While You Are Steeping: God-Thoughts for the Ordinary Woman

By Rebecca Pearce

Have you ever been told to “just pray about it” as you wrestled with raw emotions and difficult circumstances? With empathy, honesty, and faith, While You Are Steeping invites you to not only pray but also to feel and heal.

Author Rebecca Pearce offers a series of devotionals that takes you on a journey through the ordinary challenges of daily living as well as the extraordinary battles with grief, loneliness, discontent, depression, and injustice. Reflecting Rebecca’s desire to see women connect with God right in the trenches of life, While You Are Steeping presents a compilation of insights she received from the Lord, providing clarity in the middle of her own trials.

Through each thought-provoking piece and the questions that follow, you’re encouraged to “steep” in the Lord’s presence and listen for His life-giving words. It is her prayer you will be inspired by her openness and will renew your faith and hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664215368

Rebecca Pearce

Rebecca Pearce is the wife of a retired military service member, a mother, grandmother, and caregiver for her father. At nineteen, she and her family moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and lived there twenty-six years. Rebecca and her family served in Ethiopia, Africa, during the famine in 1986 and 1987, giving her empathy for those who are impoverished. She partners with several international organizations which provide assistance to women and children. Rebecca now lives in Texas.

Book preview

While You

Are Steeping

God-Thoughts for the Ordinary Woman

Rebecca Pearce

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Copyright © 2021 Rebecca Pearce.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author,

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

the information contained in this book, and in some cases, names of

people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

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views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International

Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.

TM. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995,

1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright

© 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®.

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995

by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-1535-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-1534-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-1536-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020924196

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/14/2021

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Preface

I Meet Him in My Dailiness

My Home, My Eden

The Light of His Presence

Capacity

Clean, But Not All

Living a Life of Readiness

Lessons from My Plants

Sometimes You Need a New Pot

Warfare

I Meet Him in My Struggles

Just for Today, Lord

Exhausted Yet Still Pursuing

I Know You by Name

He Sees Me

Hiding by the Baggage

The Life Well Lived

I Meet Him in My Loneliness

Flat Days

Soul Wounds

A – Stigma – Tism

The Loneliest Hour

I Meet Him in My Grief

Five Days a Grandma

Song for September

When Love Dies

You Don’t Owe Me

Here Lies a Faithful Man

On the Passing of a New Friend

At Year’s End

I Meet Him in My Restlessness

I Wait

Abba’s Daughters

On Earth As It Is in Heaven

My Grown-Up Christmas

I Cannot Fail

Epilogue

References

What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.

—Luke 12:29–32 (The Message)

Acknowledgments

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This book is dedicated to my husband, Carson, for his unwavering support throughout our forty-three years of marriage; to my father, Jim Johnson, for his never-failing confidence in me to be able to do whatever I set my mind to do; and to Bob Mather, my mentor in Christ, who challenged me to set goals and taught me how to achieve them.

Many thanks go to my girlfriends and my children—Jessica, Brian, and Angela—for being my lifelong cheerleaders and prayer partners! I want to especially recognize and thank my daughter, Jessica (Pearce) Fields, for her keen insights and wisdom in editing these pieces with me, along with my dear friend, Robin Kilchrist, for being my second pair of eyes as a proofreader. I wish to express my appreciation to my daughter, Angela (Pearce) Vanderwerf, for her beautiful photography work in producing my author photo. Finally, I want to thank the entire WestBow Press team for their expertise in bringing this long-awaited dream of publishing my book to reality.

Introduction

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Why a mug? Why not a delicate teacup? I chose a mug because I am a mug person. I love going to the homes of friends who bring out their tea service, or their finest china, because that is a special occasion. But mugs represent to