Jody Garrett Smith

If you get confused, start with love. If you feel lost or overwhelmed, go back to love. Then you'll always find your way back to God. Love leads you away from falsehood, idols, hatred, and evil. Just love. ...

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."- John Steinbeck, East of Eden ...

Dear Lord,You are the Primal Creator and Grand Weaver of all life and wonders, you are my Savior, you are my Heavenly Father, and you are my best friend. Thank you for loving me, for taking care of me, for guiding me, and for finding me when I was lost and bringing me back into your loving embrace. Thank you for bringing Emilie to me -- my brilliant, beautiful, passionate, soulful, talented, compassionate, hard-working, generous, loving wife. Thank you for giving us Tristan, our shining little b...

"I know the plans I have for you - plans for welfare, and not for evil - plans to give you a future, and to give you hope. You will call on me, and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me, and when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me - and I will restore your fortunes." - Jeremiah 29:11-14 (my own adaptation from the English Standard Version of the Protestant Bible) ...

To feel - just to feel - is never a waste of time. ...

It's not ungrateful to God to be honest with Him and with ourselves. We can appreciate what we have, but we don't have to deceive ourselves when something is not making us as happy as we think it should. That will only make us false and bitter, and may cause us to turn to shameful action in pursuit of temporary happiness.The Lord knows our hearts and loves us as we are. He wants us to be honest with Him and talk to Him about our pain and frustration, and to ask Him for help. If we ask for the wr...

Sometimes I don't connect well with God. In those times I don't hear Him or feel at peace. I've found that those are the times when I need to stop and spend time with Him through prayer and meditation and reading the Bible, and also paying attention to other books and things around me that he directs my attention to. Then He helps me bring things back into balance.Sometimes I begin to feel that sin is keeping me distant from the Lord. I pray and search my feelings and seek the cause of my distre...

Everything we pay attention to matters. Not everyone realizes that they need to manage their thought-life. We need to pay attention to how we feel and what we are thinking about, because our feelings and thoughts become words and actions. And in themselves, they are a basis for future feelings and thoughts, which make up who we really are. ...