Grandma’s Voice of Hope 2

Growing up I attended the same church as my grandmother, Normandy United Methodist Church in Centerville, Ohio. A service the church offered for a long time was a phone line called “Voices of Hope.” Church members would record new messages each week and anyone who needed to hear a voice of encouragement could call the number to listen. My grandmother was responsible for several weeks of messages and kept transcripts of six of them with her personal files.

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Week 2:

“This is Peggy Straughen from Normandy United Methodist Church seeking to be a voice of hope in your life today.

This week I am sharing my personal words of encouragement which I keep posted on my refrigerator door. Today I’d like to focus on illness. None of us escapes the stress stress and physical pain of serious illness at some time. It is so difficult to be positive in our attitude when we hurt. When a loved one is wrestling with life-threatening problems, we feel so helpless and discouraged. But the Psalmist set a precedent for us when he said in the 23rd Psalm: ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you, my God, are with me’.

So from a healing service in Bethlehem, Penna. Lutheran Church comes this prayer of healing on my refrigerator door:

‘May you have a quiet mind and a confident heart that God’s healing may flow through you and strengthen you to live as his grateful child.’

Normandy Church would like to help you find the quietness and confidence that God’s healing can bring to you.”