The Rescued Letters

Heather M. Dixon: equipping women for courageous living

god's word

Live with Courage

  • Where are there unmet needs in your home, church, workplace, nation, and the world? How can Jesus use you to meet those needs? . From Week 3, Day 5 of the Determined: Living Like Jesus in Every Moment 🌸
  • A prayer for the anxious heart: . Father in Heaven, . I cast my cares on you today because I know you care for me. I am weary. I am tired of anticipating my life with fear. I am tired of living in constant tension. I am tired of worrying about (fill in the blank). . Help me to see that there is another way. Help me to tangibly feel your love for me today. Would you remind me how valuable I am to you? Would you remind me that your breath sustains my life? Would you remind me that you provide for every single one of my needs? And would you remind me that my life has a purpose here on earth? . Open my eyes to see your blessings. Give me a thankful heart, one that refuses to see anything but the good gifts with which you surround me. Settle my awareness in the present moment, so that I can see and remember your great goodness around me. . I release my worries to you because I know you are strong enough to carry them all. Lord, help me know and love Jesus more and more. I am ready to live my life to the fullest. And I know the only way to do that is to place my trust in the One who comes to give me a full life. I trust you, Father. I trust you, Jesus. . Amen.
  • When my son lost his first tooth, it did not come out easily. The tooth was determined to hang on until the bitter end, and it became clear that I was going to have to pull it out myself before he could eat another meal. Fearful does not begin to describe my son’s reaction to this plan. . In his six-year-old mind, he didn’t know that pulling a tooth hanging on by a single thread would not hurt. He hyperventilated. I encouraged. He cried. I reassured. Finally, he took a deep breath and let it out. I pulled. And out the tooth came before he could finish his exhale. . A wide smile and laughter in his eyes revealed his new awareness that pulling teeth didn’t have to hurt at all. And so when the time came again for the next tooth to be pulled, he wasn’t afraid. . The same pattern emerges when we learn to rely on God's faithfulness. Trusting God eliminates our fears because we learn to lean on His understanding, not our own, and we learn that His understanding is good. The more and more we trust Him, the more we realize we don’t have to wait for earthly evidence that He can and will take care of us. . When we trust God, our fears are extinguished. How will you trust Him today?
  • Riding out Monday morning thunderstorms, tornado warnings, and half-inch hail with this towel-thief. She's lucky she's cute.
  • If Mother's Day is tender... . My mind holds lots of days that bring overwhelming emotions. . The day I watched the paramedics come into my home and take my mother away in an ambulance. The day she died. The day my father's car hit a tree. The day I watched him draw his last breath. Mother's and Father's Days and holidays that remind you of loved ones no longer sitting around the dinner table. Each of the days my four grandparents died. The day my son was born prematurely, the day my colon ruptured, the day I lost a portion of my kidney tissue, and the day my carotid artery ruptured. The day I miscarried my second child. The day I realized my medical emergencies were related to my mother. The day I was diagnosed with Vascular Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. The day I finally accepted that there was no cure. . I understand what it's like to mark the year with days that remind you of hard things. I know what it feels like to want to pull the covers over your head and stay there. I've done that. . But then there was the day I put two feet on the floor anyway, because God saw my pain and gave me the strength to stand. . If today brings tender emotions, remember that today is just a day. One that was created by humans, that doesn't hold the power to define your worth or negate the comfort God covers you with as you remember mothers that are no longer here. . Hagar ran and found the God who sees her. The bleeding woman reached out and found the Savior who would not let her go unnoticed. . God sees your heart today. So as Mother's Day sentiments flood your feed and the flowers and cards and gifts still sit on the shelves at the store, smile because you know the secret. You are beloved. God is holding you close today. . And I'm rooting for you, always. . "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." - Psalm 118:24
  • The wonky eye was in full effect last weekend (thank you stormy weather) but that couldn't stop our bucket list living. Sharing a recap + a crazy surreal moment from our trip to Nashville in my stories today. Happy Saturday!! Thanks to my college roomies for being the best travel buds @kristenfcole and the wise one who isn't on social media 😎
  • Before He created man and woman, God planted the garden that would feed them. Before He sent the rains to flood the earth, God called forth the first chirp of the dove that would bring Noah a sign of peace. Before He called His people out of Egypt, God called an infant Moses out of the reeds of the Nile. Before Jesus died to promise salvation for all, God watered the tree that would become the cross. . God is preparing things for you even now. Your life is not an accident. God has been getting things ready for you since the beginning of time. Look for Him in your details today. . "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." - Ephesians 2:10
  • I lost my mother because of the connective tissue disorder that I inherited from her. I was eleven, she was thirty-seven. Losing my mother at an early age taught me to look for motherly love in unconventional places, and what I’ve learned is that mothers are all around. A mother is born not just when they bring physical life into this world, but when they place someone else’s needs in front of their own. A mother is born when she brings comfort, when she teaches truth, and when she covers needs, from the most basic to the most frivolous. Motherly love isn’t bound by genetics and the truth is, I have more mothers than I can count. . You’re a mom too, you know. How do I know? Because I know you’ve taken the courageous leap of faith to trust God with your hard stuff and to watch Him bring about something new from it all. Any kind of labor + new birth = motherhood. Maybe you’ve labored through the death of a loved one and waited patiently as God turned your grief into peace. Maybe you’ve processed a difficult diagnosis and then held someone else’s hand as they did the same. Maybe you’ve nurtured a bucket-list dream and watched it come alive. In all of these ways and certainly in more ways that lie unspoken here, you’ve become a mother to new life. . So get out there and look for opportunities. This world needs an army of mothers to rise up and usher fresh, new life into the darkest of corners. Bring comfort. Teach truth. Cover needs. Labor through it all. And watch God do something amazing with your motherly love.