Jennifer Saake

I am in awe of all that God has done in my heart over the past half decade. I could not have fathomed 5 years ago that I would still be here today. Here I raise my "Ebenezer stone" of remembrance.  This post is not a brag, it is in hopes of giving encouragement to those who are just where I was five years ago today, on day two of a journey I was doubtfully and trepidationsly dipping my toes into , asking God if any memorization could actually even be feasible for me with my brain injuries and decimated memory. To God be ALL the glory! Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and he named it Ebenezer. And he said, “Thus far Yahweh has helped us.” - 1 Samuel 7:12 This is NOT a race! As I was reminded this morning when i was lamenting over how I'm not managing to get verses to stick well this month, we all go through ups and downs in the journey, but keep at it and your overall trajectory will grow!  After watching Susan Heck's video, A Call to Script...

It has been just over 14 years since I had to begin re-learning how to communicate, after multiple catastrophic strokes. For the first few years, my memory was so bad that I could not complete a sentence without forgetting what i was trying to say.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  - John 3:16 Next week will mark 5 years since I first watched Susan Heck's  A Call To Scripture Memory  video and started trying long-passage Scripture memory as “brain training” for ongoing stroke recovery. (I clearly know that the date was Dec. 10, because this date marks a landmark related to our first daughter, Noel Alexis, who was born directly from my womb into Heaven back in 1994.) Brain training was only the start. After a decade of infertility with recurrent losses (multiple miscarriage and adoption losses), the failure of the business where we had hoped to raise our children (...

I was 39 (13, 3 times over). That was 13 years ago.  I don't understand God's grace in allowing me to survive that day , or each of the days since. I was sure angry then that I was stuck in such a broken mind and body. But now I am so thankful. I'm thankful for these years to get right with God . I'm thankful for my husband who, after 19 years of marriage and 3 living children together, had to instantly become the "single father of 4, with his physically biggest and emotionally most immature, requiring exceeding high special needs care" for many years. Now 32 in, Rick is still fighting for us and our marriage. I'm thankful that Rick encourages my dreams and joys, while knowing me well enough to see when I've taken on more than I can actually handle, keeping me grounded by challenging me to realistically accept the goals that remain beyond my reach. I'm thankful to have been allowed to walk each of our babies into adulthood. If I even start unpackin...

As I looked up dates for this week, I realized that it was EXACTLY two years ago this coming Saturday, on December 10, 2020, when I watched Susan Heck's " A Call to Scripture Memory " - https://youtu.be/WVvPtTCni1E - and asked God if it would be possible for me to commit ONE short book of the Bible to memory by January 1, 2022? I was intrigued by the "brain training" aspect of the concept, deeply convicted of the spiritual benefits of this idea, and incredibly sincere in my desire to hide God's Word in my heart. I was also cynical and skeptical that it would be remotely possible for me, with such extensive memory incapability after strokes had wiped out so much of my brain, hitting memory centers hard!  I flipped through my Bible and felt satisfied that I should try the book of Jude since I figured it must be the shortest book, at only a single chapter comprised on just 25 verses. I didn't  know my Bible  well enough to realize that there are four books ...