Favorite Heart Verse Contest

Winner Ann0uncement


A Woman’s Heart for God 


Book Debut


Fallon Carter is the First Place Winner

Fallon Carter


Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will SHAPE the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4


-I'm almost 23 years old, I want to be married. I want to have children someday. I want to travel. I want to be a youth Pastor. There are so many things that I desire in life. I've been praying and seeking for direction in my life. Where I should be going to college, whether I should be going to college at all. What road do I take? While praying and wondering, I always think of this scripture. some versions say He will give you the desires of your heart. but I like this version. He will SHAPE the desires of my heart. I don't always know what's best for me. And what I want is not always what God wants for me. He will shape my desires to what He has in store! I've come to find that all God wants is for me to put my trust in Him. For me to lay my wants aside and let Him have His perfect work in my life.  If I delight myself in Him, and diligently seek him...putting Him first in everything, He will Shape the desires of my heart.

The Gift
Beverly Hill McKinney




Psalm 21:2 “You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips.” (ESV)


It was my birthday and as I came in the door with groceries, I was depressed thinking this would not be the special day that I had looked forward to. Birthdays were always celebrated with a cake and gifts as I was growing up, so they were joyful days. However, since I was now married and my husband, Jim and I were pastoring a small, rural church, money was tight. I didn’t anticipate a cake or gifts.


But to my surprise, on the kitchen table was a brightly wrapped present with my name on it. There was my husband who met me with a smile on his face. 
“Are you surprised?” he asked. 


“But how did you afford such a gift for me?” 


“I was walking down the street and saw a $20 bill lying on the sidewalk. God seemed to say to me, ‘That is for a gift for Bev.’ ”


I opened the box and inside was a lovely little silver locket. My heart was filled with praise and love as I remembered Psalm 21:2 and realized that God had, indeed, given me my heart’s desire.


Stefanie Hassett

My ‘heart verse is: 1 Samuel 1:12-13, “As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman.”
This verse just makes me smile.  Hannah was grieved in her spirit and was silently pouring her heart out to God but Eli assumed she was drunk (or maybe crazy?).  I’m sure sometimes I seem like a ‘crazy woman’ too.  


After a 16 month long battle with cancer, my 19 year old son lost the fight and died 8 months ago.  I have been in that place where my spirit is so heartbroken, so grieved by my circumstances, that there are no words; only “moanings that only the Spirit can hear.”  


Yet I know that God hears me, he knows the thoughts and feelings that I can’t even put into words and He doesn’t think I’m crazy, He just loves me.


Bonnie G. Wheeler



“A merry heart doeth good like medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Proverbs 17: 22

Stress and depression stalked me. I had pills for depression, pills for anxiety and pills to counteract the side effects. I’d studied my Bible, prayed, seen a counselor and read every book I could find on depression and stress management.


“Lord, what else can I do”?


Then my grandkids came for the week-end. We filled up coloring books, giggled, blew rainbow bubbles, juggled, baked cookies, made a mess and laughed. After they left my back was sore, the house a mess, but I felt so much better.


As I continued to research, pray and read my Bible, a verse from Proverbs seemed to jump off the pages: “A merry heart doeth good like medicine...”  From my experience, prescriptions and procedures were common, but “a merry heart” not so common. 


I started building my arsenal of weapons. Four small scarves and when things at work or home became overwhelming, I juggled. One was fine, two I could do, but add three and four and what a mess and a funny lesson. I kept small bottle of bubbles at home and in my desk at work. 


When bubbles wafted out of my office the staff would explain, “Oh, it’s just the boss blowing off steam.”


Bright red clown noses! I can’t say enough about the healing power of bright red clown noses. (They actually became a line-item on my teaching budget at work.) 
What I needed to know I learned from my grandkids and Proverbs, “A merry heart doeth good like medicine...”

Lynne Behrns

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him” (Psalm 28:7).
 
I had a great opportunity to trust Him in 2006.  Late one night as I was preparing a talk, I felt impressed to write the words to the song "Give Thanks."  That evening  I  struggled with lightheadedness, having been hit earlier in the day by a book which was swung by a friend to kill a flying June bug.

As I went into the bathroom around midnight I got really dizzy and ended up blacking out,  fell off the toilet, and hit my head on the floor.   I got up, got ice for my immediately  noticeable goose egg and went to the family room sofa to sleep. I fell off the sofa 3 more times.  
The Lord truly was my strength and shield.  Early in the morning I felt sick to my stomach and vomited into the ice baggy.  When I got up to dispose of that bag, I apparently fell backwards and made enough noise for my husband to hear me.  


God is my shield---I don't remember that fall, I was not hurt and Hank came to find me with a bruised face, but on my back.  He called 911.  I was experiencing a Stage 3 heart block and now have a pacemaker --- I am helped and my heart truly exults in the Lord.  
I thank Him daily for my life.  I now sometimes say I am the "amplified version" of myself.

Faith Farrell

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah (Psalm 62:8 KJV).

   This is my favorite verse for several reasons. The main one is that this verse commands us to pour our hearts out before God, and tells us that when we do so we will find that He is our refuge.


Pouring out our hearts is sometimes hard to do... for me at least.
    Sometimes I find it hard to even talk to people. I just tend to keep my thoughts inside my head. When I pray, however, it is easy to pour out my heart like water, and then I can look up and see God as my refuge, my fortress, my Redeemer, the Rock that is Higher than I.

The act of unburdening my heart from its cares, telling my listening LORD about the enemies or troubles around me is an amazing comfort. 
The picture I see in this  verse is one of pouring my fears and doubts out before Him, like the letter that Hezekiah spread out before God in the temple. This verse reminds God's people that He is a God who daily hears groaning and tears and questions from His people in this fallen world, and that we can and must pour it all out before Him, cast our cares upon Him because he cares for us. 

 Selah- Pause and think of this! The God we pour out our troubles to is our God, our refuge. Trust Him at all times. And we can Trust Him at all times. That is what this verse means to me.  

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