Just saying.....

A traveler of time (pt 4) Dead things aren't always continuously dead.

2012-02-11T15:28:00.002-06:00

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[This is part 4 of 4 parts of me musing through a book: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Be forewarned, I have a weird way of thinking... and sadly, my thoughts aren't stayed to the words on the page of the book while I'm reading it. I have a bit of a "time-traveling" problem of my own! I loved this book! It was good for me, I (surprisingly, without knowing I would) learned lots! If you've missed the first 3 parts and you'd like to click back to catch up, you can click here to take you back to the beginning to Part 1.]

Pg 330 – [Clare and Henry walk into a doctor’s office after (again) losing another baby.] "We walk through doors that open automatically as our feet press the ground, as in a fairy tale, as though expected... There are few people sitting abject and small in the brightly lit room, waiting their turn, encircling their pain with bowed heads, and crossed arms, and I sink down among them..... Henry leans over and carefully embraces me. I feel his stubble against my cheek and I am rubbed raw, not on my skin but deep in me, a wound opens and Henry's face is wet but with whose tears?"

How tremendously sad! But how preciously sweet! Indeed, whose tears? When a wound is opened and one is close to the one who cries; then whose tears wets whose cheek? Because sometimes both do. Both seep the evidence of the pain within. But hearts flood with an overflow of their liquefied emotion. The feeling is felt and the wound hurts and so tears bleed from both of their hearts that were touched.

And then, what about the “room” that the couple is found waiting in? “There are few people sitting abject and small in the brightly lit room, waiting their turn, encircling their pain with bowed heads, and crossed arms, and I sink down among them.”

Everyone hates such a room. It’s depressing, oppressing, every kind of “pressing” for everyone. Most people at one time in their lives or another will find themselves sitting (or rather “sinking”) and “waiting” in such a room, in just that state… among others that share in their own sorrows too. Everyone sits “small” there. Even the tallest of men. The broadest of shoulders. For the heaviness of the hurt, the bulk of the burden, the greatness of the grief, the magnitude of the misery, the enormity of the anguish, the immensity of the agony, the weight of the horror, the power of the pain… the devastation “depresses” not only the inside, but also the out.

“Abject.” I had to look the word up. I didn’t know its meaning. The thesaurus gave me answers like these: “hopeless, miserable, wretched, dismal, horrible, utter.”

The Online Dictionary by Merriam-Webster defined “abject” as, “sunk to or existing in a low state or condition; cast down in spirit; spiritless; showing utter hopelessness or resignation. Synonym: mean.”

“Mean” sounds appropriate, doesn’t it? It is! What a horrible place! A mean place! A horrible time! Who doesn’t “encircle their pain with bowed heads and crossed arms” when they’ve been plagued by such hopeless, and miserable, and wretched, and dismal, and utter sorrow?

I’m sorry. In just thinking about it, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for her. I’m sorry for him. I’m sorry for them. I’m sorry for me. And I’m sorry for you too. And for everyone else in the world… when you’ve been (or are now in) that terrible place of pain… that overwhelming overpowering sensation of sadness.

It’s a storm that comes to every door of every house and blows against every one inside it. It’s a tempest, a squall, a gust, a gale… a blast that tries with all of its might to huff and puff and blow your house down. It’s a season (for there’s “a time for everything” and everyone); and this one won’t be one that passes anyone by. It’s mean in its madness. It’s unfair in its pick. It’s cruel in its devastation. It’s brutal in its destruction. Its goal is to ruin. To shatter. To destroy. To leave in shambles. To break, to smash, to blow apart, to demolish into pieces. Its want is to obliterate you, your life, your family, the loved ones around you. Its hope is to “kill” you if you’ll give into it. But Jesus died to save us from our sorrows. To heal our hurts. To mend our broken hearts. And He’s perfectly able to peace any storm. I must beg to plead with you in the midst of your sorrow; do this, know it’s a season! Know that you’re not to live there forever. Know that it too shall pass. And know, that we ourselves are the only ones that get to decide on whether to let it or not. Some are dead-set on lying down and bedding themselves there until the rest of their days on earth are done. When we were never ever at all meant to stay and get stuck there until God takes us Home.

Pg 336 – [When Clare’s mom dies] "The laborious breathing has stopped.... No heart beats, no blood moves, no breath inflates the sails of her lungs. Silence."

Death.

And it’s silence!!

What a rendering sound! It's weird to watch. Hard! Gut-wrenching! There's panic in the knowing that there's no more else that can be done, there's nothing at all left that you can do. What once lived inside that dearly beloved shell has left.... and in that moment, you wish to grab it back and stuff it back to where it belonged and where it was housed for so long!

Pg 338 – [Henry says of Clare’s mom (after she’s died) and of Clare in the wake of her mourning:] "She was never less than kind to me, although she could devastate her daughter with a glance. I miss her. Clare.... well, 'miss' is inadequate. Clare is bereft. Clare walks into rooms and forgets why she is there. Clare sits staring at a book without turning a page for an hour. But she doesn't cry. Clare smiles if I make a joke. Clare eats what I put in front of her. If I try to make love to her Clare will try to go along with it.... and soon I leave her alone, afraid of the docile, tearless face that seems to be miles away. I miss Lucille, but it is Clare I am bereft of. Clare who has gone away and left me with this stranger who only looks like Clare."

Wow, at what death sometimes does to those still left living. Sometimes they “die” too, though the shells of their bodies still inhale and exhale breath. But it’s not necessarily because they want their bodies to, it’s simply because they can’t keep their bodies from doing it. They are, in essence, “gone.” They’re not there anymore. They’ve gone away and left those closest to them that are still living and breathing and still very alive and love them and miss them and hurt for them and long for them to come back to where and who they once were. But they’re too blind to see it. Too sick to sense it. Too pained to notice. Too “dead” to care. Death has robbed them of their loved one… and now, death has a hold on another still living; death holds them too. How horrid! How evil! How mean! May we be too stubborn to let death have us too before our time to be buried.

Pg 342 – [After Clare’s mom’s death when going through her mom’s things, Clare finds a poem that her mother has written:]"The poem Clare holds is evidence, immutable, undeniable, a snapshot of emotion. I look around at the pools of paper on the floor and I am relieved that something in this mess has risen to the surface to be Clare's lifeboat."

It’s funny, isn’t it, what we will find to hold onto as proof that the one we loved really once existed. We find we have NEED for some sort of evidence. Something tangible. Something we can look at. Something we can hold onto. Something we can touch, or taste, or look at, or smell…… But even better yet is when it’s something with feeling. Like the book said, “a snapshot of emotion.”

Pg 346- [Henry says of Clare when he sees her holding another friends baby:] "Seeing Clare with a baby in her arms, the reality of our miscarriages grabs me and for a moment I feel nauseous. I hope I'm not about to time-travel."

I guess we addressed this earlier, but still; aren’t these the kinds of moments when we’re most prone to "time-travel"... when we’re hurt because we’re reminded of what we want but can’t /or don’t have… ... when we hurt with excruciating pain over the reality over such hurt or such a feeling of hopeless despair?

Pg 347 - "I don't want to talk about this. I have no words to talk about it…"

Yep.

Know the feeling!

Pg 367 - "I want to kiss him and then kill him. Or vice versa."

Yep.

Know that feeling too!

Pg 363 - "Is there anything to stop me from giving her what she needs? I can't think of a single reason not to tell her. I stand and rack my brain for anything that would preclude Clare knowing. All I remember is her certainty, which I am about to create. "Persevere, Clare." "What?" "Hang in there. In my present we have a baby."

Awww… what a gift hope is!

Pg 364 - "Clare grins at me, and I grin back."

Pg 387 - "The teacher is almost ringing her hands, "Sir, Alba's father is dead." I am speechless. But Alba has a grip on the situation. "He's dead," she tells her teacher. "But he's not continuously dead. He's CDP (Chronic Displaced Person). Like me.""

Hilarious!

You know, a lot of our “dead things” aren’t “continuously dead” either because we simply refuse to let them be! We’re all guilty of resurrecting some of our dead things… and some of those things have been dead for so many years! We won't let them be dead, we may have buried them... but we keep going and digging them (or it) back up.

And too, sometimes in our time traveling we die again… we die a thousand deaths over the thing that has hurt us. But we’re not ‘continuously dead’ all the time…. we succeed for a time in pulling ourselves from our pits of sorrow…. until we’re knocked back into time again and die another death over that same yesterday’s killing.

Pg 409 - "The drawing is finished. It will serve as a record - I loved you, I made you, and I made this for you - long after I'm gone, and Henry is gone, and even Alba is gone. It will say, we made you, and here you are, here and now."

“It will serve as a record” ~~ I like that! Things that testify that love was once felt and shared and existed in a heart once beating. I suppose that we often take gifts for granted. Or little things that we were once randomly given. A flower. A bear. A tender touch right there…. A held hand. A glance. A kiss. A knowing.

Pg 417 - "I am seriously alarmed, and not forewarned. I ponder the available data. "Clare. We're not getting married today or anything insane like that, are we?"..... "Are you hungry? I made us a feast!" "Of course I'm hungry. I'm famished, gaunt, and considering cannibalism.""

Pg 420 - ""You don't remember?" Clare is looking at me very intently, as though concentration can move memory from her mind to mine..."

Pg - 425 "I can feel her heart beating. Or perhaps it's mine."

Pg 426 - ""Henry, just give me a hint. Where do you live? Where do we meet? What day?"...
"Have faith. It's all there, in front of you."
"Are we happy?"
"We are often insane with happiness. We are also very unhappy for reasons neither of us can do anything about....... When you see me again, remember that I won't know you; don't be upset when you see me and I treat you like a stranger, because to me you will be brand new. And please don't blow my mind with everything all at once. Have mercy, Clare.""

Pg 429 - ""What happened after I left?"
"I picked everything up and made myself more or less presentable and went back up to the house. I got upstairs without running into anyone and I took a bath. After a while Etta started hammering on the door wanting to know why I was in the tub in the middle of the day and I had to pretend I was sick. And I was, in a way.... I spent the summer lounging around, sleeping a lot. Reading. I just kind of rolled up into myself. I spent some time down in the Meadow, sort of hoping you might show up. I wrote you letters. I burned them. I stopped eating for a while and Mom dragged me to her therapist....."

Wow.... that's what often happens in a death to the one
left living... or trying to live.
Woe, what a feeling! That’s a hard hurt!

Pg 430 - "it was all a sort of black comedy. I would go out with some perfectly nice pretty young art boy, and spend the whole evening thinking about how boring and futile it was and checking my watch..."

Pg 431 - ""Do you worry sometimes that all the really great stuff has already happened?"
"No. Well, sort of, but in a different way than you mean. I'm still moving through the time you're reminiscing about, so it's not really gone for me. I worry that we aren't paying close attention to here and now. That is, time travel is sort of an altered state, so I'm more... aware when I'm out there, and it seems important, somehow, and sometimes I think that if I could just be that aware here and now, that things would be perfect."
I allow my guilt to subside, back to the little box where I kept it crammed in like a parachute..... "The fact that there are bad times makes it more real. It's the reality that I want.""

Pg 436 - ""... he's not at all what you need." I smile. He's exactly what I need, but I know that it is futile to go chasing through club land trying to find him."

Pg 442 - "I wonder what she knows that I don't know. I wonder if I want to know what Clarisse knows. I don't think I want to know anything."

Pg 463 - ""Without Clare I would have given up a long time ago.""

Pg 477 - "Although Henry is right here in front of me, he has disappeared."

Pg 488 - ".. and we stare at each other and I think, Don't leave me."

Pg 493 - "The pain has receded but what's left is the shell of the pain, an empty space where there should be pain but instead there is the expectation of pain."

Pg 498 - "I will never see that face of hers again, and I regret it bitterly, the face with which Clare will go on without me, which will never be kissed by me, which will belong to a world that I won't know, except as a memory of Clare's...."

Pg 498 - "Today is the thirty-seventh anniversary of my mother's death. I have thought of her, longed for her, every day of those thirty-seven years, and my father has, I think, thought of her almost without stopping. If fervent memory could raise the dead, she would be our Eurydice, she would rise like Lady Lazarus from her stubborn death to solace us. But all of our laments could not add a single second to her life, not one additional beat of the heart, nor a breath."

Pg 500 - "She'll be okay without me, I think as I watch her, but I know that she will not."

Pg 517 - [Clare], "I sleep all day. I sleep, I inhabit sleep firmly, willing it, wielding it, pushing away dreams, refusing, refusing. Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion. The phone rings and rings. I have turned off the machine that answers... It is afternoon, it is night, it is morning. Everything is reduced to this bed, this endless slumber that makes the days into one day, makes time stop, stretches and compacts time until it is meaningless. Sometimes sleep abandons me and I pretend. I breathe slowly and deeply, and soon, Sleep. Sleep erases all differences: then and now; dead and living. I am past hunger, past vanity, past caring. This morning I caught sight of my face in the bathroom mirror. I am paper-skinned, gaunt, yellow, ring-eyed, hair matted. I look dead. I want nothing."

Pg 519 - [Dearest Clare,...] "Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me and surround you, keep you, hold you. I hate to think of you waiting. I know that you have been waiting for me all of your life, always uncertain of how long this patch of waiting would be. Ten minutes. Ten days. A month. What an uncertain husband I have been...... Please, Clare. When I am dead. Stop waiting and be free. Of me - put me deep inside you and then go out in the world and live."

Pg 520 - "After my mom died she ate my father up completely. She would have hated it. Every minute of his life since then has been marked by her absence, every action has lacked dimension because she is not there to measure against it. And when I was young I didn't understand, but now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird."

Pg 521 - "It was sweet, Clare, it was sweet beyond telling, to come as though from death to hold you, and to see the years all present in your face."

Pg 523 - "What am I doing? I am waiting. I am thinking. I am sitting on our bed holding an old plaid shirt that still smells of Henry, taking deep breaths of his smell. I am going for walks at two in the morning, when Alba is safe in her bed, long walks to tire myself out enough to sleep. I am conducting conversations with Henry as though he were here with me, as though he could see through my eyes, think with my brain."

Pg 525 - "As I'm dressing I hear Clarisse and the kids come in the front door, laughing. Alba calls,
"Mama?" and I yell, "I'll be out in a minute!" I stand in the dim light of the pink and black tiled bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. I have Cheerios in my hair. My reflection looks lost and pale. I wash my hands, try to comb my hair with my fingers. What am I doing? What have I allowed myself to become? An answer comes, of sorts: You are the traveler now."

The End...

I watch for him. And he watches for me. I read his words. And he reads mine. I remember yesterday and imagine tomorrow. He does the same. Us in our two different worlds. Me in my here. He in his there. Me from where I am. He in where he is. I'm looking for bits and pieces to see him. To get a glimpse. To catch a glimmer. To hear a sound. To see a spark. And he's looking for me. I can still hear his laugh in his type written words… amazing after all of these years! And he can still read me enough to even hear mine. We're both thinking... similar thoughts, similar things, similar minds, similar hopes, similar dreams, similar imaginings... lost somewhere in time of what once was, what could have been, what could actually be……. what won’t ever happen.... lost in the imagination and the dreams that we both for some reason still seem stirred enough to continue to dream; even when we both know the reality of the futility of our silly dreaming. Fingers touching through tapped out letters…. Hearts beating separately, but still almost as one. A part of his heart still stayed in mine and my heart still stuck somewhere in his. Goodness, how in the world did that happen? Two hands holding onto each others, the fingers intertwine through the keys of a keyboard and the screen of two laptops to pull their distances so far apart for a few minutes a little closer together. Both trying to savor the moment, trying to relish the sweetness, delighting in the priceless gift of the moment… before one “disappears” from the other again and leaves the mailbox screaming with silence and achingly empty.....

You know, I learned a lot in reading this book. I enjoyed it. It was fun. And as I said before, I found it extremely thought provoking. And what it left me realizing even more than I have before is that I have so much to be thankful for! So much that I don't want to miss!... that I don't want to lose!... that I dare don't want to waste! I so want to LIVE, to be alive, and strive in my moment! I have things that I am both glad for and hate in my past; and things that I hope for in my tomorrow.... but I don't ever want to be so fixed and focused on either my past nor my future that I allow it to rob me of where I am in my present! Oh Lord, help me, teach me to live! Teach me to take notice and savor every second!

[I thought it only appropriately to close (maybe I should have opened with it also!) sharing a legit book review of the book that I have been rave-ing on and on and on about for the last 4 posts: The Time Traveler's Book... book review from thebookladysblog spot.]
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A traveler of time (pt 3) One minute I'm fine, the next, I'm somewhere else.

2012-02-11T14:14:00.002-06:00

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[This post is Part 3 of 4 parts. To start at Part 1 click here. Click here for Part 2.]

Pg 316 - ""How does it work? This supposed time travel that you supposedly do," the doctor asked Henry.
"I don't do anything,” Henry answers. “It just happens. I can't control it. I just - one minute everything is fine, the next I'm somewhere else, some other time. Like changing channels. I just suddenly find myself in another time and place."

Bingo! Perfectly described! Perfectly said!

How, indeed, does this “time-traveling” work? I think that it’s very often just as Henry described, “I don’t do anything. It just happens. I can’t control it. I just... one minute everything is fine, the next I’m somewhere else, some other time. Like changing channels. I just suddenly find myself in another time and place.”

You’re just sitting there or going about your business, when out of the blue, a past memory or a future thought pops into your head and in the blink of an eye it carries you off far into the distance to another place somewhere else, and another time completely. Involuntarily! You didn’t mean to think it. You didn’t mean to leave. You didn’t mean to go there. But you get lost in its thought the instant it happens, forgetting where you were, the “when” that you were in, and the now where you’re still supposed to be present in. You were thrown there, before having a choice or even knowing that it was happening.

o A cry of a baby can cause it for the wanna-be-mom that’s not. Or, to the mom that has lost her child to a disease or some tragic accident.

o A band on the finger of a man or a woman can trigger the travel for the wanna-be-bride. Or, it can trigger longing or regret or anguish to the recently divorced or widowed.

o A song on the radio can snatch a driver from the place where she sits on the road to a prom night or to a wishful dinner.

o A smell of cologne or perfume can pull one from the person they’re with and take them instantly to someone they’re not.

o A commercial or advertisement can pull us to an envious state of jealousy, to desire and lust after what we don’t have and we instantly become embittered to those that do, while unappreciative of all we’ve been given.

o An accolade toward another can whisk the hopeful or the hopeless into automatic misery… because of what they wish they were, but they’ll never be.

o Seeing someone else’s mom… can make you miss yours.

o A kind gesture of affection shown to somebody else can leave you bluer-than-blue, sadder-than-sad, because you don’t know what that feels like for yourself but want to.

o Witnessing a wrong or a reading of a crime done to someone can remind you of the evil that’s been done to you and how much it hurt, and thus immediately infuriate and cause a rage of havoc inside you.

Wow, just like Henry said, it’s just like “changing channels.” And it’s just that quick and that fast!

So what do you do? How do you stay here in your real, in your present “when” moment, when something has triggered you to “travel” and sends you spinning? How do you get back to your real time once you’ve left it instead of stayed there in that other thought and place?

I suppose that you can’t completely prevent it from happening. But you can shorten your travel! You don’t have to “close the door” and vacation there; or stew forever in your journey. It’s as Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us, we can “renew our minds” and "take every thought captive!” We need to do more “renewing!” And start captivating the thoughts of where are minds are taking us!

Romans 12:2:

AMP: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

CEV: “Don’t be like the people of this world, but like God change the way you think…”

2 Corinthians 10:3-5,

NIV: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Pg 319 - "He was all stressed out, so he lost his grip on now."

How often do we “lose our grips on our nows” when we’re “all stressed out”?

Man, if stress won’t send us quickly spiraling to a time-travel somewhere else I don’t know what will. Woe, if we don’t all need to be careful and be doubly aware in our stressed-out modes and moods! We all have need to be careful not to “lose” our grips on our nows in our stressed out spirals!

Pg 322 - "And I have told him everything. The beginning, the learning, the rush of surviving and the pleasure of knowing ahead, the terror of knowing things that can't be averted, the anguish of loss. Now we sit in silence and finally he raises his head and looks at me. In Kendrick's light eyes is a sadness that I want to undo."

Have you seen such a “sadness” in another’s eyes that you’d like to “undo”? Boy, haven’t we all! But only God can re-light a person’s soul. We’re told in Matthew 6:22-23 that “the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness.”

We have to remember too, that Jesus touched the eyes of those that asked for Him to and He healed their sight (i.e. Matt 9:29; 20:33; John 9:10).

In Matthew 13:15 a prophesy from Isaiah was quoted, “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” Sooo, Heaven forbid, that we become so closed and so calloused!

We’re told in 2 Cor 4:18, “So we FIX our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Eph 1:17-19, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe…”

Heb 12:2, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

David says in Psalm 13, “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death… I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation…”

Psalm 25:15-22, “My eyes are ever on the LORD for only HE will release my feet from the snare. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me! Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in You. May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in You.” KJV, “Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for HE shall pluck my feet out of the net.”

Psalm 31, “In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in Your righteousness. Turn Your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue, be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me. Since You are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of Your name lead and guide me. Free me from the trap that is set for me, for You are my refuge. Into Your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth… I trust in the LORD. I will be glad and rejoice in Your love, for You saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul… Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors; I am a dread to my friends – those who see me on the street flee from me….I have become like broken pottery... But I trust in You, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me in Your unfailing love…. How great is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who fear You, which You bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in You. In the shelter of Your presence You hide them… Praise be to the LORD, for He showed His wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city…. You heard my cry for mercy when I called to You for help. Love the LORD, all His saints! The LORD preserves the faithful… Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.” [See John 16:33…. Trouble’s coming, but take heart, Jesus has overcome the world!]

To me this is a prime example of Psalm 126:5-6…. it’s a picture of our ‘sowing in tears’ [He says, "Those who sow in tears, WILL reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, WILL return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." That's what we do when we cry and then read His Word (we’re sowing His seed inside us!). Keep on crying for as long as you need to.... softening the soil of your heart as you knead in the seeds of His words spoken over you into your heart and your soul and your mind....... And as He promises, you will one day be reaping those songs of joy! Singing His praises to another who needs a song in their night!]

Psalm 38, “… My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart… My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds… I wait for You, O LORD; You will answer, O Lord my God…I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me. I confess my iniquity; I am trouble by my sin… O LORD, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God. Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior.”

Psalm 116, “I love the LORD for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy. Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live. The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, save me!” The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. The LORD protects the simple-hearted; when I was in great need, He saved me. Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. For You, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living. I believed; therefore I said, “I am greatly afflicted.” And in my dismay I said, “All men are liars.” How can I repay the LORD for all His goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD. I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all His people… O LORD, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have freed me from my chains…”

Psalm 119:37, “Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to Your Word.”

Psalm 101:3, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.”

Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your law.”

Psalm 119:148, “My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on Your promises.”

Psalm 121:1, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

Psalm 123:1-2, “I lift up my eyes to You, to You whose throne is in heaven. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, and the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until He shows us His mercy.”

Psalm 141, “O LORD, I call to You; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to You. May my prayer be set before You like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips. Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds… my eyes are fixed on You, O Sovereign LORD; in You I take refuge… Keep me from the snares.. laid for me, from the traps set by evildoers…”

Psalm 145:15-16, “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.”

Pg 326 - "My body wanted a baby. I felt empty and I wanted to be full. I wanted someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always. And I wanted Henry to be in this child, so that when he was gone he wouldn't be entirely gone, there would be a bit of him with me...." ~~

What is it that you “want”? Have you ever had a “want” so badly that you “felt empty” without it when you so “wanted to be full”? And too, who doesn’t want a love that will “stay,” one that’s yours, one that will “stay and be there, always”? I have. I’m sure you have too. We all have. We all do. Who doesn’t?

But back to the “my body wanted a baby. I felt empted and I wanted to be full…” In reality, only God can truly fill our ‘empty’ and make us full. He knows our wants, He knows our desires... if you've not gotten what you desire from Him yet, keep praying that one day you will... or if it's not His desire too, that one day He will change your heart to desire for yourself only what His does.

[To continue this long pondering of mine in this book I was reading, you'll find it in Part 4].

A traveler of time (pt 2). It's harder than you think to stay where you are.

2012-02-10T22:08:00.000-06:00

[If you missed Part 1 and you wish you didn't, you can find it by clicking: here]

I've been talking about time traveling and about how guilty all of us are from time to time in doing it. If you'll pop over to Part 1, you'll get more of a heads up on whatever in this world that I'm talking about in this post. In a nut shell, I am sharing parts of a book I once read [The Time Traveler's Wife] and the crazy thoughts that it spurred inside me while reading it. Below, I first quote from the book with its page number.... and afterward I follow it up with my crazy thinking that what was said provoked inside me.....

Pg 105 – Clare said of Henry, "I won't ever leave you. Even though you're always leaving me." ~~

Do you know that feeling?

I read another book with a friend once. Inside the book on one of the pages was a riddle that a boy asked a girl, “What goes around the world, but stays in a corner?” She laughed without answering, because they both shared their joke. The answer: A stamp. Later, I came up with one of my own. I asked my friend, “How about this one? What never leaves, but left a long time ago?” My friend never even attempted to answer. Since he didn’t ask, I didn’t give him one. The answer that I never told him was this. “Him!” There are some people that “won’t ever leave,” even though they’re “always leaving” or left a long time ago. Some people are stayed forever inside the heart, inside the mind, inside the soul, even after they’ve long ago gone; even after they’ve come back and left again a hundred times; even after they’ve died ahead of you and already left this world to live in the next one. It’s called love… or sometimes for others, theirs is called hate. It’s a way for them to live on even when they don’t live in close proximity to you in person anymore.

Pg 128 - ""Do you ever miss him?" Clare’s grandmother asked her.

"Every day. Every minute."

"Every minute," her grandmother responds. And then. "Yes," she says, "It's that way, isn't it?"...

"Good night," I say, turning out the lamp. As I stand in the dark looking down at Grandma in her bed, self-pity floods over me as though I have been injected with it. It's that way, isn't it? Yes, I think, it is."

Yeah.

It’s like that toward the one you miss, or the thing you miss, the hope, the job, the want, the desire…. You miss it. “Every day. Every minute.” And “self-pity floods over you as though you’ve been injected with it.”

Yeah. That’s a good way to describe a missing (or a regret, a rejection, a wound, some past hurt… anything that sends you into a party of pitying). An “injected feeling.” It’s a poison that not only hurts; but often it’s deadly. If we let it, it can cripple. It can paralyze. It can handicap. It can kills us.

Pg 145 - "Causation only runs forward. Things happen once, only once…" ~~

Yet wow, at some “causations” that run forward from those things that happened “only once.” And too, we have a tendency to rewind and replay again and again and again that “only once” thing happening… I wonder does it really happen “only once” if instead in our minds (and in our talk and our walk) we’ve got it happening over and over and over again? Do some things (sometimes) never stop happening simply because we won’t let it? Okay, just a crazy thought!

“Causation only runs forward.” Profound! Totally true!

© Cause = “a reason for an action or condition; something that brings about an effect or a result; a person or thing that is the occasion of an action or state; an agent that brings something about; sufficient reason.”

Wow at so many “causations” that have been triggered by a one-thing-that-happened happening, one word that was spoken, or words that were not…… Huge! Too huge for me to be able to verbalize! It’s astounding! One thing can almost change the whole world… or at least, the whole world of one person and all those around her. “Causation runs!” My, I'd say that indeed it does! And woe at all the chaos and havoc she often runs about invoking!

Pg 149 - ""I love him. He's my life. I've been waiting for him, my whole life, and now, he's here." I don't know how to explain it. "With Henry, I can see everything laid out, like a map, past and future, everything at once, like an angel..." I shake my head. I can't put it in words. "I can reach into him and touch time... he loves me. We're married because... we're a part of each other... It's happened already. All at once....... I've seen my future. I can't change it, and I wouldn't if I could."" ~~

Aww.. isn’t that how “love” feels? We've been waiting for it for our whole life! We don't know how to explain it. In love we can ‘see’ our lives ‘mapped out’ before us. We see the one we’re in love with healing our past and giving us bliss in our futures. That’s sweet. I like how love feels. Real love is even better. It doesn’t guarantee every moment feeling happy. But true loves endures t(w)o-gether through the hard times even when things aren’t ‘happy’… until it is again.

Pg 152 - "I envy him. He is me, but I'm not him yet. He has been through five years of his life that's still a mystery to me, still coiled tightly waiting to spring out and bite. Of course, whatever pleasures are to be had, he's had them; for me they wait like a box of unpoked chocolates." ~~

Well, to explain this statement. This is Henry that's time-traveled to his future... though his "present" is actually 5 years prior to the moment that he's visiting. He looks at who he'll become that he's not yet... and he wonders what he's experienced that he one day will. I love his statement, "He is me, but I'm not him yet." Isn't that how God sees us?! He sees us as how He's making us to be, that we're not yet transformed into. Woe, at the experiences that we'll have to go through that'll take us there. If only we could see them as Henry did, "like a box of unpoked chocolates," instead of wishing we could jump to the moment of what we'll become and not have to travel through the becoming of it.

Pg 154 - "Running is many things to me: survival, calmness, euphoria, solitude…" ~~

Ah, us…. and our “runs”. J

Pg 160 - Clare says,"I wish I could send a postcard into the past, to this cad Henry who I don't know. It would say: “Do nothing. Wait for me. Wish you were here.”" ~~

Here Clare wanted to send a postcard to the Henry that she won’t meet for 5 more years to warn him that she’s coming, to ask him to wait for her…. to ask him not to sleep with anybody else looking for the love of his life because she was it… it just wasn’t their time until then… She wished she could send him a postcard to tell him he’d meet her one day and it would be better for both of them if he has not involved himself and slept with lots of other women. Hmmm…. that’s just how God planned it, isn’t it? Why don’t more of us heed to the wisdom of waiting?

Pg 160 - "I know but - you're not you, yet - I mean, you're different." ~~

Woe! You’re not who you’re gonna be yet… but when you are, it’s so very much gonna be good! J

Pg 161 - "But it's a long way from the me you're dealing with in 1991 to the me talking to you right now from 1996. You have to work at me; I can't get there alone.”

I read in another book just recently (“Healed Without Scars”) that talked of leaders and those helping to heal those that were hurt. I was most impressed by a statement written there that said, “A prophetic leader lives out of a creative paradigm, which casts a vision of healing for individuals that is based on WHERE THEY ARE GOING and not on WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN. Such leaders invite those whom they lead into a world they deeply want to belong to, yet rarely ever experience until that leader creates a path for them to get there.”

It reminds me of the verse, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov 13:12) and “Where there is no vision, My people perish” (Prov 29:18).

People need vision for their lives, a picture to give them hope for their future. They need a visual of something better than the yuk that they’re presently in, and a hope, an anticipation, an expectation, and a directed path to be able to get there. They need others to be patient and to listen and to help them as they go (and until they get to their “1996s” while still slumming in their “1991s” or for how many years it takes them to make it). They need someone to “work at” them, because they can’t get there alone. They need people to show them where they are going and help them along the way, instead of leaving them as who they are and who they’ll always be because of where they are or where they’ve once been or what they’ve once done. They need someone to help them see themselves differently, and thus, help them arrive at being different.

Pg 170 - ".. when he turns to me I see that he doesn't recognize anything; nothing in the room means a thing to him, and the knife of realization sinks in deeper: all the little tokens and souvenirs in this museum of our past are as love letters to an illiterate." ~~

Pg 238 - "... you know that Annette had the most marvelous voice... rich, and pure, such a voice, and such range... she could express her soul with that voice.... she could really hear... she was a very emotional person. She brought that out in other people.... Annette made people happy; she was happy herself. She enjoyed life."

I want that to be said of me! I want to bring out the emotion in others. I want to make people happy. I want to be happy myself. I want to live my life enjoying it… and to be an example for others to enjoy theirs!

Pg 240 - "... and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment."

This makes me want to LIVE, really live to the full and out loud, in each and every moment I’m in. To bask in whatever it is that’s giving me joy just now….. and not let the sadness of my yesterdays (what I’ve lost or the things that have happened to me) or my fear of my tomorrows rob me of the moment and the total happiness that offers me real laughter…. maybe sometimes after so many tears.

Pg 282!

Pg 285 - "When you live with a woman you learn something every day."

HaHa. So true. J

Pg 286 - "The hardest lesson is Clare's solitude. Sometimes I come home and Clare seems kind of irritated; I've interrupted some train of thought, broken into the dreamy silence of her day. Sometimes I see an expression on Clare's face that is like a closed door. She has gone inside the room of her mind and is sitting there knitting or something. I've discovered that Clare likes to be alone."

Okay, this is so me… for it takes me being alone to be able to gather and keep my thoughts until pondered upon and then penned. I have to concentrate hard (so very hard), with all that’s in me; for any slight distraction or movement from another’s breath in the room even scatters my thoughts and my thinking into a zillion tiny pieces that are hardly able to be picked up and put back together to any sort of coherency ever again. Thus, when anyone interrupts, they find me with quite the furrowed brow... as I try to hold onto what I've been "knitting"!

It also reminds me of another thing. “Sometimes I see an expression of Clare’s face that is like a closed door. She has gone inside the room of her mind and is sitting there knitting or something. I’ve discovered that Clare likes to be alone.” ~~ In our “time-travel” to this place or to that, to our past or to our futures, to our hopes or to our hurt, to our longing or to our loss, to our love or to our hatred… we want to go “alone.” We close the door to those that are around us, daring them to near our door or say a word. And we sit inside “knitting” on something… our thoughts, our joy, our mourning, our dreams, our deaths, our loves, our embitterments. Wonder at all the “knitting” that goes on behind the closed doors of our minds? Oh, what tangled webs we often weave while ‘knitting.’

Pg 292 - ".. the voice of one who has seen future, and has no plans to mess with it." ~~

Pg 293 - "Sometimes I would give anything to open up Henry's brain and look at his memory like a movie." ~~ Funny, wouldn’t we all? Someone bring the Popcorn! That'd be a movie I'd want to watch!

Pg 315 – "Kendrick turns and I am shocked at the difference in his face. Ravaged is not the word. He is emptied; something has gone that was there before."

Wow, it’s sad what devastation will do to a person. It’s sad of all that it robs. It’s sad how quickly it can “empty” one that merely moments ago felt pretty perfectly full. But what’s sadder still are those that stay emptied once tragedy depletes them, and they never get their fullness back again… the devastation not only robbed them of their present moment, and not only crushes them for a season, but it forever steals, kills, and destroys their futures as it continues to eat at their hearts, it devours their minds, consumes their thinking, embitters their souls, and thus leaves them dead in the land of the living.

[To be continued.... Part 3 to follow...]
.

A traveler of time (pt 1) Where am I? Which time am I in?

2012-02-09T19:15:00.000-06:00

I can't recommend it. At times, the language can cause you to blush and some of the graphics embarrass the stew out of you. It's not something I would normally read; but for some reason, I was compelled to continue and I read to the finish. I'm so glad I did. I don't regret it for a minute. I read it several years ago.. and still, I remember so much that I learned from it. So much so, that I thought it unfair not to share. So, here you now have it.... lessons gleaned from a book once read.... (that I'm a bit embarrassed to say I actually did.)

The name of the book? The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. The gleaning from what I read was written to a friend as I read the pages. We were reading it together... and as we did so, we'd share what we'd read with each other. I obviously was impressed. I typed 33 pages before I was done with it.

I wrote:

My thoughts on the book? I hate that Henry died! But life does have a way of ending that way, doesn't it? I'm embarrassed to say that I fell asleep toward the end of the book one night (before Henry died, but after knowing he was going to) and then I kept waking up from all sorts of dreams where I kept trying to figure out different ways to keep him from actually having to. WEIRD!!! I wanted to keep him alive! I didn’t want him to die! I still don’t. I don't know that I've EVER dreamed about a character in a book before. I liked him, but I didn't know that I liked him that much. Enough to dream about him…. ….. I think he reminded me of someone else…. and I don’t want him to go!.... but I know inside that he eventually will regardless of my don’t-ing want.

But then, life is like that too, huh? For the one that’s left behind. Whether by an actual death or by a mental one... when one leaves, divorces, dumps you, disappears, dies, etc. Or maybe it's not "someone" for you, but "something"? Perhaps a dream dies. A hope is shattered. A business is closed. A job is lost. A friendship severed. A heart somehow broken. We often spend our days and our nights (months, maybe years) trying to figure out a way that it really doesn't have to. We try to keep them/it from "dying". And often once they're/it’s gone, we try to figure out a way to bring them/it back to life again. It's not just a mourning of their/its death. It's our way of keeping them/it still living inside us. A refusal of reality. A denial. A hope that by denying it, by refusing to believe it, that perhaps our rejection of reality can become an actuality and they/it can ‘live’ again. A resurrection of sorts.

We’ve all tried it.

It doesn’t work.

I enjoyed the book. It was different. Sweet. Sad. It made me smile. It made me feel. It made me laugh. It made me cry. And it made me realize that every one of us are "time-travelers" from time to time of some kind. Think of all the "time-traveling" we do (though thankfully, we travel with our clothes on, unlike how poor Henry did!) inside the memories of our minds to our pasts or what we dream (hope) for in our futures. We're good at fast-forwarding or rewinding, jumping from one time to the next in a matter of seconds; rather than remain stayed in the current time that our clocks and calendars are ticking in. Any one thing can trigger it. A sight. A smell. A sound. A song. Just about anything can instigate, activate, or conjure up a memory. Or a hope. Or an I-can’t-wait-to moment… or I-wish-I-did… I-wish-I-didn’t… I-wish-I-could… I-wish-I-wouldn’t. Or maybe an I-wish-they-would… I-wish-she-would… he-would… she-did… he-did… he-didn’t…..

We’re often looking forward… or looking back; but, like I said, not stayed on seeing our right now. Example: we look forward to birthdays, turning sixteen, college, getting married, having kids... and then when we get there, we look backward… we long for the days of our yesterdays, our high-school years, or the freedom we had before we had kids when we were still single.

What weird creatures we are. Living in so many different times all at once, though rarely really ever really, really, really “living” in and taking full focused advantage of our current immediate moment. I started to say our very present moment… yet, it’s that ‘very present’ moment that we seldom are really ‘very present’ in at all, isn’t it? Our physical bodies are in one place and time; while our minds are in another. In one that’s not real. One that's imagined. One that's made up. One that once-was. One that never will be. Or one that it’s not time for yet.

I found it interesting what Henry said about the wreck that killed his mom being the pivotal moment that everything else in his life gravitates around (He said “You know about gravity, right?”, “The larger something is, the more mass it has, the more gravitational pull it exerts. It pulls smaller things into it, and they orbit around and around.... My mother dying... it's the pivotal thing... everything else goes around and around it... I dream about it, and I also time travel to it. Over and over and over again." He says that he goes to it, and that he hovers over it, and he sees its every detail. "... if you had enough time to really look at everything, you would see me,” He says. “I am in cars, behind bushes, on the bridge, in a tree. I have seen it from every angle; I am even a participant in the aftermath…… I think.. and I think... I think I should have died too.”).

How often true for us. That's true for a lot of people. A one-moment-in-time event that all of our thoughts go back to, that now affects all of our tomorrows, clouds our yesterdays, and takes our focus away from every today that we’re in. Its gravitational force has power over us still and impacts everything else that we're doing. We are, in essence, locked in a moment-of-time without any awareness at all of our imprisonment. And no amount of days or months or seasons or years or miles has been successful in taking us further away from it.

When discussing that thought with this friend of mine he said to me, "It is interesting that some one "event" marks most people. It's like in the OT when people would set up an altar as a memorial to God for whatever. People tend to do something similar with life altering events. It is (as you said) "the "pivotal" moment, around which everything else revolves. It defines them." Wow, that's good! Hmmm. A perfect picture. But one that we seldom seem to truly notice. Woe, that "a moment" in time (one single moment!) can "define" all of our time for the rest of the lives we are living!

I have to wonder, what might have happened to "alter" our life that we have made a "graven image of" (an altar! / a "memorial stone")? We’ve set it up, and we now worship it, bow down to it, sacrifice to it, and serve it for the rest of our days. We "slaughter" sheep of some sort, we feed it, and "sacrifice" (our lives, our homes, our minds, our thoughts, our joy, our laughter, our sense, our children!)... a thing that we're often oblivious to what we are doing while in the midst of our doing it.

It’s something worth pondering: Have I ever had such a “life-ALTAR-ing” event happen to me? In what ways has it altered my life? And am I still bowing to its bidding? Sacrificing still? Still feeding it? Still serving? Have I made an idol of this memory, this hurt, this pain? How much has it cost me? How much more am I willing to let it?

By the time Henry’s daughter, Alba, is a little girl, she "time-travels" too. Children often inherit the traits that they’ve learned from their parents. At this time in the book, science has named this time-traveling-thing that they do: "Chrono-Displaced Person" (CDP). I loved the visual. We all suffer a bit of "Chronic-Displaced Person Disorder" at different times, don’t you think? Many times it’s seasonal. Though I know of some people that have chosen to live there. It’s the life that they’ve chosen to settle in. They live in 1989… or some such year that’s long past. Like as was suggested earlier, it’s easy to get stuck in a hurt… or a hope... and forget to live in the time that we're in.

I'm not sure how I would rate the book, but I can give it this, I found it superbly thought-provoking.

I could relate to some things. I saw people I know there in others. And yeah, I saw me there too (inside of Clare's feelings... and maybe sometimes, even in Henry's).

Now at the risk of sounding really ridiculous, I'll tell you this. Several years ago an old boyfriend called me that I hadn't heard from in a zillion years. He was the guy in high school for me. My old flame! The one that rocked my world and that my whole world began to "pivot" around…. and revolved around for years. He’s the one that took my breath away. The one that stole my heart. The one that took it with him when he left. The one that I cried torrential tears over for years. The one I never forgot.

When he called, I kept trying to figure out why he did, even while realizing that he probably had no idea why he called himself. Finally I said something to him to the effect that I guess it's kind of like a need inside all of us to be able to go back to the past to "touch base" every now and then, in order to go on doing life where we're presently living. It's just a place to feel safe for a few minutes. A safe-haven of sorts to renew our energy. (Man, I have a weird way of thinking.) I think Henry said it much better than I did at the bottom of page 370. "I place my hands over her ears and tip her head back, and kiss her, and try to put my heart into hers, for safekeeping, in case I lose it again." I think that's what he did a long time ago… whether he meant to or not… and whether I did. Not that he had "lost" his heart and needed to go looking for it again. But maybe every now and then we have a need to know that our hearts are still somewhere safe in a place where we once put them.

So. After twenty-something years (almost 30!) he called me. He did a little time-traveling of his own (and caused me to do some too... He, in essence, booked my flight before I had time to pack and knew that we would be flying!) to check back into an old place in his past to see and to know that it (he and I, us.. something at one time) was real.

I don't mean that in a bad way. But a sweet one. We all have need to know that in someone we are still loved. And I'm okay with a piece of his heart still in mine. Even while in our different worlds. And even if I never see him again until Heaven. I didn't mean to. Or plan to. Or chose to even. I wasn't looking for it. Or trying to. It happened. I loved (and still love) whether I meant to or not. And who can turn "love" off once love’s been turned on and given?

__________________________________________________

Notes along the way as I read..
Things I noted... Things I highlighted

[Excerpts from the book... and then some of my crazing ponders upon it...]

The prologue starts with Clare "waiting" on Henry. He's time-traveling again. She says, "He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass.... Why has he gone where I cannot follow?"

I wondered as I read that at how much "waiting" we do... for this person or that, for this one thing to happen or another something else? So, we sit. And we wait. We pause life. Prolong days. We stop living… waiting for that one thing to happen or that one person to come so that we can begin our living again. Each moment feels like a year, an eternity. All the while, we lose the day (the time) that we're in. We sacrifice our current moment and all that it has in store for us, for one that we're anxiously anticipating that hasn't happened yet… and who knows, maybe never will? How much life do we lose in our "waits"? What all is passing us by? What all are we missing, because we fail to live when and where we are; because we’re spending our time waiting for that something to start us walking in life again? We do as Clare says she did, "I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way... I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter...." UGH, what a waste we can be in our waits!!!!

Take that same statement and reading it again ("He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity..... Why has he gone where I cannot follow?") and you can see it from another angle. Another perspective. When we ourselves "vanish unwillingly, without warning”...... going where our minds or our memories take us that our loved ones cannot follow. When we’re the ones guilty of “disappearing again.” Not physically. But mentally (we've time-traveled and left the ones that love us again! / or they've time-traveled inside their own minds and they’ve left us!). Or, maybe we’ve gone off without warning and vanished (seemingly unwillingly) spiritually. We can't get out of our funk. We're found stuck in some mode or some mood.... our hope… or an old hurt. We're drowning while we sulk in our stew. Pining away in our pity. And no one is able to pull us out of it. We go places where no one else can “follow.” And later, we're often hurt that no one helped us while we were there in that stuckness. We’re hurt that they didn’t “follow” in an effort to help. We’re hurt, so we blame them for it. When actually it was us that pushed them away, slammed our doors and closed them out and wouldn't allow them to get close enough to help… no matter how hard they tried or how much they wanted to.

Clare asks on that very same page, "Why is love intensified by absence?"

I tend to agree with her! I wonder too! Why is that?!? And then too, the sad thing of it is, why can't we love those that we do with all that we've got when we’ve got them in our moment.... instead of missing them while they’re with us (because we’re "time-traveling" or are too busy or consumed with our own stuff)... and thus, missing them doubly so after they've gone? We're often guilty of "missing" them both while they're here, but only honing into the feeling after they're not anymore. And lots of times, we’ll focus only on missing the one that has gone, and so miss loving those all around us that are near. We “miss” a lot, but a lot we don’t have to. Why is the “absence” of something or someone oft times more prominent and have greater precedence over our “present” and the things and the people that we do have? I think that perhaps we’ve got a greater missing need that seeks to hurt; than a rejoicing need that likes to bask in some joy? I think we’ve got some of our wires crossed and that we live a lot of life backward!

Pg 64 - "Clare looks up mischievously, "Who do you like?" “You! I think, but don't say…….." ~~

Woe, that one strikes! Because I am frequently "thinking, but not saying" my feelings or my thoughts. I know that we can't (and never will be able to) say all that we think. Some things we really shouldn't! But how many times do we not say, when we should? We feel too vulnerable, we fear rejection, we fear the reaction that we will (or won't) get from the one that we're talking to or thinking about, so we never say what we should, we never tell them how precious they are or how much they mean.... and then later (maybe for the rest of our lives), we "waste" time wishing we had. What is that? Fear. Pride. Insecurity. Vulnerability. Woe, what thieves they are! Why do we let them rob us like they do?!?

Pg 78 - ""You are making me different" Clare says."I know," Henry tells her.” ~~

Been there, done that, so KNOW that feeling too! Know anybody who “makes you different”? It can be a good different, or a bad one. But people (though really only because we allow them to) really can “make” us different. I wonder too (though I’ve never really wondered before) who do I “make” different? And what kind of different do I make them? Is it a better different than from what they once were? Or a worse one? Hey, it’s a thought worth pondering. What about you? Who are you making “different”? And what kind of “different” are they because of you?

Pg 78 - "After an hour or so had passed, I too am gone. And there is only a blanket and a book, coffee cups, and clothing, to show that we were there at all." ~~

That, to me, seemed one of the saddest statements in the whole book!

What will be left of me when I’m gone to show I was once here at all? to show I was once there? to show I was actually in this moment of time? And that once, I was in that one? To show that I once existed in another person's life? What evidence will be left that evidences that me and somebody else existed for a season as one? Like I said, I find that statement very sad! Because of its truth!

Some of the places I've been, or the people that I've been with... there is no longer any evidence left at all of any kind that shows that we were ever there or ever truly existed. No blanket. No book. No clothing. No coffee cups. Nada. Nothing at all. ONLY in a memory. And maybe in a heart, because the heart was unable to forget its existence. Sadly there is no physical evidence that can be picked up and touched and acts as a witness of something that once was, but now is not anymore. Can the evidence vanish so quickly? Is there nothing to hold that testifies to show-and-tell? Is there so little evidence of what you so loved, and in the quiet recesses of your mind still do? And if that's so, then can the "hurt" of a heart as it cherishes that past be more of a blessing than we think to first give it credit for? Perhaps that feeling that won't go away and can't be stifled out is the only "physical" evidence that we'll always have of some things, simply from the physical feeling it gives us. It's held in the feeling! Whoa! There’s your proof of existence! Something more tangible than blankets and books and clothing and coffee cups! Something that won’t and can’t be burned up. Wow, who would have thought that some pains (some pangs) are really something to be treasured as such!

(To be continued...... Part 2 of 4 parts found here)
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A Book of Faces

2012-02-08T20:42:00.003-06:00

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Facebook. It's all the rave. If you're not on Facebook, then most that are wonder about you, "Well then, why not?" The Facebookers can't understand your reason. True Facebookers can hardly remember what life was like before without Facebooking.

Facebook though? An interesting name don't you think? Why "Facebook"? Because it's a "book" of your "face"? And not only your face, but a book showing all the faces of your friends. Some you know well. Some you don't. Some you wish you did. Some you'd like not to be friends with, but the rejection of the acceptance of their request would hurt feelings, so you befriend them anyway.

If you're on.... what kind of "book" is your "face" showing?

Not just in pictures. But in words? In status-es? In comments? In "like"s? I'd like to suggest, that some show more of their faces than perhaps they should! Or, is that so? Isn't it rather more honest, not to only show the face you'd like to be seen as, but to show your true face as it really is?

But again, "Facebook"? Why "Facebook"? Do we have need for others to see our face? Do we have such great need to have them look? To have them address it? To have people respond to it? To have people validate it? To have people rally it? Encourage it? Praise it? Inspire it? Promote it? Do we have NEED for other "faces" to "like" what we "like"? Or to "like" what we've said? Do we have great want for them to agree with us? Inside.... do we LONG for people to LOOK? To SEE me?! To SEE my face!!! To REALLY see it? To tell me what I LOOK like to them... but only if it's a good thing, a positive thing, a thing I want to hear, a pleasant thing, a thing that'll make me feel good, a thing I will like!

What is it about our faces that need to be seen?

Do we have need to know that we're important? That people see us? That people are looking? That we're not invisible? Do we have need to be noticed? Isn't it because, to somebody out there, we have true need to matter?

Facebook...? Why, I wonder?

I think maybe the answer is, is that we have need to see. And we also (maybe even more?!) have need to be seen!

I think it's interesting that God also wants to see.... and also wants to be seen. Psalm 53:2 says, "God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." I love that verse! It always reminds me of the song, 'I was looking back to see.. if you were looking back to see.. if I was looking back to see.. if you were looking back at me.'

"God looks down"... "The Lord looked down" (as Psalm 14:2 puts it). "Looked down" is shaqaph in the Hebrew. The original word meaning (as per Barnes' Notes of the Bible) "conveys the idea of "bending forward," and hence, of an intense and anxious looking, as we bend forward when we wish to examine anything with attention, or when we look out for one who is expected to come." Strong's defines it further as "to overlook [to look over], to look down or out, to look out and down, to lean over and look down."

I love the imagery! God looks down(!).... He bends forward, He looks over, He looks out and down, He leans over and looks down.... He looks! He looks intensely and anxiously looking to examine us with His focused attention.

He looks "to see". He gives attention to, He looks intently at, He looks to inspect, to perceive, to consider, to regard, to watch, to observe in order to find out.

"God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see IF there are any who understand, any who seek" Him!

In another verse we're told that "the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him" (2 Chron 16:9). Woe, God's looking! Another (another of my favorites!) says, "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them." (Exo 2:23-25).

You know, God said that, "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all of your heart." God wants to be sought! More than that, God wants to be found! Even better than that, God Himself (as our Shepherd) goes looking (seeking) for His lost sheep. He has need to be seen.... and He has need to see! We, too, have need to be seen... and we have need to see!

Facebook. It all boils down to a book of faces. The ultimate is though that God seek ours... and that God wants us to seek His! Now there's a face that I want to see! And it's a face, too, that I want to see me! Oh, if only we could see HIM seeking ours... as we seek His!

Wow, you know, I think of it often... what for real will it be like when we SEE, truly SEE, our Savior's face face-to-face!!!

Facebook? We have another "facebook", you know? As I type, mine sits in my lap. It's in the Words that God has written to us... for all over it on each page, it shows HIS face... and sweetly, it also shows mine! It shows how He sees me. It shows that He looks!
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I can't quit thinking about Him!

2012-02-05T22:40:00.000-06:00

"On my bed I remember You; I think of You through the watches of the night" (Ps 63:6).

The New Living Translation puts it this way, "I lie awake thinking of You, meditating on You through the night."

The words to the verse in this Psalm are so very much speaking to me tonight. They are not only speaking to me... they're speaking my heart... they're speaking my thinking... they're telling my feelings!

When I lie to sleep... my mind stays drawn to my Savior. I talk to Him. I ask Him to even in my sleep, to speak to me, to show me things, to answer my questions, to give me dreams. I sometimes don't want to "waste" the time to sleep..... so I ask Him to redeem it, and to use that time, as well, to draw me closer to Him, to renew my mind and my thinking, to grow my love for Him, to invade every inch of my subconsciousness.

There have been so many nights that my mind "remembered" other things. I have lain awake thinking of other things that sometimes I had no business thinking about. I have meditated on other "you"s that was not my Savior. I've pondered in bed, and mediated, sometimes pre-meditated.... I've dreamed of things that I didn't need to be dreaming, or wallowed in sorrow, sometimes thrashed on my bed in anguish. What horror!

Wow. There's nothing that compares to an invasion of the mind that fixes and fastens our focus on Jesus and our Father that loves us. Thank You, Lord God, for changing my mind and for being the wonder that has captured it! Oh, that it never escapes You and turns to seek or to settle for anything less! You are my Thrill! You are what my mind cannot get enough of! Oh Lord, see me while I sleep.
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I MISS seeing this car in my drive!

2012-02-04T18:00:00.004-06:00

It belongs to my daughter...... and she's moved it to Birmingham. :( I thought yesterday as I pulled up to our house that I so very much MISS seeing her bug parked in our drive. The vehicle that carries her, that transports her, that she uses to ride in. Mostly I miss it... because I miss HER!

Her first "PRISSSY" was the prettiest of pinks... but she didn't have it long before she totalled it. Woe, at the lessons that God taught me through that cute piece of painted Pepto Bismol colored metal (see here)! I love how God can teach us through any ole' instrument. I love the lessons He so wildly showed me using that one!

My son's encasement is of a different sort... and is often found in the mud.

My youngest daughter hasn't gotten a vehicle of her own yet, but can't wait to! And mine (a Red Dodge Durango) recently died... I am still mourning the burial of it and haven't, as yet, found its new replacement!

Metal skins.... that people ride in! All sorted in different shapes and sizes and colors. Kind of like the fleshly skins..... that our Savior rides in! Each unique to the individual! Each characterized to fit them. And sweetly, He's not only just fond of, but He loves each one, each instrument, each vehicle, each jar of clay, each skin made of flesh like He once arrived in this earth in... and now, again, is walking this earth in again!

Our Savior's still got places to go with things to do and needs 'vehicles' (skinned-ones) to take Him there. He fuels these 'vehicles' with the fire of His Word in our tanks and we have daily need to come back for more filling! Warning lights come on to warn us when the oil is low... or if our brakes or other things need attention and repairing. He's the Ultimate Mender for whatever our need!

But wow.... wow.... WOW, when we think about it, what an honor to carry Him!
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It's everywhere I look!

2012-02-03T23:20:00.000-06:00

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Wow.... it's as the song sings, no? "He's still working on me. To make me what I ought to be....." This song (at the current moment) is in my heart to sing. Why? Obviously, because He's obviously working on me!

My God is doing a thang! He's "theme-ing" again! You know what I'm talking about, right? When every where you look, every time you turn around, every thing you hear, every thing you read, every book you pick up, every radio message, every word friends and strangers say, every sign, every sermon, every lesson, every Scripture.... every HEART BEAT................. When EVERY THING seems to be singing and saying and playing and remembering and reminding you of all the VERY EXACT SAME message! I'd say, God right now is going the extra mile in His redundant pill! And I won't say it's because He likes to be redundant and constantly repeat Himself. I'd say that it's evidently because He's not wanting me to miss it and He's going to the extra extreme in order to get His message across!

Wow! As much as He's saying, I still wonder, "What's He saying?"!!!

In other words, what's Your point, Lord? What are You leading to? What are You preparing me to do? What is Your Words prompting me to?

And though I don't totally know that yet, I do know this. I know that He's very obviously readying my heart to heed when it hears it! He's doing the pre-op! He's giving me puzzle pieces. He's packing my bag. So that when He gives me the call in His time, I'll be all packed and prepared and equipped and rearing to go. I'll be anxious to! I will hardly be able to wait and to keep myself from running!

And so then... Do what You've got to do, Lord! Prompt all you want! Penetrate to as deep as the need requires! Pierce to the quick! Prepare until I cannot help but hear! Equip what I lack! Enable! Touch my heart until tender! Pour in Your passion! Flame me with Your fire! Fuel me with Your mercy that runs! With Your grace that races. And Your love that does!

Oh please, Lord, help me to be that "Here-am-I-send-me" person at the very moment You're ready to send! And until then.... theme on, dear Lord, until my heart is saturated with Your message! Fill me to full and then to overflow, so that I'll be completely ready when it's time to heed to Your "Go!"!
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I've been pierced!

2012-02-01T17:23:00.000-06:00

You never know when it's coming... or what's gonna do it. And sometimes, you're not completely positive when it happens. Sometimes you think you're pierced, but it was only really a false pricking. Prickings cause us to feel for a moment, but piercings last until moving. Once pierced you can't lie there, you can't ignore it, you can't by pass, you can't do little. Piercing, true piercing, moves to do all that it can for as long as it has opportunity to do so. Piercing looks until it finds. Piercing moves... it moves fiercely and ferociously. It moves with cause and with reason and with purpose. It moves determined. It moves because it has to. It has no choice in the matter really. Once pierced, truly pierced, you can't stay still, you have to do something, you have to act! You have to accomplish!

Piercing may not know what to do at first, and thus, it may lie still for a time, it may lie dormant. But, there's still a simmering inside... and soon (sooner or later) a rumbling until it leads to a full forced outside quaking! It's eruption from inside explodes.... and you'd better get out of the way, because piercing is on a war path! Piercing draws its sword... and Piercing runs to enter the battle!

At the moment I wonder: Have I been pierced? Or, have I only been pricked? Only time alone will tell. But, it's been a couple of weeks now, and..... it won't quit, it's still simmering inside me.

What in the world am I talking about?

I heard Christine Caine's speech on Human Trafficking. I've heard talks from the Passion 2012 conference that begs for us to do something about it. And inside my want-to plagues me! What, I wonder??? What??? What to do? And how? When? Where? The "Why"s been answered..... and now I hold responsibility of some kind in my hands. What will I do with it? Or, will I simply get busy and let my busy take my mind further away from it until the piercing's dulled, and the need to do something no longer feels the need to?

Today, against all that I'd planned, I find myself doing a google search and doing research on it.

Human trafficking...... Wikipedia defines it as, "the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sex exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery." Trading humans, really? Selling them! Using them for production! Making money off of them! All against their will and their want-to. Human trafficking is when one person is controlled by another, and forced to work against their will and treated like property. It has been identified as the fastest growing criminal industry in the world!!! Second only to drug trafficking!! Billions! Multiple BILLIONS (31.6!) are made every year (in our day and age!!! on "our watch" as Christine Caine says) by human slavery! How in this world is that possible?? How do we go about our business, not knowing about it, or not knowing to the extent that it's happening, and not doing anything about it when we do hear? Mostly, I think, it's because we can't wrap our minds around it, we don't see it right in front of our faces, and we can't make ourselves believe that it's truly true and that it's really happening.

Today there are more than an estimated 27,000,000 (27 million!!) people held in slavery worldwide! 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... 11... 12... 13... 14... 15... 16... 17... 18... 19... 20... 21... 22... 23... 24... 25... 26... 27 MILLION!!!!!!! More slaves are held right now than at any other time in our history. On our www.fbi.gov site I found it to say, "It's sad but true: here in THIS country, people are being bought, sold, and smuggled like modern-day slaves. They are trapped in lives of misery - often beaten, starved, and forced to work as prostitutes or to take grueling jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay." What?? HERE in OUR country?!!! And it is multiplied expondentially in other countries outside of ours!

So, now that we've been told that, now that we know that, what do we do? I mean really. What do we do? What will I do? What will you?

Now that we know, we're 'sponsible' (as one little girl I know says it). We're sponsible! It's up to us! If not us... if not me... if not you... then who? It's gonna take an army! More than one! It's going to take a little bit (or a LOT) of all of us to help in someway!

I've been pierced! The continual twist of the pain inside for those that are hurting, scared, lonely, imprisoned, hating what they're doing, not knowing how or having the ability to get out..... they NEED us! And God is telling us, He's seeing them, He's hearing their cries, He has concern for them, so like Moses, He is telling us... so that WE WILL GO and DO something! So that we will GO and help to deliver His people enslaved by the evil one!
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Reality.... When freedom doesn't seem free?

2012-01-31T23:57:00.000-06:00

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The conflict of my emotions at the end of my yesterday wasn't expected. I woke with such enthusiasm... such excitement. (Woke up? Who am I kidding. I hardly slept! I was SO excited!) And yet, I left the house with one kind of whoa-ing emotion.... but came home wearing a whole other woe-ing one.......

To attempt to tell of it, words won't describe. The sweet lady (who I'll call Miss 88, because of her age) that I picked up from prison was precious! Fiesty! Full of life. Funny! (Hilarious, more like it.) Sharp minded. Quick witted. NOT at all as I'd pictured her. She looked much younger than her age.... and acted more like a 40 year old, than one a mere two years away from 90. The whole prison loved her. She got well-wishes from both her former fellow inmates and the officers. Everyone was yelling and blowing kisses when we were leaving. I can't began to tell you how sweet it was! Tears rolled down her cheeks as we left.

She'd been inside those very same gates for 16 years! What does it feel like to walk out of them for the first time after all that time?

She kept telling me that, "Words can't describe it."

She oohed and ahhed over the trees we past on the road. The fields. The sky. The air-conditioning. The feel of a car. The houses. The buildings. The sky. EVERYTHING! Everything was so exciting to see! I loved looking and seeing for a few minutes through her eyes.

Long story (one for another day), but I left the prison with two new-releasees, not just the one. It was such a God-thing that it's funny to see His set-up. So Him! So what He does.

It was so sweet to begin with. I can't tell you how many times I looked over at Miss 88 and saw her wiping her eyes. It was so overwhelming! Still, so hard to believe. She kept telling me that I think I'm just having a dream. She was scared she'd wake up............ it was perfect!

And then.....

A lot happened between pickup and drop off. We had breakfast..... ate a late lunch..... stopped by multiple gas stations.... AIM.... the General Dollar.... a Thrift Store..... Rite Aid..... and more! Hours later I dropped one off one place... and the other in another.

On my way home (immediately upon dropping the last (younger) girl off), my mood changed. Here's how I worded it when telling it to a friend:

I was so down on my drive home. It seemed sad for Miss 88 to get out of prison and yet be dropped off at a very unfamiliar place (a transitional home). At least she did see some people there that she knows. But still! Why not home??? Why no family???

I took Kim to Huntsville first to meet her probation officer. The house where she plans to go had no beds open. They told her to call back in a week and a half. I left her in a homeless shelter! It was a sweet place. But HORRIBLE to have to go to!

All the way home I wondered: one left scared in Lovelady...... the other in a homeless shelter??, scared (but acting brave), all alone by herself....????? WHAT KIND OF FREEDOM IS THAT??????????????? Why get out of prison if that's all you've got left and that's where you're going??? I am distraught over what kind of life that is. I wouldn't want to live like that. If that were my case, I don't think prison would look so bad.

And.

I've been upset about it since. It was a 14 hour round trip. I spent lots of time, and lots of money, I bought them things that I knew they'd need, I gave them encouragement, support, talked about Jesus, I fed them, loved on them, patted them, hugged them. And yet, after all that, I keep thinking, "What good is it?"!!! How much did that really help? They have no home. No family willing to take them. None, evidently, right now to go back to. No job. No support. They're alone and are left to figure it all out by themselves. You lock me up for sixteen years and let me out when I'm eighty-eight...... and where am I gonna go? How am I going to take care of myself? She told me the place where she's staying charges $150 a week. How in the world will she ever be able to come up with that? Whatever will she do next? What would I do? What in the world does she have to live for? And will she live the rest of her life afraid? Not knowing? In a strange land somewhere? With strange people?

What about the younger girl? I'm sure she can make it, others have, BUT!!!!! She's basically left on the street! What now? How? And who? And where? Who's gonna hire her? How will she get there if they did? How will she make it? And a thousand other questions...........................??? Again, that doesn't sound like freedom to me! It sounds scary! Sad! Lonely! And unsafe! No wonder so many end back inside prison...... prison, to me, sounds better than that.

"What can I do?"......... "What can I do???"....... "Lord, what can I do????".............................. I'm so sick! The question plagues me!
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They don't remember who they are.

2012-01-30T06:25:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, in a world where fairy-tales were lived, not just told; evil was battled and good won, and life ended in happily-ever afters....

I started watching a new TV series called: Once Upon A Time. The very first episode opens with these words:

"There was an enchanted forest filled with all of the classic characters we know. Or think we know. One day they found themselves trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen. Our world."

Those words quoted above that scrolled on the screen intrigued me. Especially these, "One day they found themselves trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen."

Well, that is what the enemy tries to do to us, isn't it? That is his goal. That is his whole purpose. He can't really (unless we allow him to), but he sure hopes that we'll fall for that lie. He sure wants us to steal our happy endings. He wants to make us believe that happily-ever-afters.... REAL happily-ever-afters never really happen.

Through each episode the story flips from the "our world" that they find themselves in... and the fairy-tale world in which they have been doomed from. In the book, the fairy-tale world is where they're really from, their characters there in fairyland are who they really are. And the interesting part of several of the episodes is hearing one little boy (the only one that still truly knows) say about the characters in "our world" is that, "They don't remember who they are."

Wow!

And isn't it that truth that entraps us. If we're believers, true believers in the King and His Son and His Kingdom, then we are royalty! This "our world" that we find ourselves living in is only temporary. There is evil still fighting against us. And whether we always think so or not, good really will win in the end. And yet, in this "our world" deception, we rarely see ourselves in our mirrors as our Father the King sees us. We too, too often, don't remember who we really are! The spell, if you will, of the deceit of the enemy.... and the wardrobe we find ourselves wearing against a greater inside intense knowing..... We fail to remember that this world isn't our home, and that yes, our happily-ever-after ending really, really, really, truly IS coming!

If you are a believer in Jesus, then, if you are not royalty, then God is not King. But... if you are... (*big smile!*), then one day You'll see Him.... and we'll see us as He does!!!! We'll know who we are... like we've never begun to imagine before! And we'll know Him in a way that we cannot even fathom! It really is real, right now we're stuck in this world... but one day we'll live in our Eternal One!
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Your chariots awaits you...

2012-01-29T23:54:00.002-06:00

I am greatly anticipating my tomorrow's meeting! (Is that ever an understatement!) And in my anticipation I FaceBooked a friend requesting prayers for the treasure that I'm assigned to pick up and deliver. If you've not met her yet, click here to do so. Here is a copy of our conversation.... perhaps you'll see the excitement in the words that we typed to each other?

Me: Pray for my 88 year old new friend that I'll meet for the very first time in the morning!! I am greatly anticipating our visit! I feel like I am the soldier sent to drive the carriage that is being sent to pick up one of God's most prized precious princesses! Woe, at the honor, that He'd chose me to do it! I plan to be a sponge.... and hope to glean much! May Jesus' love FILL our chariot!

Her: Woe!! As I read your words I was smiling! I LOVED your verbiage... carriage... I so went to another carriage: The Ethiopian Eunuch!!! Don't know why... Honor, indeed!

Me: Maybe you and your ladies can pray for us in your Bible study in the morning... and be the wind beneath our wings...? I'm sure if you do that we cannot help but feel (fill!) it!!!

Her: I am SO proud of you AND inspired by your willingness to DO!!! To DO what He has put inside your "want to" for years!!! PLEASE call... I want to hear every detail!! AND you MUST HUG that Princess for ME!!! Tell her my name..... Oh SWEETEST friend, we SHALL pray!!

Me: Wow.... at the Ethiopian Eunuch comparison! Perhaps I was sent to go like Philip... Just a vessel of His when one of His children needs it!

Her: Yes!!! Yes! I believe so! He sent! You GO!!! Willingly!!!

Me: I will!!!! I'll hug her for you!! I thought all evening of greeting her (after we get inside the carriage, of course, so as not to scare her when I first meet her) as a Princess. And tell her that it is my honor... and that The King Himself has sent me to her. :)

Me: Wow! Fun! Do you know how big this is?! Little things that we take lightly.... are really never "little things" in the Kingdom at all! Okay. I'll hush! You can see I'm excited!

Her: Can you imagine? I mean 'really'? I can NOT!

Her: Serving is so UNDER rated!!! The more you give... truly the MORE we receive!!! I love your heart! Your passion that comes!

Me: No. I cannot imagine either. Can you imagine her heart tonight as she tries to sleep? Can you imagine God as He sees her... and what He thinks? Can you imagine Jesus and the angels around her? Can you imagine all that the Heavenlies are thinking? You know what? I think that it's truly a very big deal to Them! I wish I could see a glimpse of Their rejoicing!

Her: OK. Your words brought visuals...... now tears!! YES! He sees! Yes, His angels ARE rejoicing!! She is being SET FREE!!! GLORY!!!!!!! I can recall MANY occasions where I KNEW I was being "set free" / absolved / served my time. HOW can she sleep? Only by the peace of God!!! I will pray for her!! YOU have made her "real" to me!!!

Me: Thank you for "loving" those that I love!!!

Her: You "paint" such a real "picture" that I wonder if we truly REALLY consider?? Heavenlies!??!! WOE! Whoa!! REAL!!!!

Her: How can I not? Love those you love? There was a time I WAS the petition you begged for!!

Me: As you have bent your knees for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Her: Someone is Praying You Through... will forever be a "life~link" for me!!!

Me: God's GOoD, isn't He!?! I love all that He does! And to think that He lets us play a part in whatever it is that He's doing!!! Incredible! Too big for our minds to imagine! Yes, people pray us through... simply because GOD HIMSELF puts it in our hearts to! How big is that??!! How massive!!! What Love!!! Incredible! You have to KNOW that God's excited about our excitement over His girl! Wow... minds canNOT imagine!

[Hmmm.... and you know, looking at the picture above that I found to post as a visual.... I wonder at the invisible "court"... the counts and soldiers of the Heavenlies... that will surround us on our journey in our own feeble vehicle tomorrow? Woe, really! IF we only knew!!! Not only that!!!!!! One day there really IS going to be a Royal Wedding!!!!!!! WE (children of God's) really, really, really will be royally attired! We'll have royal robes, and royal slippers, and a crown on our heads! Our Princess will meet us! He really rides in on His white horse! Can you even fathom the wonder that awaits us!!].

This shall NEVER happen to you!

2012-01-29T14:11:00.000-06:00

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Never Lord!

"... Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

"Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. "Never Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to You!"

"Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns."

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny himself and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done." ~ Matt 16:21-23 (emphasis mine)

How often have we thought that about ourselves, or said that to someone else that we cared about, "This shall NEVER happen to you!" This thing, this whatever thing this is, we'll never let it happen to you! We'll pound on the doors of Heaven, we'll plead at the foot of our Savior, we'll bow before the Throne of Grace, we'll ask... and it will be given!... Never! There is no way that God will ever allow this to happen to you!

How often do we say that or think that WHEN... it was the very plan that our Creator, that the Author of our stories, put together in the first place! It's what we've been prepared for! What we've been called to. It's in the Sovereign plan of God and was laid out before we were ever born..... Perhaps it's the very instrument that God will use in our lives to take Jesus Christ to another in?! What makes us think that we won't suffer.... even after He's told us that we'll share in His sufferings?! Do we truly "have in mind the concerns of God"? Or rather is what's in our minds, "merely human concerns"? Do we consider God's plan? Or only see it our way and consider our own? Will we truly deny ourselves, take up our crosses and lose our lives seeking only our Savior's? Do we "follow" Him and live and die as He did? Or do we try to save our lives in order to gain something else (health, wealth, and prosperity, etc) in this temporary world?

I wonder if just perhaps this "this"-thing that happened to you that you never thought that should have.... happened for a reason, happened for a bigger purpose..... perhaps it happened because it was really supposed to?!

[To ponder upon the thought of it more, click here to read this post (Oh Lord, You are NOT to be my servant.... I am to be Yours!).]
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Like... really? Like.... behind the wheel??

2012-01-29T14:07:00.001-06:00

My husband is an excellent salesman! He's evidently a super-duper-dude at his job! He's been one of the top salesman probably as long as we've been married. And we've been married 26 years... that's a very long time. People love him! I often tell people that he's like Joseph and Samuel, every since I've known him, he's grown in favor with men and with God. I don't know that he's ever met an enemy.

He's won lots of prizes... many of them places. We've gone on cruises and flown to exotic vacation islands and here and there all through the years. All I can say about his latest win is... is that it sure is gonna be different! It was defined in the email as a "Nascar Experience"! We're to expect another email that is soon to follow giving more detail.... But what I got from the one that was just sent us? I think that HE is one of the ones that will be getting behind the wheel and driving! You've got to understand this, he doesn't know how to drive a manual. And he has trouble staying between the lines in the neighborhood. He isn't sure what a stop sign is. He may be a great salesman... but his driving is known for his inability to do it!

Hmmm.....? What can I make of this? It's three weeks from now. Surely God has something fun and interesting to teach us in there somewhere? Surely there's a parallel to learn? A parable of sorts? A visual in the experience to teach something in the spiritual realm. I shall wait... and ponder in the meantime... and anticipate what it is that my Jesus can show and then teach me there and through this! :)

He doesn't have to. I just know Him. And I know, too, that it's something that He often does! Especially when asking. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be pleading at His door asking for Him to! I am anxiously expecting.... and I bet my Jesus is just as anxious... since we've involved Him, I think He's enjoying this journey with us just as much as we are! :)
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What "thing" could you enjoy more than God?

2012-01-28T16:57:00.000-06:00

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"When sin looks more enjoyable than God." ~ Here you'll find a super power sermon by Francis Chan on the crazy trade that we make in search, we think, for something better! That's what temptation is all about. It's hope is to deceive you so that you'll turn your face from your God's, and you'll worship lesser things until ensnared by the trap that was set for you. It's not worth it! Nothing compares to God and all He has for us!

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Warning: Danger Ahead

2012-01-28T13:24:00.000-06:00

Maybe it's the mood (or the week of the month, if you know what I mean!), for it's another day... and another thing... that begs to hurt my feelings too (as it did yesterday). It was strange when it knocked. Unexpected. I wanted to go with it at first, and then, I wondered what am I thinking? Where did that come from? Am I going to make a mountain over every molehill? Am I going to grow it until seething?

I let my mind hurt my feelings again this morning! Not over something someone did, but something someone didn't do. Really? Am I that nit picky? Am I that tender? Is my skin that thin? Am I that pitiful? Do I really (and will I let myself let me!?!) have to go looking for something?

It's then that I decided it wasn't them.... it's me! And it's what my mind keeps trying to do to me. Ridiculous! I've a made-up mind though, to extinguish every fiery dart that the enemy throws at me.

I was reading in Exodus 12 and 13 about the regulations to follow for the Passover. After my mind's thinking and it's current battle, what was said in 13:4 stopped me. It says, "Eat nothing containing yeast." Another version, "Don't eat anything with yeast in it." Shooo... in these circumstances, isn't that true! No, the content of the passage is not referring to my current mood of the moment's feelings.... but the Holy Spirit is able to use anything for revelation to convict me when I need convicting!

Yeast represented sin. And I kept thinking, don't eat any thing (don't eat any thought!) with yeast in it! Yeast is used because you can put a teeny tiny amount into dough, and it rises the dough and makes it grow into a whole lot more of it! If I continue to take this teeny tiny bit of yeast (this little teeny tiny bitty negative thought to lead to such an overload of negative thinking) and leave it left there without dealing with it.. it'll grow (as I alluded to in my earlier post) to something hugely massive!

I suppose one reason this particular verse mentioned above stuck out today was because yesterday the one (while I wasn't looking for it) in Matthew 16:6,12 jumped out at me. It says, ""Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."... They [the disciples] understood that He was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees." AND... both yesterday and again today I decided that I need to be careful, too, of the yeast in my own mind that can multiply to full grown sin and take over my whole mind and all of its thinking if I refuse to guard myself against and don't get rid of it upon seeing it!

(1 Cor 5:6-8; Matt 16:6-12; Mark 8:15).

Don't you dare hold that!

2012-01-27T21:47:00.000-06:00

My feelings are hurt! Someone did something ugly. And it hurt. And as good as my yesterday was, it's silly really, it's not worthy of the battle I find myself fighting.

And yet...

It happened last evening, and the memory of it keeps coming up. All day long I've quickly talked myself out of it and dismissed it as soon as it did. And before I know it or mean for it to, my mind throws it back up again... and then, wham, there's goes the feeling.....

Ugh! What is that?

I'll get over it. Because I'll continue to battle it. Like I said, it's silly really. The enemy just wants to mess with my mind.... and he hopes that I'll mull over it and grow the wound until bigger. He hopes to keep it bleeding. Well, his hope really is that I'll pick at the wound until I puncture it deeper. He hopes that evidently, it'll be a grudge that I'll keep and I'll carry. He hopes I'll nurse the grudge in order to keep its misery active. He's trying to pierce me. He'd love for this thing... this little thing... to grow to be massive! That I'll continue to hoard and harbor bad feelings until it produces a dividing wedge and keeps the person and I forever weirdly divided.

But! I won't let him!

Sin.... be off with ya!

Hear my God say to me as He once said to Cain and said later in New Testament Scriptures [These Scriptures are changed to personalize and fit my right now's moment... it's not a direct quote, but its meaning to me is the same], "Sharon, why are you hurt? Why does your face look saddened and why are your brows furrowed? If you take every thought captive as I've told you... If you think only on good things... If you continue to renew your mind... Won't you find victory? But, if you don't, sin is crouching at your door, its desire is to have you, it wants to master and rule over you, but you must master and rule over it... You have inside you that same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Use the power I've enabled you with!" (Gen 4:5b-7; 2 Cor 10:3-5; Phil 4:8; Rom 12:2; Eph 1:19a-20; 1 Cor 10:13; Eph 3:20)

The above picture has words on it that say, "Forget what hurt you in the past, but never forget what it taught you."

I like that!

What did it teach me? It taught me not to do to another as was done to me. Honesty, it wasn't meant to hurt me in the first place. It wasn't done with that purpose. What hurt, was the lie... the deceit that tried to cover up what they didn't want to tell me that wasn't hard to figure out. So un-hard, matter-of-fact, that I figured it out without meaning to, without first even pondering upon it.

Again, what did it teach me? It taught me not to lie and attempt to cover the truth up. It taught me that it hurts the one you're deceiving when we chose to deceive them. It taught me to remember to just go ahead and to tell the truth to begin with. Truth is freeing. Lies entangle... Lies entrap us..

Why are my feelings hurt? Why does my face look like this?..... I don't know, Lord. Your GOoDness, Your grace, Your mercy, Your love.............................................

Oh wow, "Your love"? That same "love" that "keeps no record of wrongs" and tells us not to! Well then, there's my answer. "Record" forgiven! "Record" erased! Because love does that, doesn't it! My face is smiling now! You've given me the Truth, "sent forth Your word," and thus, fixed and healed my feeling!
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A good day. A prayer. And some wonders.

2012-01-27T19:32:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was a very good day. It was one huge, sweet, good, thing after another. It was a day packed full with woe-ing wonder of God.... what He's doing, what He's done, and what He's going to do. What He's put into place. What He's accomplished. What He's setting-up to bring about... in His perfect time to. I cannot begin to tell you the puzzle pieces that He showed us! "Us"? Me and a friend. We ahhhed and ooohed over each new found piece! We looked hard at them. We turned them over. Examined each crevice, each nook, each shape, and each corner. We valued them. Weighed them. And wondered..... at the picture that these puzzle pieces showed us a glimpse of!!! We couldn't control our marvel! One of the most interesting parts, is comparing her pieces with my pieces when we've not talked in a very long time, in how similar they were and how they so succinctly fit together. Who, but God, can do what He does?!

The evening/night ended with me driving to Birmingham. I went to the Church of the Highlands to give ADOC training for those interested in prison ministry. We were blown away by a multitude of things when we got there... but perhaps that is for another day....?

I had the sweetest drive up there alone in my vehicle with my Father. At one point, as serious as my heart could be, I said to Him (yes, I wrote it while driving):

"Lord, I don't want to miss what You've called me to do, what You've beckoned me to, what You've convicted me of, and compelled me to do. I don't want to dismiss Your probings and Your proddings. I don't want to miss the whisper of Your voice, or dismiss the loud voice of Yours that I've heard when I KNOW You've called me. Help me to not only hear You, but also to heed to what I've heard! Help me not to ignore You whether on purpose or because I get busy and distracted before I go through with it. I don't want to leave this earth before I've done all that You've purposed and prepared and planned for me to do. Before I've done what You've equipped me for! "Every day ordained for me was written in Your Book before even one of them came to be...".... Oh Lord, please forgive me for not bowing and submitting and fulfilling all those things "ordained"-for-me-to-do things on all the ordained-beforehand-days that I didn't! Keen my ears to hear! And pierce my heart until doing! Provoke the passion inside me so much so that I am uncomfortable until moving! Help me to know, Jesus, that You are still going about Your Father's business... this time in me! Help me to realize what that is.... and then, Lord, help me to get busy and to be about it!....."

"What do God's hands look like," I wondered on the way? The answer was simple. They look like mine and like yours... when we're doing what He's told us. How can people see them if we fail to carry out His mission? If we fail to help the need of our neighbor when we see it? When we pretend to not hear the cry when we walk by that someone that's hurting? When God shows us the need, and we look, but then we do nothing?

When I look at my hands, I wonder, do they look like the hands of Jesus like they're supposed to?
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Oh Lord, You're not MY servant... I am to be YOURS!

2012-01-26T12:50:00.001-06:00

How backward we too often have it.... and without knowing or realizing that we've even got it backward. How quickly we become disoriented.

I was reading in a book yesterday. The book made mention of a respected Christian physician in the early 1900s, his name Walter Wilson. Dr. Wilson had a deep love of Scripture and diligently studied the Bible, applying himself to doing everything He found in God's Word. Even though, doing all of that and in spite of all his effort, he felt his life unfruitful.... as in, not seeming to bear the spiritual fruit that we're made to.

He continued his work as a physician and a lay preacher... frustratingly longing for more. In time he was met by a missionary from France challenging him with a question, "Who is the Holy Spirit to you?" Not being able to answer that to his satisfaction, the question haunted him. Then, on the evening of January 14, 1914, everything changed. Hearing a sermon by Dr. James Gray (a former president of Moody Bible Institute) preached from Romans 12:1, Gray asked, "Have you noticed that this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies? It is not the Lord Jesus... He has His own body. It is not God the Father.. He remains on His throne. Another has come to earth without a body... God gives you the privilege and the indescribable honor of presenting your bodies to the Holy Spirit, to be His dwelling place on earth."

When Wilson was later able to get alone with God he said to Him, "My Lord, I have mistreated You all my Christian life. I have treated You like a servant. When I wanted You, I called for You. When I was about to engage in something important, I beckoned You to come and help me perform my task. I have sought to use You only as a servant to help me in my self-appointed work. I shall do so no more. Lord, I give You this body of mine; from my head to my feet. I give You my hands, my limbs, my eyes and lips, my brain; all that I am within and without. I hand over to You. Live in it the life that You please. You may send this body to Africa, or lay it on a bed with cancer. You may blind my eyes, or send me with Your message to Tibet. You may take this body to the Eskimos, or send it to a hospital with pneumonia. It is Your body from this moment on. Help Yourself to it...."

Wow! What a powerful prayer! After reading it I wondered if we could we say the same? Are we willing to give to that extent that Dr. Wilson just prayed? Would we allow God to send our body to Africa? Would we willingly let Him lay it on a bed with cancer? Uncomplainingly would we let Him blind us? Or rack our body with pneumonia?

We treat God like our hired servant. We come to Him when we want something, when we want Him to do something, heal something, give something, help something, bless something. When we want Him to move us, relocate us, position us, put us in the job or the school or ministry we're wanting. We want Him to keep us free from all sicknesses and diseases. We want Him to prosper us and bless us abundantly. We want Him to do as we've asked Him to do. And when He doesn't? We don't believe in Him, we lose trust in Him, we're disappointed in Him. We feel defeated, rejected, alone, ignored. And because of that, we often take the matter into our own hands and do as we originally wished to that He didn't.

Thinking of what Dr. Wilson said, and being that I am where I am in my life right now, and also in the book that I am currently studying in Ruth, may I add to that list of his?

Are you willing that He lay your husband down and put you on a journey of suffering alone all by yourself? Can He take your children from you and you still trust and be willing to serve Him? We want Him to heal our loved one that lays sick or dying... and when He doesn't we shun Him, holler at Him, or refuse to talk to Him. We don't see it as the place and path that He wants us to walk in. And if we do, we quickly think (as a friend of mine once did) that if this is what God wants from us just to be a tool or instrument for others to be blessed or learn something from, then we don't want to be the instrument He uses... God, we rebuke, that's not reason enough!

Is it satisfactory to you if He choses to take all that you have due to a famine of some sort or due to the destruction of disaster? Will You let Him take you to prison.... not just as a visitor, but as one that serves with Him as a prisoner there along with those other inmates? Will you feel blessed if His desire is to use you as a single, never meeting your mate to marry, but serving as His bride alone? Can He cripple your legs without your whining and writhing and fighting against Him? Can He strip all that you have and leave you homeless and you still praise His name and joyfully serve Him.... knowing that He has you in the exact place and position that He (before the foundation of the world) purposed and planned for you?

I often think of our bodies of His as His vehicles; He just needs a willing vehicle to ride in. He needs someone willing to go where He wills for it to. Are we honestly willing to do as He wills... or rather, do we will Him to do only as we do? Is our motto truly "Jesus take the wheel"... or do we say that, but do we instead have our hands firmly gribbing the wheel and beg for Him to bless where we are willing to take Him?

Are we guilty of doing as Dr. Wilson pointed out to us, are we guilty of treating God as our servant instead of us being His? Do we tell Him what we want to do and ask Him to bless it? Do we not like the vehicle He's specifically and individually chosen for us... whatever it is... because it hurts and it's painful and it's not what we'd like to be dressed as or doing?

When we seriously lay our lives before Him to be used as He's planned and prepared it, we get completely out of the way and allow Him to live through us... wherever and however and in whatever way He chooses.... whether that be through death to self or death through someone else or the worse case scenario that our minds can imagine.... Our true thinking then would be: Here am I, God, do what You want. May You use me in the manner that truly brings You the greatest glory.

With that mindset, it makes no difference where He places us or in what condition He places us in... we're submitted and trust all that He's doing. And knowing that we're submitted, we know that He's "doing,"... instead of believing that He doesn't care and that He is truly doing nothing at all even when we can't see Him.

What if you could hear Him saying to you now: I am seeking someone to serve Me, but I constantly find that I am the One you're expecting to serve. You bow and pray and ask Me to let you do My will... and then you turn right around and ask Me if I will do yours... all the while fully expecting Me to do it?

Oh Lord, what is the vehicle You've chosen for me that You want to use? The vehicle of poverty, sickness, disease, suffering, sorrow, death, imprisonment...? It's easy to be excited to be used in all of the glorified things that bring us highs and makes us feel good. May I be willing, Lord, even in the suffering.... because in all truth, that is mostly when Your light shines the brightest. It's through the hard that You can be seen the easiest and You can get the most glory.

Who (what?) in your life are you truly serving? Are you living to serve your Savior? Or, are spending your life trying to get Him to serve you in whatever the ways that you want Him to do?

[Reposted today from a last years post because of the conversation I just had with the sweetest lady whose daughter is serving a lot of her life in prison.]
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Oh wow! What shall I get her???

2012-01-25T19:40:00.002-06:00

I just got an email from the prison. The social worker was asking me if I would pick up and transport a lady getting out of prison on this coming Monday? She's sorry for the late notice, "But," she wrote:

"... She's 87. Her birthday is Saturday, she'll be turning 88. She's been incarcerated 16 years. She's frail. In a wheelchair. I don't feel comfortable putting her on a bus. Would you mind taking her?...."

Would I mind?

Is that a question?

I'd consider it an honor to!

And now the thought plagues me..... "What'll I get her... for her birthday????" For at 88... surely, I'll have to get her something!!!

Sadly, I am taking her to a transitional home about an hour and a half from here. (Wow, when typing that just now, I realize that I am actually taking her to the city that I just moved my daughter to. Hmmm??? Perhaps there are visits in the forecast??? Perhaps Divinedly ordained, planned on purpose by our God, ones? I have to wonder, "God, is this another one of Your set-ups?")

Anyway, back to the "sadly" part. I'm taking her to a transitional home... not home-home. Why? Does no one at home want her? Can no familiar face and none of her family pick her up to rejoice a minute with her? At 88??? Surely, can't someone?

Eighty-eight... and finally being wheeled out of prison after all that time. Wonder, I wonder, wonder what in the world that feels like?

I'm excited! I can't wait to meet her!
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Oh no, she'd better not be leaving too!

2012-01-25T11:08:00.001-06:00

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Oh the throes of my last post. LQQK what came (or what we found out that came) immediately in the mail after posting it:

You have GOT to me kidding me, right?! I mean, she's beautiful! The pictures are beautiful! We ordered them. We knew they were coming. We'd been looking for them. We were expecting them.

BUT....

After the thoughts in the last post? You do realize where my mind took me the moment upon seeing them (Senior pics) after that, don't you?! That: Oh my, she'll soon be leaving me too!

A Senior already! The baby of my three. She doesn't know and we haven't decided yet..... there's no telling WHERE she'll be next year!

Perhaps she'll choose to stay home with her brother? He chose to go to a nearby college on a football scholarship and stay at home with his precious parents ((*smile*)). All three of my babes are the sweetest thangs eva! All three make me laugh until I cross my legs to keep from wetting my pants. They make me dance with them. Sing with them. Watch something on TV with them. Search things on the Internet with them. Shop with them. Eat with them. Come walk outside with them. They're a bowl full of laughter and super fun to be around. And they honesty really do like hanging around their mom and their dad. It's hard to imagine being left in the one day future without all three of them still living at home with us.

As I said in my last post, Prissy's left. And now Sabrina reminds me everyday that she is very soon graduating... and that she could very well very soon be leaving as well. ................ ........... ........... ....................... ............. Hmmm????................ I think if she does, I just very well may follow her!

:)

Oh Lord, how blessed I am! Never for a day even do I take those babes of mine for granted! Thank You every day for every second You've loaned them to me!
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She's gone...

2012-01-23T20:59:00.002-06:00

Well, she's 21. Perhaps she's old enough to leave and start out on her own endeavor? But to a mom, do we ever truly want to let go? I had to pry my fingers off of her. Not on the outside where she could see, but from the inside where I tried my dog-level best to hide it from her. She watched us when we left, surprised that we weren't crying.... that, too, was kept concealed. For I didn't think she needed for us to.... she herself was too tender.

This isn't the first time. She's left before. But when she left for the University of Alabama.... I pretty much thought that she'd be back. When she left for Legacy... which took her to Ewtah, Alabama, and Israel, and California.... I pretty much thought the same. But this time I'm afraid it could be different. This time she left on her own.... with her own job, paying her own bills, in her own apartment, with her own career, her own adventure.... This time, I'm not so sure! :/

I don't know what to say. My feelings right now are too feelingnizationing to be expressed. (Made up word? Yes, exactly. Perfectly fitting to describe me.)

I so VERY MUSH LOVE her!!!!!!!!!!!! We have such fUnnnn t(w)ogether! ! I miSsSSs my gurl!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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What was it like?

2012-01-21T20:44:00.000-06:00

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What was it like?

What was it like to be pregnant and due to have a child in the times of Pharaoh? In the times when Pharaoh had given orders to have all the baby boys birthed to the Hebrew women thrown into the Nile? It was safe to have a girl child, those weren't snatched away and so rapidly slaughtered; but the boys..........

What, I wonder, was that like?

Did they dread the news of pregnancy? No doubt panic set in from the moment they knew that they were with child. Fear, like none that I can imagine, had to flood the mind like no other time. Did they spend their days and nights praying, "Please Lord, let this child that I'm carrying be a girl. I cannot bare for it to be ripped away from me and drowned after carrying it for so long. Lord, please, I don't know how I could stand it." ??

Were there prayers like that?

In a time and day in culture when boys were the choice gender to give birth to.... that season of time had changed the choices, I'm sure, of so many of the women.

It takes a lot out of you to have a babe in your womb. Yet, even the hardness and challenging moments of the pregnancy endears you toward that child inside. Even the throes and thrashing of the labor does the same. Pain seeks its reward. Pain searches for purpose. Pain demands a reason. And seeing that precious babe's face for the very first time, makes the excruciatingness of the pain an even greater exuberance of joy. And yet, in this day, even that was ripped away. The anguishing look of the mom just after birth, sweat drenching her hair and beading on her face, her eyes in anguish in that first few seconds of not knowing.......................... Then the mere whisper (even if not spoken verbally, shown on the face), "What is it?"

"It's a ______________." What was the sex that they longed for?

"It's a girl!" Surely exhaled breaths that had been held was expelled with a relief that can't be measured. Perhaps, "it's a boy" wasn't even spoken.... but instead sorrowed eyes were made more furrowed and sorrowed with a slight shake of the head from the sadness of the knowing.

How horrid! What was that like?

Then, seeing moms that you'd seen growing a belly for months walking the streets with empty arms in horrified reality and mourning...... What if you'd been pregnant too, at the same time, and you now carried a female infant, while the other mom carried none.... Or vice versa. What horror! What an absolutely ferocious time to live in.

Can you imagine the emptiness on the streets that showed for years and years and years until that whole generation was no more. Only girl children playing girl games and doing girl things and girl chores.... with no boy children throwing rocks and sticks and learning how to wield a bow or a sword. No little boy toddler's feet following their father's footsteps. No little boys being circumcised or presented to the priest for purification.

If they had school in their day as we do in ours, can you imagine those schools years filled with chairs of one gender? Can you imagine the weirdness in the lack of guys in the seats? It was an everyday everywhere constant reminder of what had been done.

What was that like?

And then.... in all that..... there was Moses. "Drawn out"... as his name means.... but "what exactly for?" I'm sure he wondered. And again, everywhere he went in all that he did, he was consciously aware of what had happened in his loneness. No boys to play with his very same age........................No men of his nationality his same age when he grew older.....................?

What was that like?

And then again, it happened again.... this time in Jesus' day.

What was it like?..... What was it like so lonely in its realness?

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Imagination... a made-up mind!

2012-01-13T11:49:00.000-06:00

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Meet Karson. He's got a lesson to teach.

Karson is a cutie. A tiny thing in a three year old body, still shroud in clothes measured for 18 month olds. He was still two when this happened. He may be young, but he has a vocabulary that is astounding.

He loves words. He loves sentences. He loves putting them together. He'll tell you something in one sentence, and then tell you the same thing again in another using different words for the things he's just told you about. He can literally carry a conversation quite impressively well with adult men. He's hilarious. And a fun little man to watch in action.

Okay now.... now how do I tell this? How do I start to get to my point?

Keep Karson in mind. Pause his story for a minute. Let me retrack a sec and tell you about Stacy.

Stacy divorced a dozen years ago and hasn't dated since. Until just recently. She's falling quickly for this new man she's met. And with her fall, because of her uncertainty, she has new fear. Her fear in the last couple of weeks has been developing into panic.

Steve hadn't called her since Friday. It was Sunday when she called to tell me. By Tuesday she couldn't stand it any longer. She stopped by his office to see him. To ask why? What's up? What's he thinking? What's he doing? Does he not want to do this anymore?

The story's complicated. Too long to tell. But seriously, his excuse sounded excusable. I had told her earlier that it probably was. He was overwhelmed. Over burdened. Over stressed. Over everything about all sorts of things. And he was just trying to work some things out.

Evidently her stop helped refresh him, uplift him, lessen his load. By that afternoon, he was back to his normal. He called so much, in fact, that by Friday afternoon she confronted him again. Wondering how he could bounce back so quickly to normal as if nothing had happened after a whole weekend of cold? This time, without meaning to, she heavied his load.

The last three weeks have been back and forth like this. And mostly this is the problem. Her mind's imagination. Her wonder of what might be happening when she doesn't hear from him. The scenarios her mind makes up for what might be happening. Her speculation.

It's like when my son fails to text me back when I've texted him. I'll allow him the permitted estimated time that I think it should take... and when I don't hear in the properly time allotted, I'll text again. If I still don't hear, I'll call. If he doesn't answer?................. I start to panic. My mind quickly decides why. He's probably doing something he shouldn't. Or he's somewhere he's not supposed to be. Or, he's dead! He's had a wreck, and it has to have killed him, because if he were conscious he would have called. I mourn his death. Picture the family and friends that will soon be coming by. Visualize the funeral. And............................ I make myself miserable! I'm a mess when he calls. And mad, by then! Poor thing. It's really because of nothing he did, more simply it's because of where all my mind went because he didn't. [Please forgive! It's hard being a mom! A mom's imagination is scary!]

That's what Stacey is doing with Steve. And it's not healthful or joyful for either of them.

Back to Karson. He called his "Honey" (his grandmother). While on the phone he decided to tell her a story. One he made up. But not made up in advance. He was making up this story as he was talking to her. It went something like this....

"Honey, I was walking in the woods, Honey. I was walking in the woods down a trail. And, Honey, as I was walking a fox came out from the woods. Then, Honey, not just one fox, but so many foxes came that they were surrounding me................ Mama! Mama! I need you, mama!! Come hold me, mama!! Mama!!! Come hold me!"

At this point my sister (his "Honey") questioned him, "Karson? Are you okay, Karson?.... Karson!" She was on the phone, so she couldn't see what was happening.

Karson continues his urgent plea with his mom, "Mama! Come hold me! I need you to come hold me! Mama!"

Honey hears his fear and so asks him, "What's wrong, Karson....?" But before he answers and as he continues to plead with his mom she figures it out. "Karson? Are you afraid of the foxes, Karson? It's not real. It's just what your mind made up. It's just your made up story. There are no foxes around you really." But.... he still needed his mama. :)

How often are we like that? We make up things in our own minds to make us fearful about. It's not true. It's just a made-up place that our visual in our imaginations took us off to. It's not really happening, but our thinking convinces us that it is, or that it will.., that is already has, or that it's going to....

That's what Abraham did. When he journeyed in the land that God had told him to go to that He had promised him. Abraham was fearful of the Pharaohs in the land. Sarah, his wife, was beautiful. Abraham was afraid that the kings would put him to death in order to take her into their kingdom. So before they even left, he made an agreement with Sarah to not tell them that she was his wife, but to tell them instead that she was his sister (she actually was his half-sister.. but yes, his wife too!) whenever they came to a new land.

I had been studying this (about Abraham) when I heard what Karson did. And after I'd talked to Stacy about what she'd imagined about Steve. I loved the parallels between the three pictures. It's amazing to me though how Abraham could believe and have faith that God would give him the son that He'd promised him... but that he was afraid that the people in the land that he was going into would kill him. His fear blinded him to see the logic. He couldn't have a son.... if they (to get him out of the way) put him to death. :)

During this same time of pondering all three of the above stories a friend of mine posted something on his Facebook status. He said that he had had to break up a wrestling match between two of his sons that morning. One, a 4 year old. The other, 2. After breaking up their madness he asked them what in the world had them in such a tizzy that they had to fight like that? One son told him that the other son had stolen his imaginary chicken and wouldn't give it back to him!

How hilarious is that! They were fighting over something that they'd made up in their minds! I laughed when I saw it and asked if they couldn't have just made up another one so that they both could have one, therefore leaving them with nothing at all to cause such a fuss and a fight over?

All of these examples may sound so silly, but aren't we all like that? Don't our imaginations and made-up wonder give us grief and often get us into trouble? Sometimes they even get us into fights! Next time your mind starts to wonder, think of the imaginary chicken and ask yourself: Is this real... or, have I just made my mind up? :) Don't fight or be frustrated or fearful over something merely imagined............. real life is hard enough as it is, without all the added not-really-real stuff!

I found a verse that fits so perfectly. From out of the mouth of Job, he says, “When I think about this I am terrified and trembling seizes my body” ~ Job 21:6. What do you "think about" that sends your body to seizing senselessly without actually having true need to?

A "made-up mind"..... Wooo!.... and the needless control that it often has over us................

[images above (Imagination / Dream Preferred) were used pending permission from archann.deviantart.com/gallery /.... Let's hope she says "yes"... or i'll have to pull them. But, beautifully done, aren't they!]
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Bumfuzzled!

2012-01-12T23:52:00.000-06:00

My daughter texted me a picture of a partial texted conversation between her and a guy friend of hers. It went like this:

Him: You bumfuzzle me.

Her: Bumfuzzle? Shall I

google?

Him: Haha yeah bc im not
sure its a real word!

Her: bumfuzzle - to create a

chaotic situation within a

person's mind.

Him: Exactly what you do to
me! :)

Ha. Bumfuzzled. Been there, done that, worn the t-shirt. Had it done to me. Done it to another.

I couldn't resist the have-to. I also looked it up myself:

to confuse
to fluster
to baffle
(and the one chosen to share by my daughter... which happens to have resonated with me as my favorite as obviously as it was hers) to create a chaotic situation within a person's mind

Let me say that again (Read slowly! HEAR what you're reading): "to create a chaotic situation within a person's mind!"

Oh my goodness, at the chaotic situations that have been created within my mind!!!!!!!! Against my daughter's knowing I was writing about such as this earlier (hopefully the post will soon follow) about "chaotic situations" being created inside our minds (although, I didn't know yet to define it as that).

You know, it doesn't take another person to create it for us. We, all by our lonesomes, have grown very good at creating our own chaotic thinking. And sometimes (it seems), that after we've created such, that we can't shut our minds up! What turmoil they muster! What havoc they produce! What misery we wallow in after all that chaos has been created and shooshes around... breathing more confusion with each new sloosh....

I looked that up, as well, and defined "chaos" too. Some of chaos' definitions described the word like this:

the polar opposite of order
a state of reality in which one's reality is NOT under control
the state of utter confusion

Who can't relate to this? Once the mind loses its control on its thinking, we've lost the state of our reality! Once "bumfuzzled-ness" is allowed to take over and drive, our reality state is no longer sensible! And often, when the thinking is sinful and we allow the sin to set in, when we give it audience and permission to go where it next desires to takes us to.... chaos! confusion! bumfuzzle-ness! a horrible "situation" of corruption is found erupted in our heads!

I'm reminded that in that state that we have great need to hear God saying to us as God is recorded as saying in Jeremiah 4:14, "O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shalt thy vain thoughts lodge [stop over, abide, remain, dwell, complain, murmur, grumble] within thee?"

Woo! I'll tell you what's scary... it's scary how quickly and easily and FAR an unreined thought can take us! And "how long" we can be all caught up in wherever that is!

Hmmm... it doesn't even really take much to start the bumfuzzling!.................. It doesn't take much to create that chaotic situation inside a person's mind. Bless our hearts, because goodness at all that goes on in there!

:)

Mostly... I thought it was the funniest text! I love that guy (and his confusionment). I had to figure out a way to share it! :)
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"How did you get caught?"

2012-01-09T13:47:00.000-06:00

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I heard a question. An ex-felon was being interviewed by some students. One student asked him, "How did you get caught?"

The ex-felon's answer? "A momentary lapse in concentration."

"It wasn't the feds?"

"Well," the ex-offender said, "the feds would like to take credit for it. But in reality, for a moment I was concentrated on something else."

Wow! So us! How do we get caught? We have a momentary lax of focus! The enemy tries to take credit for it, but he only set the bait, we're the ones that turn our heads. We loose our looks! We loose our concentration. We take our faces off of our Savior's. Our attention's stolen! And then, before we meant for it to happen, sin catches us in its trap and we find ourselves imprisoned in it! Caught... by the thing that we turned to! Scary how quickly it can happen.

Hebrews 12:2 says, "Let us FIX our eyes on Jesus..." And then for the rest of our lives in our try to.... sin tempts, the enemy fights and will try to use anything to turn our heads..... and trap us!

Let me give you an example...

I was talking to a girl in prison the other day. She's fired up for Jesus! She consumes her time in studying about Him. And if you're around her very long, she can preach it, girlfriend! Her animosity for her Savior is powerful and contagious! I've not known her long, but I'm impressed with her passion.

She came into class on Wednesday. We went about our lesson with enthusiasm until some question was asked. I don't remember what it was, so can't remember what prompted her answer, but then she told us of the new fury at hand. Her mom had recently died and she's not liking what her brother is doing with her affairs while she's stuck inside a prison with no say so. She's so mad that you can feel the heat from just sitting by her. After she finished, I asked, "But is it worth it? The things that you're now mad at him for from the things that you want that you can't get?" In her eyes, at the moment, it is! I didn't get very far, so we continued on with the lesson.

It was right after then that this sentence came up from the book in our study, "Verse 11 [in 2 Cor 2:10-11] says that if we refuse to forgive, Satan finds an open door to outwit us or take advantage of us.... The enemy specializes in taking advantage of someone's refusal to forgive."

Needless to say, her eyes opened wide at the timely perfectness of the statement! This is the perfect example of the enemy trying to make us "momentarily loose our concentration" and focus so that we'd be caught! If she focuses too long on her anger toward her brother, rage wins.. and soon bitterness takes over. In her freedom, she's lost her look and become imprisoned again!

"Fix your eyes on Jesus..."! Yes! A simple fix....... A real FIX on the true Face will stop any trap from happening!

We need a true FIX!

:)
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Who are You? Show me more of Your "Who"-ness!

2012-01-08T23:49:00.000-06:00

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I posted on this subject just recently on December 9th, 2011. I have two reasons for posting about it again.

Because I've had my 2011 year's posts already printed and bound in a book. Since then, I have additional things that I'd like to add to it; and sadly, the new information will miss last year's publishing. :/ So, I've opted to put it here a second time, in order for the added stuff to make it into next year's printing.
I've edited a bit and corrected some spelling, etc. Mostly, I wanted to tell more of the story.

"Did God really say?"

I've been waiting for a miracle. And I've been waiting a very long time for it. I've been waiting for God to heal a little girl since before she was born when we found out there was something wrong. I've not only been waiting with hope, but I've been waiting with what I have earnestly believed is a knowing. God's outdone Himself with this. In truth, it's more like it's His hope (or rather, knowing) that He's put into my hands.... and that He keeps His hands cupped around mine for its safe keeping.

Her name is Mikayla. Her name means: "Who is like God?" The only times the "Who is like God" exclamations are said in the Scriptures are in times when God has done something so phenomenally unexplainable that no other anybody or god can do. "Who is like God" statements exclaim our wonder of Him and all that He does or is doing or is going to do.

"Who is like unto Thee, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" ~ Exo 15:11
"My whole being will exclaim, "Who is like You, O LORD?" Psalm 35:10
"Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God, You Who have done great things. Who, O God, is like You?" Psalm 71:19
"Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary [in holiness, away from sin and guilt]. Who is a great God like our God? You are the God Who performs miracles; You display Your power among the peoples." Psalm 77:13-14
"For who in the skies above can compare with the LORD? Who is like the LORD among the heavenly beings? In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; He is more awesome than all who surround Him. O LORD God Almighty, Who is like You? You are mighty, O LORD, and Your faithfulness surrounds You." Psalm 89:6-8
"The LORD is exalted over all the nations, His glory above the heavens. Who is like the LORD our God, the One Who sits enthroned on high, Who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth.," Psalm 113:4-6

It's a very long story. One that I've got volumes on logged from the past. Every now and then I write Mikayla's daddy to share what has happened. Tonight was one of those times. I wrote him a letter. You'll find it below. And following my letter, you'll find both his and my responses. I wrote on Jan 8, 2012 at 9:29 PM:

Dear Jon,

I apologize for not waiting on you this morning after church as you told me to. I wouldn't have minded, but I had two guests waiting for me.... and I hated making them stand any longer. Instead of me rewriting what happened and what I wanted to share with you, I will simply copy and paste the blog that I posted that tells about it below. Mostly, I am showing you another glimpse of God doing what God seems to do... even in my faithlessness, He tries to keep me faithful. Every single time (I mean, EVERY SINGLE TIME!) that I try to drop it, God makes sure to give it to me again before it totally hits the ground. It simply blows my mind every time. I don't know why. But even after all the times that He's done it, I am never expecting Him to do it again. It takes me by surprise again, as if He's doing it for the very first time. Jon, with Mikayla? God won't let me give up!

Here's what I had written:

Friday, December 9, 2011

"Did God really say?"

Interesting! Oh my, and superbly so! I don't know what prompted my thoughts to even go there. My mind went to a thing that I have been believing God to do for years! I mean, it's been a very long time! And with each day that passes, the possibility looks even more improbable and impossible. It was something that I was once so sure about! Something that I knew that I knew that I knew! Something that I felt God Himself say to me in His Word, and all kinds of other places, over and over and over and over and over again! And it seemed that every time He'd tell me, I wasn't even looking for it. I wasn't even asking. And a zillion times throughout all those years, He'd do something to bring it up and confirm it again right out of the blue.... kind of like a pee-a-boo! :)

As I was painting this face of mine this morning, I was listening to a sermon. The subject was on storms. A perfect subject for my 2011 year's season. I was hearing the message loudly. I could relate to the throes of the wind that blew, and all of the wind's destruction. I mean, I was really into this lesson. I was feeling it! I'd been living it. Yet for some odd reason my mind turned right in the middle of what I was hearing, and the reminder of that impossible thing that I had been believing God for years to do that He hadn't done yet, popped into my brain. I paused the lesson to sit there and ponder upon it a minute. And that's when I said to Him, "I don't know anymore, Lord. I just don't know. I'm not as sure about it as I used to be." And I quit talking. But my mind still wondered.... And I remember thinking, "It's okay, God, if it's not as I thought it was" (as if He needed my permission not to do what I once believed He might.)

Within seconds... (and I do mean, within seconds!).... without me having a clue that God was planning on addressing my wonder! Having no inkling of an idea of all that God was fixing to answer! He said to me (in the voice of the one teaching the lesson that I had just pressed again to listen to, not having any idea what would be on it for me to hear).... Here's what I hear (mind you, the subject I had been listening to was STORMS! and how storms overtake our lives. That's what I thought He'd be addressing, NOT the thing that I had just said and nonchalantly put before Him.)....

(Now don't forget what I'd just said to God).... Immediately, when I pressed play, the teacher points out what God has said in Acts 27:25. Shall I share it with you? "So keep your courage, dear brothers, for I have faith in God that it will happen to me just as He told me." Wooo! Powerful enough! But then she says (and I quote), "Now I'm about to say something to some that is new, this is going to lose you for a second. But let me talk to the others that have been around for a long time for just a minute. Some of us have gotten a clear word from God that we have given up on. It may have been five years ago. It may have been ten years ago. What did He say to you? I've come to ask you today, What did God tell you? Did you know at the ... I mean, did you know that you knew? Did you get a confirmation? My guess is that for many of you in this room that got a clear word from God, that every time you turned around God used something else to confirm it. Am I speaking to anybody here? Then, I'm going to ask you a question: Do you still believe Him for that word? Or have you given up on it? Because He's said, you take Me at My word and you believe that what I have said will come to pass! Luke 1:45 (MY SCRIPTURE!!! One of the very ones that He gave me eons ago about this very matter!), "Bless is she [not he! I love that He says "she"!].... Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished"!!!!! Someone has come this very night just to hear from God that He is still going to do what He told you He was going to do. Do not give up! It is a matter of timing............................"

Well........................... do I feel spoken to or what? Do I feel I just heard a fresh word from God about an old one, or what? I say to Him, "I'm not sure, Lord"?????? Well, evidently, the Lord is sure! And He is wanting to make a very loud and vivid point to remind me of it!

"Did God really say?" (Big smile!) Yes! I can truly say that He's said! He still speaks. And after He's said, He's really, really, really good at often saying again after He's said it.

Thank You, Lord, today for re-saying to me! I believe!!!! How could I not continue to after the so many times that You've said it? I love how You're Faithful even in my sometimes weeble-wobbling unfaithfulness. Oh, how I love Your Word..... and Your Word that keeps on saying! Your Word that accomplishes what You sent it forth to do. I so love that You speak! And I love, that despite our doubt, You keep right on speaking it!

Next Day (This was later added in the comments to the post): December 10, 2011...... Now, to add to what I've just written.... Just in case I question what God's said and the volume in which He meant to say it. Let me share the two emailed verses in two different emails that I received in my email this very next morning as my "verse for the day". Mind you, I only get two. (I'm just saying, I couldn't make this up!)

The first: "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished" (Luke 1:45)! Woe! He just said this to me yesterday! When He says and then keeps on saying..... wow, I'd say that it's a good time to LISTEN to Him!

The second: "God can do anything!" (Luke 1:37 ERV) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do believe He might be adding to that statement, and who am I to dare to question it?

Random? Ironic? Coincidental? Just a fluke? Just some happening? Indeed, I think not! I think God's got a point to make..... and that He's truly just made it!

___________________________________

John writes back to me on Sun, Jan 8, 2012 @ 5:17 PM:

Dear Sharon,

It's okay that you had to leave; I understand that under the circumstances it wasn't convenient to do so. Thank you very much for sharing your stories with me. I don't believe in coincidences. I believe God was communicating with you in a powerful way. Contrast Mary's belief to Zachariah's doubt and notice the difference. He had asked for a son long ago and had probably long since quit praying for one. And yet, Gabriel says that Zachariah's prayer has been heard and promises that it will be answered according to his heart's desire. He struggled to believe. Perhaps because he has given up all hope that his prayer would be / could be answered? In contrast, Mary accepts Gabriel's word and submits to God's decision, even though she cannot figure the logistics. Thanks for the reminder to keep believing and praying for Mikayla. We do believe that with God all things are possible.

God give you joy!
Jon
____________________________________

I respond to his reply on Sun, Jan 8, 2012 @ 5:22 PM:

WOW! HUGE comparison between Zechariah and Mary! A contrast that I'd never thought of in such a way before.

Who is like God! May He show us more of His "Who"-ness! :)

____________________________

And Jon shoots back a reply: YES!!!!
____________________________

Who is like You, O God! Who are You? SHOW us, Lord, more of Your "Who"-ness!
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I need to see You see me

2012-01-06T15:34:00.003-06:00

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"I NEED to see You see me!!!!"

It's a prayer I often pray. It's words that I've said too many times to count, and I mean them afresh with every new next time that I say them. If you could ask God He could verify to you that very fact. I'm sure He'd tell you, "Yes, she does! She asks Me a lot!"

:)

The thought that provoked the long-time prayer came from Genesis 16:13 when God goes to Hagar after she's run from the mistreatment of her mistress. The angel of the Lord "finds" her and says to her, "Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?"

I love how he preambles the question with showing her that he knows exactly who she is. And with that knowing of such exact, he also knows where she's come from... and he knows where she's going. Better still, he knows her why that she's doing it!

She tells him that she's running away from her mistress. He tells her to go back. And then he tells her what to do and what will happen and what will become of the child that she's carrying.

It's after he's left that she says, "You are the God who sees me. I have now seen the One who sees me."

We, each of us, have a great, great, great need for Him to see us! And we have just as great of a need for us to see Him seeing us! That's why I pray that. That's why I say that. It's something that I already know... but every now and then you just plain out need out loud evidence! You need to see Him see you! You need evidence that you've been... and are being... seen by the One who sees!!!
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Be careful what you app!!!!

2012-01-05T23:48:00.000-06:00

My youngest daughter just got an iPhone and she's thoroughly enjoying her play with it! It came in right before she had to leave for work today. And as we speak, she's just now walked back in again. She came in saying, "Mom, they have all kinds of weird apps on here. There's apps to make your boobs bigger....."

Wait! I said back. How can an app make your boobs bigger?

She said, "No. It's to make your boobs in your pictures look bigger."

Nah! Don't want it!

Then, "There's an app that's a menstrual cycle counter and tells you what your moods swings should be. And when. Like when you should be happy. Or when you should just stay away from people. There's an app to hypnotize yourself......" And she continued to list more.

I don't know. There's evidently a whole host of who-in-the-world-ever-came-up-with-that app selections to app if you'd like to.

I told her, "Sabrina, be careful what you app.... someone might get a hold of your phone sometimes and see what you've apped. It could be embarrassing."

She agreed!

And now (I may be sharing way too much information in one night), my oldest daughter came and joined us on my bed. She told me that she just texted her friend and said, "Justin, I'm going to the farm tomorrow!!! I'm so excited that I don't know whether I'm going to cry when I get there, or pee my pants."

Justin replied, "Well, yeah, those are two totally different bodily functions."

She said, "Ewe. I can't believe he just said that."

I said "I can't believe you just did! And he's right, they are both totally different bodily liquidizations of some kind."

She was even more grossed out from what I said. Hey, she's the one that said what she said to start it!

Okay.... so now you get a glimpse of our weirdnesses at night. Maybe it's time for us to go to bed?!

But! Before I do. Back to the apps. It's good advice to take in life, "Be careful what you app".... as in what applications you pick up from what's offered to you to apply to yourself! We app too quickly sometimes. When sometimes we can refuse an app that wants to be downloaded in life.

Application: Anger
Application: Mean
Application: Envy
Application: Bitter
Application: Greed
Application: Love
Application: Grace
Application: Forgive
Application: Share
Application:.............. you get the picture! We're quick to app! Just be careful which ones you apply... If you don't make wise choices, it really could get embarrassing.
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Trying to wear big girl panties

2012-01-05T22:09:00.000-06:00

A month or so ago my oldest daughter was in the throes of a quandary. She was restless in her indecisiveness. She was trying to figure out whether she wanted to move to another city or simply stay here. She felt both the pull to go... and the pull not to. She has lots of friends that live there already, and several more of her friends are going. They were all talking about finding a house to rent together. A new store was opening where she'd really like to work. But her roots were growing deeper since she'd been home, and she wasn't sure she truly wanted to uproot them again so soon. In her perplexity she asked me my opinion and I told her that only she alone could make that decision, that I couldn't make it for her. I told her that, "I am definitely not trying to push you out of the nest... but I am trying to be all grown-up with big-girl panties and let you have your wings to fly if you want to." That statement made us both want to cry.

I've enjoyed her so much! We stay up most nights way into the wee hours of the morning discussing everything together and giggling ourselves silly. Not only do we have a sweet mother-daughter relationship, but we've become really, really, really very good friends.

She put the whole thing in God's hands. And He did what He does and blew both of our minds with His answer. She was offered a managers position at the new Free People store that is opening in Birmingham in February. She flies out to Austin in 2 1/2 weeks for the training. Just when we thought that she may be staying home after all and that Birmingham wasn't in the plan... He ups and surprises us and turns everything topsy-turvy. She found this out 2 days ago... and she's been on full speed ahead every since. Woo... there's lots to get ready before then... but it looks like this thing is really going to happen.

And so now I sit here thinking about it. Because it's now time to put my big girl panties on and let that precious bird of mine fly out again. Wow, sometimes it's hard being a mom..... even though, I am a very proud one! Free People, huh? Who would have thought? I'll say this though, because of Jesus Christ and all that He's done in her life, she's now one of the free-est people I know! Free People seems to perfectly fit her!
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Sometimes He makes me cry

2012-01-05T21:09:00.000-06:00

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I was reading today in Ezekiel's 18th chapter... and sometimes what God says makes me cry. I seriously almost couldn't control myself. Listen at how kind and loving and forgiving and merciful He is.... even when we think He's not. (Make sure to read all the way to the end... and try to hear it as actually hearing God saying it.)

"The Word of the LORD came to me:

"What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:

"'The fathers eat sour grapes,

and the children's teeth are set on edge'"?

As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to Me, the father as well as the son - both alike belong to Me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.

Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right, He does not eat at the mountain shrines or look to the idols of the house of Israel. He does not defile his neighbor's wife or lie with a women during her period. He does not oppress anyone, but returns what he took in pledge for a loan, he does not commit robbery, but gives food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked. He does not lend at usury or take excessive interest. He withholds his hand from doing wrong and judges fairly between man and man. He follows My decrees and faithfully keeps My laws. That man is righteous; he will surely live, declares the Sovereign LORD.

Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood or does any of these other things (though the father has done none of them):

He eats the mountain shrines, he defiles his neighbor's wife. He oppresses the poor and needy. He commits robbery, he does not return what he took in pledge. He looks to the idols. He does detestable things. He lends at usury and takes excessive interest.

Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head.

But suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he does not do such things:

He does not eat at the mountain shrines or look to the idols of the house of Israel. He does not defile his neighbor's wife. He does not oppress anyone or require a pledge for a loan. He does not commit robbery but gives his food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked. He withholds his hand from sin and takes no usury or excessive interest. He keeps My laws and follows My decrees.

He will not die for his father's sin; he will surely live. But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.

Yet you ask, 'Why does the son not share in the guilt of his father?' Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all My decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all My decrees, and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?

But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live? None of the righteous things he has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness he is guilty of and because of the sins he has committed, he will die.

Yet you say, 'The way of the LORD is not just.' Hear, O house of Israel: Is My way unjust? Is it not Your ways that are unjust? If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die. But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die. yet the house of Israel says, 'The ways of the Lord is not just.' Are My ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?

"Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!"

Dear Mountain View, California...

2012-01-04T23:33:00.001-06:00

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Dear Mountain View, California,

I've thought long about doing this before actually posting. I'm still not completely sure of my sanity in doing so. And I may unpublish it after I've thought about it more... Ach! I hope it doesn't end up being a foolish thing and I end up running a friend that I've never met off before actually ever meeting her. But. Here goes! Why not? I hope I don't hate myself in the morning. :)

I've just ordered my blogs put in a book for this past year's sayins' in 2011. I'm excited! It'll be my third book that I've had bounded and put on my shelf. Okay, so it's only here for me to see... but it's fun if even nobody else.

Interestingly, I have random readers from different places. Even more interestingly, often from other countries. It's simply the generation that we live in, cyber world allows us to read from people posting on opposite sides of our world! I love that!

Anyway, most aren't regulars. But looking back over the site meter on my page, I noticed that Mountain View, California, shows up a whole lot more than most places. I'd like to introduce myself. I'm weird. And crazy. And mostly shy (although a lot of people would argue against that). And greatly insecure. But instead of coffee, if you won't mind, I'd like to buy you a book.

You may not want one. And may not know what to do with it if you had it. It's not so that you'll glean continually over the pages. It's just a gift that I'd like to give.

If you'll email me (sharonwlee@aol.com) and send me your address, I'll order you a copy and send one your way. You can pick any year out of the three: 2009, 2010, or 2011.... And if I've horrified you (please forgive!!!) and you wouldn't like any, that works too! We can still be friends! Friends don't run from every "no" given. You've just honored me every time you've come back to look..... and today, if you'll let me, I'd like to honor you back.

With genuine affection and respect,
Sharon Lee..... just sayin' :)
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Why I'm not sayin...

2012-01-04T23:05:00.001-06:00

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I've lots to say! There's plenty to say! Loads to share! In both the whoas over God's Word and the happenings around here.

So, why then, am I not sayin?

Because:

I can't find the time to.
Or: I've either written too much about a subject.
Or: Didn't have the opportunity to finish.
Or: My daughter's been on my computer...!!! (Need I say more?) :)

Oh, don't doubt me, I've definitely "said"...... I've just not had the opportunity to "said" it out loud in publishing mode! God is so GOoD! Thus far, it's been a very GOoD and sweet year!

P.S. I've read a lot.... and so have sooooooooooooooo much to share!!!!

But!

2012-01-02T22:31:00.000-06:00

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Hmmm. "But Noah!" "Noah found favor in the eyes of LORD" (Gen 6:8,9). How sweet! How assuring! How comforting! Wow, can you imagine being a "but" you (especially compared to the previous post)! But you were different! You weren't like the others! Your mind and thinking and the imaginations of your heart didn't think evil all the time like all the others did! You "found favor" with God! Incredible! An amazing wonder!

And so Noah and his family were saved. Because of such favor! Because he walked differently! Righteous! Blameless. And he "walked with God"... not against Him! The Amplified says, "Noah walked [in habitual fellowship] with God." Habitually so! I love it!

Woo... it counts who we walk "with".... and Who walks "with" us!

[Okay. Okay. I'll hush. As I said earlier, I'm biting my tongue! Truly, there's so much to say!]
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We fill His heart with pain?

2012-01-02T21:11:00.002-06:00

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"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that He had made man on earth, and His heart was filled with pain." ~ Gen 6:5-6

That has to be one of the saddest Scriptures written. Can you imagine God Himself having someone write that about Him? It hurts my heart every time I read it. I'm sad that we grieve Him. I'm horrified that we can fill His heart with pain. I'm even more horrified that we do it even after knowing we do. That we'll continue to chose wrong, after He's told us right, and we won't care in the moment of our choosing that it hurts Him. We won't even be thinking about Him in the midst of it, we'll only be thinking of us. Ugh, at the audacity of the creatures He's made! How bold! How thoughtless! How heartless! How in-your-face! I'm so sorry Lord God for all of the times I've grieved You and made you hurt!

One version words it this way, ".. all the thoughts of their heart was bent upon evil at all times." Another, "He saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil."

Wow! What do you think about? What does your mind imagine? Where are your heart's thoughts bent to? How often is your thinking of something evil? Who you're mad at? What you're envious of? What you'd like to do that you shouldn't? Etc......

I was watching a movie... and in it, you could stand back and by their faces imagine the thoughts that they were thinking. They weren't good. And then, the vengeance each tried to take on the other. The sex. The lies. The lack of honesty. The lack of loyalty. The lack of integrity. And this wasn't even what we'd consider a bad movie! And sadly, on top of being horrified at all that was going on..... it made me even sadder that we're so very often, if not doing it, being entertained by it! Oh my, at the subtlety and deceitfulness of the enemy. His schemes are covered in such well wrapped deception. Even sometimes when we think we're not doing wrong.... we are. And I wonder (thinking about recently watching TV... and coupling that with the verse I've just read) how often the enemy subtlety plants that evil inclination thinking inside our minds, all the while that we're totally oblivious that it went just as he'd planned it?

I keep thinking that "it's all about the look" (I know I keep posting about it), but it is! Eve ate the fruit after desiring the thing that she was seeing! Cain killed his brother, because of where his face was focused and he didn't bother to change it. We follow where our eyes are fixed. And the enemy is determined to get our eyes to fasten on any wrong he can manage to capture our look on. Whether it's a desire. A lust. A greed. Or a fury. He schemes continually and tries to turn our heads!

"Everything they thought or imagined...."

Be careful on what you allow your heart to turn its look upon.... and NEVER let it stay looked on where it shouldn't!
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I love God's "Let"s!

2012-01-02T18:43:00.001-06:00

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Like many, I've started again the reading the Bible through for this 2012 year we've just entered. Dare we enter without it! We need the commandments, we need the warnings, we need to be equipped, directed, empowered; we need the convicting, the rebuking, the reproving; we need the reminders, the refreshing, the renewing, the refueling............... And, we need all of the other things that the wonder of God's Word does!

So.... I'm both in the Old and the New. A little bit here, a little bit there... They both have so many riches yet to unfold!

In my dig, shall I begin to share some of the riches I find while I glean through those fields? Just little snippets.... (unless, of course, I can't catch where my thoughts want to run and they quickly run away with me before I've controlled them). It's always so good. I can't wait! Let's go!

I'll start in Genesis chapters 1-5

* Genesis 1 ~ God said, "Let"...

"And God said, "Let.....," and there was....." 1:3
"And God said, "Let....." ..... And it was so." 1:6-7
"And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:9
"And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:11
"And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:14-15
"And God said, "Let....." So God created..." 1:20-21
"And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:24
"Then God said, "Let...." So God created..." 1:26-27

I love God's "let"s! I love that "there was" and "it was so" after He's let it! I don't know about you, but I do know about most, I think we all have a few "lets" that we'd like for God to "let" so that there'd be... and it'd be so! He just says.... and it is! Who, but God, can do such! There's no other like Him! I've fallen in love with His saying! Every Word of His has meaning! Has purpose! He sends it forth for a reason! Every Word spoken does its work! It does exactly as He's told it!

* Genesis 1-3 ~ Has more saying... And then the enemy (by saying) attempts to twist (cast doubt on) what God's said.

Following all of those above, God says in verses 28 and 29. "God commanded" in 2:16 the man that He'd made not to eat from only the one tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God says again in 2:17, saying that it's not good for a man to be alone, He says that He'll make him a helper.

We hear the man say in 2:23 concerning the woman that God has made him. And then, the next sayer we hear saying of is in verse 1 of the 3rd chapter. It's the serpent that's "more crafty" than any of the other wild animals. He says, "Did God really say?"....................... And then he and the woman argue a few minutes on whether God said or He didn't and what it was He'd said when He did. Woo.... do we ever get caught in that trap doing the same!

We look to see what God's said... and sometimes we don't. Yet often when we do, it doesn't take much to make us question it. (What is that?) Even after it was said in such a powerful and profound way that there was no doubt of His saying so because in the moment our mind was blown away by hearing Him. Even after God confirms what He's said in His Word; and again, everywhere our eyes turn He purposefully confirms it again. Even after all that, it doesn't take much to make us question what we've heard. No wonder He hates it so when we doubt Him (James 1:5-8)!

* Genesis 3 ~ Questions: Where are ya? What'd ya do?

Adam and Eve "hid" from God after they sinned. And God did what God does, He went to find them. Just as Jesus tells of the Shepherd leaving the 99 to look for the 1 after it's wandered (Matt 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7). We have the same God today as yesterday. And He'll continue to be that same One that will also search when we hide from Him tomorrow!

It doesn't matter where we are and what we've done, His desire is to rescue and to save us! And just as He covered Adam and Eve in their nakedness in coats from something sacrificed, He covers us in our nakedness of sin with the blood sacrifice of His Son.

The woman said in 3:13 that, "The serpent deceived me, and I ____." What did she do? She ate. But you fill in your blank. What would yours have said? Then, because of each one's sin, Adam and Eve and the serpent, all had consequences because they'd done it. Wildly, we're often still deceived into thinking we won't be! We do the sin.... and we hide it.... and we think, for some reason we think that we won't get caught. How stupid of us! God warns us, "be sure your sin will find you out" (Num 32:23). Sin has its way of telling on you so that you'll be found! And sin costs! It's never free. Thankfully Christ has paid that price for you and for me!

* Genesis 4 ~ What are you so mad about? Fix your face or you're gonna lose it!

Well, if anyone knows me much at all, you know that this chapter is forever hounding me! I can't tell you how often I hear God say, Why are you angry? Fix your face, that's not a good look! He asked Adam in his mad, what he was mad about. And then He asked, "Why is your face downcast?" Listen to Him when He asks that! It's a really big question! He's asking you for the reason your face looks like that? And the answer lies in the wherever your face is looking! In other words, He's telling you to fix your face! Basically "fix" it on His. Because if you don't, you're going to lose control of it and your actions! It's a huge lesson for me! Stick around much and you'll see that I tend to blog on the subject a lot!

Adam doesn't fix his face... nor his look. He stays angry. So the sin that he was warned about that was crouching at his door desiring to control him,... did! He went out and killed his brother. His enemy wasn't against flesh and blood, but against something inside him much darker that begged for control... and got it (Eph 6:10-18)!

Goodness... I'm truly trying hard! My thoughts (there are so much!) are truly wanting to run, as I knew they would be! These fields are so rich, there's so much to say about each morsel of it! I know you may think I'm being long-winded and saying a lot..... but you owe me more credit than you realize you do! I'm biting my tongue so hard I'm bleeding!

Back to Genesis 4. Cain kills his brother, right? And then years later a descendant of his, Lamech, kills a man too. Lamech says (4:23), "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me." Woe! Tough stuff! Real stuff! Too often really happening still today stuff! Tell me though, who's never been wounded by another somebody else? Who's never been hurt by another? Wound, in this verse... it means, to wound by bruising... in other words, causing one to bleed. Injure... it's meaning is: to hurt, to wound, to bruise, to leave a mark from strokes on the skin. Ow! How many times have we had such wounding, such bruising, such bleeding, marks... scars left from another's striking (even if only in the inside)? And yet we never have reason to kill, to slay, to destroy them! What right (even in their wounding) do we have to wound that person back? We don't! Perhaps that's why we're told in 1 Peter 3:9 to bless them instead of retaliating or paying them back for whatever it is that they've done to us. We're told to love them! To pray for them. To forgive them. To turn the other cheek. Kill somebody.... and watch out, their blood cries out from the ground. Simply wound somebody and leave them still breathing.... they're apt to "cry out" and tell on you too! Either way, we're in trouble! Vengeance is God's.... Let's leave Him to it! If not, He'll be after us!

Genesis 5 ~ Not Calgon, no! But, Lord, take me away!

We barely have an information at all about Enoch (you can find him in verses 21-24), but what a man he must have been! "Enoch walked with God 300 years.... Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." Hebrews 11:4 puts it this way, "By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. " Wow, what was that "walk" like? Oh Enoch, I wish you had a phone so I could call to talk to you about it! I'm sure I'd awe in amazement at the stories you'd tell!

Oh Lord, thank You for the adventure today! Thanks for carrying me away! I love Your Word! I love Your Book! I love its Truths! I love the places it shows of and takes me! Oh, at what Heaven must be! Oh, at all that awaits us! Oh,...... and let's not forget the "let"s! Lord, I look to You! I believe in You! And I'm looking for more of them! More of Your "let"s that have yet to be!

"Let"s. Shall we? Lets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's live more in Your "let"s!
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Dear 2012....

2012-01-01T16:52:00.000-06:00

"Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce. Special orders don't upset us. All we ask is that you let us... serve it your way. Have it your way at Burger King......."

Tis an old jingle I often sing. And tis the jingle that (in this new year), that in my ear rings. IF.... and I did say "IF"... IF 2012 were saying to me the same.... IF special orders didn't upset it. IF special orders were accepted. IF we could ask and "have it our way". Perhaps I'd place my order and say....

Hold the mean, and hold the madness. Hold the cold, and all the sadness. Give us joy and don't upset us . Let me have it my way......

And yet, the year isn't a drive-through or a fast food place with someone standing to take my order. If so, if it were, just like there, there'd be a price to pay. It'd cost. My order wouldn't be given free. Hmmm... never thought about such.

Maybe then, I should write my year a letter and ask politely for the things I'd like?

Dear 2012,

Hello. How are you? Nice to meet you (I think). Wow, you're here. I so hope you're kind. I'd ask for you to be tender..... But boy, at the tender last year! I'd like to peek, but know I can't. I'd like to see what you've got in store. What you'll unwrap. What you'll show. What you'll give. What you'll take.....I'd like a glimpse. A little "know". But I know you won't tell me ahead of its time. I know you won't show me what happens until it does. Yet still, I can't help but be curious. I can't help but wonder. I can't help but hope.... I can't help but ask..... Nothing mean and nothing mad, nothing that hurts and please, nothing sad.............

If I could write such a letter and finish it. Sign, seal, perfume, and deliver it. And if it obeyed. I wonder at all that I'd miss? There's something said for drama and adventure and a lot of suspense. We want life easy and predictable. We want no storms, no scares, no heartaches, no pain, no shame, no insults............. We prefer not to have those "fiery trials"... no being "sifted as wheat".... no temptations, no tests to prove our character. And yet, we seek thrills. We seek scares. We seek highs and lows and "oh my goodness"es! We love to scare each other, or pay to ride scary rides at theme parks. We watch sad movies, or action-packed ones. We like to see someone prove true, to do what's right.... or to come back and right something after they've done wrong. There's something inside us that needs adventure.... a puzzle, a question, an "I don't know," an "I'm not sure," a something to ponder and wonder and work on. We don't like books or movies that are boring. We look for the unpredictable, the suspensible, the adventurous, the it-almost-didn't-happen-but-then-didnesses!............

If we had it our way, we never would have made Abraham wait until it was impossible for him to have a son to have one, Mary wouldn't have been a virgin, we'd miss the burning bush, and the plagues and the parted sea, we'd miss the donkey that talked, and the lame man healed to walk, the deaf man would never have been deaf, the blind man wouldn't have ever had need to see, Jonah would never have been thrown over to be swallowed by a whale, the storm never would have come for Jesus to tell it to "be still"............................. I don't know, I've been thinking that God knows more than we know, and His plan is greater than mine. I think I'll save myself from placing my order in hopes that He'll serve what I tell Him to,..... and instead, I'll trust Him to plan it and prepare it and chose it and work all the hard and yucky out for good for me as He sees perfectly fit to!

Welcome 2012.... I greatly anticipate all of your unknown....

[Disclaimer.. (grin). In case you think that this is a weird ridiculous post... It is. And in case it looks obvious that I've been trying to figure out how to place my order for this year.... I have. And yet, after pondering it out loud for a bit, (in case you can't figure it out) I decided it best to leave well enough alone. The "plan" is safe in my Father's hands.]
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A moment between an old time and a new one!

2011-12-31T23:20:00.000-06:00

I spent a lot of my day in solitude and quietness... pondering, and wondering, and revisiting, and reflecting. I've been thinking and remembering back on my last year, the 365 days that have passed. And as I was flipping through the cyber pages of the thoughts that I'd posted... I realized how much that I didn't write opposed to what I did. There's so much more that I didn't pen. That I didn't say. In the midst of so much hardness and sorrow, I failed to be able to mention or elaborate much in the midst of its hurt. I kept its horror covered and protected, like with a hand over a wound; I couldn't expose it, nor fully open myself up to its bleed. In my suffering, I stayed hidden under the cover and couldn't completely reveal my naked self and its feelings. As I said a couple of times throughout, there was still some things of which I couldn't speak!

I may have hinted at it. Touched at it maybe? But in my beaten-upness, I dared not expose the raw-ness and total real. I noticed my silence in March and April and most of May. And my barely being audible still in June and July and August. If truth be told, it's still hard to write.... it's as if my feelings want to shut down or hide... or simply they want to turn down the volume. They're afraid to be seen. They'd rather attempt to numb themselves than to expose the awfulness of what they really feel. Even the super highs were hard to tell.

It's a wild wonder that I now hold in my mind in this moment. As we close this door to our 2011.... I'm almost afraid to open the door to our year of 2012. For I know that once opened, we can't stop what we've opened it up to. And as our Lord knows, we can't peek inside it to see what in advance that our new year holds. It doesn't give us a choice to chose.

Had I known all of my 2011 prior to it happening... had I known it as I held my hand on the door to open it....... I couldn't have! I wouldn't have! I'd have held it tight! I would have kept it closed! I would have locked myself on the other side of it, if there had been any way, if it had been possible. And yet, look at all that I would have missed! In this midst of some much hard, God provided and gave so much GOoD! Reading back over all that I've written, I was blown away again by His all-over-it-ness! His impossiblenesses! His wonderfulnesses! His so often blowing my mind up! His constant sweet and unexpected surprises! I have to say to Him, Lord, I bow...and in humbleness, I cannot thank You enough!

Truth be told, even though wondering, I'm excited to put an end to this year. I'm super excited about starting a new one! Every now and then, we just need new! I'm ready for it! I've been anticipating it! I hope it holds all sorts of surprises! The good kind! HaPpY ones! Ones full of joy! Ones that are held forever in memories! And awed about long after they've occurred! He "knows the plans" He has for us.... plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future!

Well.. ready or not, here it comes! On with it then! Cheers to the old... and cheers to the new... Now let's let the new year begin..... And may I see You this year, Lord, more vividly than I have ever in my life seen You before!
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There's a snake in the pond... but wings of protection there too! (05/06/07)

2011-12-30T20:25:00.000-06:00

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I have been time-traveling! I spent last weekend in the year 2007... and 2008. It's been a wild and interesting walk down Memory Lane! Already I had forgotten so much of it. But looking back, boy, I was messed up! A basket-case! Goodness, at the whine I wailed because of the sorrow and sadness inside! I was in a spiritual battle of the worst kind! It knocked me crazy, left me wounded, and hurt like ~~hel...~~ well, you know where!

My! I didn't realize how pitiful I was. How ferocious the battle was. How far it took me down. How I didn't think I'd ever get back up again.

It's amazing at what the enemy will use to hit you. It's amazing the scheme of his plan, his methodical thinking, and how very clever and good he is at wounding you with the fiery darts that he carefully aims and shoots you with in hopes to shoot you down.

I didn't expect it. I didn't see it coming. I had never been more enamored and in love with my Savior. There is no way you could have told me that what hit me would have hit me and knocked me as hard as it did and would leave me wounded and writhing. I felt sorry for myself just while reading all of the old things about it that I'd written in the midst of it. Bless my heart! That was true anguish I suffered! I am truly a picture today of the binding up of the broken-hearted that Jesus came to bind!

It simply started with a phone call...... and from there it took me years to recoup and heal from that call! Talk about being "sifted as wheat"! My goodness, that was a true straining and sifting! After that, it's a wonder that there's anything left of me at all!

Without my seeing the true significance, God warned me of it coming. And, too, without me totally grasping the meaning of the picture, He showed me that He would protect me, as well. It wasn't easy. And it was LONG! But, wow, looking back on this side of it.... woe, my Savior is GOoD!

Before the battle had truly begun... when I was just barely on the tip of the iceburg of what was about to happen... when I only thought that the battle was fierce (having no clue of how fierce it'd get), God gave me a visual to hang on to. Wow! What kind of God is He that He would do that!

Here is a copy of an email that I sent to a friend sharing my wonder of what God had just done. This is in the earliest throes of the war... when the battle had actually only barely just begun.

05/06/07

Shew. Huge day! Guess what?

A lot of my day happened before I saw the picture at all. But then when done, wow, for it seems to hold such meaning.

I went to the pond to feed all my critters. My feelings were hurt. I cried a whole lot. Basically because of the "snake in the pond" that slithered into the midst of my fun in the past two days that I had been there. Both a physical snake... and a spiritual one.

I don't like calling and labeling my "friend" a "snake." I was thinking of that while I sat there. I don't like him pictured that way. And then I thought, "our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against......." And it made me feel somewhat better. Because I know that my battle is not against him. Surely he hasn't meant to come in as something evil. I surely don't think that was his intention at all. Honestly, I think he felt a bit lost... and somehow and for some reason I felt safe to him in some weird sort of way. Perhaps he is getting caught by the evils of this dark world and the power under its deceit innocently enough, as well?..... if you can call it that. For lack of a better way to know how to say it, that's the best way that I know how to at the moment.

Anyway, I was irritated as I went to do what I so enjoy doing (feeding my creatures), because I constantly had to look around to see if I saw the enemy slithering back up close to me again. What was he doing in my garden? It was so eerie. And it made me mad. With every head that popped up (which normally I so enjoy seeing), I looked to see if it had a hard back attached to it, or if it trailed a long tail. Ugh, I hate snakes. And this one seems especially evil and mean. I hate the visual, the picture, it seems to portray! I hate the symbolism it seems to bear.

I even woke up thinking of it this morning. And I woke to this Scripture rolling in my mind over and over again, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." I'm sure you'll believe it when I tell you that the very first email that I opened this morning was this very same verse!!!!

There were a ton of geese at the pond today opposed to my normal mom and pop and six duckling family, plus two ducks on the side. A flock of them had evidently flown in from somewhere last night. They are not my most favorite to feed. I know you already know that it's the turtles that I favor so much. But because of the 6 babies and all of the envaders of the land, mom and pop were mad too! Fit to be tied would be more like it. They sqawked and honked and kept flying at the other geese to run them away. Then they would come flying back to their babes with heads held really low to the water as they did their slide on the surface leaving a great wake. I'd say that they had their ears back, because it surely appeared that they did, only they don't have the ears to hold back.... Even so, it still looked like it, because it was so evident that they were ferociously mad at the enemies that had come into their territory.

After a few minutes it dawned on me of how preciously sweet it was that mom and pop were so furious in their protection of their children. They weren't tolerant of the enemy at all! They had no patience! Gave them no lee-way. They were not in the mood to be messed with when it came to their babes. That's so like God. I so feel His protection over me. I so feel His Fatherly fury at the enemy that dares to come close to threaten. I thoroughly enjoyed the geese after that and tried to feed them extra because of the hard work that they were doing in keeping their babies protected and safe (because they kept having to do it over and over again... running the enemy off each time the enemy flew back). I think God wanted me to see the picture. I think He wanted me to know how much He cared and to what extent He'd go to in order to protect me from the enemies that lurk and desire to have me.

I was almost finished feeding... when guess who came from out of his hiding? I saw him slither out from that same place and swim to the midst of my world, then back to the rocks on the land on my opposite side. Ugh! What is that? What is he doing???? It's like he's doing it on purpose! And so trying to say something and make his point loud. And oh my! Cause I soooo feel there's a deeper greater uglier meaning. UGH! But then after the picture of the mom and pop in their protection of their babes, I felt so much safer somehow.

I almost missed it though! I almost didn't see it! But the mom and pop continued to run off the other geese over and over and over again each time they came. They flap and fly and squawk them off, then come landing back on the water with a force that had them sliding deep and going far with a mad-look on their faces at anybody getting close to threaten their kids. Finally, I so saw what God was trying to show me! I had almost missed it. I wasn't even looking. You know why? Because I had my eye so focused on watching out for the enemy, looking around to see if and when he'd come, that I had forgotten to see my Savior watching me and trying to protect me from what the enemy's come for in his hope to "devour" me.

How's that for a Savior speaking to His saved one? How's that for a Father speaking love to His child!
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Trusting still.. when we can't make things make sense.

2011-12-30T14:03:00.000-06:00

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Faith...

It's impossible to please God without it (Heb 11:6).

Faith is still trusting God even when we don't understand Him.
Faith is more consumed in our wonder of Him, more than our wonder of whatever is bugging us.

Sometimes I think we think that we might be a better God. Because on some things (like healing those that I love, etc), I'd do things differently if I were God and God wasn't Him.

So... am I thinking that I know better than He does? Do I think I love more? That I'm more compassionate? That my heart is more tendered than His is?

We'll never understand everything. This world isn't Heaven, it'll never be perfect here. Tears will still fall. People will still hurt. People will still die. We'll never be able to prevent it.

John the Baptist didn't understand it himself. He'd been telling people ("calling out in the desert") that Jesus had come to set the captives free.... and then he was thrown into prison. Surprisingly to John, Jesus didn't come to save him, to free him, to release him, to break his shackles, to open his gate. So he send some of his followers to Jesus asking Jesus if He really was the One he'd been telling people that He was? Or, he wondered, should I be looking for somebody else?

Hmmm.... we're quick to want to find another 'savior' when ours fails to save us, aren't we? When we don't understand His not saving? When He doesn't save us in the way we want. When we feel He's failed His job and His reason. When we feel He's not doing what He ought to. What we think makes sense to. But even more, when we think it doesn't make sense at all for Him not to!

Jesus said in response to John the Baptist's wonder, "Blessed are those who aren't offended by Me."

I guess we'll all be tempted to be offended.

Will we let it offend? Or simply still believe... still trust... still know that He knows even when we don't? And know that He'll always care (regardless!) way more than we ever, ever, ever could!

The question remains: Can we trust Him? Will we trust Him? Do we trust Him? No matter. Always. Even if ___. Even when ___. He created us. He made us. He provides for us. He sent His Son to die to save us. He loves us. He knows us. He pursues us. Over and over again He forgives us. He accepts us, chose us, defends us, fights for us, shields us, delivers us, restores, renews, and redeems us, He heals us, He helps us, He _________ us............... He's well worthy of our trust.
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