BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN

THE GHOST AND MR CHICKEN In honor of Halloween being this week, I thought I would share a family tradition that we do here at the Rohlinger house. It started a long time ago with my brother. He was a huge Andy Griffith fan and loved the actor Don Knotts. My brother, Steve, was also my youth pastor growing up and would show the movie "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" to our youth group for movie night. That is where I fell in love with it. After I married Greg, I initiated him to the movie and somehow we started watching it with our kids and eventually our friends and their kids and it became our movie of choice for the weekend before Halloween. Now each year, we gather around, eat good food and even better treats and watch it together, with me being super annoying and quoting all the lines. I just can't seem to help myself.🤷🏼‍♀️ There are so many good lines! "When you work with words, words are your work." Here's a little history of the movie: After leaving t...

GOD'S SENSE OF HUMOR I love a good joke. Even better than that, I love to TELL a good joke. I have some of the best friends in the world. When we get together, I have an unspoken goal in my mind to see how much I can get them laughing. When the tears of laughter start falling and the inhaler comes out, I know I've accomplished my goal.😂 It's no wonder we love humor because our Creator has the biggest sense of humor! Ever. Some of you know that my husband, Greg, had a well known message called, 'Look at the Birds'. If you haven't seen it before, you can see it here . A funny thing about that is...I have a bird phobia. No seriously, I hate birds. Especially the black birds that caw out my name "Lori, Lori, Lori". (Insert shivers down the spine). I had an incident with birds in my early teenage years. I thought I would be hilarious and mimic a flock of geese. They got the joke for a while but then somehow, all together with a hive mentality they dec...

STORMS ON THE HORIZON I recently had the opportunity to visit one of my favorite places to be in all the world...the ocean. I have been blessed to see the ocean from many different places of the world and every time I look at it, I marvel at it's majesty, power and mysteries. I love both exploring in the ocean and standing on it's shores just listening to the rhythm of the waves. I am always moved by it's contradiction; both gentle and untamed at the same time. I'm pretty sure God is calling me to live someplace where the ocean is in my backyard, but so far, He hasn't provided that for me...yet😉 Hey - how can you receive if you never ask, am I right?!? Maybe it's because I live in sunny Arizona that a change in weather is always welcomed by me. I grew up in cloudy, rainy, snowy, ever changing weather Ohio. When my family flew out to Arizona the first time, we flew through the thick clouds of Cleveland, having not seen the sun in about a month. When we landed...

WHISPER IN THE WIND Have you ever felt lost and alone? Like there was no one else in the world who could understand quite what you are going through? Well my friends, you are not alone. I often feel like I am in way over my head in this thing called life, even just this week! I know I talk a lot about my problem with fear. It likes to creep in every chance it gets. And just when I think God and I have it all under control, something pops up in my life to challenge my thinking. Ugh. It's so frustrating. Why can't it always be the highs in life that we experience instead of the highs and lows?  I had such a blessed life with a wonderful husband, great kids and a ministry/job that was very fulfilling. I loved my life. It wasn't always easy or without it's difficulties, but it was full and meaningful. Then Greg got sick, but even in that, there was a purposeful task for me to do; keep Greg alive and well. After he died, there was an emptiness and purposelessness that cre...

MIRACLE INTERRUPTED I recently found myself needing to hear Greg's voice and started looking up old messages he had preached online. What a wonderful day and age we live in where those who are separated from us by death can sometimes feel a little closer! I came across a series he did called Broken. Lol. Maybe that's where I subconsciously got the name for this blog. He was preaching from Mark 5 where Jesus was in Tiberius at the Sea of Galilee and a crowd had gathered around Him. A man named Jairus came up to Jesus and it says in verse 23 "implored him earnestly" telling Him that his daughter was sick and dying. As a parent, I can imagine vividly how impassioned he probably was, as I can't think of a scarier life situation than having a child who was facing death. He knew that Jesus was healing people and asked Him to "come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live." Jairus knew that just a touch from Jesus could heal what other...