Linda Dingeldein
After twenty-five years as a missionary, Linda Jane is now entering a new ministry role as pastor’s wife; where she will serve alongside of her husband Joel, in Warren, Pennsylvania. The calling to serve Christ remains the same, as does her endeavor to reach women with the gospel message, and to teach them to live authentically out of who God created them to be. Linda's passion is communication through the spoken and written word, photography and illustration. She loves all things cultural, creative and colorful.
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Courage to Risk
Today I risked! My children’s story is now in the hands of an editor. The Bella Project has been seven-plus years in the making. When Covid hit, I decided to pick Bella back up, and see her come to life by putting watercolor to her simple sketches. It has been exciting to see the progress over these past eight months, as I have steadily plodded along, putting corresponding illustrations to the words of her story. But…just hours after hitting send on my story, I felt like my spirit plummeted. Have you ever felt this way? You finally move forward on something you feel God nudging you to do, and then; BAM!…
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Tunneling into worship
Paving the way for hope Have you ever wondered how God could take the good, the hard, and the impossible surprises in your life and use them to infuse hope in the life of someone who is journeying through a hard situation? For hope to rise to the top of any difficulty, we need to know that God is fully present, and will remain wholly faithful in every situation we step into and journey through. Hope in Christ gives us not only the desire for an expected end; but the assurance that God will use everything we have gone through, and everything we will go through for His glory and…
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New Day Prayer
Help me Father, to begin to see You at the start of each day. I pause to linger now in your Presence. Beginning my day with the knowledge that You are here with me. I have nothing to fear, for You are my God. I bask in the truth that you are goodness, holiness, righteousness and redemption. Search me God, know my heart. Shine Your light of truth on anything that hints towards self-seeking, and not looking towards You to fill me, and flow through me. Cleanse me from my sin of seeking after self-centered gain. Replace self with the joy of entering mission with You and reaching out to…
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Comfort for Life’s Storms
Come… weary and burdened As my husband and I joined in prayer, an overwhelming sense of God’s nearness pervaded my anxious soul. As we invited the Father to handle our deep concerns, I was flooded with a sense that in the end, all would be well. God was at the helm and we could lay down our habit of holding on to the controls – by relinquishing all to Him. In this I knew that He has our best interest at the center of His heart. How I needed to rest in this truth! Despite our ineptness to personally mange our angst, we knew that there was nothing humanly possible…
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Social Distancing brings an odd push and pull of emotions
Living close to the Savior is not a place of clamor, confusion and clutter. It is a place of quiet rest despite the storm clouds that come rolling in. They may look like they are going to take us under; but Jesus Christ is the only One who can calm the angry waves. If you remember, the disciples looked at the waves that could sink them while the Master of the sea, Jesus, was asleep in the boat. Through all that we are going through Jesus offers His children the gift of Himself, the gift of hope and the gift of perfect peace admit the uncertainty of Covid 19. Jesus…
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Social Distancing: Beginning with the end in mind
Part Two: Re-birthing the vision: The Bella Project This week I began my indoor flower garden. After purchasing a kit that contained multiple silver-dollar size discs, and several of my favorite seed packets, I invited my granddaughter over and together we went to work. I gave her a bowl of warm water and a measuring spoon. Soon she was tossing spoonfuls of water on the tiny pods. It was fun to watch the mystery on her face as each pod began to grow right before her big brown eyes. Within seconds the pods began to swell to well over three times their original size. The water had given birth to the…
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Social Distancing: Beginning with the end in mind
Part One: As I begin week two of living in isolation and keeping appropriate social distancing, I have come to the realization that I must stop spending excessive amounts of time on social media, stop looking around every corner for chocolate, and get up and move! I am a self-proclaimed procrastinator and a self-declared list person. I go to sleep with a list and wake up to a list. Because of my ADD tendencies I like to do things in small doable check boxes. I often set my phone alarm for 15 minutes and try to accomplish the next thing on my list. Of course, the best part for me,…
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Is community always physical closeness?
I woke up early this morning with one question scrolling through my mind. How can we break through the barriers of social distancing and create a community of closeness? Is community always about proximity; being physically near one another? Or can we learn to develop a new layer of community without physical touch? During the past few weeks as the corona-virus has swept around the globe and reached our local communities, I have had the opportunity to connect online with friends, young mothers, teens and some of the elderly in our personal social network. For some their concerns raise an element of fear, for others they are already experiencing loneliness,…
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Social distancing provides the provision of prayer
This morning I was thinking of the importance of prayer during this outbreak of corona-virus. We may not be able to get together with each other, but we can pray. We can pray for our community, national and local leaders, church leadership, families, the elderly, parents who are struggling financially because they can’t work from home, parents with school age children who are now at home, loved ones whom we cannot travel to see; pray for those living in nursing homes, sick in hospitals, nurses, doctors and those incarcerated. PRAY! The list is endless of who we can pray for. Nearly daily I receive a message from a young teen…
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FEAR. FRENZY OR FAITH
Walking through the grocery store yesterday I stopped to talk with a friend who was also shopping. As we chatted between the crossroads of chips and dairy, I became aware of my surrounding. “Stop and listen.” I told him. We both stopped and inquisitively looked around. The store was packed with afternoon shoppers; but no one was talking. They were quietly moving around the store loading up their carts. “Don’t you find this odd?” I asked. “That’s fear.” He observed. The day before in another larger store I came face to face with another kind of fear. It swept through the store with panic, rudeness, carts rushing the isles at…
