want to bless you and remind you of God’ s faithfulness. Many times, in life, we find ourselves in difficult places. We sometimes wonder,“ Where is God?” We might even say we are walking through the darkest days of our lives. God’ s blessing is not conditioned on what we have, but rather on who has us. If Jesus is our Lord and Savior, then He has us. We are not our own, and we have been bought with a price we could not pay. Everything we are and everything we hope to be rests in the hands of Jesus. We are slaves by our own will to the call of God on our lives. I want to encourage you with some things that have impacted my life this week. I had a nasty fall on the ice that damaged my right shoulder, and I was in tremendous pain. I was dependent on other people to take care of me. It was at this time that God began to speak to me. He let me know that He had me in the

palm of His hand. Not only me, but the entire ministry of CMA.

In a moment, peace flooded my soul. I began to see and sense that God had everything under control. My responsibility was to trust and follow Jesus. God had previously revealed His plans for CMA for this year. As I sat quietly in the presence of the Holy Spirit, I became overwhelmed at the goodness of God. Everything that I had worried about vanished, and I wondered how this could be, in the midst of what just happened. How could I have such peace? Then I began to think about the story of Job, and I immediately knew that God was using my circumstances and the recent fall to reassure me that He has everything under control.

We all know the story of Job, and the tragedy that He walked through, but He remained faithful to God. Yes. Even praying for those who had deserted Him. The

Scripture records it this way in Job 42:10( KJV)“ And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

Our present conditions are no indication of what God is doing. I have found in life that when things seem the worst, the Holy Spirit is at work, and we are about to see a breakthrough by the power of God. I want to encourage you, what you see is only the beginning of where God is going to take you. He is faithful. He has started a good work in you, and He will see that it is completed. Don’ t believe the lies of the enemy, trust God. God has said this will be a breakthrough year for you and me in the ministry of CMA. CMA

John Sr and Becky Ogden, John is CEO / Chairman of the

Board of Directors.

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cmausa. org