Devotionals
2021
Because of God’s Grace, A Wonderful New Year Awaits You
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford If you pay attention to what’s going on in the world, you know the world is in bad shape. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that tensions between nations all over the world could escalate into unbelievable horror....
Christmas Isn’t Really Over, Thank God
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford Christmas 2023 isn’t really over. True, it sure seems like it should be over, with bills to pay, the Christmas tree to dismantle, goodbyes to loved ones said, and clutter to clean up. It looks like Christmas is...
“I Am Willing to Do Whatever God Wants”
Thinking about Christmas with Elizabeth Rice Handford If ever a woman needed the protection and love of a steadfast husband, surely it was Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus. The story is so familiar, it would be easy to overlook the really frightening aspects of her...
My Conversation with a Leaf-Hopper
A Christmas Meditation with Elizabeth Rice Handford It was late October, and I was delighted to read that the Orionid meteor shower would be visible again in the Carolina sky that night, with perhaps as many as 20 “falling stars” an hour. I got up in the middle of the...
Some One Is Watching You—Thank God!
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford Joe DiMaggio still holds the MLB record for his 56-game hitting streak in 1941. His motivation to play well is interesting: “There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first time or the last time. I owe...
Something More Important Than the Checklist?
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford I have a dear friend, a high school boy, who is interested in flying. So I invited his family and another family to dinner. The husband in that family is a seasoned professional pilot and earnest Christian, and I...
“In Everything Give Thanks”? Even Head Lice?
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford It had been discovered that a child in the fourth grade at a Christian school—nobody knew who—had head lice. So everybody in school had to be examined by the school nurse for those blood-sucking critters. “It’s...
This Is My One Thousandth Devotional
A Word of Gratitude from Elizabeth Rice Handford Back in 2006, Joy Martin’s daughter, Marilou Lyons, asked me if she could reproduce on the JCM website the devotionals I write each week for Greenville SC Interim Health Care. So for the last 17 years I’ve been writing...
“Ain’t Nobody Gonna Tell Me What to Do”
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Handford “Ain’t Nobody Gonna Tell Me What to Do,” Van Zant sang. Fifty years ago Frank Sinatra sang, “I Did It My Way.” It’s the theme of most of Rock music, and expresses the attitude of our culture today. “I will do what I want...
This week was terrible, but —
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford Events this week have been heart-breaking: another mass shooting, a crisis in the middle east that could engulf our world in flames, our country perhaps more fragmented politically than other time since our...
