Ready for some more heavenly hope? If you missed the first installment of this topic, you can find the Rapture Ready article here: “Heavenly Hope.” We rapture watchers sure do need an ample dose of hope most days to keep us hanging on. If you’re anything like me, you thought we would be outta here by now. While the world goes crazier than we ever thought we would see and attacks on us and our families only intensify, many of us are becoming battle weary and experiencing deep despair. Some days and some seasons, it all simply becomes too much to handle, our hope wanes, and we try our best to escape the battlefield.

Bad news alert: It’s only going to get worse. There’s not much I see on the horizon in the way of relief other than Jesus. The closer the devil gets to his foretold end, the more his demonic activity is going to ramp up and his attacks intensify. My family and your family are targets and will remain in the enemy’s crosshairs. Without hope, how are we to stand firm? The loss of hope can turn catastrophic in the life of a believer and allow the devil’s predictable opposition to become unforeseen oppression. We noted in the previous installment how opposition stands in our way, but is surmountable, whereas oppression stands on our head and sits us down. Continue reading…

Assaulted, that’s the word that would best express what I’ve felt so far in 2023. I’ve been under attack and under fire. The year started off in January with my father’s horrific suicide, a journey I conveyed in an article here on Rapture Ready titled When Darkness Prevails. At the time I was working on Heavenly Vision, a segment of what has become the “Heavenly” series. Even prior to my dad’s death, the Lord was challenging me to maintain heavenly vision rather than earthly vision, to fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith. When I do that, I know the story isn’t over, no matter what’s happening around me.

If I’ve ever needed that reminder, it’s here now in June. Since my dad’s death, in the past four months, my younger brother had two strokes, my husband lost his job, and my older brother, at only fifty-nine, was placed in skilled memory care for fast-progressing, early-onset dementia. He’s all but lost to us already. Seriously, my family and I have truly been under fire.

I know I’m not alone in this. You have been under fire too and have experienced family tragedies. I get emails from readers who are dealing with hardships and heartbreak, assaulted lives and homes and families. A common theme is our prodigal adult kids. I’m there with you on that one too. Our children, young and grown alike, are in the enemy’s crosshairs as he wages an all-out offensive against them. Continue Reading…

This Rapture Ready article will be used as the assignment for the Daybreak Gathering meeting on 6/15/23. Check out the DaybreakGathering.com page for more information if you would like to join the conversation.

A long time ago in a month far, far away, I began what I intended to be a “Heavenly” series. There have been starts and stops and starts again. This is a start-again moment. Often, what we see as interruptions at the time are later found to be God’s strategic interventions. I have no problem seeing that now in this start-again moment and find it’s nice to be back on track.

I began in the previous installment of this series, Heavenly Vision, reminding myself and you of the importance of preparing our hearts for the coming of the Lord, that time when we will all meet Jesus face to face. The article went on to address one massive distraction from our heart preparations, our tendency to focus more on the rising darkness of this world than on the soon-coming Light. We called this anxiety-breeding activity earthly vision. (That was a quick recap.)

So now we’re circling back around to the idea of preparing our hearts to meet Jesus face to face. Are we actually ready for that, to meet the Maker of the sun and stars? All we are and do and think will be laid bare before Him at that meeting. That gives me a bit of a queasy stomach, and the enemy could have a field day with doubts and questions if I didn’t know Jesus paid it all, and that there’s nothing I can do to be any more righteous in His sight than His shed blood has already accomplished. Still, when I get there, I want to kneel before Him knowing I’ve given all of me to my King here in the final whispers of this kingdom age. Continue Reading…