Good Morning Gorgeous,

It’s a brand new day. A fresh new start.

A new day to rise and run to Jesus for your daily fill..

A new day to let Jesus shape and mold your heart and your intentions.

A new day to allow Him to sanctify your motives.

I just spent a week with my precious grandma. Boy do I love time with her!

Even now with pretty severe dementia, she can still make me laugh a full belly laugh. She doesn’t even try to be funny, but as she talks and tells stories, she has a way to make you just crack up.

One of her favorite stories to tell is about the time she fell in love with my grandpa. She didn’t tell this one this week because the dementia has her spending most of her conversation on when she was a young girl.

But I don’t want to forget one of her all time favorites. She was over at her best friend Joyce’s house. Her and Joyce had been friends practically their whole lives from elementary all through high school. Now they were graduated and grandma went over to Joyce’s house to hang out.

She saw a young man on the top of the ladder painting the walls. Grandma said he looked down and her and she looked up at him and it was all over. She said he was the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on!

The best part is that she knew him practically all her life, because he was Joyce’s brother.

But she never paid him any attention until that day. That day when she stopped by and everything changed. He had recently gotten out of the military and was home just helping his mom around the house. He probably had no idea that morning when he woke up and put on some old painting clothes and pulled out a ladder and a paint can that his whole life was about to take an exciting turn for the best!

Grandma said that they quickly moved to Chicago, got married, and started having babies!

Here they are as newlyweds in Chicago:

I spent the last week listening to my sweet grandma tell me stories. She spoke of her childhood. She was one of the youngest babies in a large farming family.

She loves to tell the story of when her daddy had a roof raising. This is where lots of men come and work for days to add a second story to the house in exchange for meals. She said she watched her mama cook for days and days and the men literally raised the roof!

She shared what it was like to be the youngest girl. She felt like no one took the time to teach her much. She felt like she was in the way most of the time and never quite as good at cooking or sewing as her big sisters. Yet, I can tell you she is an amazing cook, she can sew practically anything including clothes and quilts, and she can build with wood a wide variety of things! She can do just about anything!!!

She did love all her siblings so much and speaks so kindly about all of them. I believe her favorites might have been her sister Verna and her brother Charles. Her face lights up in a special way when they come up in conversation.

Her brother Charles is who took my mom and I into his home in Florida when we left California hastily in 1988.

His youngest daughter and I have a special bond that I am so thankful for! She’s a strong woman and a very close cousin of mine.

But meeting a man on a ladder changed my grandma’s whole life! She had met him before, but never really paid him close attention. Once she looked at him, really looked at him, everything changed. Her life began!

Friends, you may have heard all kinds of things about Jesus, but never really paid Him much attention. Or you may be serving Him just kinda half heartedly without ever really looking at Him, experiencing His love, locking eyes with Him face to face.

Once you do, everything changes! The world becomes brighter, things take on fresh meaning, old ways pass away, and new things are birthed in your life.

I believe when we really see Jesus for the first time, nothing ever looks the same again!

Friends, I encourage you to take some time to ask Jesus to reveal Himself to you in a fresh new way so that you would really SEE Him. That you would know Him in a way that things shift and change in your life for the better. That your new life would begin, and you’ll never look back!!

Dear Heavenly Father,

Remove the scales from our eyes and our spiritual senses that keep us from really seeing You! Lord, help us to see You in a fresh new way that takes our breath away and sets us ablaze for You and Your Kingdom!! Lord, open us up to receive the FULL KINGDOM of God and all You desire us to recieve. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

Blessings and a fresh encounter with God!

Vanessa Lynn

And if you came across this post and you haven’t yet accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, may I encourage you that by choosing Him you receive eternal life in heaven, BUT ALSO abundant life NOW. Following Him is the most precious adventure you have ever taken!! All you have to do to get started is to pray and receive Him as Lord. The Bible says to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and believe with your heart the precious gospel message that Jesus taught. Repent of your sins which means simply to ask Jesus to forgive you and then choose to walk away from them and go in the New Direction that God is calling you to. Confess or speak that you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for you, that He was resurrected from the dead, and ascended to heaven. And that you recieve Him as your Lord and Savior. That you are sorry for your sins and you recieve His FULL and complete forgiveness for every wrong you’ve ever committed. And that you are choosing to follow Him now and leave the ways of the world behind for the things of Jesus!!! And if you mean that with your heart, you are saved and set free to live a new life free of sin! The Bible says you are now a brand new creation! Old things have passed away and new things have come!!! The Bible also says that all of heaven rejoices whenever a person is saved!!!! Just imagine the party being held in heaven on your behalf right now!!