Posts by Laura Puiras (Page 11)

A B I D E

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”1 John 4:18 There are SO many places in the Bible that God tells his people not to be afraid. When they are being visited by an angel, chances are good the encounter begins with “Fear not!” When they are heading into battle, he reminds them that he is with them and that they don’t need to fear. When they are about to begin following a new way of…

Pruning

When it comes to caring for plants, pruning has become one of my favourite things to do! It really used to freak me out… I felt uncertain about what I was doing and, if I’m being totally honest, every time I had to prune my plants, it felt like I had failed them! If I had only just watered more, or in some cases watered less, then the leaves wouldn’t have died and I wouldn’t need to cut them off!…

P E R S I S T E N C E

When I asked the Lord what today’s devo was about he said, “Persistence.” Not perseverance or faithfulness… persistence. Now, I am no linguist. But I can be very particular when it comes to certain things and even a little bit stubborn… okay fine, maybe a lot stubborn. In Finnish we have a word sisu that describes the grit and determination of a person. It’s not just a thing people experience though, it’s considered to be more of an intrinsic characteristic…

Every Spiritual Blessing

Ruth Chou Simons has written/woven together a stunning devotional book called Gracelaced: Discovering Timeless Truths Through Seasons of the Heart. It is exactly the kind of devotional book you would expect a person like me to love… it is filled with photography from her personal life, original watercolour artwork and calligraphy. She takes her readers through the seasons of the year with pictures and lessons that line up accordingly. Towards the end of Spring she has an entry entitled, Everything.…

Gardens and Feeders and Squirrels?! Oh My!

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink;or about your body, what you will wear.Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.Are you not much more valuable than they?Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?Matthew 6:25-27 To say…

…and then what?!

This past week at KidzHarbour we looked at the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Some of the kids had heard the story before and as I was giving them some of the context (“Remember how Jesus LOVED to tell stories?! One day, Jesus was telling people about his Father, God, and talking about how he is kinda like a dad who had two boys… yeah, kinda like Blake and Wyatt! …only older.”) they were looking up from their snacks and…

Counting on Change

Early into my time at Tyndale, I found myself overwhelmed, overworked and overtired… The school had just moved away from Bally Connor and settling into the new Bayview campus was clearly going to take some time. My favorite part of this new location was that there was so much nature to enjoy… when you walked far enough from whatever the ongoing construction projects were, of course. I had made my way down to the stream at the bottom of the…

What’s the Rush?

One time, back when I was nannying, I caught myself rushing for no reason apart from habit. I was home with the girls after school, and it was time for their snack and show before we started on homework/reading. And I remember hurrying the girls over to the couch so that they could sit down, take a break and enjoy some time together at home. I have no idea what would’ve slowed me down in that moment apart from the…

D O • L O V E • W A L K

Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” There has been SO much going on lately. And, I don’t know about you, but it seems like everybody and their mother has advice for how to respond. Pause from posting your regular life on social media but do NOT remain silent.Elevate the voices that have…

Living Hope

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,    but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”Proverbs 13:12 Sometimes I get lost in the practical needs of a situation or the tangible changes that need to take place. I forget about how vital hope is for making it through difficult times. It’s almost as though, because I can’t see it or touch it, I lose sight of how important it is… at which point, it’s only a matter of time until my heart…

Maturity with the Lord

Psalm 96:1-2 (TPT)“Go ahead—sing your new song to the Lord!Let everyone in every language sing him a new song. Don’t stop! Keep on singing! Make his name famous!Tell everyone every day how wonderful he is.” As we focus on maturity this year, it can easily become a very inward journey. Which makes a lot of sense! How else are we supposed to track maturity other than to pay attention and consider how we have grown? How have we developed and…

“…if you had been here…”

“…if you had been here…” John 11:1-44 A few weeks ago, in Kidz Harbour, we talked about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. As fun as it was to watch their eyes widen when they heard about a mummy-wrapped man coming out of a grave, I couldn’t help but think about some of the other things also taking place in this story.  Because when Jesus performs a miracle, there are always multiple levels of healing and ministry taking place. Lazarus…