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We see how God has always been working in our stories as we tell them. Our prayer for you is that you start finding Him in your stories too.

Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

It had been seven years of unfathomable oppression. To make matters worse, God's people brought on their oppression with their own idol-worshiping hands. Desperate Gideon, the youngest in an insignificant family from a small tribe, was quite literally in a low place. He was doing chores below ground. Grain was typically threshed on a hilltop so the wind would blow away the chaff. Gideon was threshing wheat in a sunken winepress to protect it from the locust-like Midianites. He might have been wondering how things got so bad, even though his father's had idolatrous shrine loomed above him.

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Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

I am a song repeater. It is not unusual for me to continuously listen to one worship song for a season. I find that, with repetition, the very first chords of the anthem draw my heart to God no matter what's happening around me. I am currently listening to "Gratitude" by Benjamin William Hastings again and again. That's the song I shared in last week's call to worship. Friday friend, I must confess that I've been ignoring a nudging…

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Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

I've dealt with blood sugar imbalances my entire life. Doctors said I was destined for diabetes, obesity, and was unlikely to have children due to the hormonal imbalance at the root of it all. They were the experts, so I accepted my fate... until I couldn't anymore. In my late 20's, I was alone in the South African bush. My world was closing in on me. I needed hope in something beyond what I could see and faith that my fate wasn't sealed by a broken endocrine system.

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Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

The human olfactory sense, or sense of smell, is considered to be the most emotionally intimate of the five senses. An article in the Harvard Gazette explains smell is the only sense that fully develops in the womb, and smell and emotion are stored as one memory because of the brain's anatomy. We may not understand the science of the olfactory bulb sending signals to the limbic system, but something stirs within us at the smell of cookies baking in the oven…

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Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

Yesterday, I was part of a "hike" with a pair of five-year old best friends. They had a map, binoculars, super hero figurines, and the electrifying energy of friendship in the wild. Their hearts were set for adventure. They would seek it until they found it. In fact, everything was an adventure because they were looking for one. The same paths they've walked since they could walk played out like a symphony in their spirits - the songs of the Cape frogs, the moss-covered climbing rocks, the slippery bridge and twisty trees, and the cold waterfall foaming into the perfect rock-throwing target.

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Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

Cape Town's wintery, rainy school holidays are fast-approaching. My sons are already stir-crazy. The long holidays can feel like an episode of Survivor with all the pent-up energy. It's not realistic to just "get through" a school holiday or season, waiting for the abundant life around the corner. Jesus didn't enter into extreme adversity so we wouldn't have to, but so we could thrive amidst it.

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Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

Yesterday, my youngest sons and I had to run for cover from the rain. We sat together in the back of my beloved van. When the rain passed and they jumped out, the van’s bumper went down with them. I don’t know what caused the initial incident. It wasn’t those tiny little feet. But there was definitely a problem.

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Call to Worship Kacy Ladd Call to Worship Kacy Ladd

πŸ™ŒIt's the Friday Call to Worship!πŸ™Œ

A couple of week ago, I had a sick child whose needs were extremely high from very early in the morning. My toddler decided to even out the score by staying awake all through the night so I could also spend time with him. I only remember a flurry of medicines, meals, and unread messages that week. I didn't have a quiet moment to read my Bible or sing a worship song. Though my stomach was sick from exhaustion and surviving on coffee and peanut butter crusts, I knew, deep down in my sleepy spirit, this was the only place God woud have me in that moment in time.

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