctor … “Please is there any other way you can help us?!”

There wasn’t anything else the doctor could do. It was up to God now. And to be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure if God would help after all. I mean, I was praying but so far it felt like all my prayers were bouncing off the ceilings and crashing back down to the floors.

Have you been there? Feeling like everything is about to fall apart? You know God can help, and you want to believe He will … but there is an element of unbelief too. Will God come through for me?

That’s exactly where I was. And I remember I decided all I could do was trust God … no matter what.

It wasn’t an overnight miracle, but God did work in our situation. And that journey to healing started with what God did in me … and He began with my unbelief.

How did God come to me in my time of unbelief? Two main ways …

First, God reminded me of the power of praise. Psalm 22:3 says that God inhabits the praise of His people. God dwells in our praises. If God is dwelling somewhere, then He hasn’t abandoned us. If He is inhabiting something, then in that place He is active and working. With that thought, I began to put on praise music in our home. I kept it going all day and into the night. I sang along to it often, but even when I felt like I could not lift my voice in praise, my ears and the ears of everyone who lived in our home heard God’s named praised over and over.

Praising God is expressing absolute trust in Him, no matter what is happening in our lives. It is stating that we believe God is present and in control of current circumstances. Praise shows that we do not fear God has abandoned us but remains with us in our hour of greatest need. So praising God was an important first step in defeating my doubt.

The second thing God reminded me of was the power of His own word. The Bible is living. The words are powerful. Praying scripture glorifies God. It helps keep us focused on what is most important and appropriately express our feelings to God. Finally, Jesus prayed scripture. He also told his disciples in John 15: 7-8, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.”

I posted scripture all over my daughter’s bedroom … especially around her bed. I taped scripture to bathroom mirrors, the refrigerator door, and inside cabinets. Anywhere I thought my eyes might land with regularity, I put a Bible verse. Daily, I prayed these verses back to God as I asked Him to intervene in our desperate situation. At night, I went into my daughter’s bedroom and prayed verses over her while she slept.

As I mentioned, my daughter’s healing wasn’t immediate. She wasn’t healed in the blink of an eye. But God did work in her. She did not end up needing a feeding tube or a stay in a psych ward after all. She never did lose that two pounds I feared she would lose. Her weight loss stabilized for the next several weeks, and by then God had begun to move in other ways.

Five years has passed since my daughter’s diagnosis. I’m happy to tell you that she is doing wonderful – no longer struggling with anorexia or any other eating disorder. She is a college junior … an honors student majoring in Public Relations. She has a vibrant, bubbly, funny personality.

I’m thankful for the miracle God worked in my daughter. But I’m just as thankful for His compassion on me through my time of unbelief.

We all have doubts. Sometimes we feel guilty for our doubts, but even the strongest Christians can experience something that brings about a season of doubt. Aren’t you glad that Jesus doesn’t turn us away when we doubt, but that He reaches out with compassion? I am!

If you are in a situation when you are doubting God, the last thing you feel is bold. However, it’s a bold prayer to ask God to help you in your unbelief.

Bold Prayers That Changed My Life (part 2)

November 7, 2023 ~ Paige Hamilton ~ 4 Comments

This week I had an opportunity to speak to a women’s group for Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer. I shared with them Six Bold Prayers that Changed My Life. This post is the second in a series of posts that is based on that speech.

The first bold prayer is Lord, Bless Me, which you can read here.: https://paigespencil.com/2023/11/07/bold-prayers-that-changed-my-life-part-1/?fbclid=IwAR3gnuo1rM8d8p7dK0kp-woyS-Fkmn0cd1-P5obmMqIKQkd6YAIJ3H4CHNU

I will continue to share those bold prayers over the next several days.

Bold Prayer #2: Show me your glory (Exodus 33:18)

In Exodus chapter 33, Moses is talking with God. He petitions God for His presence to stay with them to guide them through the wilderness, and He also asks for God to teach them His ways so they he might have God’s favor.

The conversation concludes in verse 17 when the Lord answered Moses, saying, “I will do this very thing you have asked, for you have found favor with Me, and I know you by name.”

So far, this conversation is reminiscent of Jacob’s prayer … both the prayer for blessing, and the idea of being known by name.

But Moses is going to take it a step further. Like Jacob, he doesn’t let it end. Instead, Moses gets bold with God and replies back, “Please, let me see Your glory.”

The word glory in this passage could be translated with the word abundance or splendor or riches. Given that, this is a strange request for Moses to make. After all, it’s not as if Moses hadn’t seen God’s glory before.

He had first encountered the Lord at the burning bush. He had witnessed the wonders associated with God’s deliverance of his people from Egypt, including his rod becoming a snake, the Nile River turning into blood, and the grand finale when God parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross over on dry land.

In the wilderness, Moses has seen God providing manna and quail for the people to eat each day. He gives them water from a rock. Moses was given The Ten Commandments, written by God’s own finger.

But here he is asking to see God’s glory.

Are we like Moses? Have we seen God’s glory in our own lives?

We can certainly look around us and see the splendor of God just by watching nature. This time of year, we see the trees beginning to change colors and if that isn’t a magnificent display of God’s splendor then I don’t know what is!. If you have ever had the opportunity to be in New England in the fall, you know that our fall colors do not compare to the autumn leaves there. And yet, it’s still a pretty glorious thing to observe even around here. The trees just seem to outdo themselves with their brilliant fall leaves!

During my adult life, I have been blessed to live in several different places around the United States.

Twenty-two years ago, I had the opportunity to live along coastal California. From the giant Redwoods, to the waves crashing along the rocky shores of Monterey Bay … it was stunningly beautiful.

Then I moved to Savannah, Georgia, where there are soft sandy beaches that stretch for miles and miles. There were lowlands of marshy grasses, and lightening storms like nothing I had ever seen before. It was vastly different than the California coast but no less amazing to me.

After a few years in George, I moved to Virginia. Now I was in awe of those smokey Blue Ridge Mountains. Later on, I moved out to west Texas where I discovered air that never ceased to move and tumbleweeds that showed up out of nowhere.

Currently, I live in south Louisiana. Let me tell you there is nothing more gorgeous than a sunrise or a sunset across the bayou. The springs here are a glorious display of colorful flowers.

We see God’s glory in all of His creation. From the vast variety of animals He created, to the expanse of the solar system to which scientists cannot find an end, to the intricate detail of tiny cells and molecules that make up literally everything in existence to the ferocious weather like hurricanes or tornadoes that terrifies us … in each of these things we see the revelation of God’s glory.

Let’s go back to Moses, who boldly asked God a question: Let me see Your glory.

Do you remember how God responded to Moses’ request?

God passed by Moses, as he stood in the cleft of the rock. And as he stood there, God covered Moses with his hand, and then as He passed by, He removed his hand to allow Moses to see His back.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think the back of anyone is an especially impressive view. I mean, if I am looking for beauty, I want to see the frontside. But God told Moses all the glory he could take and still live would be to see the backside.

The more I see of God’s vast creation, the more I realize that we are down here on this earth seeing the glory contained in God’s pinky toe! We haven’t even begun to see the glory of God. And until we reach Heaven, we will not see the fullness of His glory. It’s certainly something to look forward to someday, isn’t it?

Moses’ prayer illustrates this truth: We cannot have enough God.

We can’t know Him fully. We can’t see all of His glory. We can’t understand everything in the Bible. God is too vast, too big, too amazing, too glorious for us to fully comprehend.

Moses had already seen an incredible amount of God’s glory before he prayed this prayer. And yet, he longed to see more of God’s glory. This insatiable desire isn’t unique to Moses. The greatest saints throughout history consistently speak of a deeper longing for God. This is because even as the presence of God profoundly satisfies us, at the same time it stirs within us an even more powerful longing for of God.

You and I have both seen many wonders of God. We know how the miracles and provisions He has worked in our lives. Day by day, we live in a world where we can truly be in awe of His creation.

May the bold cry of Moses’s heart be a prayer that falls from our lips too … “God, show me your glory!”