Presbycan Daily Devotional

Monday, May 10, 2021: "He Knows My Name" Psalm 139:1,13,16 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. (NLT) For the first two weeks of my life, I was not called Alice, my present name. My parents were trying out the name Helen. ...Continue reading

Sunday, May 9, 2021: "On Being The Perfect Mother" Hebrews 11;17a By faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. (NIV) I had determined to be the perfect mother when I was young, but that was before encountering the unfamiliar subway system in Toronto, Canada, with my two children, aged three and four. It was Monday. The day before, I'd heard a study of the Old Testament story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. The story is so imp...Continue reading

Saturday, May 8, 2021: "Room #402" Tom Hallman, Jr. is a storyteller. More specifically, he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Oregonian, our state's largest newspaper. He specializes in warmhearted, thoughtful human-interest stories, and as a longtime subscriber to the newspaper, I know that whenever I see his byline, I'm in for a treat. I was recently so moved by one of his stories that I wrote to him to express my appreciation for his article. I was happily surpr...Continue reading

Friday, May 7, 2021: "God Speaks!" Matthew 12:32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (ESV) As I made a cup of tea to start the process of waking up, this song jumped into my brain:...Continue reading

Thursday, May 6, 2021: "Never Fades" One day, I spoke at length with an elderly man, who told me of his long career in the Canadian civil service. It had been years since his retirement, yet his memory was sharp as he recounted the departments in which he had served, the policies and decisions that had been made, the important political people with whom he had interacted, and the influence that he had enjoyed. After he left, I pondered on the fact that I had never heard of hi...Continue reading

Wednesday, May 5, 2021: "Truth" When I was young, our family lived next door to brothers who had a gorgeous apple tree in their yard. The apples looked so good and juicy, and we all wished that we could have one. There were five sisters in my family at this time. A brother came much later. One day, the neighbour told us that we could have some of his apples. Four of us sisters picked and took a basket home to mother. Dad asked where the apples came from. We all said we got th...Continue reading