A Little Bit of Faith is All You Need - Encouragement for Today - August 19, 2019

Peace and perspective from God's timeless truths. [View this email in your browser]( Encouragement for Today --------------------------------------------------------------- August 19, 2019 A Little Bit of Faith is All You Need [JENNIFER FILKA, COMPEL Member]( [ Listen to this devotion]( “‘What can I do to help you?’ Elisha asked. ‘Tell me, what do you have in the house?’ ‘Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,’ she replied.” [2 Kings 4:2]( (NLT) It was one of those seasons. A season in life where every breath I breathed and every morning I woke, life got worse. A season where I felt like Job. A season of now what? Just like the widow talking to Elisha, I felt powerless to change my circumstances. My husband’s employer went bankrupt, leaving my husband without a job. One of our parents had a life-changing health crisis and required a lot of assistance. And as a couple, we experienced some devastating news. During this season, we faced new challenges through finances, relationships and emotions. The widow in 2 Kings understood a season like mine: “‘What can I do to help you?’ Elisha asked. ‘Tell me, what do you have in the house?’ ‘Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,’ she replied” ([2 Kings 4:2](. She faced a season of loss as she mourned the death of her husband. It was difficult to be a woman without a husband in those times. Waking up every day, she felt alone and abandoned in her circumstances. Hers was a season of emptiness. Without a partner to share in the day-to-day decisions of parenting, she was a single mother trying to raise her children without enough income to provide. The widow lived in a season of threat. A lender was on his way to collect, and if it weren’t money, it was going to be her children, with the intent to make them slaves. She felt powerless to keep her children from a life she didn’t want for them. Like the widow, in our seasons of loss, emptiness or threat, we can focus on our misfortunes instead of counting our blessings. Her misfortune was lack of income. Her blessing, a little bit of oil. We, too, have blessings in our season of now what. They are simply harder to find when our activities and thoughts become centered around our misfortune. During this time, it is difficult to look past the problem and notice blessings. [Continue reading...]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Read about Salem Web Network]( | [Subscription Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe]( --------------------------------------------------------------- © 2019 Salem Web Network. All rights reserved. 111 Virginia Street, Suite 500, Richmond, VA 23219. This email is never sent unsolicited. You are receiving this email because your email address, {EMAIL}, is signed up to receive newsletters, updates, and special offers from Encouragement for Today. [Link](