Winners: Thank you to so many of you who commented on recent Echoes of Grace posts. You, my friends, are a great encouragement.

Four books are being given to Linda Bonorden, New York; Deb Weaver, Wisconsin; Mary Zehner, Illinois; and April Otero, Florida. May you be blessed as I have been from these reads.

Others who commented are receiving a bookmark with an original poem I penned a few years ago. I hope its message ministers to you as much as it did to me in the writing of it.

(I still need a few of you to send your addresses to me, sue.tell@navigators.org.)

On another note, Bill and I have an unusally full ministry travel schedule between now and Thanksgiving. During this time Echoes of Grace will be encouraging you with excepts from some of the books I’ve recently read. I’m titling this series, Words From The Wise. My prayer is that you be challenged and blessed from these as I have been.

From Whispers of Rest, by Bonnie Gray …

Moving the Water

Carol’s neighbor lives four miles away. One night, he knocked on her door. He said water would be arriving in twenty-four hours to water her land.

He told her he would move the water tonight. It’s an unusual phrase. It turns out that Carol’s neighbor, who lives upstream from her, is the gatekeeper for the reservoir holding all the water that supplies what farmers and ranchers need down-stream. The gatekeeper watches the waters swell and he reads the weather in the clouds.

“Moving the water” meant he would open a series of gates and release the water to run where it was most needed to replenish the land. If the land wasn’t getting enough water he would rearrange the gates to redistribute its flow.

“Changes in your life,” Carol told me, “are how God opens gates in our hearts–to release the things that need to be let go in order to bring new life to areas we can’t see but God sees.”

God changes the direction in our lives, not to harm us but to bring new life.”  (pages 128, 129)

Hmmmm, that was a good reminder for me. What about you?

“For I know the plans I have for you … not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11