They Sang in Prison

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In the Acts of the Apostles, we read how the apostles went from city to city teaching people about the risen Christ. Usually, the people listened to the apostles and welcomed their message. But on one particular occasion, Paul and Silas were met with hostility; they were beaten and then thrown into prison. Picturing them sitting in a cell with their feet chained to a stake, we might expect that they panicked. We could relate to them if they agonized about what else could possibly go wrong. We could even understand if they ranted at God and questioned how He could allow them to be arrested while they did His work. 

But that’s not what they did. As Paul and Silas sat in their cell, they prayed out loud and sang hymns to God while the other prisoners listened. They were such a non-threat to the jailer that he fell asleep at his post. 

Paul and Silas may have first felt panic, worry, anger, and the other difficult emotions we naturally feel when we find ourselves in a painful situation; we don’t know. But we can follow their example and make a decision to turn our hearts and thoughts to our Lord when the going gets tough and ask Him to help us get through it.

It’s a choice we can make. When we’re in a crisis, we can either let ourselves get into a tizzy – and stay there – or we can pray and praise God even with those difficult emotions. We can use our praying or singing to ask God to help us carry our pain. We can continue to praise Him for His goodness and His love for us, confident that He’ll support us through every struggle. 

This may be difficult to do. We so easily get dragged down into despair! However, if we make it a habit to pray and praise God when things are going relatively smoothly, then it will be more natural for us to do so when life overwhelms us. That’s one reason why Paul writes, “Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks…” (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18).

Praying and praising God might not take away our struggle, but doing so will help us focus less on the problem and more on the loving compassion of God. We’ll remind ourselves that He will never abandon us, and that reassurance may help ease our burden. We might ask Him, “Now what do I do?” We can listen for direction from Him, spoken either through the people around us or in the thoughts and feelings that come to us. Maybe there will be something we can do to remedy the situation, and maybe not. Either way, we can trust our Lord to lead us through every challenge. We just have to ask Him. 

“About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened…” – Acts 16:25

Let all I do be with You, for You, and because of You.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Complete Joy

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For our Christmas present, our daughter and son-in-law put together a ‘Surprise Pre-Planned Road Trip.’ One day this summer Ted and I will get to “explore a new area, and the work is already done for you to hit great spots!” We’ve been given several sealed sheets of written instructions, to be opened one at a time, that will take us to a number of interesting locations. We don’t know yet where each stop will be – we don’t even know the final destination! If we follow the directions as prepared, they’ll lead us to a day’s worth of fun. We could, of course, ignore all the instructions and just go our own way. But Theresa and Andrew picked this trip specifically for us, and so we’ll trust those directions and be open to the adventure that awaits!

Christ has given us instructions, too. Not for a road trip but for life. He’s given us directions on how to find what our hearts long for most of all: love, peace, and joy. His joy. He’s told us that, if we learn to trust Him and listen to Him speak to us through Scripture, through our spiritual leaders, and through each other, His Way will lead us to our deepest joy. 

And what is His Way? 

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39).”

He makes it sound so simple! However, we know from experience that it’s not easy. We often ignore His instructions and try to find joy our own way. This may lead to happiness, but that happiness is fleeting. Christ’s directions for His joy are clear: First, love God above all else; make time to talk to Him and listen to Him in prayer; open our minds and hearts to what He wants to teach us; strive to do His will in all circumstances. Second, love our neighbors as ourselves, including those neighbors we find difficult to love; reach out to them in service; give to them as we would want them to give to us. This is His Way.

 

Let’s start this journey with the Lord today. Let’s open our hearts to Him, love Him, and learn to trust Him. Let’s follow His directions for loving and serving others. When we do these things, we’ll find the deep, peaceful, and complete joy our hearts are longing for. We’ll find His joy.

“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.” – John 15:10-12 

Let all I do be with You, for You, and because of You.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

I Call You Friend

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Remember the excitement of being chosen for a team? Whether it was for a neighborhood game or a varsity sport, being chosen certainly put a glow in your heart and a smile on your face. Someone wanted you! 

Now, imagine Christ calling out your name! Imagine it, and realize that it has already happened. He hasn’t chosen you to be on a sports team, though. No, this is something much better, much deeper. It’s more profound and more personal: He’s chosen you to be His friend. His friend!

Christ doesn’t want to be just an acquaintance, someone you talk to mostly about the weather. He doesn’t want to be merely someone you read about once in a while, a distant figure who did great things for people 2,000 years ago. And He doesn’t want you to think of Him as a kind of automatic favor-dispenser. 

No. He wants to have a relationship with you – a close relationship with you. He wants you to know that He’s chosen you to be His friend. 

So turn to Him like you do your human friends. You don’t have to present to Him only your ‘good’ side; share with Him your deepest desires, fears, successes, and frustrations. He knows about them anyway – why not tell Him about them? And don’t just give Him just the news; tell Him how you feel about what’s going on. Learn to be honest with Him, and then open your heart to hear what He might say to you about what you’ve shared. That’s what true friends do, isn’t it? We share our hearts with each other. Sometimes we talk and sometimes we listen. We learn from each other. We affirm and encourage each other. We make ourselves vulnerable and trust each other. Over time, the bonds of friendship strengthen and we grow closer. 

Christ wants that kind of relationship with us. Our God wants to be friends with us! Let that sink in; it may take quite a while to do so! It’s an incredible truth we can hold onto. He wants us to trust Him and open our hearts to Him.  

Christ knows you more intimately than you know yourself, and He loves you more deeply than you could ever imagine. He could never not love you! He sees where you’re strong and where you’re weak; He sees you try and fail; He sees your heart and your motives. He sees all of it, and loves you with all of it. So share all of it with Him. Let Him affirm you, console you, teach you, encourage you, and strengthen you. Let Him fill you with His love and His peace. 

Christ has chosen you to be His friend. Let the wonder of that reality sustain you and bring you joy.

“I have called you friends… It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.” 

– John 15:15, 16

Let all I do be with You, for You, and because of You.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Believe in the One He Sent

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Watching all you people with green thumbs this time of year is like watching little kids in early December. The excitement is palpable. You finally get to dig in your dirt. Finally, you get to plant your salads and your flowers. And, like the kids who write their letters to Santa and wait in hopeful anticipation, so do you do your planting and watch for the first sprouts to poke up through the earth.

If you didn’t believe that your garden would grow, you wouldn’t do the work of planting seeds. If little Johnny didn’t believe that presents would be under the tree on Christmas morning, he wouldn’t bother making a list.

What about our faith? Do we believe that Christ, risen from the dead, is alive within us? Do we do the work of asking our Lord to strengthen our faith? 

Our brains may not be able to grasp the power of the risen Christ, and our minds may not be able to fully comprehend that the Eucharist really is the Body and Blood of Christ, but when we profess our belief in these truths and open our hearts to Him, we invite our Lord to bless us with even deeper faith – faith that has the power to transform us.

Deeper faith gives us the strength to imitate Christ even more closely and become more like Him. It also gives us the courage to take steps toward Him with humility, kind of like how you plant seeds: We trust that He’ll bless us and our efforts and bring to fruition the works of our hands. 

With stronger faith we open our hearts to Christ’s loving grace and come to understand His Way better. As Augustine of Hippo said, “For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe so that you may understand.”

And what rewards we receive when we believe! We receive insight where there had been ignorance. We experience peace of mind and heart when we accept that “God makes all things work together for good for those who love him” (Romans 8:28). We learn the redemptive value of suffering. We are strong with Him where we had been weak by ourselves. And so much more.

As you plant the seeds in your garden this spring – or watch your neighbors do so – ask our Lord to plant the seeds of faith deeper into your heart. Ask Him for faith that fills you with grace, courage, strength, humility, and understanding. Let your belief in Him enlighten you; transform you; and empower you to do His will.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”  –John 6:29

Open my eyes, that I may see You. Open my ears, that I may hear You. Open my heart, that I may love You in the people around me.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list. 

You can also find my posts on my Facebook page!

P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.