Far Side Farms

Crumbs

2012-02-09T07:21:00.001-05:00

I wonder sometimes how it is that Hansel and Gretel left crumbs of bread on a trail so they could find their way home? I mean, obviously it didn't work, but why crumbs? They had to have known, at least a little bit, that birds and other animals would eat the crumbs that lead the way out, didn't they? Well who knows maybe not-but I can only assume that since they were raised in a forest they had to have some common knowledge about that kind of thing, or at least I would hope so. And yes it seems that a fairy-tale is the bread of my blog today (haha! like that punn!). I do have to confess to you that even if you read this once in a while or look for something written everyday, I do not find the things to write about. I have tried to find things and have forced writing sometimes but in truth, the things that I write here are not my words. If they were mine, I would write about things that I find and want to write about, instead.....I'm writing about Hansel and Gretel...and crumbs.

I was surprised when I started writing the first sentence that Hansel and Gretel came out, I had no idea that this is how I would begin but in reality, it makes sense to me and it will to you shortly. I pulled out my devotionals today, first time in a while, and had two things stand out, one was part of a verse...Matt 15:23 " Jesus did not answer a word..." Well I had to know what the story was behind this statement from Matthew. So I read Matt 15:23-28, a story I have read before, and so have you. It's about a Canaanite woman with a sick daughter, and she is continually begging Jesus to heal her daughter, even tho she takes care of her dogs first and foremost. She is criticized about this, chastised by Christ for giving her dog bread before her children. Her response "Yes...but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." Hummm, kind of an odd statement to rebut being chastised; but Jesus answers her back saying "Woman! You have great faith. Your request is granted!" Crumbs...that was her answer, crumbs and He just gave her what she wanted. Who knew that something so little would get a gift so great....crumbs.

I wonder how much faith it takes to get a gift like this one from Christ? I wonder how much faith I have to have in order to get a healing of great worth? All through Christ's days He says faith just needs to be small; as small as a mustard seed to move mountains, as small as a crumb to get healing, small. And yet, I wonder how small is that faith? How small? I mean I can see a mustard seed and crumbs, so how small. Small enough for someone to be able to see but not discern what it is? Small enough that when trouble comes, He is the first one you run too? Small enough that no one else knows its there? How small is small!???!!! I would say I don't know the answer, I do know, however, how it feels to have Him not answer. Some people call this feeling a 'dry season' a 'season of pursuing faith', a 'season of reflection'. I call it a season of crap-yep there you have it, I said it! I don't know the answer to my questions and I probably never, never will know the answer. I thought that faith was something seen by only Him and that He measured your faith. But through these years of doubt and dryness, I have found that others see my faith, or more pointedly lack of it in their eyes. I don't know how small, small actually is but I do know what 'no answer' is. It is the silence that comes when I scream for a gift and none comes; it is the silence that echos in the room when I can't sleep; it is the inevitable sound that I once knew, then walked away from, and has now returned. How small of a crumb is needed to receive a gift for Him? I don't know. But I do know this, my faith is small, sometimes so small that I don't even know it exists. My faith is weak and it is hidden well in me, where most can not see it and I'm sure He would have to look hard to find. My faith is faltering and there are things that cause me to stumble continually in the sight of those around me. And He does not answer every time I beg, plead, or bargain. But I am standing on a crumb, a small and fine morsel of faith, hidden as it may be, I am standing on it. I hope that all this silence is just a passing moment and soon I will know that my crumb has not been scavenged by dogs waiting for a morsel from their master. I stand on my crumb, sometimes faltering, sometimes wavering, and sometimes hiding it and I hope that He sees how great I want my faith to be in His sight. Just a crumb, that's all that is needed.

The Horse Communicator!

2012-01-18T07:34:00.001-05:00

Yep, that's right! The horse communicator! Aren't you glad you tuned in today!? What is a horse communicator? Well you got me! If you know right now, please email me and let me know because I have no clue how this works or if its even real. And yet, here it is, title to my blog today and focus of my writing....go figure.

In reality, I do know what a horse communicator is or, more to the point, what they sell themselves to be. Whether or not they are real? Well, lets just say the jury is still out on that one (and probably will be for some time). So what is a horse communicator? It is a person who claims they can talk to horses, by simply looking into their face, and telling the owners what is wrong with the horse. The horse actually speaks to the person is what happens-or at least that's my understanding. I picture this process not unlike the picture I picked out of a person trying to communicate with a horse. Doesn't it look like she is communicating with the horse? He must have a lot to say and must be in serious distress.....Looky there, I'm a horse communicator and I'm not even at the place with the horse! Ok so that was thrown in to make you laugh, so go ahead and laugh. But I wonder if maybe on some level, I'm not a horse communicator too? I mean I know my horses very, very well. I can tell if something is bothering them and if something is hurting them just by their body language; they way the keep close to me when I don't have food(!); the actions they perform in the field or when they are with me out of the field. See, I told you I was a horse communicator! Haahaa.

I don't believe that people can talk, literally talk to horses or dogs or cats or birds, although there are those out there who desire for anything to make their pet more humanlike and will pay anything to make that happen. What do I really believe? I believe that we become tuned to our pets, not unlike we become tuned to our family, and we can tell when something is bothering them and most of us can figure that out in a matter of minutes or maybe days, so see you're a communicator too! Now aren't you glad you tuned in?! Its the same way with God, believe it or not, He still communicates with us in many ways. Most of the ways are through scripture and many of us can feel that communication and yet many of us have a hard time believing it. Some of us go through times when there is a drought, so to speak, where we heard His voice clearly and then He just disappeared, and still some of us call 'hoodwink' on the stories of hearing God's voice. So here I am, a non-believer of the horse communicator and a returning hearer of God's voice, how in the world am I going to make this connection for you? I can only tell you this, everything I read this morning (well up to the horse communicator story) was saying "follow Me". (Just to clarify, the horse communicator story was not a devotional but a story, a real one from a horseman, who already knew the answer before he paid someone to tell him the problem.) 2 Cor 4:15-17 "Therefore, we do not loose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day to day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 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." Why this scripture and why the horse communicator? For me, I look for something that is real, factual; something that I can touch, something that can tell me now what I want to hear, not unlike a horse communicator to an owner. People, we, use horse/animal communicators, and probably pay them well, because we want someone to tell us exactly what the animal wants! We do not want to wait, we do not want to ponder and take time with our pets, we want it NOW. The same is true for with a walk with God, at least for me. I have a tendency to want an answer today....ok that's called impatience! And there it is, the answer to my horse communicator non-belief. The answer was there all along, impatience, busyness, and ultimately laziness to figure out and listen things that I already know but don't want to wait for.

You and I are probably not that much different. I'm sure you are, at some point, just as impatient as me when wanting an answer, and like me, you probably would rather pay someone to give you the answer you already know but just want someone else to say. That is unbelief. And so a struggle of unbelief begins, when does someone give me what I want, tell me what I want to hear, and do it now? I want it now, not in 3 days, 4 years, or 50 years, but now. I want to know now, as do you. And yet, the answers are not a now answer, they are a long way ahead of us, at least most of them. So we search for someone here to give us the answer and direction that we long for now. When all along the answer is right in front of us "fix (your) eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen".....ahh, belief. I struggle to fix my eyes mostly because it is easier to fix my eyes on what is in front of me as opposed to what is not, and yet "follow Me" keeps repeating itself in my head, in the unseen.

I don't believe that there are horse communicators, people who can talk to animals in humanlike voices, but I do believe that God speaks to us daily, we just refuse to hear it. I don't have a true close to this writing, just a short prayer. Lord help me fix my eyes on what is not seen, on the things that You have prepared for me. Show me that desperation and impatience do not show me the way, for those are temporary and fleeting. Show me how to follow You. Amen."

Hyssop? Really?

2012-01-17T08:07:00.001-05:00

I know, I know - what in the heck is hyssop? Well at least that's what I asked myself when I heard the reference this morning. So I was somewhat surprised to find it's a plant and a very fragrant and beautiful plant too!(Honestly, something I'm considering planting.) I was surprised too to see it looks similar to lavender. So I did a little research on hyssop and thought I'd share some of what I found out with you...aren't you excited?! I knew you were (haha)! So hyssop, a little education, there's a lot of websites and information out there regarding this lavender looking plant and I found information from medical/drug sites that talk about "beliefs" from herbalist to just simple plant sites that discuss the plant itself. This particular plant is indigenous to the Mediterranean area, it was transplanted to Europe and then to America by immigrants. What I found also very interesting is that every site, from the medical ones to the generic blogs, site the plant in the Bible and Biblical references! HUH? So what is hyssop? Its an herbal plant that has a camphor-like odor that can be dried for decoration (the major use), dried for extracting an oil from it to make a tea for elixir (by herbalist) which is used help with sore throat and some cold relief, left to bloom it can help prevent some insect infestations and attracts bees - honey from hyssop is said to be very, very flavorful and good to taste. So, there's your hyssop lesson, aren't you glad you tuned in today!? :)

Hyssop. In all truth I heard this word in my channel surfing this morning and I happened to stop on a Raleigh channel that airs a Minister from a Raleigh church and he was talking about being restored (there was more but this is what I heard). He was referencing several areas but centered on this verse Psalms 51:7 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow." Hyssop is only referenced in the Bible and for as much research is out there, no one can find the origin of this plant (this from many websites mostly those from medical site). David was speaking here, he was asking God to cleanse and heal him from the inside out (this from commentaries). I was curious when I heard this statement on the TV and so I listened for a while. The reference scriptures were really all over the Bible but the message was this, in simple terms, "God restores what the enemy has stolen". That was it...that's all. John 10:10 "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, I came that you may have life and have it to the full..." I know this scripture but have no idea what it has to do with the Psalms reference or at least I didn't have an idea. When David asked God to "purge" him "with hyssop" he was asking Him to restore his heart, restore the things that had been stolen from him, restore him to joy. Sounds similar to John 10:10 not exactly but similar don't you think. I wonder what the enemy has stolen from you, I wonder if you know all that the enemy has stolen from me (even tho in all honesty I'm not willing to share "all"), and I wonder if He really restores and how He restores? When will he restore? Don't you want to know how He's going to restore? I do, sometimes every day I wonder...when? And yet everything in scripture says "I will restore" or "he will restore" everywhere it says this in one form or another, in one way or another, He tells His people/children that he will restore them the things that they missed or the things that were stolen. You may not see the connection in the 2 scriptures I chose - but both of them describe theft, and ask or tell of restoration. In Psalms, I think David was in torment (as was most of his writings and prayers) and his heart was broken and he was in distress; in John, Jesus was telling the people that He is the restorer from the enemy's desire for distress, hurt, and broken hearts, He will restore...but when? Maybe some hyssop right now wouldn't be a bad idea.

If you are still reading, even through the obvious crazy start, weird middle and struggled into end, I guess you are probably going through all the things that the enemy has stolen from you, if you're not well then you are a much stronger person than I. In reality, I think many of you are probably making a mental list of the things, people, land, and life that you have lost. You, like me, are recounting the hurts, agonies and struggles that you have been through. And like me you are probably wondering when is my life going to be full? When will it be restored? I believe, in all actuality, for me anyway, it was restored; it was restored when I accepted Christ as my savior, when I realized and become close to God for the first time in my life. So why do I need to be restored? Because through this struggle of life, I have had more stolen from me. More hurts, more heartbreak, more distress, more, more, more....more than I ever thought I could withstand. I bet you have too. "I came that you may have life...." I will restore.

Believe it or not, you and I have been restored, even though I believe that more will be restored in time. When? I don't know. How? Have no idea. Do I hope it doesn't take 40 years? Yes, I do! But, through all this life, through all this time of waiting for full restoration, I believe that restoration is in the horizon; set far off so that it looks as though I am still in the dark and unrestored, walking blindly through life with no direction or hope for restoration, and with no hyssop in my bag. Hyssop is actually in my bag, hyssop is full in my life, I just misplaced it for a while, lost it in the dark. I've always had it, I just didn't know it. "I came that you may have life.." He is my hyssop. Is He yours? I bet He is you just don't know it, you've just misplaced Him in the dark. He is my hyssop.

Lead Me

2012-01-10T11:36:00.003-05:00

Do you like music? I love it. I like to hear it all the time and most of the time I find a way to dance to it; my husband would say I dance whenever I can, no matter where. I guess, to some degree, he is right, he'll love seeing that! I was cleaning this morning and heard a song I haven't heard in a while, one that when I first heard it I was just drawn to the words. Songs can do that to you; they can make you remember a place or time when you were growing up, they can bring a memory that was long forgotten, or they can bring an emotion so strong that you can not deny its presence. That's what happened this morning. I heard a song.

Do you know what it means to be lead? I know for most of us we know what it means to follow, but to lead, what does that feel like? What does it mean to lead? I don't really know, not really, not when you get down to it, I have no idea what it means to lead. And I'm sure for most of us that statement is true. We may move and go through things in a leadership position and sometimes we lead the way toward some set goal. But do we mean to lead or are we leading at all? I don't know but this morning I heard this song "Lead Me" by Sanctus Real and thought about those words lead me. I know for all purposes we can as for leading, seek leadership, find leadership, and know what it is but to be lead or to lead I believe most of us have little experience. So I looked up pictures of 'lead me', funny I know! But you would be surprised what you find when you look up Google pictures for a phrase, I was when I found a picture of 2 horses walking in snow, one leading the other, and like a passion I looked up horses in snow. I found many pictures of horses in snow, some taken some drawn, and this one. You are probably thinking "what in the world does this picture have to do with a song by Sanctus Real?" Well you would be on the right track because I wondered the same thing and I have to say that it only has to do with the fact that it speaks to me. Horses have a leader in every herd, a dominant horse that takes on the position of leader, the one who is always first in every situation, one who - no matter what- they go ahead...they lead. I have wrote on horses many times and probably this song too but I was to lazy to go back and find it. This particular picture shows ponies being lead by their 'alpha' to some destination; ears pricked forward, not hesitating in the blizzard, he leads.

I looked up those words "lead me", trying to find them together in the Bible and I did not find them. So I broke the words apart and searched first for "lead" and found Rev 7:17 "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eye." Odd that I should find this scripture; odd that it is one of few came up with the word 'lead' in it and in the context that I was looking for. I wasn't planning on this scripture; I wasn't looking for this type of scripture, whatever that is. But there it is...and it jumped off the screen at me, it stood out at the moment I was looking. And so I was drawn to the place in my heart that still sheds tears and started looking for other places where 'lead' could take a hold of this emotion and help me bury it once again. That didn't happen! But I was lead to this John 16:22 "So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy." Just to caveat here, I am aware that this is Jesus talking to the disciples of His death and return. But I find it odd needless to say, that this scripture was brought to my attention after Revelation 7:17, don't you? I see that there is a link between these two scriptures; one tells of being lead and one tells of seeing my loved one again. I know in context that these scriptures do not go hand in hand and probably never will to those scholars who commentate. But they ever so do for me, do you see it. These two scriptures read to me in this way 'Now you are grieving, now is that time for your grieving. But I, who sits at the center of the throne will lead you one day, lead you to the love that you miss, lead you to the well of living water that you can not see right now, and I will wipe your tears away, and your joy will return.'

I don't know what it means to lead, I really never have, but I do know what it means to grieve and have those who you do not know ask for my help in their time of grief. Asking me to lead them. I have more than faltered at this task presented me, but I did not intend to lead in any way. I feel that leading is a measure that no one person should take on lightly and yet I find myself in those positions of leading that I neither desire nor need. And continually I ask what does it mean to lead? I am far from the strong pony in the blizzard leading his herd to a designated point. I am far from that one who looks forward with pointed ear and fixed eyes leading ever forward no matter what the condition. I am far from a leader and I ever look for someone to lead me through this time that I am in. I look for someone who is a leader to step forward and lead the way but I really don't have to look far. He will lead me to the living water, when I am ready to follow and when it is time. He will wipe my tears away and fill me with the joy of seeing those I love again. When it is time, He will lead me out of this place; with pointed ear and fixed eye, not unlike that little strong pony, He will lead me.

"Kill Me If You Can"

2012-01-05T07:43:00.001-05:00

I know, I know....what in the world? First, no this is not a book review of one of James Patterson's new books. Second, no this title has little to do with the what is coming in this blog. But I do love a good "take me away" book and this book did just that last night. Almost so that I didn't want to put it down and could have read all night. It is, of course, a classic murder for hire story - filled with unexpected information and the usual "I hired you to do this but now I need you to do this too" plot. There is the usual, as you might expect, unsuspecting schmuck who, I hope, will be the hero of this story, and the obvious "somewhere in the middle of all this chaos" love story. And I love to read James Patterson, he has a certain way of getting you drawn into a story line without you even knowing it happened, a writer whom I could read just about anything he writes, and someone I am never disappointed in! But this particular book started with, literally, a bang. A story that really is starting to shape up into backstabbing, angry men who are holding grudges for long ago and having someone else do the dirty work that has simmered in their minds. You wouldn't think this type of plot to be the center of a blog, especially not one reviewing this book, and yet here it is, right at the beginning.

It is strange to me how I remember certain titles and ideas for writing here come about. Most of the time, they are related directly with a devotional that I read or a scripture that sticks out; other times it has to do with something that has happened, a course of action for the day or even something that I wish had happened. So the thought that this book, a murderess story, would find its way here, is strange to me. I think it more strange that place I am going (the end of this blog) and the plot of this story are very similar, almost exactly the same. This particular title, although I have stole it from James Patterson and his co-writer, was one that I wasn't going to use. I wasn't even going to mention the book title at all-just allude to a new book and writer that I am indulging in to make my point. I just couldn't come up with a title to fit-this one does seem to stand alone, catch an eye, and maybe intrigue someone enough to read on. How does this fit me? Well, among other things, this plot drew up some unresolved issues in my head; okay, that's not entirely true, I was already on the anger part of the issues in my head, this book kind of unearthed some that I have been trying to forget. It hasn't worked out so well for me! So strange it is that a book drew me to something I am so familiar with, so comfortable with, that I was drawn to write about it. At the same time, while I was reminiscing about those things and people that made me angry or hurt me, I was given a solution. Like I said, it is strange sometimes how things make their way onto this page. There is a man, in the book, who, in just 2 short lines, let the cat out of the bag and became the focus of my morning blog. He is a bitter, probably middle aged man, angry that he is not the boss in this story. He holds a grudge from his teen years against his life long friend and cousin, whom, by the way, is the boss! Holding this grudge, he begins his path to being the bad guy, the true bad guy. I am much like this character, well minus the fact that I'm not hiring anyone to commit murder, stealing, or smuggling illegal things from the black market. But in reality, deep down, I am much like him. I am holding grudges, ones that I thought I had forgiven and forgot. Ones that if I had had the energy I would have spat out the words fuming in my head at the time. Ones that if I had been there at the time of the offense I would have been put in jail for my actions. And over the past 2 days, all of those long forgotten and thought forgiven things have been emerging slowly. Coming to my mind with unbelievable clarity it is as though the offense had just happened. All from friends, people whom I have known and would have never thought to act in the way they did, people whom I would and have defended, not unlike the character of this book.

I wonder sometimes what was going on in the minds of these friends/acquaintances when the offense occurred? What were they thinking? How could they say or begin to think that saying what they were saying was appropriate? Thus begins the dredging of angers that I have not let go. Last night, that was affirmed that I am still holding these grudges, the title that I didn't want to use poured out of me to the point of not being able to sleep. The whole time I thought of these things that linger in my head on occasion and out of nowhere came an answer, one that I didn't want to know, although one I have heard and have known for some time. Rom 12:19 "..."It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord." This is not an unfamiliar passage to me; not one that I had to search out, it is one that I have highlighted and underlined in my Bible. "It is mine to avenge". I kept those words tucked away somewhere and last night when I was putting my book down and thinking of all the people whom I'd like to confront, these words came to me. Call it what you will, I call it strange. And even tho the memories of the hurts and angers that I still hold kept coming, there was no desire left for me to go get 'em, so to speak. They were just what they are hurts and memories of anger. I do so wish I had the courage to spout back at a friend when she accosted me in the front yard shortly after the loss of Kaleb and Thad. And I have spent many nights reliving that day - yelling at her the things in my head. I have longed to say. To be the person sitting with my friend when she was told how to handle her grief and her friend did nothing but sit there; I can see myself being the young girl I once was, not thinking about consequences and ending up with assault charges hard on my head. And yet they are just thoughts and memories that I allow myself to hold onto, "it is mine to avenge". I know that, I have known that for some time, so why did this come up now? Where did it come from? "I believe that God does not play dice" (a quote by Albert Einstein) but He does take a record of those things that are not for our good. I believe that even when I am angry, generally at Him, those things that I can so do something about come flooding back, giving me the gumption to go make my own amends. That is what was happening yesterday and last night. I am still holding those grudges, among lots of others, but I have been angry at God and when I stir that emotion, the door is opened for those old grudges to be relived. "It is mine to avenge" that is His promise to me for those wrongs that I live through. How does that work when it is Him that I hold a grudge against? It doesn't. Plain and simple, it doesn't. The grudge against Him is one that I must work through, one that on faith I can get to a 'non-avenging' mind, one that with time and I will know that He does avenge all those things done against me and He does heal all wounds - even those wounds and grudges that I hold against Him.

One For All & All for One

2011-12-11T08:17:00.001-05:00

I love the Three Musketeers! Always have loved the story and the movies that were made about the book, but I'd have to say my favorite movie is the one with Kieffer Sutherland, Oliver Platte, Charlie Sheen, and Chris O'Donnell (probably the most recent movie of the musketeers - well up to the one they are releasing this winter). And I love that no matter what, in whatever situation, one of these faithful friends will inevitably drag the others into a situation that would put them in danger or at a minimum in some sort of unhealthy event. Not to unlike my friendships and relationships, the rest of the musketeers would gather around the one unlucky man and help in anyway to defend him (well, either that or laugh at him in his misfortune). Yet, it's unmistakable through the entire book and later movies, the commendatory and love that these men have for one another. The undying anthem of the Musketeers 'one for all and all for one' says much about their friendship than about their military commitment. Although the anthem was a portion of their military oath, the men became much more than that during their time serving side by side. Each became the other's friend, confidant, supporter, and each held an willingness to die for one another...one for all and all for one.

An unlikely thing came up this morning, well besides my odd title, I opened 1 of my 2 books and read the 1st chapter in my "Friendship" book. I believe now that this has been poking at me for a while to open it and read it and as I am resistant, I denied that poking this week. I did, however, read one chapter in my "Angel Horses" book and that chapter, as I am finding with most of them in the book, are on friendship, the most unlikely friendships actually. It should surprise me anymore and yet it still does, that when 2 somethings are provided they will inevitably fall together and then somewhere in my miscellaneous life, there will be a 3rd thing that will draw them to a fine circle. That has happened this week even though I resisted the connection and reading this morning pulled the drawstring to the connection. What was the connection? In a nutshell-pictures, reading, and scripture. Eccl 4:9-10 "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up." Ok so I'll go backwards, I think the connection is much more easily found this way. I read this scripture this morning, actually I have read it many, many times although honestly I had no idea where it fell in the Bible. But reading it this morning, I felt the strings of my heart pull together on the resisted connection. Over the past week, I read about 2 ponies, 1 to big to be considered a miniature horse and 1 unable to defend herself and due to a deformity unable to manage life alone. The 2 an unlikely couple ended up in the hands of a foundation to help children but they could never be adopted to a family. The foundation used the pair to teach young children how to accept one another no matter what, that the heart should lead not the eyes. The couple lived with the foundation manager for many years before the unhealthy pony died not long after the larger pony died too. The writer said it was due to a broken heart, that the pony just did not know how to live without taking care of her lifelong friend. The picture is perfect if you see it in your heart a friendship of love not of sight. I saw pictures this week of my son and his best friend Thad being played on our stand and thought of their friendship, this all prior to my stories and final scripture connection. I thought of how they were actually one friend no matter what, and as one they would never go without the other to a place of uncertainty. I saw pictures this week of friends, our friends, laughing and hugging, living the past weekend in joy, and thought, they would never let me go into a place of uncertainty alone, not unlike our sons. The connection should be complete for you, altho for me it was backwards and took a week to draw together, I hope you see there is a connection of love from the point of the scripture to the pictures.
You don't have to look as far as you think, we just have to give in and see with our hearts. For each of us, I believe God put friendship in us. How? He gave us the ultimate friendship "one for all". The connection and drawstring were always there, I just chose to miss it, I hope you don't.

You've Gotta Friend in Me!

2011-11-14T07:12:00.001-05:00

Who can resist Buzz and Woody? If there was ever an unlikely friendship this is one of them. Even though we know from the beginning of Toy Story that eventually Woody and Buzz would be more than just friends, the story is one that many of us can relate to, whether adult or child. My husband loves this movie and for years when he was working shift work he'd watch it and then rewind it to have me watch certain parts of the movie to figure out if I saw what he saw. Most of the time he'd have to point out the little things that he was looking for like the toolbox that says 'Binford Tools'. I think he could still watch his movie and find little things that I missed and he would still ravel in the thought of showing them to me and asking me to guess what he found.

Friendship is a funny thing, most of the time we are not 'looking' or 'seeking' friendship it just happens. Usually we find it in the most unlikely people too, wouldn't you agree? This morning I opened a gift that I received in the mail yesterday (ok actually Saturday but we didn't check the mail). It is a book on friendship from a very close friend who is very far away. I haven't read much, actually just the Foreward and in it a cord was stuck, on of almost familiarity. I couldn't remember where so I opened my other book and read where it was marked. The question at the end of the short story "What does the friendship of horses show about the value of loyalty?" Funny how I haven't read from my Angel Horses book in almost a week and the first thing I read this morning is on friendship, the two connected immediately. Horses, for those of you who may not know, remember everyone they meet by scent. They blow in your face and you blow in their face and they remember you, not unlike a friend that you may not see for many years or talk to for weeks on end. Proverbs 27:9 says "Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart and the pleasantness of one's friendship springs from his earnest counsel.' The Message Bible translates it like this Just as lotions and fragrance give sensual delight, a sweet friendship refreshes the soul." There is a sense of strong friendship throughout the Bible in many ways, in words describing a true friend who gives joy and good counsel, to the friendship of God with man. Exodus 33:11 "God would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend..." I find it interesting the way friendship is described in this verse, the way that a man speaks to his friend, to me it shows that God loved Moses like a friend more than a messenger. And throughout the New Testament, there are instances where God 'shows up' for His friends in the most unlikely ways, at the most dark times of their lives, like many of my friends have for me.

I have many friends, friends who I've known for 20+ years and friends who I've met within the last few months. Friends who when I was the meanest I could be, would support my meanness and make me laugh about it. Friends who stood behind me when I was getting myself in a heap of trouble. Friends who laughed at me and with me when I did (and still do) something stupid. Friends who came at a moments notice without any question or delay when I was at my lowest.Friends who are both noisy and quiet and friends who are loyal even when I probably don't deserve it. Friends who were and are more than friends. Friends who are, without a doubt, sent by God. I have many friends, and all look like this picture (no not just the horse) but the picture of friendship, real friendship, no matter what, no matter where friendship.I hope that I am this kind of friend, the kind that would be whenever and wherever the kind that is just like this picture. One who would kiss you no matter what was going on, one that would check on you with a hug just to make sure you're still there, the kind of friend that all of you have been for me. The kind of friend that God wants me to be, the kind of friend that He has been and is still even though I don't know it, the kind of friend who talks to you, listens to you, hears you, and sometimes just stands around. I hope the kind of friend that says, You've got a friend in me!

The Audacity!

2011-11-08T07:36:00.000-05:00

Yep! I bet that got your attention didn't it? And I'm betting (only because I am a betting woman) that you, my 1 or 2 readers, think that I am very mad - or at least that's what I would induce from the other side of the screen; especially with a title like such as this!!! Well you would be wrong .... well and a little right. I have for some time now been a miffed - not at someone but at people in general. Why? Well, I'm mostly tired of hearing about how I should dress, what I should look like, how I should act, and all of that wrapped up in being a good mom, a happy and fulfilling wife, and somewhere in the middle try to figure out time for just being me. So miffed I am and the title, well I believe you will agree with me, even those of you who may be men.

After stewing, like I do so proficiently, over this miffing issue, I read something this morning that made me think "you know what, I know exactly what that's like!" What did I read, well okay so it was Esther, and I probably should have gone on with my study but I have to say this portion hit the nail on the head. Esther, for those of you who may not know, is a Jewish woman who was "picked" by the Persian King to be his new wife (literally picked); who found herself in a position to request the King a favor. Not to over exaggerated huh? Well, then I read on...Esther by far is the Queen, the queen of manipulation!!! Ahhh, the glory of it all, to find a woman in the Bible who is gracious, kind, obedient, and most of all anipulative...albeit through the grace of God. And I know some of you are saying "what ever! And what in the world does this have to do with your title!?" Well here it is. How many of us watch TV? Well, I'd gather to say everyone of us. And how many of us watch "What not to Where?" How about all the talk shows that have fashion designers on it that re-do a mom? How many of us say "wow that's really nice how she looks" but not one of us would be caught dead in the outfit let alone PAY for the outfit? And what in the world are 'mom jeans'? How in the world did we go from just blue jeans to 'mom jeans'? Anyone? Any ideas? Anyone catching on? The audacity of a man, yep that's right 90% of the people who 're-do' a mom or a woman are men, my guess probably the same men who designed bras! Yes, I so went there!!!!! So can anyone reading this answer what are 'mom jeans'? I'm guessing no. There are no ads that say "Mom Jeans, just for the mom you want to be!" There's not a section in the stores that say "Mom Jean Section". So what are they? And who came up with them? And why my title?

Esther was in a situation where she had to decide between herself and her heritage; between her life and the lives of thousands. And to make that decision, she used the one thing she had, her looks. Her husband's new best friend had just decided and convinced the King to kill thousands of Jews, and she had to change his mind. The author of the study said something intriguing, she made the King jealous by inviting him and his best bud to 2 banquets. She didn't ask for the King's attention alone, she made no intent to have him at a banquet designed just for him, she invited his best friend along. Ahhh, the audacity! The conniving, over-thinking, audacity of a woman who needs to get her way and the way she did it was brilliant! Make her husband jealous. For those of us who have read Esther, we know that the King granted her request to save her heritage (and herself not to mention), for those of you who haven't read it, Esther had God on her side. So how does Esther's situation relate to my title and obvious ranting above? We, all we's out there, are being swayed (made jealous in essence) daily to change and hide who we really are, who we are meant to be, and what we look like being who we are so much so that 'we' get lost; we become jealous of what one woman looks like because she may not be wearing 'mom jeans'. Just like Esther, who got lost in her pampering, clothing, and royalty, are we getting lost in the jealousy of not looking and being a mom??!!! Yet here we are, most of us moms by this point in our lives, the rest of us thinking about being moms, and all the while being told we can't look like a mom. Don't wear those jeans! Their 'mom jeans'!!!! The last time I checked and took inventory, I was a mom. A mom of 3 beautiful children, a mom to more than just them but to children I never thought I would be a mom too, a mom who is a daughter to a mom, a friend to moms all over the country and world, a sister to a mom, an aunt to a first time mom, a sister-in-law to a mom by default, and a daughter-in-law to a mom who raised a wonderful son to the man I love. That's a whole lot of mom to hide. A mom who doesn't know what 'mom jeans' are, a mom who doesn't wear the right things, a mom who is just that a mom. Probably just like you. Maybe the audacity should be laid with me, I have more audacity to put this out there than I probably should. I have more audacity to say whatever I want mostly because this is a blog, then I probably should allow to come out of my brain, and yet here it is....audacity. Audacity to want to tell designers to 'shut up' because I'm betting they wouldn't want to see their moms dressed in non-mom jeans! Oh the audacity to make me (and us) something we are not, hide the one thing that defines me (us) most, being a mom. I believe that no matter what pair of jeans I put on their going to be 'mom jeans' because the I am wearing them and I'm a mom.

The Week and the Weak

2011-10-30T08:05:00.001-04:00

I received a book last weekend from my very dear friend Penny, one of inspiration, one from a horses point of view, and I thought, last weekend, I would draw from this book and write here, that didn't happen this past week. The week was, well lets just say slow to start, with a breakdown and then long to the middle where the day didn't end, and then finally an end to an end. The week that just kept going. Those weeks are usually ones that lead up to an event that I have looked forward to for some time but not this past week. All this past week held for me was moment after moment of weakness, not a week I was looking forward to in the least.

So at some point I picked up the book I received and began reading. The beginning, introduction, read like a dance between a person and horse, the interchange or possibilities, the promise of kindness, and the acceptance of a herd. Odd, I know, especially to those of you who are not horse people. As I read the first story Emily's Song, I was touched by the thought of a little girl who was abused her entire life and then, without warning or understanding, found herself at a petting farm, in the stall of an abused pony who was not so much nice anymore, lying at his feet, singing to him. Ponies, for those of you who do not know, can be some of the meanest little horses around. Mostly by nature and mostly because people find them easy to abuse, mostly because of their size. Most of the ponies I read about always lead me back to Merri-Legs (from Black Beauty), a story of abuse and dislike for ponies because of their size and ultimate temperament, as with the pony in this story. Only this pony, at one point in his life, was loved by a child - and the singing of and abused little girl brought him back to that memory of love, and he stood, tentatively over her, watching and listening to her sing as she lay at his feet. The story does not talk of future encounters between the two, only that Emily asked her foster parents to go back to the farm, it does not talk of the old pony, who stood quietly as a child lay at his feet, it leaves you to imagine what happened. And so I did. There is a story of a man who gave all his loyalty and heart to a king, a king that was jealous of him and so he decided to have him killed. The man ran and took refuge in the lands of his enemies, in caves alone, and he was allowed many times to kill the king and did not for he loved him at one time. Many times through this story, the man named David, cried out to God to make his broken heart heal, to give him peace in his time of grieving, to change the king's heart. That never happens, not really. But in all his cries, he writes this Psalms 147:3 "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." I don't believe that we are ever really healed, not the way that we think or understand. David's healing came in a different way, altho he never really lost his love for Saul his king, not deep down in his soul. The same is true for the pony in my book, he loved his child, the one he grew up with, the one that loved and cared for him. The one that no matter what would talk to him on sunny days and brush his mane until it was silky. But the child, like most, grew up and went away and all that was left was an adult who didn't love the pony. A human who didn't care for him, a human who broke the pony's heart and the pony in turn became mean. In his mind, there would be no human who could show him love, none that would be nice and not try to hurt him. His heart was broken to humans and there was no healing it, and that's what his owners/rescuers believed. Who knew that a little girl, who didn't speak, who be the one who offered healing to the pony's heart. I imagine that the girl went back as often as she could to sing to the pony, and in those time of lying on the stall floor under his feet, his broken heart was healed. And for Emily, those times of lying on the ground singing to a pony who could with no thought hurt her with his hooves, she found a friend who would listen and her broken heart and life was healed.

I have no doubt that the wounds that these two characters in my story were bound but there were scares left, ones that remained throughout their life, ones that each saw in the other. Horses for me have held the same kind of healing, a healing that forces me to aware and vulnerable at the same time. "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. " He has done that for me in a mare that yesterday showed me that I was, without a doubt, hers. He is healing me in ways that I never would have thought, through a horse.

There are ways in this life that healing happens the without us even knowing it happens. One day our heart is so broken that we can't move, can't see the next moment, and we are weak beyond thought. I had five of those days this past week, moments of weakness so great that I didn't think I'd get through them. And every day, I'd go out and feed the horses, and everyday, they, all three of them, would knicker to me. And I know for food that was their calling, but yesterday, I had each call without food being offered, each came to me without being given anything, and each showed me that I am part of their herd. A healing I didn't see or expect.

Something Missed

2011-10-18T07:56:00.001-04:00

Don't you hate it when you're watching a good movie or TV show and you glance away for a millisecond and something happens on the show that is not words but something you have to see to understand. And for 10 minutes you're asking "what'd I miss?" And no matter how many of your friends and family tell you what happened its never the same as seeing it for the first time. It sometimes comes close but never is it exactly right. I missed something this weekend, something that was needed, for lack of a better term something almost required. Why did I miss this something? Mostly because I'm stubborn and bullheaded and tried to work through an injury without going to the doctor. Not unlike many of you, I'm guessing, I have had injuries due to my life-long handling and dealing with horses but in most cases the injury heals itself and within a couple weeks I'm as good as new. On rare occasions, and I mean very rare, I get hurt and its elongated and doesn't heal with constant movement and working through it, this was and still is one of those times.

So, what did I miss? A hike and camping weekend at Grandfather Mountain. Seems menial when you read it doesn't it? And if I gave you facts like, the hike to the first campsite (on either side of Grandfather Mtn) is 2 miles with packs, you'd probably think "we'll that's nothing to miss". But what if the hike is not what I missed? I mean that's what I typed, that's what was going on, a 2 miles (that turned into a 3 mile) hike to a campsite, a windy hike to the peak of Grandfather and a long packing hike down, all in 2 days. Sounds exactly like what I missed....or was it? Maybe some background is needed. There was a group of friends who started a Venture Crew in Raeford, they were led by a married couple who was strong and directed to help these friends begin an adventure. One of the requirements for Venture Crewing, is the kids have to come up with, plan and make happen an adventure. Around 2 years or so ago, the crew started doing these adventures, I was blessed to take part in 2 of them. The one that I missed was their trip to Grandfather Mtn. This crew of friends, as you may gather, included Kaleb and Thad. Last fall, as a memory trip, the group of us, family and friends, took the trip to Grandfather Mtn, only on the Daniel Boone side of Grandfather (the opposite side the crew camped on). This year, the plan was to take the trip on Profile the same trip that the crew took 2 years ago. I didn't go due to the injury, and last night for the first time really in 3 days, I got to talk to Penny. She expressed deeply she wished I was able to have gone, she likened the trip to none-less then a break through, and this is how she explained it. "The trip was difficult, its very strenuous and the climb up was rocky and hard to maneuver. But the trip down, was painful. Its extremely steep and the trek was focused only on getting from point A to point B while carrying a heavy weight. It was a break through for me because it was like what we have been going through the past year." She said I could be wordy and use this, and I hadn't planned on using it until this morning when I realize I had missed something. She likened the trip to our journey through the pain of loosing our sons, the strenuous trip of struggle going thru the Saturday we spent together at Cape Fear was pain that we didn't even know was going to become more painful than we had even begun to imagine. The days, months and years that have followed have been that treacherous downhill trip full of unforgiving pain, carrying a heavy weight, and the parking lot is far from in sight, even now.

When I realized this morning what I had missed, crying ensued (mostly because of what I missed and partially because of the steroids I'm on) and I turned to a most unlikely place for me, a devotional. Its funny to me how when I most need to hear something I most don't want it said. The devotional was short and talked of a journey today that was an obstacle in my way that I would be looking for a way around; at the end of the devotional was a scripture (as with every day), so I turned to that reading and found something else. Isaiah 35:8-10 "And a highway will be there, it will be called the Way of Holiness...no lion will be there, nor any ferocious beast will get on it, they will not be there. But only the redeemed will walk there and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion singing, everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away." How I can not wait for that time of gladness and joy to return and to be overtaken by them. How I long for the sorry and sighing of this life to flee away. How long will that time be before it comes to pass?

There is nothing unusual or different about Isaiah from that trip that Penny and the family took this weekend, only the words would read like this: There is a mountainous trail, one that those who endure pain and suffering travel. And their footsteps are not clear and easy, the steps are difficult and some hidden. They dodge the ever so ferocious beasts that travels their trail and hides obstacles in their way. Tho the trail is difficult and painful, their feet are steady, their laughter returns and fills the air, their joy of memories and longing for peace fill the spaces as they trek to the next ridge. On the trail they have found that their feet are not their own, that the Lord has made their feet unwavering, that He has gone before them to move the beast from their path and He will lead them home. When I listened to Penny talk me through the experience I was glad to hear her words. Even though I missed the same things that Kaleb had experienced that weekend 2 yrs ago, and even more so, the break through of feeling as tho, eventually, the downhill trek will become easier and there is, just around the switchback, a plateau of leveling along the ridge. There have been those ridge walks, some longer than others and some to short to even realize that there was a ridge, but they have been there. But I missed the likening, the time to walk where the boys had walked, the knowing that eventually there is an end and a parking lot where I will get to go home.

Daughters

2011-10-17T07:34:00.004-04:00

I am doing a study on Esther and throughout it (altho only 3 weeks now) I have learned and reflected on the craziness of being a girl. Lets face facts, most girls are maniacal, self-centered, self-driven, and petty towards each other. In high school, its all out for yourself, no matter who it is and where the cards fall, its all about making yourself the 'bigger' person. Girls, by far, are the first to cut a friend down, whether in front of that friend or behind their back. Girls start rumors about girls whom they are jealous of and for the most part girls are just mean. (That is the focus of our study this week, meanness.) Girls are so mean that there are movies about mean girls, movies about mean boys who are not mean on their own but driven by a mean girl, media stories about women who are so mean that they make men do their mean things for them and let the men take the proverbial fall. Everywhere you listen and look, girls are mean in this world.

It's amazing to me that I have 2 daughters who are so close to each other and so different from one another too. They are like beans and peas in a pod! The connection between my girls, well it's not unlike that of best friends who are stuck together at the hip forever, do everything, have their own language, and can look at each other and know without a doubt and without words that the other knows exactly what is being thought. They support each other in just about everything, encourage each other in all things, and, even in those moments of annoyance, they still believe in each other with all of their hearts. Jennifer, our oldest, is so nice that even when she wants to be mean, she just isn't - her temperament is that of a passive heart - if something bothers her in one way or another she will take it to God and work through it on her own or write you a letter to let you know that in the end she was just having a bad day. Sydney, our youngest, is sweet and mild mannered and yet has a sarcastic streak about her that is jokingly funny and hintingly hurtful. Although she says things in the moment, she never really means them and in truth I believe she has a "class clown" heart - she is truly heartbroken over the smallest things and doesn't know why people are mean when they shouldn't be. She will be the first to say she's sorry over a small misunderstanding and the first to cry over a big misunderstanding. My girls, a pea and a bean living in a pod together. They understand each other better than anyone and will say whatever comes to mind to the other without regard for a 'filter'. Neither are mean at heart and I see them growing away from those that are mean and yet they don't run from them; they are not afraid of those that are mean but do not retaliate mean for mean.

So why are girls so mean? And why does the world/media make girls the meany? Well I don't know - but I know what girls look at - they look at the outer being, the one that says 'look at me'. Girls see the thing that draws their jealous heart to the surface, the thing that is usually hidden from sight. 1 Peter 3:4 "...it should be of that inner self, the unfading beauty of gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." I see this inner self in my girls and I'm sure others do too, altho they may not now what it is or what draws them, that is it. An inner self that is for all purposes a quiet and gentle person who has great friends and is kind to those who are not their friends. An inner self that tells all "I am me, that is all I can be, like me or not". I have 2 daughters who could be mean, both are popular in their own way at school and with their crowd, both are without a doubt able to use cutting words to strike at one another, and yet neither are mean at heart. Both are able to smile at the stupid stuff and make people smile when they least want to; both are the unfading beauty that neither see.

Daughters. Growing daughters to beautiful women, how the time passes so quickly. From giggling girls playing hopscotch to teenagers wearing make-up to fit in, to young adults knowing who they are without make-up and without trying to fit in....daughters. My hope is that in all things they keep their inner beauty, that they keep their sense of humor and yet hold a gentleness that is unmistakable and unhidden.

Write Something

2011-10-12T07:32:00.002-04:00

I know what a stupid title huh?! Write something, that's what I came up with - wow the genius!!! But sometimes 'something' is just the thing to write, or sometimes 'nothing' is just the thing to write. And as always, if you don't have something good to say don't say anything at all...right? Well, I disagree; sometimes saying even the not so good things is the something to say.

So now I have the blank page in front of me and I have no idea what it is that I'm suppose to be writing here, so I decided to just start typing. Believe it or not, this is exactly how I started blogging....just typing, with no real purpose. I believe somewhere in this jumbled up mind of mine there is a title to this writing, although right now it is not for any reason being allowed out through my fingers. It is almost as though there is a basket of fruit in my head and none of the fruit matches. Ha! Now you have to admit that's funny when you think about it, especially from a woman's point of view. I'm sure that most of the women that I know are multi-takers, take on way to much at one time and somehow in the midst of chaos, we seem to get everything we started finished (albeit a month down the road-it's still completed!). So there it is, something to write about... a fruit basket! (I bet you didn't see that coming!) So, 'what's in your fruit basket?'

I do, as you do too, have a fruit basket of chaos in my head....most of us, willing to admit it or not, do. My basket, well it's been full of things not to productive and more distracting than fulfilling and goal oriented as of late. Its funny how something takes hold and before long I have a plethora of issues controlling my days and nights. This usually happens when I least need it and somewhere along the way I find that more unwanted fruit make it into my basket. One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch! Well, of all the sayings that I steal, I'd have to say this one is true. One bad apple has not only ruined the bunch but created more bad fruit to go along with it! I wonder most days how to battle keeping the bad things that run through my head at bay, how to make them less part of my thinking and I have yet to find an answer. I have yet to get to a place where, when I need something the most, that thing is not provided. When I want to hear something the most, I never really get to hear it. And in times like this, I usually find that I am more apt to dwell on what I need as opposed to what is needed. What do I dwell on? Well, right now its the needs to feel care for, not in the 'take care of me' sense, but the 'are you ok' sense. Does that make sense? And along with that need I have found that there are lots of times in the past when I have met those needs for others and the same has not been returned. The problem with my dwelling here for too long is during this time, those moments of need dredge up all the other moments that were not provided. Come on! You know exactly what I'm talking about! Women especially, I believe without a shadow of a doubt that we have a memory like an elephant and when one thing sets us off, its not to far off that we will find a connection to a past thing that relates. Almost comforts and confirms the one thing that we least of all need confirming.

So here I am, this basket full of fruit jumbling around in my life and none of it worth eating or sharing. And I wonder, if this is it? If this is what I'm going to deal with for a long time until I can get out of the hole that I am in? Is this the battle that I am stuck in until somewhere in the future a trap door will open and all that bad fruit will just roll out? I highly doubt that will happen but I chose to live with this bad fruit basket or I can chose to have a different one. Gal 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." There's a basket of fruit I'd love to have! One that has no law, unlike the basket that I'm dealing with now. I read this today looking for a scripture about peace, this is not what I was looking for! The need for care is something that I miss now and missed growing up. I have always been hard-headed and it has made for me to be something that I'm not...strong. And in the life that I created, due to circumstances and situations, I have put myself in a position where I show no need for care. I know that in my head but my heart still says that I need it. So how do I get this basket of fruit, one that will give to others as opposed to giving to myself? I have no idea! But, somewhere in my body dwells the Holy Spirit, I don't know where He is right now, and I am having trouble finding Him, hearing Him, feeling Him, but He's there....albeit somewhere. And with Him there is a place that can take care of all the needs that I have and someday I'll get to find it, someday I'll get to open the trap door and dump all this bad fruit out and be filled up with the fruit that Galatians 5:22 refers too. But, until then, I have to persevere through this storm of bad moments, press through to a place where I don't have a need to feel cared for by a law but a fulfilling of being cared for and loved because I am.

Write something but what? Maybe the things that are holding me back from Him are the things that I've let myself believe I need from this life. Maybe the things of this life are just that, things. Maybe what I need is something from a place where I refuse to go as oppose to having a problem finding. I don't know the answers but I know that somewhere along the way through this journey of non-stop depression and piling on bad fruit, there is an end. And end with out a law that says 'this is what you need' but an end that writes this on my heart 'I am what you need, I will give you love, joy and peace, I am the goodness and faithfulness that you look for, and I will take care of all your needs.'

Seeing is Believing

2011-09-13T07:25:00.004-04:00

I have always heard and on some part believed that seeing is believing, haven't you? I mean we go through life asking for proof of things from basically everyone; everyone from scientist, to theologists, to friends and family members who we offer our trust. Seeing is believing, wouldn't you agree? But is believing seeing? There's a question for you! Is believing seeing? I don't believe so or at least not on all levels, because I have seen something and still do not believe. I saw people who were much older than me (when I was much, much younger) be calm and collected with dealing with a temperamental horse - when I would have (and still might) become more forceful than necessary to get the point across. Mind you not to a point of abusing but probably from an outside look at the brink of abuse. And in the back of my mind I could hear myself say "you aren't getting anywhere" and within a time frame of a minutes maybe and hour the horse would give and settle. And yet I didn't believe. So seeing is not always believing, even though that is the thing that should say more than any other thing about proof. I would tell you today that if I had seen it I would have believed it but from just one example in my past, that statement would be a lie. I would bet to say that the same is true for you. And I would say that seeing should make a believer, in whatever it is, for each and everyone of us. But if that were true, then when I stand at the cemetery and look at two headstones with the names of my son and his best friend, I would believe that they really are no longer here. I would believe that this is real and I'm not going to wake up and find out that this is all a dream (not unlike the phenomenal end to the TV show Dallas some 20+yrs ago [sorry if that does not ring bells with you]). Is seeing believing? I would say no, not on any level is seeing believing and the same is true for the flip of that statement. And yet they are used in every sense of life, every way we handle our every day life.

It is not secret not even a little one that I am in a struggle with believing, believing in purpose, believing in faith, believing in the word of God, and simply believing that things will eventually get better. It is obvious to you now why that is not a secret. The struggle that I am dealing with spiritually, in every day, has been bled in every aspect of this blog, and I have used this blog to express that struggle and the hope that I try to cling. So how do I believe without seeing? I think this is the question that needs answering because seeing is believing is not working. How do I get to the place where I can believe without seeing? How can I get through this struggle and onto a place of true healing, not forgetting, true comfort and peace, without loosing that part of my life? Simply....by faith. Which is easier said than done; faith is the impediment of believing is not seeing. John 20:29 "Then Jesus said to them 'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed'." Seeing is not always believing, thats what this statement is saying, that just because you see doesn't always mean you believe. I mean in essence that's what Jesus said, right? Maybe not exactly in those words but I wonder if because I didn't back read or forward read to this scripture (by the way thank you ex-brother-in-law Mike for the location) what was happening when Jesus said this to the disciples? I know that throughout the scriptures the disciples with Jesus didn't always believe what he was saying. I wonder if they often didn't believe His words. (I know "good night she went there!") But lets face facts, the most believing moments in the disciples time with Jesus was when he was doing miracles, right? When He was doing something amazing - and my guess, which is just that a guess, is that when He was just being Him and telling them things they were probably like "yea right?" (Ok so not in those terms.) But don't you just wonder why Jesus had to say this to the disciples? Why did He use this statement? I don't know I'm sure He had some reason, some purpose, something in mind and probably more intense than what I read.

So is seeing believing? I don't think so. Do I believe everything that I see? No, still don't believe that I stand at a plot and see the names Kaleb Lee Valliant and Thadius Ian Markle and believe that this place that we are in and this time we are going through is real. But do I want to believe that somewhere, in some future time, believing is not seeing and that its ok to struggle and question, doubt and be angry, and sometime out there He knows that my faith is based solely on believing, thats all. Seeing is not believing, that is more true than the standard version. Seeing is not believing no matter which way you cut it. I read John 20:29 like this - I know that you know Me and that times you do not believe, but I know your heart and that you believe and are blessed even when you don't want see and still believe. Doesn't that make much more sense? I think so.

The Same Ole Thing

2011-08-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

I don't know if you read daily devotionals but for your reference I do - well sometimes I do. This morning I found a devotional that I had read a couple times in the past and just on a fluke, literally, read it. I have to say that usually I was more driven by the words of this particular devotional and today I found the words of the writer to be typical. I know what is typical? Well for many of you who may read this, I am a new believer in the grand scope of believers and in devotionals that I come across online or through books or wherever, there seems to be a typical theme. This theme from the devotional this morning reads like most things that used to avert me to believers. What is that? Well, their struggles with being a Christian, their struggles with growth in anything, their struggles with Christ and running away from God. And, more often then not, the theme is presented by women (sorry sexist I know). And I am probably allowing the "enemy" to play with my words and drive my fingers, or at least that is what some may think, but I don't believe so. I would love to read a devotional from someone who is admittedly a sinner, not someone who started their Christian life in a Christian home, moved through school with a Christian basis, and then went to college and ta-da their eyes were opened to the life of deceipt, lying, etc, etc, etc.

So what am I saying? Well I hope that somewhere I get to figure that out (haha - I bet you weren't ready for that!). What am I saying? Am I just lunging out at life-long Christians? And if I am I must be jealous of their life and history? Jealous of the fact that from my perspective they haven't really had trials and tribulations, so why are they so distraught? Yep! It sounds like I'm jealous! Whew, boy am I glad thats's out. I hope that jealousy is not the root of my writing today, I don't think it is or at least I hope it isn't.

The devotional this morning did strike me the wrong way, I was being lazy and decided to go somewhere else besides my regular Facebook page and so to some degree I'm sure that my mind and spirit are in a little bit of a heated battle. But I was looking for something when I went there, maybe a glimmer of peace, or a direction of hope and I didn't find that, not at all. What I found, yet again, was the same ole thing. The same temper of writing, the same message of writing, and the same result, the co-writing of a song or book. What is that? Is every Christian who goes through a Christ struggle instantly promoted to song writer or author? See, the same ole thing. It's almost as though these women who write on this particular devotion aren't really in reality. So what am I looking for? Well in all honesty....the truth.

2 John 1:1-3 "To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth - and not I only, but also all who knows the truth - because the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love." There it is the truth I mean. Right there, right in the letters from, ok I don't know who, but at least in our Bible. Do you see it? The devotional(s) that I read this morning spoke of a woman, raised as a Christian and how she was a great Christian in her life until she went to college and then, literally, all hell broke loose. What happened? She ran from the truth; hid (as if) from God; found refuge in lies; and in the end (as always) she was quickened (or pursued) by God and redeemed. See the same ole thing! What I, a new believer, am having struggles with is, if this short scripture says "the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever" then how can a Christian, long seeded in Christ run from Him - because He is the Truth?

There is not doubt, not now anyway, that I am somewhat jealous of these women who are Christians who in my belief have not moved through true struggles. I am jealous that in all that they live they believe the worst struggle they have gone through is living in a world of lies and deception that they allowed to overtake their Christian beliefs. I am on one level very jealous for not living in that life and yet more than not, I feel pity for these women. Why? Because on some level, they will never know what it is like to be truly separated from Christ, on some level they believe that they were truly separated from Him (see this is the true enemy's work-deception of distance). When I hear or meet of this type of person, man or woman, I feel as tho I have nothing to bring to a conversation. Lets face facts, they are usually the first ones to tell you of their struggles. As a new believer, a struggling seeker, and a true sinner who struggles with Christ daily, I want to read a devotional from a woman who says "Look! I am a sinner, I am truly struggling with my connection with God and guess what? He knows it and He still loves me and is just waiting for me to go through this time no matter how long it takes." Don't you? Wouldn't it be a breath of fresh air to read what a struggling, deep seeded Christian actually feels? And, in the midst of all their hurt and struggles, they say "it doesn't matter what struggles you are going through, it doesn't matter how far from God you think you are, because if you are a believer then the truth, lives in us and will be with us forever!"

Well I'm not much of a speaker, I am a runner (always have been), and I'm not a deep seeded Christian. But I can tell you that I deal with struggle every day, a deep seeded struggle to believe that God, the creator of all good could set my life in a motion of fear and anger so deep, that even I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, and still I know, from knowledge, that He is good. That He is, somehow, some way, in control, and that He is the truth that lives in me and is forever with me....especially when now, when I am jealous, angry, heartbroken, and lost, He is forever with me.

Deep in the....... Pedigree

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

More than just an odd title, I know and probably more than just a title in and of itself. I lead with "Deep in the" followed by a series of "....." why? Well maybe to give you the thought that there is more than just "Pedigree" hidden in the title and well, lets face it, maybe not. I did in all honesty steal this title in part from a blog I am attracted to, one about horses. I have fallen, unfortunately, in love with most of this author's writings; the way he identifies the love of the horses he writes about mostly because of their individual beauty that can carry from one generation to another. That's the truth about the blog. What I don't believe he knows is that hidden in some of his writings I have found more than a connection of words.

The title where I stole my words is fully "True Beauty Lies Deep in the Pedigree", and for those of us who are horse people, true horse people, this statement is very true.We don't just see a horse when we meet a new one, we ask for their lines, their heritage.We want to know about the horses past, his or her ancestors. Why? Mostly because that history tells us more about the horse then the horse does about itself. Believe it or not, we do this with people too. Go ahead try to have a friend and not know about their family current and historic, I'm gussing that's not an easy thing to accomplish. I probably know more about my friends families then I want or need too! So we search the horse, finding out who that animal should be, not what they are, we dig to find a historic pattern to the horse, despite all of the things the animal may be at that moment. We strip away all the distorted items and problems and get to the animal's basic core, the way they were designed from history, deep in the pedigree.
The theft of this partial title stems to a set of scriptures that I love, one set that I could read a hundred times and, from recollection, don't remember these few words: Eph 3:16-19 "\I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Saints, to grasp how wide and how long and how high and how deep is the love of Christ. and to know this love-that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." I know these two seemingly odd things do not go together! They seem farther apart then anything I have put together before, or are they. These few scriptures seem to strip away the person that the writer is speaking to, the words don't go with the person's or persons' life at all I am guessing. (And yes, you can tell that I am far from a biblical scholar so guessing is the game.) But the author does not say to the recipient, "don't be like this or that" "stop being what the circumstances have made you" and "I can't believe you are allowing the life you live to dictate who you are". And actually, I'm glad he doesn't say these things because that would immediately make the recipient throw away without reading the end of the long letter that makes up Ephesians. What he does is looks past the person who is receiving the letter and goes deep within their history to find who they are in the core. The author looks at the deep rooted, inner being, not the flesh picture of the person receiving his letter, similar to what horse people do with a horse.

I believe somewhere in the mix of these two unlikely themes you see the point, far stretched as it may be, that I'm trying to find. The one that connects the two far fetched ideas and pulls them together and if you don't thats okay. Somewhere in the midst of the disconnected ideas is the point I'm trying to make and maybe thats not suppose to be the point that I need to make. But just like a horseman who looks at a horse and asks the owner for his life history and then his pedigree, I believe that God looks past the things that I am today. He looks deeper than what I am and what I have allowed the life I am in to make me and finds my true beauty deep in the pedigree (so to speak). And maybe I don't see it or know it and maybe I never will, mostly because it is much harder to find that in myself than in a horse, but that's okay. It is God who sees what lies deep, hidden in the lines that life has created, He, just like a horseman with a horse, knows that there is love, deep within, even if I can't see it.

I don't know if you are a horse person or if you can even relate to this similarity and it really doesn't matter. Mostly I hope that you see the connection between the two, an unlikely title that probably shouldn't end with "pedigree" and a scripture that looks farther than skin deep, both that look for the true beauty that lies deep in the heart.

Our Kind of Love

2011-08-02T08:00:00.001-04:00

"Just like driving on an open highway, never knowing what we're gonna find, like two kids, baby, always trying to live it up...yeah thats our kind of love."

I looked up an old video that I love this morning and found some new ones - that I love just as much; they are without a doubt about endurance horseback riding. One that I found was put together to this song by Lady Antebellum and it is bits and pieces of rides from here to there by someone who may not even do endurance but its placed perfectly in order and ends with only hoof steps on pavement. What a way to love a 'thing'! What an ability to have a desire to be part of something that is more than anything else in my life! I have this ability to connect with horses, mostly because I love them and always have but also because as I've have aged (haha), I've learned to appreciate them as part of me. This song talks about a couple that is in love and going thru life without a care in the world and just taking every obstacle as it comes, just like we do in endurance.
I have in the past connected this blog with endurance riding, maybe because I connect best through the love that I have for my horses. And in the past, I have found a verse or words (usually from someone else) to describe my connection between endurance riding and my journey through the trials of the past year. But this morning, I am not finding that connection. Instead, I have found a new connection with the 2 or 3 links above, a new sort of way to see endurance.
1Tim 6:11 "But you, man of God, flee from all of this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and patience."
I have fled from many things in my life in as many ways as possible from hiding inside of my head to ignoring those around me and everything in between but something tells me this is not the kind of fleeing that is being referenced here. What I did find throughout my life was an ability to escape from my life in sort of a fantasy world of my own on horses. And I was not patient, faithful or loving in any pursuit of riding. I was aggressive, active, demanding, requiring, and sometimes mean. Looking back at my life with horses, I see a life that is also similar to this verse. I have aged and have begun to see things that I missed in my past, like growth to faith, struggle to love, and weakness to patience and endurance. And I learned most of these things through a horse.
I am not currently riding, I had a plan and then let it slip away and haven't returned to it, but this morning, in light of new faith, I find that I really miss being inside of that partnership between me and my horse. Why? Because just like the song above, every time I ride it is an adventure on an open highway and everytime I learn and go a little more toward the ever so new person that I am starting to see. I will start this partnership once more very soon, moving along toward a goal that only I am aware of and one that my horse has to be free enough to take me on. A partnership that started in anxiousness, ability, control and determination that has now moved toward unity, patience, faith, and love. I don't know how God is navigating the exact way to your heart, but to mine He used and escape, in the form of an animal, that was as high spirited and anxious as I, and through her He pursued me. Through her He is bringing us full circle, from looking at to looking through, from being alone and with no purpose to being a partnership with more than one purpose. Endurance riding isn't for the faint at heart, the weak who think the horse can not handle the task, it is like faith, a direction built solely on one trusting another, with no hesitation and no looking back.

Change

2011-08-01T08:44:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had a time when you were hungry for something and even tho you eat everything in your house, you are just not satified? So like most of us who are not wanting for food, I just move to the next item in the refrigerator or cabinet line and proceed to search for the thing that I am looking for, of which, I have no idea if I will find it or what 'it' may be. I am in this way very much like my mother, not to mention other ways I'm sure family would like to point out, but this way seems to remind me of her the most. Yesterday, and already this morning, I began eating like I was a famished child from Kenya and continued that way to eat until I went to bed, and still then looking for something to satisfy me. This morning I, although I haven't eaten anything yet, I did find something that doesn't satisfy me. I bought a new creamer for my coffee, something I thought might be a good change to my regular coffee (or as my friends would say a creamer for my coffee to be added to), and that's when it dawned on me. I'm not looking for a food to eat to satisfy me, I'm looking for something to comfort me. You see, today, I am branching out to a new job/career; a position I have absolutely no skill at and have never attempted. So, needless to say, I am anxious, nervous, and apprehensive, hence the non-stop looking for something to eat. In my little world of craziness, I have used food or lack of food to comfort or hide my actual emotions and when I have made it through the task or moment at hand, the need to fill that time with/without food subsides. So why food? Well for one, food doesn't have an opinion, ok that's 1, 2, and 3. Why now? Because I have been holding on to my position at Webb & Graves (my previous career and work place) for more than 7 months, and last week I was given an opportunity for change.
Gal 4:20 "how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you." I know, I know, I'm using this statement out of context and I'm sure that there is much more before and after this that I am not willing to read. Why? Because this statement, this verse says alot about me. I am sure this is one of the apostles or disciples writing to the Galatians that he is not with or close to, but this says something completely different to me. I have, for all intense purposes, been ignoring God for whatever reason I can really come up with at that particular moment. This statement says exactly why. I wish on some level that I was no longer here in this world, no longer dealing with the day to day agony of heartache, finances, problems, hurdles, you name it I wish it. And, on that same level, I feel as though if I could be with Him then my tone about Him and His plans would change, my heart would change; why? Because I am perplexed or even angry about the life that I have had to live. I'm sure you would have never of thought of this statement in that manner, you probably never even read this statement alone or separated out from its full context. And yet, this is how I feel.
Gal 4:20 "how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed aobut you."
Psl 51;12 "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."
Ok why did I repeat Gal 4:20? Well because it was needed first and second because it is my situation in a different way. I am reluctant to change, well change in a major way. And now, in the wake of change starting today, I am wishing more and more that I could just stay home, keep with the part-time work I am doing at Webb & Graves and work on the side with catering. I'm sure without fail I will find some way to hid the way I am feeling and press thru this week, but I am anxious beyond means.
I had no intention of finding Psalms this morning, I wasn't looking for verse and I couldn't tell you which one I was looking for but I suppose this is the one that I most needed. I am finding at some level joy again, personal joy not His joy, and I most need that joy to continue. I was born with a stubborn attitude, probably for just like moments of this where I an reluctant to move forward, my stubborn streak takes over and pushes me through. It is on some level the same with Christ, I hope anyway, He has a stubborn streak too. And somewhere in the midst of last week, I told God I think a couple of times, 'if this is the job you want me to have, then I'll wait for you to provide it' and He did, or at least I believe He did.
In some aspects of my life, I am still perplexed and anxious about the future, fearful and not ready by any means for the coming year. In some aspects of my life, I am ready to move forward but my feet like being propped up on the coffee table. In some aspects of my life, I laugh and really feel happy and yet there is a part of me hesitant to let joy return. I'm still hungry for something, and I still don't have a clue as to what it is, and I'll probably be eating today without thought and maybe this change will help restore some of the joy that I am missing, maybe its in His plan for me and I'm reluctant to move maybe I don't need to find that something to eat after all.

One Family

2011-07-27T09:50:00.000-04:00

I have this belief that I am part of a family, only the family is far away, mostly in N. Michigan, with bits and pieces scattered here and there. I have this idea that I am part of a family that I inherited when I married Lee, those members are also scattered here and there, mostly across the Mid-West and East coast. And these 2 families are large and everyone is part of everyone elses life in one way or another. They are vast and they have many miles between them but it never fails that when we go to N. Michigan or like this summer, the first time in 18 yrs, go to Kansas, it is as though there has never been a separation of time or space. Each fall into a routine and no one is left out of the family gathering of eating, playing, talking, or nothingness, the far off family becomes one again. Its always been that way, no matter if we are in Michigan with my family or Florida, Virginia, or Kansas with Lee's family, the moment we enter a home we are part of that unit, part of a family that just moves us in no matter how long we've been apart.

I have a connection to this group of people, people whom we have met throughout the years of living in North Carolina, a group of people that we are in no way related by blood or marriage to, we have no family connection with, and yet they are family. We go in and out of each other's homes as though we live in that home, we take and give without question or cause, and we tae over if there is a need. Most of us, in one way or another, have been transplanted here and we have a connection, a commonality that draws us to one another. For many of those family members it is our children, a common work place, a hobby that we love, or a familar personality, for whatever reason, we are family. And like a family, we love, cry, laugh, and eat together; we fight and forget; move forward and backward and never is there a difference in our connection-its still family. An unconventional family, one that no matter what happens, just like with our related family, we can go long terms without contact and when we meet up again, it is as though there was never a moment apart. A family that is just down the road and always ready and waiting.

I have a revelation of a family, I'm not sure why or where it came from, I'm not even going to attempt to relate to you how this revelation came about, yet I had a revelation of a family this past couple of days. I didn't see it at first and without a return to something I read sometime ago and love, I would never have seen the revelation. Without a little background, you won't see the revelation either. A couple of weeks ago I attended, for the first time in more than 6 month, church service with Jennifer. I entered and even though I was greeted by friends at the door, after that entrance it was as though I was a stranger in a group of people who were talking and hugging and all the things that seemed to be part of something else. I am by all means, shy really I am, I don't go out of my way to find someone to talk to and I'd rather stand alone in a corner un-noticed as opposed to interrupt a conversation between friends. I was for all purposes an outsider. I felt this non-purpose, non-connection and I feel it in a lot of places now, what connection do I have with people, how are those people going to relate to me and my family, what are we going to talk about. This all of this is part of a new life that I am trapped in and looking for a way out. I don't want to embrace the newness of this life that I am in, I don't want to go outside of this 'circle' of comfort that I have created and allowed to control my interactions. This resistance includes those whom I know but don't want to address willingly. This past week, once again, I attended morning service with Jennifer. Greeted as usual at the door from a few of those we have met over the past 4 years, I moved into the lobby area wondering when I would enter the worship center and go sit quietly awaiting things to begin, but then, out of nowhere, a friend that I haven't seen in more than 8 months, came up and hugged me and began talking to me. Then another, and another, and another, before I knew it, I was part of people who didn't ask me how we were doing but, in a difference, they asked when we were coming back, fully. Then on Monday morning, I received a facebook message from a friend whom I hadn't seen in well over a year, someone from church who all of a sudden, and out of nowhere, messaged me and we began talking long distance as though nothing had ever separated us. Although now, they are in St. Lucia and we are still here. This morning I have a revelation of a family, a family that I have not known for long, a family that is just as spread out here and there as my related family, a family that I didn't know or expect to know, and we are connected only by and through one thing, Christ. Eph 2: 12-13, 19 "..remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the common wealth of Isreal, and strangers to the covenants of promise...now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ...so then you are no longer stangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household."

I have a revelation of a family, a family that I don't need to know in any other way than that of Christ, a family that welcomes us back whenever we are ready with no question or condemnation. A revelation of a family that on some level I have missed desperately and long to re-unite with a feeling of comfort and love. I am on some level excited and worried about returning to this family. Worried that in some way I am different than I was and worried that difference will show through my somewhat course exterior; excited because I know that Christ knows who I am and how I am now not like I once was and He doesn't care. I have a revelation of a family that is the same as the family of blood relatives and friends only this family is something that I don't have to work at, I just have to allow.

Cartoon Time

2011-06-29T07:10:00.004-04:00

I love cartoons really I do, especially the cartoons that I grew up with;the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E Coyote, and the Road Runner. Don't get me wrong I love some of the new cartoons now and the ones that my kids grew up with too; but there's nothing like a good Bugs Bunny cartoon. So why cartoons? Well there was a radio talk show discussing the Supreme Courts decision on video game restrictions for minors, I know nothing to do with cartoons. Well nothing except that the Respondent used violent cartoons as an agrument and suddenly the talk show was on to Daffy Duck constantly getting shot by Elmer Fudd and the Coyote always being killed by his own recklessness and my mind was off and running! Come on you have to admit that when the Coyote's plan would literally blow up in his face and he would hold up his whatever sign, that was funny. And it never failed that just when Elmer Fudd had Bugs cornered Daffy would step in to help poor Elmer out....and always, Daffy received the short straw but Bugs' cunning play on words and Daffy would end up getting the business end of Elmer's shotgun.... Classic!
But why cartoons? Or more to the point why these cartoons? When I listened to the radio show and their argument on violence I agreed but then somewhere in the back of my mind, somewhere other than in the conversation at hand, I heard something else. I grew up, as I'm sure you did, with cartoons that made light of death; and in reality as a grown up I've noticed that almost all cartoons make light of death or risky actions that cartoon characters take is pronounced in funny antics. I don't know how I knew that cartoons were just cartoons, or that when someone actually died they actually died, I'm guessing it was at a very young age because I've always seemed to understand death as real. Death was an end an absolute finish to life, something that would stop your progress. You have to also understand that I didn't believe in God and sometime prior to that in my 20s and 30s I believed in reincarnation - probably fueled by the cartoons (heehee). So death was an absolute end, the ultimate end. What's also amazing is that without even knowing it, at some subconscience level, those same cartoons hold a key, a key that even you probably don't see. I know its one that I didn't see, one that I would have never connected, one that doesn't even seem logical - not really. ....
Yep, I'm stuck, really I am - I have no idea how to make this connection but when I do you'll see the key that I'm talking about, I just have to get there...from here....
Maybe I should just give you the key....I Cor 15:54 "....death has been swallowed up in victory." I Cor 15:55 "Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?" I Cor 15:26 "the last enemy to be destroyed is death.." I Cor 15:21 "for since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man." I guess the key I'm trying to show you is that in those old famous cartoon characters a man brought the Coyote and Daffy to life through his drawing of resurrecting those famous characters. Not only did the same man cause the cartoon's death, he also brought them back to life. No we don't have someone drawing our deaths through comic relief and yes death does have a sting in our now lives, sometimes a very strong and defining sting, and at times death does appear to have victory. But just like the cartoon characters that I love from my childhood (and even now), I have a hope for victory over death. I have a hope that death will be the last enemy destroyed. I don't get to see it right now or even in a few seconds from now but I hope that a Man will bring resurrection of the dead. And I hope that in that resurrection death will be totally removed.
In looking over this writing, I don't believe I've made a good connection between my favorite cartoons and the victory over death, I don't see it although I'm usually harder on myself. There is a connection for me, I'm not sure if that connection is found easily for you in the cartoon analogy or not, but its there. And somewhere in the future, maybe forever away or just seconds away, there will be victory over death...that is where my hope has to stay, even with death's current sting.

Waiting....Once Again....Waiting

2011-06-26T07:41:00.003-04:00

Have you ever waited for something? And I mean waited and waited and waited and waited. And somewhere in all the waiting you find that you give up or just fall into and unknown rhythm of "ok whatever". If you are anything like me, waiting is one of your least favorite things to do. Waiting is one of those things that I just can't seem to get away from no matter how hard I try.

I attempted to start writing every day this year, something I presumed would be easy and something I was hoping would shorten the waiting that I am going through; neither has happened. The waiting seems to be getting longer and my writing well that has gone to the wayside more than once. What am I awaiting? Well in one word, hope. Hope to give me inspiration, hope to give me peace, hope to give .... well anything. If you've never been in this waiting line, its not much different than waiting for a roller coaster ride at an amusement park in the middle of Summer. The line stretches for more than a mile and somewhere way up front is where the line gets on the ride. But while in line the ride actually begins, the waiting to 'get there' starts with excitement, anticipation, or anxiety, and as the line slowly progresses, the screams from the now riders builds inside the mind and the waiting gets tougher. After a long 1-2 hours, there's a crest in the line and low and behold there's the ride, the thing heard for the past hours is now in sight and the heart races while you watch the ride pull away and begin its ascend and descent, twist and twirls, with yells and screams falling on ears below, and sweat begins to stream off your face. The anxiety has come to life, right there standing in line for the one thing you most wanted as you reach the platform. Waiting on inspiration is the same as this line, I've waited for something inspiring to happen to give me a reason to hope. The anxiety has been of unmeasurable force and yet I wait. Waiting on inspiration is something that no one should be subjected to, just like waiting for 3 hours to get on a roller coaster. It is also, by far, one of the most difficult, crushing, and mindboggling things that one can wait to occur. It has stumped profession writers, artists, dancers, performers around the world and throughout history and still they wait.

Its funny how inspiration comes when it does, for me, I have been waiting for an answer; an answer to my unbelief. This morning in reading for whatever reason (something I am not doing much of and fighting my mind to do) I read on waiting for hope. It was this particular reading, as usual, on target with my heart. How waiting on hope is the most difficult of waiting that one will go through, how waiting on hope is the worst waiting. The author apparently knows this place because she talks of waiting for hope in the darkest times with no glimmer of prospect. Gal 5:5 For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness." Its amazing sometimes how things just work out. Today is June 26th and when I opened my devotional book, I turned to what I thought said June 26 but when I picked it up to quote the scripture and look up Galatians, the page says July 26. I turned to June 26, mostly because I was curious, and the reading is on unbelief. The author starts with Rom 3:3 "For what is some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?".."I think I can trace every scrap of sorrow in my life to simple unbelief."

Its funny how things work out, happen, occur; its funny how God can orchestrate something without me even knowing or realizing it happened. I'm still waiting, even now that I know its unbelief that is causing the wait, still waiting for a devine intervention of inspiration to cut through the unbelief and get me out of the wait. Do you think it will happen? Maybe it will. Maybe it already has

How Do I Get Back?

2011-06-12T20:50:00.002-04:00

I started writing this yesterday and then realized that I was forcing words out of my mind and through my fingers to this page; something that I don't have to do, the words generally, for whatever reason, just come to me. So last night, I stopped writing and this morning deleted everything that I had typed. Well everything except this picture. The picture and title have very little to do with each other except that in this picture I am asking you to trust that this is the way back for the two horses and riders whom you can't see. The way back which is a little more difficult than it appears and one that you can not see because of that little bend in the road. Do you trust me?

Yesterday morning in an unsuccessful attempt to get my lazy butt up and go to church, I opened up the live feed and decided to watch online. It did not go well. My poor little laptop was not cooperating and each time I tried to load the live feed, it would crash. Each time, my mind would start with excuses to get up and start doing the listed work I had for the day and each time a struggle to sit and try again would ensue. Finally, I was able to get a live feed and came in when Heath, the youth pastor, was talking about the Body of Christ, what we trusted in, and how to get to the place where we were suppose to be according to Christ. That's all I got before my buffering and loading took a break, so while I waited (impatiently), I began to write down some of my thoughts. "What am I trusting in?" and "How do I get back?" I was still waiting for the feed to come back and my mind started with the long list of things I had to do today and I started to give up on the live feed and go to work when it came back. This time Ryan Peterson, a newer pastor for our church was beginning to speak, and he asked a question "Have you ever met God in an unexpected place?" and he went on. It didn't take long for Ryan to get to the point of his message, simply the gospel, and he gave a description of the gospel in comparison to the restoration of a home. Restoration as defined (and I am trusting Ryan's words) is to bring anything back to its original design by its original owner. I have never thought of the word restoration in the manner that Ryan begin to relate. And how he used the restoring of a old home back to its original design by the original architect and how that process began "ugly", "tore down", and basically in shambles before the final restoration was presented. And no one but the original designer, the architect, was the only one who could see the end result as beautiful through all the ugliness and destruction. My question had in less than 10 minutes been answered.

How do I get back? What am I trusting in? Well in the word above, I was trusting in Ryan's description of restoration, and in the picture above, I am asking you to trust that I know the way back. Just like you with trusting me to know the way back if we were on the trail above, I have to, with a struggle, trust that God was guiding Ryan's words. Something very hard to do for me as of late, and I have no explanation as to why. Ryan described the restoration as a rebuilding of the gospel that I already knew and he started with a foundation. John 17:2,3 "For you granted him authority overal all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Then the foundation gave support for the walls. 2Cor 5:21 "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us..." Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me...." Phil 3:7 "...whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." Col 1:13 "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kningdom of his Son.." My question was answered in a first few minutes that Ryan began to speak and then he took the word restoration and showed me how to get back. Do you see it?
There is not much work actually none on my part to be honest just an allowance of the restoration. The work has already been done and there is a path back that was forged through a message of prophets that the day of restoration was coming, that there was a miracle and Christ was born, and that he lived simply for 30 years being a carpenter, and then started his 3year journey to the cross, that he took on the wrath of God, that he died and rose again and that he said..."blessed are those who do not see me."

The journey back to my original design is not going to be an easy one, that much I believe. I also believe that I am in the ugly stage just before the restoration begins, I have a choice to be restored or not, my part is only in the battle of my mind and trusting that the way back is simple.

Separated

2011-06-07T06:40:00.003-04:00

I don't know if you can understand or want to understand the place that my heart, mind and soul stand entrenched. I don't know if I can explain, demonstrate, or even begin to lead your mind or imagination in that direction to give you a sampling of this place. It is probably, by far, easier for me to use a different personal experience, one that may be related directly to you, to bring you to this understanding. Many, if not all of us, have in some way been affected by a separated family, most through the act of divorce. I'm sure many of us in one way or another have moved from a childhood home or a long time home where we have made life long friends whereby we swear to stay in touch and close across the distances. And we become, without warning, separated from part of our lives that in its essence was something of paradise (well in one way paradise). We become separated by space, land, miles, and other people, from those parts of our lives and we move on, finding a parent in a new way or finding a new friend whom we wouldn't have met otherwise without the move.

Its easy to associate or place something in the way of being separated, actually very easy, especially when its a family break (usually someone moves out causing the separation) or a move from short-time home putting distance, a physical realm between two people. There is, however, a type of separated that you can not see, one that is not part of a physical picture such as a move. There is a separateness that causes a wandering that leaves much to be desired and one that I hope not many would have to experience. My mind,needless to say, wanders, drifts, and slowly separates itself from the rest of me (odd I know), and I'm sure many of you have experienced that wandering too. I believe that it is a survival tactic for my mind, a way for my mind to maintain itself against my will. My mind has, literally, a mind of its own, the separation that is created by its wandering makes it possible for it to think rationally, process and continue to take care of my body. So what is it separating itself from? My heart. My heart although somedays has the power to get me out of bed and move me in a straight line, is not really here. My heart has been separated from my mind and soul for over a year and it is, without any control, lingering at the place that my mind can not stay. And these to vital parts of me have without delay separated themselves quite effectively from my soul. Although some days I look and sound full of life, a life that my mind can work through and my heart can pound through, there is little soul within it. I believe that if any one really looked they could see the separation of me, the distance between the 3 things that make my life function inside of my frame-where they are separated by time and emotion.

I don't like this separation and it has taken me this long to figure out how I can still work without literally falling into shambles, how I can make everything function without wandering away. Now that I have figured out this pandora's box problem, I'm worried that I will not be able to reunite these 3 and if I can when with it happen. I worry that this separation between the 3 parts of me have created and caused a 4th separation, a separation from my faith and God. The struggle to bring together the 3 separated parts of me becomes more difficult when I am struggling to know God is with me, although I know, or having difficulty believing He is walking with me, although He is, and I realize that knowing is only 1/8 of the truth and formula to bring me back together. The separateness, I now know, is partly survival, partly life, and somewhere in between those things is faith bridging survival and life together in a way that either of the other 2 parts are able to do alone. I don't like this separation and rebuilding, that's actually what it is a rebuilding of a relationship and foundation -only its inside where you can't see. I don't like knowing and knowing that is not the foundation to rebuild. But I believe (I think) that somewhere in the mangled separated mess that is in shambles inside of me there is Someone who can put it all back together, if I didn't, even though I don't see it everyday, my mind would just wander me away. My heart would just be sad all the time and my soul would have to fight in between to keep me in the physical here. So I believe.
Romans 8:35, 39"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?... neither height or depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Philemon 1:18 "perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was so that you might have him back for good..."

Fixer Upper

2011-06-03T08:52:00.003-04:00

I was raised by a fixer upper; no matter what was wrong or what was happening, no matter what house we lived in whether it was in good condition or crappy condition, there was something to be fixed and my Mother was the fixer upper. So, naturally, I unexpectedly inherited the wonderful trait. I rarely find things that can't be fixed (or changed - same thing) and I can do it or find a way to do it - even if inefficiently. It was without a doubt that I would marry a fixer upper. Lee can fix just about anything and if he can't fix it, he tries to fix it first before finding a repair person. Which as you can imagine, could be a problem, but its not, oddly enough, he doesn't do damage so unrepairable that a repair person costs more than an arm (or leg). He's absolutely amazingly, a rare find. I have to say that having a fixer upper (times 2) in the house can be somewhat overwhelming for our children. If one of us isn't doing something the other one is and they girls are kind of caught in the middle. I wonder if either of them inherited this...disease.

Why the fixer upper? Why this title? Well I have to give credit to my friend, Laura, who emailed me about her wonderful, genius of a husand who fixes their vehicles without even a hitch of a problem. The second reason was due to a title of a distant friends blog "permanent temporary". I know they have nothing to do with each other but bear with me. I haven't warranted a writing in the past couple of days (going days, weeks or months lacking of inspiration). I am, by all means, a person in need of inspiration, sad I know I should be inspired just waking up (okay back to reality). The fixer upper, the one person who could put stuff back together and fix it up right the way it was before the break. You might be surprised as to the word fix, I was! Why? Well because my idea of fix is to repair or mend, God's idea of fix is something completely different. He relates my fix to the actual meaning of 'mending', go figure, He relates fix to looking or seeing, setting or making a point of, not repairing! Great, don't you think? I mean I was looking for something to fix me, the ultimate fixer upper, and I found something completely the opposite. It was at this point, I found mend, and you know what there are only 2 places in the NIV Bible that reference the word 'mend'. Again, not what I was hoping.

So why does this matter? Well it really doesn't, not in reality. It doesn't really matter and looking at what I wrote above it looks like alot of blahblahblah words. But I love my fixer upper husband, and I love that I grew up with a fixer upper, and now, more than ever I need a fixer upper for my soul and heart. 2Cor 4:18 "fix your eyes on not what is seen, but what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal." Heb 12:12 "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.." Prov 60:2 "......mend its fractures, for it is quaking." I would rewrite these 3 short cuts from these places and in my version it would read like this: "Fix your eyes on Jesus for He, even tho unseen, is eternal. The world or land that you are walking thru are temporary and He will mend all fractures, even when you are quaking, this world and time are only what is seen right now, He has an unseen time for you." I love fixer uppers, don't you?

First Ride .... Sense April 24, 2010

2011-05-25T07:40:00.003-04:00

This is me, on Raychel, in 2006 at Million Pines; long hair, and sweating like crazy in mid-April. I was riding lots then lots and lots, almost entirely consumed by competing and training. But that being said, we loved it! Raychel loves to compete, she's great at endurance and she loves to go - even though sometime you couldn't tell when we load in a trailer and go - but she still loves it. Sometime in 2008, this became a job a thing I had to do something that I was suppose to do instead of something that I wanted to do and love to do, and so I ebbed away from competing. Then with a little riding (yes to those of you reading this who were riding with me in 2008 and 2009 a little riding is what it was), I competed in two limited distance rides (thats under 35 miles). I thought for a moment that I was moving toward the rider/competitor and I was working toward a productive ride year with a friend in 2010 when our life changed; and so did my riding drive.

It's been a year since the life change, my friend and I did go and volunteer for the AERC(American Endurance Riding Commission) Nat'l Championship Ride in October. It gave me the bug to ride, the want to ride, and eventually that bug has come to fruition. After some himming and haaahing, my friend and I decided to do a ride (short ride) this weekend and we have been somewhat steady in our training over the past week and a half (not near enough to compete). Why the sudden interest....endurance - a word I thought I knew the meaning of until last night.
Endurance, by definition from Merrian Webster, is "the ability to withstand hardship or adversity...the ability to sustain a prolonged effort or activity". Paul describes and talks about endurance too; 2 Cor. 6:4 "in great endurance, in troubles, hardships, and distress." 1Thess 1:3 "...your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in Christ." I think its funny odd that Merrian Webster defined endurance first as the ability to withstand hardship or adversity, I have never read this definition before, never knew that this was the definition of endurance, and why did I look it up today? Because of the way Paul used the word endurance in the scriptures that I found prompted me to look up the definition. I always associated endurance with the ability to compete well, not to withstand harships.

Paul talks repeatedly of endurance and getting through sufferings, difficulties, sorrow, pain, hardship with hope, not on my own. I am still going through hardships, suffering and sorrow, pain and hurt and I am not doing this alone, but with a wonderful husband and daughters and friends who know and understand and with God, whom I am sometimes still upset with, confused about His plan, and off and on angry with but still with hope in Him. And now, training again, with a plan, I realize that the first and second part of the definition is me and Raychel as one. She carries me anywhere I point her, she sustains the prolonged activity with very little to no complaining, with her ears forward and continuing with her heart. And like endurance she has sustained through hardships and adversity standing in a pasture waiting for me to get through my hardships, waiting with a hope that one day I'd bring her back to the thing she loves to do with me, ride and compete with endurance. Endurance to complete and finish a set distance, endurance to get through a hardship that was not known, endurance to be one unit again and someday, with a hope of being out of the hardship, with scars attached but feeling joyful ... once again.

Back On Writing

2011-05-20T08:18:00.005-04:00

Well I guess I can say that my goal of writing every day this year is totally destroyed; not unusual for me but I was trying to accomplish a goal. The change came when I was asked by a friend to contact a mother, a mother who a short few days before had lost her son in a car accident. This is a poor excuse, I know, but the reason behind my delay nonetheless. And along with this delay in writing/posting/blogging came a subsiding in my want/need to talk to God. Believe it or not, this blog site has encouraged me daily to try to communicate with Him, that too was delayed. I haven't been on here in 1 month and 2 days; I haven't read or talked to God in 1 month and 1 day, not a good record. So why today? I really don't know except that last night I realized that I had been fighting tears again, fighting the pain that I am good at hiding, subduing, and putting on hold, and out of nowhere I started talking to Him. And I fell asleep, peacefully, without sleep aid and slept, really slept, probably the first time in a couple weeks.
This morning I got up, got coffee and a cup of water, turned on the boob-tube, and opened up facebook, my regular routine. Except this morning, there was a post, from a woman, a nurse at Womack AMC, talking about a great legacy of her son. I am not friends with this woman and only saw this post because a ride buddy works with her and commented on her post. I won't share much, mostly because it's painful, but she writes "so proud of my awesome son, double lunge transplant to one donor, kidneys to two separate people....might muscles and bones to those who need them...we love you Zachie for giving your all even to the end..." I know briefly of this woman, my ride buddy told us of her son's accident and how he was in ICU with brain injuries but seemed to be moving along with hope of recovery. This post was a tribute to the fight that her son fought and the pain that she felt through a decision she and her husband had to make to allow Zach to go, to fight no more. This prompted me to avoid my Streams in the Desert book at first and then pick it up to today; of course I had to find today because I haven't been reading or looking thru this book of mine for some time. And I found something that was hidden the pages before today, most of May is dedicated to suffering, fighting, failing faint in faith, struggling, searching, and not knowing if God really cares or knows how this life feels.
Daniel 3:25 Walking in the midst of the fire. "The comfort of Christ's revelation is not emancipation from sorrow, but emancipation through sorrow...Oh my Go, teach me, when the shadows have gathered that I am only in a tunnel....Tell me I am only forced to clim because Thy house is on a hill!"
Psalms 27:13 I had fainted unless... "How the soul sinks, the heart grows sick, and the faith staggers under the keen trials and testings which come into our lives in times of special bereavement and suffering.....It is so when we are tempted to faint under affliciton. God's message to us is not "Be strong and of good courage," for He knows our strength and courage have fled away. But it is that sweet word "Be still and know that I am God."
I wonder if these 2 women, far off acquaintances that I have come in contact with, know that it is ok not to be strong? I wonder if they, like me, were out front and strong thru this time and hiding in the bedroom or bathroom crying? I wonder if those who leave messages for them saying "we are praying for you" or "God bless you" strike a cord of pain now but one day will be words that mean much more? I wonder if these women know that God is standing with them, crying with them, and they are not alone? I wonder if they know one day they are going to help someone, someone whom they don't know and never knew before, someone who, like them, is beginning their walk thru the fire and feeling faint?

I'm Stealing - Again

2011-04-17T08:33:00.000-04:00

Its seems unlikely that I would admit to stealing, altho I have committed this act in more than one way in my life. And here I am again, stealing once more. I haven't been on here in sometime, even tho I had committed myself to attempting to write every day at the beginning of the year, time has somehow gotten away from me. And in an attempt to ease my heart from hurting a little this morning, I reviewed some of the blogs that I follow; one being "for the love of a horse". Probably one of my favorite blogs, written by a man named Ralph about horses that have entered or touched his life in some way. And it seems, without fail, when I read - on the off occassion - his entire blog entry, it is exactly what I needed to read. So I'm stealing some of his words of wisdom yet again. "I don't know how or even why but something really beautiful happened in my life, at a point when I was really feeling, well, a bit hopeless." You wouldn't know it from this simple statement or even from the entire paragraph written on the link for this blog, but the writer is speaking of his horse "Mimi". There is little else to the blog written except a picture of this mare whom he refers to as a "beautiful" thing but it is enough. I wonder sometimes if my horses, Raychel, Myisha and Princess, know what turmoil is going on just 50 yards from their almost grassless pasture? I wonder if these creations know that when I am talking to them from afar I am hoping for some miniscual response? And I think for whatever reason they do, I mean I know people say pets don't understand but I believe they are wrong. Because when I most need to be close to one of them, I can stand in the pasture and Raychel will be the first one to me. She will stand right next to me and not move, not a muscle, and almost keep watch around us. Funny that she knows exactly when to stop and stand next to me without bribery of feed, funny that at times when I am most feeling a bit hopeless these creations become a beautiful thing that happens to me.

Almost.....But Not Yet.

2011-04-07T09:29:00.002-04:00

Psalms 69:29 I am in pain and distress, may your salvation, O God protect me. It is unfortunate in my humble opinion that there are scriptures that refer to pain, anguish, and distress in the middle of a "love story". I wish, at some point in this so-called card hand I 'feel' as though I've been dealt, that I'd get a royal flush. (And yes I 'feel' it I don't necessarily believe it-well not all of it anyway.) I have to say that I never really, really read Psalms not intentionally, maybe in reference but not intentionally. And I have heard people say that they have been given life scriptures, of which I have no idea what that means - I thought all scripture was life scripture but what do I know. And I have to say I wonder - ponder- wait for my "life scripture", something that I don't believe has "happened" yet or that I something that I haven't worked toward yet - or so I thought. I've been looking for something to make me laugh, I mean heart laugh, and I found a comedian on youtube.com, Mark Lowry, who is very funny and gives a message within the funny, and he has a life scripture....are you ready? "and it came to pass" That's it "and it came to pass". So here I sit looking at Psalms 69:29 - feeling in pain and distress, trying to find something - someway to 'numb' the pain (by the way 'numb' is not in the reference that I searched just FYI). And I find that David, King David, once again was crying out to God in pain, hurt, distress, anguish, etc, etc, etc. And he only asked that God's salvation be enough to protect him. And then I remembered my comedian's life scripture and I searched it on my reference guide (just so you know you have to use the King James version....this paraphrase is not in the NIV - sad when I think about what's next that they removed this from the NIV version). The phrase "came to pass" is in the King James version 462 times in some manner; either 'and it came to pass', 'it shall come to pass', 'it all came to pass', 'it came to pass in those days'. Funny that I have these two things together huh? From pain to passing; and I wonder when this too shall come to pass, this pain, fear, heartbreak, and distress, when will it come to pass and my story will start again and maybe it will start with "and it came to pass, the pain and distress because His salvation protected me...."

Nothing Yet

2011-03-27T09:13:00.002-04:00

I wonder sometimes when things will go back to 'normal'. When I'll wake up and feel as though I actually slept, when I'll get up and feel as though all is right. Things haven't been right for a long time and I worry that they will never be right, or at least to my definition of right, again. I've never really had words of wisdom or words of faith and lately it seems as though those things are getting farther and farther away. And I'm not sure how to find my way back to the place of faith that I knew not to long ago. But in this part of my long walk through a dry and desolate desert, I hear these words "help me with my unbelief". I actually read them in a book written my a lifelong Christian going through a terrible loss and throughout she kept saying to God "help me with my unbelief", and so those words have been resinating in my head. I have went through a season where I was once again chosing not to believe, chosing not to want to believe and I can't honestly say that I don't have that season still at large within me. And still I hear "help me with my unbelief" constantly going through my head. Why, in a whole 200+ page book did this half sentence stick with me? And how in the world do I get it out of my head? I don't know if I can or anyone can remove this statement from resinating in my head and throughout my conscience, although I would love it to happen. I don't know if it will ever go away, the unbelief that I struggle with due to the fear that has mounted within me. I don't know if there is anything to do about the fear that feeds my unbelief except to live in it. I know my unbelief is real and I know that I still believe (how about that for an oxi-moron!?). And I know that the unbelief is going to stay for a while and may never go away but as long as I believe there is One who can fight my unbelief and knows that I am struggling with my unbelief, I will never be alone. I miss my previous life, I miss being a mom of 3, I miss my girls being little and I miss my son, "help me with my unbelief". Mark 9:24 "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief."

Obey or Not to Obey?

2011-03-15T06:45:00.002-04:00

I actually wasn't going to do this today but then I read something this morning that prompted me to reconsider. But it actually all started yesterday morning. I received, as sometimes I do, an email from Lee with the TGIF (Today God is First) devotional that he reads. But this one was prompted with a message from Lee that sprang my curiosity immediately to stop what I was doing and read the devotional below. I'm not going to detail the whole devotional but it was named "3 Phases of Obedience" and the author detailed 3 phases toward altimate obedience the way that God desires us to obey. Doesn't sound that out of the ordinary..right? In paraphrase this is what was said:
1st phase: "When we first begin our Christian walk and spiritual journey, we base our obedience on the 'outcome' of the obedience." (i.e. if we preceive a positive outcome to the request of obedience then we obey based on the positive outcome; whereas if we preceive a negative outcome obedience is not as quickly acted upon.)
2nd phase: "However, God desires us to live an obedience based life. In order to transition us from an outcome-based life to an obedience-based life, he will bring a crisis into our lives. This crisis is designed to create pain which motivates us to seek him to alleviate the pain."
3rd phase: "Ultimately, God desires us to live a life of obedience and deeply rooted in conviction....During the crisis phase (phase 2) we discover the personal love of God in our lives which we have never experienced before."

This really, really made me mad! And Lee asked me if I believed what this author was stating and my response was this: "hummm...NO!!! NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT!! i don't believe that God had anything to do without crisis, i believe that He is looking for a response to our crisis but i don't believe the He created a scenario like this- that would make Him unloving in my opinion, uncaring, unconcerned, and i say this thru issues of my faith but i don't believe this and i can't believe this because if i allow myself to think this way then why would i elect to believe in God? he would just be wrong all the time."
I don't believe that God, sits on His thrown and says "You know that religious looking family really isn't obeying Me the way I want them to; I think they need a problem to make them look to Me." And then causes some crisis in our lives. If this is the God that I have come to love, the God that altho I'm struggling right now I believe waits for my response, the God who says throughout His Word "love", "love", "love", and I am wrong in what I believe then who am I to witness to others about this author's understanding of obedience to God? I gotta say there is no way, not one moment in my life (pre or post being a Believer & Follower of Christ) that would make me be a witness if I believed that God "brings a crisis" in my life to draw me closer to Him! That doesn't sound like an all knowing God, who knows my heart, steps and future. It sounds like a god who determines 'who' he wants to turn to him and then puts that person in a crisis situation to give them no 'free will'. It sounds like a god I'd really not want to believe in at all because then he would be responsible for the current crisis I and my family are in, and he is responsible for every crisis in our lives. Hummm....what to do you think? I don't think so!

The reason I wrote this was because I read something this morning that portrays, to me, a merciful, loving God who knows crisis's and problems are created by Our choices and He offers and escape route, from the crisis that is created.
"Fear no, thou worm Jacob..I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth (Isa. 41:14,15) Could any two things be a greater contrast that a worm and an insturment with teeth? The worm is delicate...crushed beneath the passing wheel...an instrument with teeth can break and not be broken..... And so the "worm" may take heart. The mighty God can make us stronger than our circumstances. He can bend them all to our good. In God's strength we can make them all pay tribute to our souls. We can even take hold of a black disappointment, break it open, and extract some jewel of grace... Christ is building His kingdom with earth's broken things...Heaven is filling with earth's broken lives, and there is no bruised reed that Christ cannot take and restore to glorious blessedness and beauty. He can take a life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it into a harp whose music shall be all praise. He can life earth's saddest failure up to heaven's glory."

It amazes me sometimes that man, us, we, can take the word 'obey' or 'obedience' and make it into a demand, a thing that is going to happen whether we want it to or not and make a walk that is to be of love a walk of fear. That's what it is in the first author's description a walk of fear. Isn't he really saying "Beware! There's a crisis in your life coming if you don't obey properly!"?

I chose to believe in God, I chose to believe in Christ's salvation, and I chose those because of His mercy, not because I blamed all of the crisis's in my life on Him and He drove me to Him. He showed me love without condemnation; He gives me mercy and peace without requirements; He offers me an opportunity for grace and mercy through Him. That is God, giver of life and lover of me, caregiver and holder of my pain and sorrow, the One who knows my heart and my future and my numbered days by Him and He knows all in and of me.

The Dark

2011-03-14T08:49:00.004-04:00

The dark is a scary thing, it's a thing that I really want to avoid and it just seems to keep coming around. I've been doing a good job of avoiding it as of late, trying to stay out of it as much as possible, and yet its pressing in on my heart. I just can't get away from it! Anyone with an answer why? I started running almost a year ago and I'm still running only now its getting harder to keep ahead of it and I'm not doing well trying to accept the dark that I need to go into because of fear of what's in the dark. Last night and again this morning, I had 2 things come up that referred to the dark:

"The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day, is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun but to head east, lunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise."

I've quoted this before and I still don't like it.

Exodus 20:21 "Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was."

"Hast thou a cloud?

Something that is dark and full of dread;

A messenger of tempest overhead?

A something that is darkening the sky;

A something growing darker bye and bye;

A something that thou fear'st will burst at last;

A cloud that doth a deep, long shadow cast,

God cometh in that cloud.

Hast thou a cloud?

It is Jehovah's triumph car; in this

He rideth t the, o'er the wide abyss

It is the robe in which He wraps His form;

For He doth gird Him wigh the flashing storm.

It is the veil in which He hides the light

Of His fair face, to dazzling for thy sight.

God cometh in that cloud.

Hast thou a cloud?

A trail that is terrible to thee?

A black temptation threating to see?

A loss of some dear one long thine own?

A mist, a veiling, bringing the unknown?

A mystery that unsubstantial seems;

A cloud between thee and the sun's bright beams?

God cometh in that cloud.

Hast thou a cloud?

A sickness-weak old age-distress and death?

These clouds will scatter at thy last faint breat,

Fear not the clouds that hover o'er thy barque,

Making the harbour's entrance dire and dark;

The cloud of death, though misty, chill and cold,

Will yet grow radiant with a fringe of gold.

GOD cometh in that cloud."

I don't like this poem, not really because its telling me to do something that I don't want to do and am resisting. I wish, truly wish the dark would just go away and this journey would be easier than it is, softer than it has been and turning into. I still don't know if I am strong enough to handle things, I know I'm stubborn enough to avoid those things. I don't know who reads this and I don't worry about that but if you have said prayer for our family, I love you and want to say that I am not praying having an issue with that communication with God. But I know that someone is praying and I love knowing that, thank you for praying us through this season.

Quicker Than Expected

2011-03-03T17:15:00.002-05:00

Quicker than expected as life contracts and goes by
Sitting on this couch watching the days ebb more quickly than a foxes sly
Quicker than expected this life will not give even a bit
And I struggle it into focus and force it to fit.
Quicker than expected I became a mom and wife
Working thru growing pains with more than just strife
Quicker than expected I lost the between control and peace
Huddling in the corners of my mind looking for a release.
Quicker than expected the tides of time withdrew
And now I find myself in this place and looking for You.

I've been looking for something and truthfully I think I lost it many, many years ago (no not my mind!). I was looking for scriptures on stuff that happened quickly and I found a lot of them but not any that 'spoke' to me. This morning I was looking for something for my daughter and, on what I call a fluke, I typed in "restore" and found the something I was looking for.
1Peter 5:10 "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make strong, firm and steadfast."
I've been struggling with 'finding' God again - I know how crazy that sounds but its a true statement. And it seems as though when I am 'searching' He is nowhere to be found. When I came across 1Peter 5:10 the words told me a story, I know crazy that one sentence can hold a story but it does and here it is. I was 'called' believe it or not, out of the life that I was in up until I was 36, by God and things were great, things were unbelievably great. I was walking in a full forest with a clear single path - finding the way cleanly and without trouble. Then the forest dwindled away and a hard harsh land was revealed to me. The ground - cracked and dry and the path lead for a short time and now is gone from sight. Now for a little while, I am going thru a suffering that I'm struggling thru and looking for something to get me thru this time. The path is gone and the desert that was once flat has produced sand dunes to climb and struggle over still with no path. And I search for something that I thought was very close to me and now I am finding has eluded me. But I hope - somewhere in the future- He will restore my path and the desert will disappear. I don't know when I don't know how but I hope. Because right now even tho the desert and sand dunes seem long and drawn out, in His eyes it is for just a little while and He will restore me to a path maybe not with trees and full of flowers but a hopeful path - someday I will not be in the unpathed desert. See I told you that one sentence had a story - and I bet you didn't believe me. I'm not liking this plan not one bit or even milli-bit and yet here I am right in the midst of it, quicker than expected.

A Glass of Wine, A Hot Bath, And....

2011-02-24T08:10:00.003-05:00

I've spent many, many nights in the bathtub basically hiding out. I have always like to read books and I usually spend reading nights in a hot bathtub with a glass of wine and sometimes the occasional beer and read my way into a different world, time, era, place. I have spent many, many a night in a hot bath crying and complaining, trying to figure out who to talk to about my heart, and hiding from those around me. I have read books from murder mysteries to fantasy wildness, to trying to find a book that the author could tell me, relate to me, bring to me the exact words that describe what I am feeling and who I am becoming, with very little luck by the way. Then in September sometime, my daughter bought The Shack, and in October/November (I think), I took up reading again in my hot bath, and this is the book where I started. It was what I desired; a book that the author, wrote about an encounter post a tragic event in the main characters life. The description, details, and emotions that poured from the author's hand to the page expressed and delivered something that I related to immediately. He brought to life a picture of what I needed, wanted, longed for in the future, and it brought something that I had been looking for.. no not answers. I finished The Shack, not as quickly as my daughter wanted. Then hovered around trying to find something else, something that would bring more detail and life to the place that I am living in, once again without luck.
After a couple months and searching and giving up on more to read, I was watching something and there was an author talking about a book she had finished, Choosing to SEE. I couldn't buy the book fast enough, which was much harder than you would think and finally found it at a poodunct Walmart, the last one on the shelf. I knew the story or at least part of the story from TV and news media but I only knew a little bit of the story. I bought this book writen by Mary Beth Chapman and I knew some of the story of the Chapman family. I knew that their daughter, age 5, was struck by a car in their driveway, a car being driven by their 17 yr old son, and I knew that their daughter was lost shortly after being admitted to the hospital. That's what I knew, that's really all I knew, what I found out was the whole story. This mother of a family of 6 children and wife of a well known Christian singer, Steven Curtis Chapman, wrote about their life starting with their daughter, about the life that they lost, and about the way she felt then, during, and now. So, I am plagerizing today. I am taking parts and pieces of this mother's words that I relate to, the moments in time that she is in and going through, so I plagerize.

"When people as how we are doing, the first thing I always say is 'I want Maria back. I want my son Will Franklin not to have this as a chapter in his story. I want my childrent to be healthy, my family secure. I don't really care whose life has been touched or changed because of our loss!' That is the heart of a mother who lost a daughter and is determined not to lose another child."
I wish I could be this open, this true to people when they ask me how I am I could tell them exactly the way I feel, exactly like these words.
"The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise." Jerry Sittser - quote picked by Mary Beth Chapman at the beginning of a chapter.
I don't like this statement, altho over the past 10 months I believe it to be true, even tho I avoid the fact that I am running ever so desperately further into the darkness by chasing the sunrise to the west. Why? Because I can see a little bit of light left and am comfortable seeing that glimmer of setting sunlight to stay out of the dark chasing me from behind.
"Maria, I'm sad. Brokenhearted and wounded. You are momentarily gone from me, taken without notice, way too soon for my liking. Mommy has been so sad. I know you wouldn't want me to be but I long for the way things were and wonder why they have to be the way they are."
I say these words to Kaleb and Thad probably daily and I say them under my breath, alone at home or in the car going somewhere, sitting at the cemetary between them, and this is not to my liking.
"..this grief I can't express is deeply personal and isolating. I makes me very sad. Sometimes I can't breathe it hurts so bad. Everybody has loved on me, but the tears still come."
"Sometimes it is 10 steps forward and 5 steps back, and sometimes it is one stip forward and twenty steps back, but I'm moving..."
"Maria's birthday. I honestly don't know what to write or what to say. I can think of all the "right things to say, like, "I'm thankful for the years I had with Maria." That is a true statement, but I still want more years with her. I've heard thinks like, "She wasn't mine to begin with." That is a true statement as well. She belongs to God. He gave her to me so that I could be her mommy. But I still want to be her mommy...I wasn't prepared to give her back to the One who gave her to me."
I can say with all my heart these are thoughts, feelings, and yes words that I have felt and/or heard. And this mother, Mary Beth, gave those moments words, something that has been a relief to me because I have no way to say these things yet and I didn't know how to make them come out in a clear thought.
"Here is what I feel as this day starts out. Sad beyond sad that she isn't here. Angry and mad that this had to happen. Confused and bewildered that it had to involve Maria's big brother, who absolutely adored her. Paralyzing fear that I won't be able to pull through the pain and be able to completely let her go. Speechless to know how to grieve my baby girl... "
I read this last night and marked it, why? This was written on My 21, 2009, the 1 yr date of Maria's passing and in complete fear of reaching this date in my life, I look to these words to find out what to expect. Not that this life is the same as the Chapman's life, but someone who is giving words to what she is feeling, where she was at and what she was seeing. I feel speechless beyond words most days, and with this date coming without warning, in my opinion, this date is coming without warning, I find myself trying to make the days longer.
"I told someone yesterday that I feel as though I'm not just walking through a desert right now...I'm wandering in it with no clear path in front of me. It is a very desperate place to be, and on lots of days I'm strong on the outside but a mess on the inside."
I've actually wrote about this type of feeling, being in a desert, alone and not seeing a path of where to go next, this statement speaks more than mounds - it speaks the truth of the place where I see myself walking.
"God is either a truth of a lie. Everything He has said and promised is either 100 percent true, or it is lie after lie after lie."
There's more to this beginning of the paragraph, but these few statements say everything that means anything. It is not a middle ground (altho that would be where I'd like God to be), He is either one or the other. Somedays He is 100% truth and other days, on the bad bad days, He seems to me 100% lies. What I have been through lately is deciphering what 'man' says God says, that's actually how 'we' believe we are led by 'man'. What I am learning, and I hope it is God showing me and not just me, is that God is 100% truth even tho I don't like it (which I don't) and somewhere I'm going to not just know this I'm going to believe it.
"Lord, I trust you...help my unbelief. That is where I am, slowly, slowly wallowing through this complex journey God has set before us.."
I have this unbelief, I guess it goes back to the statement above; my hope is that I am not the one directly my steps and God is getting me through my unbelief, even if it is ever so slowly.

I don't have permission to share these quotes that why I stated I was plagerizing at the beginning. I am glad, even through tears in the bathtub, that I bought this book even though in essence I thought I knew the story. I'm hopeful that this desert will end up showing a path and that knowing God is 100% truth will become more than a knowledge but a real truth again. I am desperate to know that someday, at some time later in this journey, my unbelief will be undone. I have thought about thanking Mary Beth for sharing this heartbreaking journey, I haven't but I've thought about it. I hope that she knows that her words have said things that my heart feels and her hope 2 years later is helping me, even though I'd like to deny it. So thank you Mary Beth Chapman for bringing life to heartbreak, life to feeling and words to express the heartbreak that a mother feels. Thank you for letting me know that my unbelief is ok and someday its going to fade and be replaced and God knows when that will happen and He's here with me and my family. Thank you for bringing truth to sadness and grief and that even tho I will never get over this I will get through it.

A glass of wine, a hot bath and life, that's where I'm at, where I can hide, where I'm learning about this journey.

The Northern White Rhino

2011-02-16T07:26:00.009-05:00

This is Sudan, a 38 yr old Northern White Rhino, at home in his home in the Czech Republic. Sudan was captured at age 3 in Kenya and sold to the zoo. He has lived in this indoor 30x30 cage in the winter due to the extreme cold of the Czech Republic and then alone in a concrete surrounding outside when the summer weather permitted. In 2009, the same 2 men who worked so hard 35 yrs earlier to trap and sell Sudan worked to have Sudan and 3 other Northern White Rhinos at the Czech zoo released back to Kenya at the Ol Peteja Conservancy. These 4 rhinos (3 of which were born in captivity) make up 1/2 of the Northern White Rhino population (the other 5 are in a conservancy in N. Africa); Sudan is the only living wild bred White Rhino living. The move from the Czech Republic to the Ol Peteja Conservancy 4hrs north of Narobi would prove to be long but beautiful. The zoo and the conservancy began working together - thru the 2 men who once trapped and sold to zoos - to make begin the hopful repopulation of the rhino in its native land. Ol Peteja is a 90,000 conservancy in Kenya that is surrounded on its perimiter by 6 foot high tension electrical fencing and is patrolled on the outer edges by highly armed guards who watch the borders and perimeter for poachers - their only job to shot on sight. Ol Peteja home to a growing population of the black rhino and Southern White Rhinos as well as all other types of released zoo animals in an attempt to repopulate the wild endangered Africa. The move of the rhinos was more than complicated they would be boxed, literally boxed, individually, and shipped by plane to Kenya. The zoo and conservancy worked with a woman - Berry White- commonly known to zoos as the rhino whisperer, spent many months with the rhinos to teach them to be still and load in the dark boxes and to keep the 3 ton animals from getting upset. Her only job to keep the rhinos at peace throughout the trip. It would be 30 hrs of traveling to make it home for Sudan, home to a land he had not set foot on in 35 years. Ol Peteja worked day and night to get the rhinos' temporary homes ready and suceeded just a few hours before their arrival. After unloading the much younger 2 females and 1 male, all of which immediately and without hesitation entered Kenya before Sudan, the group moved to release Sudan. After placing the crate carefully on the ground and removed the door. For the first time in 35 yrs Sudan was about to set foot on his home land. The picture here in the wooden enclosure is deceiving. Sudan took many minutes looking and smelling the air and the ground before he ever stepped out of the crate. And then took a few minutes of sniffing the ground and he quickly moved toward the small area of grazing grass provided for him. Without the hesitation of his traveling companions, Sudan immediately he was welcomed home.

I saw this story on "Last Chance to Survive" a BBC show that tells about endangered species and their journey to survival. When I saw this I was just filled with hope for the rhinos being placed back in their home, especially Sudan. What I didn't expect was that this story would relate to my life. It took a couple days, and I have no reason for why this story kept in my head, constantly restoring itself to me and after of these moments, I looked up something, I looked up a couple of words and found something I didn't expect: John 14:18 "..I will not leave you as orphans, I will come for you." and then 2Peter 3:13 "...keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new earth and new heaven, the home for the righteous." This is how Sudan's story affected me.

Over 19 yrs ago Lee and I were blessed with a son, 19 yrs and 1 day ago two friends of ours were blessed with a son. These two sons, born a country apart, became friends. They lived in this world - in this human zoo - for 18 yrs, and in April 2010, they went together on a trip, a trip home. As I watched the BBC special and saw Sudan look out of his dark crate at the warm Kenya land and I watched Sudan hesitate and then walk out of the dark crate and onto the warm ground and the land he knew as home, I thought of our sons. I thought of how they were not really home. And when they were presented home last April did they hesitate before coming out of the dark and into their warm homeland? Did they look at the brightly lite area and wonder if this was real, if they were really on the edge of walking into their home? Or did they just step out? I don't know what happend last Spring, I don't know how long it took for these two friends to step into the warm home that they had been away from for 18 yrs. I hope for this, it is their home, and even though they may have hesitated - looked - and weighed the step they were taking - they walked on their homeland's ground and were immediately at home. I know that they were not orphaned, no matter what was their life here in this zoo, that Jesus was standing beside them holding their hands and helping them walk into the dark crate that they had to enter to make the journey home. I know that they are home.

So how does this odd story about a rare white rhino affect my heart? Greatly. This story about an endangered creation of God has finally made it faithfully home to the land he was stolen from 38 yrs before. Sudan's story is not much different then the story of our two sons and their journey home before us. Just like Sudan'syounger traveling companions who touched their homeland ground first, so have our 2 sons, they have touched a land that we have not been released onto. So how does Sudan's story affect your heart? If you think it doesn't you might be wrong.

His Part and 'his' Part

2011-02-15T07:56:00.005-05:00

I love plays, I love the way they actors are right in front of you, and it generally doesn't matter what kind of play it is even if it was also a movie. I love the way a the actors take on the part that they are cast and how they make that character come to life. And, if you've never been to a play, you can see how the person makes the character they are portraying come alive in their own mind and then on the stage. And every actor, no matter who they are, can portray the same character and bring that character to life in a different way. It's amazing to me how a person can imitate a character, either a real character of fictitious, and make me believe that they are that person. My life is exactly the same way; there are people in this life that appear to be whom they really are not- they are acting (or at least that's the way it appears).

I heard something 2 weeks ago at a seminar that I was at, I heard a speaker say something that half made sense to me and half didn't (does that make sense?). The history to this 'something' - the speaker was Jodi Rouse a trainer and leader for a nationwide ministry for ... sorrow (I guess that's the best way to describe it). Anyway in this seminar, Jodi was talking about losing a loved one and how 'we' are to walk through the sorrow with them and how people (mainly us humans) blame God for the loss of their loved one. Let me say that she did not dispute this reaction, she didn't give reasons through the Bible or life that this was displaced or wrong, but she did ask this "What about Satan? What about his part in this?". This took me by surprise (altho I know many of you reading this will say it sounds perfectly right). Why did it take me by surprise? Because I never thought of the way I feel and the journey that our families are now going thru as having different parts. Different characters taking shape. I have only focused on one Character and one Part.

Heb 4:16 "Let us then approach the thrown of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need."

When we were at the hospital last Spring, we prayed - we prayed - pastors prayed- friends prayed- everyone I knew who had prayer authority was praying for healing and help over Kaleb and Thad. And yet, with petitions upon petitions, our "help" didn't arrive at our time of "need". And in all honesty, we were angry and disappointed with God. We couldn't fathom why we were here; what was happening; and how we were taking every breath (we still don't - not honestly). We needed the one thing, the only thing, that would have worked at those moments in the hospital, we needed a miracle. We needed exactly what this picture says we needed a miracle to replace a grievance of preparation of loss and we didn't get it (not in our sight anyway).

Why in the world would God not provide this miracle, this healing? Why would He delay and not perform His Part? These are questions that haven't been answered and probably never will be, not really. Although friends and counselors relay heavily upon the saying "everything happens for a reason", I don't know that I believe that completely. So anger and disappointment infest and dwell and lead way to the depression - and there I am, waiting for "help" in my time of "need".

Two weeks ago, when Jodi said "Where is Satan's part in this" I thought for a moment and then quickly dismissed this question. Then, shortly after this brief review, I dwelled on this question; dwelled on the thought of what was "his part"? What character does he play? 1Peter "...Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." I don't know if this is his part, what I can say is that he had a part. I don't know if he encouraged, distracted, denied, or held back anything that could have saved our sons but I do know that he is now devouring - me. In every way possible, I have avoided the process of grieving, depression, anger whatever, I've avoided it. And I have been without God, that's the only way I can explain it, without Him (or at least that's the way it seems). So I struggle with dismay and depression, and yet I am dwelling on this question "What is his part?". (by the way doesn't this picture look like depression and dismay? this is how my heart feels.)

I struggle with depression and dismay, struggle against it like they are real things, at least real to me. And a friend, counselor, gave me a book, and in it I found this "Depression is a body, soul and spirit problem that equires a balanced body, soul, and spirit answer." Farther down the same page, the author states "..there is not problem which is not spiritural. There is no time when God is not present." I highligted these statements well before the seminar where Jodi spoke and have revisited them daily; not for spiritual guidance but for truth. I don't know why I don't 'feel' God (altho feelings are not to be used is what I'm told) and I don't know what His Part is anymore in this play I seem to be in. So I need a truth a truth that is outside those that I 'know' are God's truths. A truth that directs to my heart.

I don't know why our sons' time in this earthly place was so short. I don't know that I'll ever know. I don't know why through petitions upon petitions we didn't get a miracle (a miracle that I have seen since last Spring). I don't know why this play is putting roles on the stage that are not taking shape. I don't know what my part is or how His Part relates anymore to me. I do know that there is a part here that belongs to the enemy and 'his part' is being played well to the his character. It's as though the play is being written by him and 'we' are struggling to fit the roles daily. And yet I am disappointed with God, the anger comes and goes but it is not as strong as it was, but the disappointment is not part of the character role that He set in to play. And yet I struggle. What is Satan's part in all this? I know now that its to drive a wedge in my heart, to divide my mind, body, soul, and spirit (the ole divide and concure). That's his part and he's playing it well. All I have to do is believe the truth that "There is no time when God is not present" and that in the end of all ends, He did answer our petitions upon petitions.

A Horse

2011-02-14T07:56:00.007-05:00

I know I've probably written all I can about a horse right? Well maybe not- it seems I have a lot more to say about horses than I like to think. SInce I have such a strong drawing towards horses, I find that I love pictures of them, stories about them and movies (with any ending) about them. Since I wsas young and we did not grow up with much money, the only place that I could connect with a horse was in books, TV shows, and the infamous Triple Crown races. I loved to watch the entire day unfold at the Kentucky Derby where commentators would discuss and detail the short lives of the 3yr old horses running. Where they had been bred, who owned and trained them and what their odds were against the rest of the field. The first time I heard the story oo Secretariat was on Derby Day when the commentator compared Affirmed to Secretariat. The way that Affirmed ran was comparable to Secretariat's style and heart. And Affirmed was the last Triple Crown winner the infamous three races saw. And then again in 2006, the commentators found another recognizible fashion in Barbaro, a horse that was set to win the Triple Crown and on Derby Day they compared his heart to that of Secretariat's. Barbaro never finished the Preakness his heart to run was stronger than his body. I still love the races, I feel like I am flying when the horses run and I have no idea why. I have never ran in a race or been on a racing Thoroughbred and yet I feel them flying. Don't believe that horses can fly!? Look at this picture of Secretariat, all 4 feet off the ground, his stride was 28 feet long (thats from front heals on the ground 1 stride to back heals on the ground, I'd say that's about as close to flying as you can get on mammal. So why horses? And why the races? Well first of all they are upcoming beginning in April so there ya have it; and second, the movie Secretariat came out on DVD and I watched it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and then again on Saturday with Sydney and I heard something, something that I probably missed the first time through.

Job39: 19-24 "Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting?He paws fiercly, rejoicing in his strength and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against his side, along with flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground, he can not stand still when the trumpet sounds."

I love these picture of Napoleon and his horse. His horse, Vizir, his favorite horse (of his 150+ horses) that was a gift to him from the Sultan of Turkey in 1805. Vizir was a proud Arabian stallion and in each of these pictures you can see his steadfastness - eyes ever forward toward the sound of battle - ears waiting for the trumpet's sound giving him the release to eat up the ground toward the awaiting battlefield.

I'd never heard these verses before and when they were spoke on the movie I didn't know if I believed they were actually part of the book of Job. But why wouldn't I? The horse is the most referenced animal in the Bible - something that I am fully aware of - so why would this seem so out of the ordinary? I've never thought of my horses as 'striking terror' by their snorting and yet they do. I've never thought they would "laugh at fear", "eat up the ground" or "no stand still when the trumpet sounds" - and then I reflect on my horse, on her heart, and lack of fear. She is strong (even tho right now she is fat). When I take her to training and then to endurance races she eats up the ground, ears pricked forward toward the battle that lay ahead of her, and she goes without fear. I wield no sword, there is no quiver rattling at her side, and there is no trumpet sounding battle. And yet, her sides quiver, her ears prick forward, and she sets her eyes toward the field ahead, with the desire to eat up the ground.

God was talking to Job and giving him hope in the situation that Job found himself. The comparison of the horse was to give Job the insight that God was the One who knew all and controlled all, holding all in His sight and that His creation, the horse, knew all this and goes without fear.

I am not the horse that goes without fear, waiting for the trumpet sound, I am not the rider that sits in confidence awaiting for the battle cry. But I desire that heart, I desire the heart of fearlessness that my horse has, I desire the strength that is proud and strikes fear. So why the horse yet again? Because in this time of trials and suffering, in the midst of anguish and heartache, my horse stands close - waiting for the sound of the trumpet, ever by my side she stands waiting, with comfort and steadiness she waits. This is the waiting that God offers, the steadiness that doesn't press me forward but allows me my craziness and unorganization. My God of horses, my God of patience, my God of strength.

"Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck in a flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting? He paws fiercly rejoicing in his strength and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against his side along with flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground, he can not stand still at the trumpets sound."

I hope one day I have this heart, this heart to compare to my horse's heart, this heart that God can provide, this heart that is in waiting, waiting for me.

Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst

2011-02-09T08:32:00.002-05:00

I lived by this for most of my life, and sometime between 2008 and 2010 I stopped living by it and I'm not sure when that happened. I had always lived in hoping for the best, hoping that things would work out, hoping that this or that would end up the way "it should". And then inevitably expecting the worst of the situation and living in fear. That's how I lived my life and when that part of my life stopped, still have no idea when or how that happened, things changed in my life. I really didn't pay much attention to how things would turn out, how things played out or what would happen or not happen. That changed on April 24th, 2010, I almost immediately reverted back to expecting the worst and living in fear.
I am reading a book, trying to figure out how to persevere thru this time in my life, and came across this quote "We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." - C. S. Lewis. This is the nicest way I have come across for my proverb to be relayed. Don't you agree? I mean it is exactly that when you strip away the nicities. "We're not necessarily doubing that God will do the best for us" - Hope for the Best. That's what this fragmented sentence says when you get down to it. I believe God has only the best plan for me, I hope that the best is coming. "We are wonding how painful the best will turn out to be" - Expect the Worst. Right? That's what this fragmented sentence says, expect the worst. So taken together the statement this wonderful, soul searching, heart bending, statement, says hope for the best, expect the worst.
I have to say when I read this statement it spoke to me volumes of words. It said that I am doubting even tho I am standing on truth. I am standing on promises that may not come to fruition. I am holding on to something that is going to be heartbreaking. This morning I shared this quote with my Facebook friends and they read this statement in the same fashion. I left the computer for a moment, ok maybe longer, and came back to find some responses to the posting and I re-read the statement. That's when it stood out to me as 'hope for the best, expect the worst'.
I am living in this statement again, living in hoping that God has the best plan for me and only living in fear, and expecting the worst outcome. And I dwelled on this belief this morning for a while and then picked up my book once more and retraced what I had read in the previous 2 chapters and this is what I found. John 14:2 "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you." Why this scripture? Why was this standing out? Doesn't it sound like something above? Maybe not exactly but I think it reads like this "Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Best". Ok so not exactly like my live by saying, and yet it stood out.
I haven't reached through the expecting the worst to find the hope of the best. I think I'm just moving slowly or being held here for a little while-longer. I'm trying to stay hopeful, hopeful that the best is in the plan even tho I don't see it or maybe I don't want to see it (yet) but in the meantime, I'm living in expecting the worst. Holding in fear. Hope for the best, expect the worst is not where I want to be, I got a reprieve once, for a short time and I want to be there again (someday). I want to be hoping for the best because the best is already being prepared, even if I'm not living in that now, I know its waiting for me.

2 to 5 - Years

2011-02-07T08:30:00.004-05:00

2 to 5 years...sounds like a prison sentence doesn't it? It sounds that way to me and that's exactly what I thought of when I first heard this statement, a prison sentence. The familiar sound of what a judge renders when a jury returns with a verdict, indicating to the defendant how long they will be imprisoned. 2 to 5 years...where was this sentence going to be served and why did it sound like prison to me, immediately? Because that is what it sounded like - at least on the inside.

I heard this sentence being detailed in a class this weekend, by a national leader and speaker. She stood at the front of the room and described the 'journey' and time frame for those of us sitting on baited breath waiting for what would be the sentence none of us wanted to hear... 2 to 5 years. How coud this be? How could this have happened? And how could I appeal the decision (the legal mind immediately goes to that thought - appeal)? And whom to appeal? How do I shorten this sentence and quickly? This was on my mind almost as soon as the words left her mouth, well at least until the second part of the sentence was rendered. "2 to 5 years after" - after what? When can this sentence begin? "2 to 5 years after" - I dwelled on that for what seemed like a long time although the remaining part of the sentence had already been rendered I was working through how to get out of the "after" and how to appeal the sentence. It took more time that I care to remember for the remaining of the sentence to register and when it did I realized that my sentence has probably not started. "2 to 5 years after the grieving begins. 2 to 5 years after you begin the grieving process, not after you loss your loved one." My mind reeled and ran on full force, when does the grieving process begin and how could I get it started and quickly. This sentence was rendered at the beginning of the morning and my mind held on to that for the remainder of the day, "2 to 5 years after". It broke my heart, it crushed my spirit, how could this have happened? So much so that every thing that ran amuck in my mind was only searching for an answer as to how to get out.

Isaiah 35:10 "and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion singing, everlasting joy will crown their heads.Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee."

Isaiah 60:20 "Your sun will never set again and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of sorrow will end."

I know that this is a prophecy of Christ's binding up of the brokenhearted, and I know that it is about all those who are here that Christ will call home. I wonder when this wil happen. When I wil be filled with gladness and joy and when the sorrow will flee (2 to 5 years)? I don't doubt that my heart will be bound up - sometime in the future - I doubt that I have started the sentence. I don't worry about the binding up of my heart, I worry about how long it will take for the binding to be finished. And I hope that these words, spoken prophetically about Christ's mission, are true and come to fruition.

Out of fear of the end of the sentence rendered, I do not want to start the sentence. Why? Because I am fearful of being lost in the binding, being lost in the process and that I will never reach the end of my sentence and when I do, who will come out of the prison door? And is the door ever going to open (well once it's closed)? So here I am - waiting for my sentence to start. Wondering if the sentence is going to be delayed with further hearings and court appointments before the sentence actually begins? Wondering who is going to hold the key that will let me out of the prison? I wish I could have the answer now, right now would be perfect. But I would settle for for a new translation to Isaiah 60:20 that read like this "I know right now it is dark where you are. I know that you can not see the sun and when it does appear there seems to be no warmth. I know that your nights are blacked out and the moon is in constant waning. I know that you feel alone and are struggling behing the cell door. But know that, even though you can not see me, and you don't know I am here, I stand in the hallway guarding you diligently. Know that I am the holder of your heart and it hurts My heart to see you bear this burden, it makes Me ache with you but you can give it to Me when you are ready."

"Dare You to Move"

2011-02-04T08:01:00.004-05:00

I love pictures of snow and winter, I really don't have an answer as to why because I literally hate winter and snow. Kind of ironic huh? I grew up in Northern Michigan where winter could literally stop all movement, altho rarely it did happen. When I was younger I would go out an dventure out in the snow but as I reached teenage years I would sit in the hous and brew over when the snow would leave and spring would show up. It is very common to sit in the cold weather and month of February to sit in the house and look at the cold winter weather and become a house bum and not move.

Winter is a good way to describe grief, its cold and when you hit it you don't want to move. I hit grief really hit it just recently. We lost Kaleb and Thad almost 10 months ago now but I was so adament about going back to work that I locked up my grief and kept it there...until recently, and now I don't want to move. This morning a friend posted a video on Facebook called "Dare You to Move" by Switchfoot. I have heard this song before and never really heard the words or cared to now what they really were until this morning. I guess I am desperate to find something to help me - move. (I also didn't realize that Switchfoot sang this song, Kaleb really liked Switchfoot.) Acts 17:28"for in him we live and move and have our being..." The song Dare You to Move says..... "dare you to move, dare you to move, like today never happened, today never happened..." I wonder if this song has a link to Acts 17:28? I wonder if the songwriter(s) were thinking about actual movement or the spiritual movement? When I first heard this song, some time ago, I only heard the chorus I recited above, nothing else in the song was standing out to me. This morning these lyrics stood out ..." there is tension here, between you would are and who you could be, between how things are and how they should be, dare you to move".

I've been struggling with devotions, depression, grief, anger, you name it...I've got it (altho most days I do a good job of hiding it). And in my struggle, I have surrounded myself with all kinds of books, one that an acquaintance sent me some time ago, Streams in the Desert. This morning, before getting online and seeing the Switchfoot post, I read this "sufferings are God's winds, His contrary winds, sometimes His strong winds....Obstacles out to set us singing.." And when I read this, I thought "oh yea that's what I'll do...sing!" And then I saw the Switchfoot post, and even through tears, I was signing along.

I'd love for my spirit to look like the picture of this fleeting dog, completely confident in the direction it is going and not afraid. Maybe I will move some day, maybe that movement will be out of fear and into confidence. "For in Him we live and move and have our being."

Welcome to the fall out

Welcome to resistence

The tension is here

Between who you are and who you could be

Between how things are and how they should be

I dare you to move

I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move

Like today never happened

Today never happened

Maybe redemption has stories to tell

Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell

Where can you run to escape from yourself?

Where you gonna go?

Salvation is here

I dare you to move.

Lost

2011-02-03T09:20:00.002-05:00

I know that all of you have been lost at one time or another. And I'm sure none of you started getting unlost by asking for directions. You, like me, probably tried to undo the lostness by backtracking your directions. Which when I say it is much easier than it seems because you literally have to 'flip' the directions and go the opposite way that you should have gone originally. And that is absolutely no fun! I generally know when I'm lost mostly because I have never known my left from my right and I inevitably say left when I actually mean right. Over the years I have stopped saying right or left when I'm in the passenger seat of the car (being the navigator) and started either snapping for left or tapping on the window for right; kind of a code that my husband and I have worked out, ok mostly me. Getting lost is actually very easy for me because of that failure to learn left from right, scary huh?
I especially hate having to go somewhere new in the dark and then getting lost. It's actually something that proably happens more often then not to most of us, trying to read directions by the car doom light and squinting at the small road signs looking for our turn, only to find out we missed it and we are on a dead end. A dead end that is at the bottom of a scary wooded area with few houses around and those that are around are dark and uninviting. Well there's a scary picture for your mind to dwell on or maybe that's what I intended for you to see. If you've ever been lost at night you know exactly what I am talking about and for most of us a scary movie will come to mind almost immediately. But what if you lived lost every day? What if when you got up in the morning and you didn't know who or where you were? You were lost. This probably happens more than I like to admit, it probably happens daily sometimes, and in all honestly-it's somewhat comfortable. I know - crazy! But there I am lost. The feeling of being lost is only comfortable to those of us who have been here before or for a long time and we 'move in'. This kind of lost is not as easy as back tracking, or stopping and asking for directions-its spiritual, and soulful lostness. How do you back track that? You can't, just in case you are wondering, you can't. Ezekiel 34:16 "I will search for the lost and bring back the strays, I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.." I don't the backgrounds and laziness has me not really caring but this scripture was referenced in my husband's Bible in to those who are lost spiritually.
I can't back track from being lost, not now, there's no way back and it would take more than one flipped turn. But I know that sometime in the future, I will be unlost because whether I 'feel' it or not Someone is searching for me. And I know that sometime ago, at some point, I was found and now I am briefly lost again (I hope). Being lost is not just for the unbelieving and unknowing but for those, like me, who believe but can't see the way back. John 18:9 "This happened so that the words that he had spoken would be fulfilled "I have not lost one of those you gave me"." I am not sure if these two scriptures are connected in any way but to me they seem to be connected directly. I was an Ezekiel lost stray and about 3 years ago I was brought back. Now I am lost again but I have not been lost by Him because He hasn't lost anyone given Him. I wish I could get back sooner, maybe the lostness I 'feel' would subside more quickly. And over this week I have been realizing the lostness that I was denying and more and more I feel completely lost and yet John 18:9 stood out. Maybe John 18:9 it actually saying "I know you're lost right now, I know you feel apart from Me, but know that I am close even though you don't know it, know that even tho the directions are confusing and it is dark, you are not alone, and believe that I will not lose you and you are in Me."

Doubt

2011-01-31T13:07:00.004-05:00

I love a play on words always have and the word doubt brings only one way to use it-even improperly doubt still means the same thing. When I say or read the word doubt I think of the legal meaning but even in that instance (beyond a reasonable doubt) it still means unsureness and uneasiness. It doesn't cut in any other way doubt only means doubt....funny there's no way to play on that word. So what do you see when you hear the word doubt? Do you see a picture or have an instance of doubt that you remember? I never associated this word with a picture, its not really a 'picture' sort of word. Except, I looked up pictures of doubt and many came up. I'm sure that most of you know the album covers of No Doubt (a band) came up several times, pictures of the band and etc. And pictures with the words "beyond a reasonable doubt" over a jury seating area were produced. And of course the posters of encouragement through doubt and uncertainty. Those all seem reasonable pictures of doubt, right? But I found another picture, one that caught my attention almost immediately when I was scrolling thru the images. The picture will follow but first I want you to know why I was drawn to this picture. I have been 'talking' (sort of) to a pastor lately because I am more than just somewhat depressed. I feel like I am swallowed by depression and anxiety, stress and on and on. And like a pastor is to fulfill, he has provided scriptures and a listening ear (sort of). Today, I sent him something new and after several times of re-writing to him how I felt, I answered my own question. You've done that right? Started with a question and by the end of the conversation you seem to answer your own question. Well that's what happened. I started with the "this is how I feel" and "I'm tired of it "and I can't figure it out" and "I want an answer". And by the end of my conversation, I came to this: "I have no doubt that God is good, I doubt that I will get to believe it again. I have no doubt that He can handle whatever I send toward Him (anger, questions, heavy heart), I doubt that I can handle the fear that goes along with the 'plan'. I don't doubt the peace He offers and gives, I fear not knowing that peace anytime soon again. Thats the truth of the matter doubt. Sad isn't it? That I think I'm doubting myself when I'm really doubting God." So what does doubt look like? James 1:6 says "...he must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave on the sea, blown and tossed like the wind." Not very encouraging, sorry that's not the meaning of using this scripture, it's to get the picture. Kind of looks like this picture doesn't it? Or does it? My doubt seems to be deeper than waves on the seas; or at least it does to me. The waves can be calmed they were calmed. The sea can be peaceful and its sound brings a peaceful feeling. My doubt is deeper and not waving or tossing, it is structured and confined and something that can not bring peace or be calmed. This is what doubt looks like- doesn't it? The word doubt does look like this in some fashion. Doubt means unsureness, uncertainty, unbelief. Doesn't this look like doubt? Bound to myself, standing alone in a desolate place on one foot, with my head lowered in defeat. Doesn't that picture scream the word doubt? If no other picture says doubt, this one simply does. Doubt is the one thing that I can not defeat, its the one thing that can control me with no way for me to get away from it, not even God. This is my doubt. What happened for this to become the picture of doubt for me? And will I ever not doubt and who is going to help? Jude 1:22 "Be merciful to those who doubt.." I have never read Jude and I just saw this on a search for the word doubt. But the section for this passage is named "A Call to Persevere" and its about saving those who have doubt and who are falling in the fire and the ability to 'snatch' them from the fire. Who is going to help me? I hoped to get answers immediately when I question God, but I'm not, not at all. When am I going to get out of this doubt? Again I wanted an answer and I'm not getting it. Why am I doubting? That I have an answer for. Because I can, I feel as though this is the answer to the why my family is going thru what we are going thru. But somewhere there is Someone who is merciful to me, merciful to know that at some time and some point in the far off future, the doubt will be gone. I just wish it was sooner rather than later. Maybe He will answer that request, maybe He knows I need to know when. But maybe not.

A 2nd Junior

2011-01-18T07:27:00.004-05:00

Once again, I find myself at the beginning of a junior year of soccer. Starting off the season with evening workouts at open field, then try out week, and ultimately the waiting to see where my young player will land - varsity or jv. This spring is different tho, this spring is the beginning of a soccer season for my daughter, Jennifer, that is new and different. And this spring, I see her completely different, this year I see a young woman. I don't know exactly when she grew up, I couldn't even tell you what happened in the process of her growing up yet it happened. She grew from a brunette infant (yes brunette) to a spicy, hardheaded blonde who on occasion can be truly blonde. She has always been the more stable, more resilient, more sound minded, more reasonable of my 3 children and she is always my 'go to girl'. I can't explain her any other way than that, she is exactly all those words. She has something to say in all situations, usually with a smile or a smirk of smartness, but she finds the right thing to say at exactly the right moment. She is an expressive girl who is determined in a mission and flighty when you least expect it.

Jennifer never ceases to surprise or amaze me especially when I least expect it. This weekend at youth she spoke to the middle and high school groups on her life over the past 9 months. Something that I didn't find out about until Friday evening when Sydney, my youngest daughter, spilled the proverbial beans. Jennifer wanted it to be a surprise but it didn't quite work out the way she planned. So Sunday night, instead of going to my usual group meeting, I found myself, along with Lee, Sydney, and Danielle (a friend of the girls) standing in the front row of the youth meeting getting ready for worship (or a rock concert?). Jennifer didn't stand with us, she stood at the front of the stage - unafraid to worship God through the music with raised hands and closed eyes. Something I have not seen her do in our morning worship time. Then without delay Heath Caddell, the youth pastor, gave the students the usual announcements and then announced Jennifer. With her confident, nervous self she sat down on the stage and began to speak about herself and the things that happened from April 24th forward. A word to a group of youth friends that, I believe, knew that she was not well in the loss of her older brother and yet didn't pressure her to discuss her feelings. Jennifer, unfortunately, is a lot like me (sorry Sis it's true). She was unorganized and got off topic; she called her brother her best friend and his best friend her's too. She talked about being angry at God and finding comfort in other things. She talked about being the oldest and how to be strong, or not to be strong. She talked about being crushed and how she eventually heard God's voice. She talked about life. These are all the things that I heard as I am sure others did too. What they probably didn't hear were the unspoken words within the funny anticdotes as though she was having a conversation with someone other than a room full of people. I heard in those funny moments the multiple conversations that she had with Kaleb and now enjoys with Sydney. The flightly spontaneous jokes of her own amazement and giggle.

Jennifer is amazing in many ways, and many times over I have held onto something that I knew about her, that God has something special planned for her. I didn't know what but now I do. She told us she was nervous but she loved being able to speak about what God had brought her through and she told us that she knew that she was to be able to help someone else go through the same thing. Funny how when you least expect life to change you it does.
I love this 2nd Junior of mine, she is wise beyond her years, and loving beyond her heart. Her blue eyes sparkle even when her voice does not and she is the wisdom that she shouldn't be at 16 yrs of age. Proverbs 23:15 "My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad, my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right". I wonder why the Bible never says "daughter"? I know and understand that "sons" were the foundation of each family and most of the writers of the Bible being men and those leaders being men, spoke to their sons, but what about their daughters. I have 3 children, one who is with his God and 2 who are learning life without him as part of them. I know now, after Sunday evening, the Jennifer is the wise one, the one who speaks the truth and what is right. I know she is the heart that seeks God's living water and she is beaconing me and Lee to follow her. And yet there are very little times when I can find where "daughters" are wise in the Bible. I don't know or truly care why to be honest because at second glance at this verse it reads like this "my daughter, your heart is wise even though you may struggle, and my heart is glad even though you can not see it, and my spirit rejoices at the words you speak because they are right and true". I love this 2nd Junior of mine, she is forceful without force, she is lively without an additive and she speaks of life in the moment. I can not imagine my life without her and she is more part of this life and speaks of life more than I will ever understand, this from a Junior in High School. I wish I could redo my childrens' lives so I could take note of all their messages - don't you? So I ask, what are your daughters and sons trying to tell you? How are they getting through without you knowing? Are they seeing, hearing, and going though something that you don't understand? I bet there is something that you're missing, I know I did (and not once but twice - once with Kaleb and now with Jennifer - I wonder what Sydney will hold for me). So the slow down is what it is, the slow down to start hearing, paying attention, noticing, releasing and at the same time regathering of my childrens' wisdom.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2011-01-13T07:45:00.006-05:00

"Caught between a rock and a hard place" - I hate to say this but I love this saying! I think it truly speaks to life. The other one that I like which really has no meaning was "put want in one hand and s*** in the other and tell me which one wieghs more" - of course this one is just from my mother who used this saying to make a point. I like the the first statement much more! I mean think about it a rock and a hard place makes it sound like you really have yourself in a place that you can't get out of and you can't go back. Right? That's really what it means, when you get right down to it you don't want to go forward and you can't go back. And you find yourself inevitably between a rock and a hard place; somthing like the turtle in this picture. And since I'm on a 'saying' kick this "picture is worth a thousand words!" I wonder if he thought after he got over the log he would be home free, my guess, yes. And I'm guessing it took a lot of work, worry, struggling. scratching, tucking in, and wiggling before he got himslef out of that hardplace, or rock.

I have found myself in those places too; found myself between rocks and hardplaces and struggling to figure out what to do without being able to go back. And usually when I'm in those positions I tend to start reminising on how exactly I got myself into those places. How it happened that the rock that I moved out of only lead to a hardplace where I started wishing I could go back to the rock! I wouldn't call that poor decision making, I would call it misleading, of which I am very familiar. Why misleading? Because when I make a decision the result is brought about by the option of several choices. Misleading is truly the more correct description of finding myself between a rock and a hardplace because the decision, at that time, only offered one option. The option that I see, the only option that seems the way, and it is more than 100% of the time (if there is such a thing) misleading. And its usually at those time, the times when I finally get away from the rock and realize that the hardplace is ahead of me, that I probably need help. (Notice I wait until the last possible moment to ask.) I also tend to look to people, money, things, etc, to get the help and generally find no one to help. Psalms 18:41 "They cried for help, but there was no one to save them -". I'm not sure but I believe that this was in reference to the Isrealites trying to get out of Egypt and my personal laziness has delayed me in reading on in this passage. But it sounds like the Isrealites to ask for help of man and look for help when they were nothing more than slaves. (I have to say that the only thing I have really learned about the Isrealites is that they wanted someone else to lead them and they tend to whine a lot ~ hummm.) And yet, it was a man who God sent to lead them out of Egypt and it was right away from their rock into their hardplace (and for 40 yrs I might add!). I am in a hardplace and I'm trying to find that 'man' to lead me out of it and without misleading direction, this by the way is not working out to well for me, Moses hasn't showed up. So who am I looking for? And who do I get to help me out of this place?? Anyone...I'm open for suggestions at this point. Or am I? I don't want to be mislead, I do that for myself quite efficiently without someone else helping. Psalms 22:11 "Do not be far from me, trouble is near and there is no one to help." I love David, I just have to say that he could go from one sentence being angry and mad at God to the next breath praising Him and asking for His help. Isn't that what David is doing here? "There is no one to help", so if there is no one to help, no man to offer his assistance, support, confidence, direction, why would David ask God to stay near? What could He possibly do or offer at this point? And whould He even listen after the ramblings of angry words and dwendling faith? I know, as I'm sure you do, that He did help David. But I'm willing to bet that David didn't know whether or not God would help...but he had faith.
Between a rock and a hardplace. Maybe I'm suppose to be here for a while and stop looking for a way out. Maybe I'm just suppose to be...and find faith, again.

psalms 18:41; 22:11

2chron 14:11

New...

2011-01-07T07:33:00.002-05:00

How many times do you wish you had a new life? A different life? A new place, family, things? The proverbial "grass is greener" statement seems to ring true throughout all of our lives no matter what situation we are in or where were are living. Have you noticed that? Have you ever been in the 'perfect' situation, 'perfect' job, 'perfect' life, and see someone who has one thing, not 2 or 3, but one thing that makes their life to appear "better"? I have done that my whole life; literally my whole life. (Go ahead confess and say you have too.) I want whatever I know is impossible or improbable to obtain, always have and on many levels no matter how hard I attempt to ignore or avoid those 'desires' they seem to sneak in anyway. I begin to decipher how I can get that thing, how I can change my life to obtain that thing that I don't have, don't need, and in reality don't really want but have to have. I start working out in my head a long term plan to obtain that one thing that can make the impossible possible. No matter what I am going to get that thing and I'm going to plan the trip or road to get that thing, that one new thing.

I have, over the past months, wanted more than anything to have a new life, a new day every day, a new anything that will make my life more enjoyable, pleasing, anything, just something new. And I have planned, determined, re-routed, and changed some things in my current life to get to a new life....unfortunately without success. Even to the extent of making a resolution to write every day and in an attempt to write every day to spark a devotional daily to get 'closer' to God (whatever that means). A new thing. (Just a note...I'm 4 days behind, I don't know how well this is working out for me.) Again I'm struggling to find something new and get to a point of achieving it ... and quickly if at all possible. This morning, in an attempt to get to wherever I'm going quickly, I picked up my devotional to find something that would be inspiring! (Come on admit it thats what you look for too.) I didn't find it by the way. But I did find something new "I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that gentle before me and the children be able to endure." So in all honesty, how many of you have heard this before? Or any version of this? Anyone? So it's "new". Do any of you have any idea what this means or where to find it? I didn't and I'm guessing neither do you. (And truthfully I had to read this about 6 times before I went on.) First because I couldn't believe that this verse, or any version of it, was actually in the Bible. And second, I had no clue what it had to do with any type of devotional. It didn't spark my interest, it did spark doubt but remember I'm trying this new thing on an almost daily basis, so I read on, in total skepticism. I read the first paragraph and the questions were answered. The words were Joshua's to the Isrealites as they started back to the promised land...something 'new'. Joshua told the people he was leading that he was only going to lead as far as the cattle and children would go each day. And he said this because none of them he was leading, except for Caleb, had been this way before and they did not know how difficult the trip was going to be. The words kind of make sense now don't they.

I'm on a trip to a new life, believe it or not, I am, knowing it or not, I am, wanting it or not, I am. And I am trying to get thru it quickly, a true statement of me - run thru it and get to the end quickly to get my new thing! But I'm not being allowed, for lack of a better word, to go quickly. And each time I do move quickly, I get to go back and re-do...that's all just re-do. I don't know what lies ahead of me, I don't know what the land before me holds, but someone does. And He keeps trying to slow me down and have me go only as far as I can each day, only as far as the cattle and children could endure, that's how far He wants me to go to this new life. I am resisting by the way, just in case you aren't getting that, I am resisting the slowness. Why? Because it means that I have to face things I would rather not face. I have to address issues I would rather sweep under the rug. I have to believe things I would rather not accept. So I get to re-do and slow down. I don't know what my families new life holds, I don't really know if I want to know. But eventually I will get to the 'new', without loosing the things I went thru, without forgetting my 'old' life and without 'missing' the journey.

Is There Something To Look Forward To?

2011-01-04T08:07:00.003-05:00

I am always a forward looker (that can't be good english but oh well). I like to look forward to something that is coming up or what needs to happen by such and such date. And I know that there are some of you out there too. With that type of personality, I tend to be a procastinator! The wonderful art of delaying one project in the prospect of a different project coming to fruition much sooner....don't try to call it something else, its procastination. Except lately, I haven't had much to look forward to, I haven't even looked forward to riding any of my horses...it has been more of a job as opposed to something to look forward to. Something thats very odd for me, if you know me, its not really me to admit or say that about my horses.

That leads me to my question, is there something to look forward to? And if so, what? I am, by the way, open to any suggestions that may be out there lingering around. And my post from yesterday wasn't a 'looking' forward type thing to me it is a day by day thing something that I am, with all possible integrity, going to attempt to do every morning. That in and of itself is different that looking forward to something. So I still wonder if there is something to look forward to? Something that might spark a fire in my heart and spirit? Something to bring a light to my eyes and lightening of my life. Actually anything would be good at this point. And like my post from yesterday, I am still a couple days behind but I am attempting to stay devoted to a morning devotional time. And yesterday, yes yesterday, I started on January 1 for the devotional Streams in the Desert, sent to me by a friend of a friend last summer, and the year starts of with looking forward. I didn't honestly get it yesterday...more likely I didn't want to get it yesterday. I didn't want to know what there might be ahead for me and my family; and with that, I ignored the looking foward. I think that was the first problem because on January 2 the devotion was very lost to me,may more over my head than anything, so I went back to January 1 and re-read the brief scripture that was the base for the devotional.... Dueteronomy 11: 10-12. "The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eys of the lor you God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end." First, you should know that for the longest time I thought that Dueteronomy was like Book II of the Bible. And I had no idea what the story of the Isrealites really was, well except the one that is told on TV every year. Remember, my journey with God didn't really start for me until 3 years ago. Second, you should know that when I read this yesterday (3 days late) I just read it because I decided to start doing a devotional and that's the only reason. Today, I am looking for something to answer my question...anything really. So what do I have to look forward to? Well not much from my personal perspective, but remember I'm looking for anything at all. And the answer I have is no, that's my answer. But I believe somewhere in my spirit that yes there is; I don't know or want to know what that is right now. And truthfully I don't want to look forward to anything; again my personal perspective. And yet, 3 days late to open up my devotional, there is a looking forward. I don't know much about the Isrealite except the usual. They were in Egypt, they were sent a prophet, Moses, and they were led out of Egypt after several plagues on the Egyptians, they received the 10 commandments while they were worshipping a false idle, and it took forever (actually 40 yrs) to get to the 'promised land'. I didn't know that God had told them so many things, that He told them what to look forward to, that they were going to posses the land, that they were going to do it freely with Him ahead of them. I didn't know alot more than that, and whether you admit it or not, I bet you didn't either. He did exactly that, He told them they wouldn't have to toil in the promised land, that they would have something to look foward to that was going to be 'given' to them. Something to look forward to!

How does this relate to me? Well I don't know but my guess is this....God has a plan and it may take me forever to get to the plan but He has it and when I get there to the place that He wants me to be, things will be easier. Sounds good huh?! Well that is if I'm willing to see it for what it is and 'take' possession of it. Not so sure if I'm there. I think I'm still the metaphorical Egypt, the place where I am toiling to get things to come to fruition or lack thereof. The place in my life where no matter what I feel like I am struggling to believe in something, anything better. But somewhere, out there, is the place that God has waiting for me, the place that I can believe and trust Him. The place that is filled with rains from heaven. The place that I can look forward to, the 'something' to look forward to. So is there something to look forward to? I want to believe there is, and He says there is, even if I'm not making it there yet or even in the future anytime soon, it's still there....something to look forward to.

(I should say that I have been in the 'anything' before catagory and it's not all it's cracked up to be. So this is a caveat for those reading this that might not be believers. When I was looking for anything at all in my life, I found things that were exactly that - anything. And those out there supplying the anything prey on those of us looking for anything. So be careful, be skeptical of the anything that sounds good on the surface because it probably isn't the anything your are really looking for.)

A New Year..

2011-01-03T07:09:00.005-05:00

Yes a New Year and why its in caps I have yet to figure out except that the english department at a college or university somewhere in the world decided that those words were to be used as 'proper nouns'. So much to the affect that at sometime in the past some author or artist drew the New Year Baby and Grandfather Time, my guess is to show a new start and the passing age of old times, simply put the past year. The affect has carried on for years now and this year I wonder if its even proper (by the way this is not an english class-just a tangent). Is a 'new year' a proper noun or just a collection of two words used as a phrase to describe something coming in the following sentence? My guess, and simply a guess, it is the latter. For example, 'New Years Resolution' (an I am aware that I did not put an apostrophe a proper english would prefer between the r and the s in years-that was on purpose); is 'New Years" the noun or "resolution"? Resolution is followed by the descriptive action that one decides to take in the coming year. That's why we say, 'my new years resolution is....' not 'my new year is.....' So then why do we capitalize New Year? What purpose does it have to capitalize it and make it stand out and not all year long? I believe it is to establish a new beginning for each of our lives, even tho truthfully very few of us set a new standard and stick to it, we put ourselves to the test of a new .... something.

I've personally never made a 'new years resolution', I am not one to try to make promises even tho I do and then fail at keeping them, I knew for me a 'resolution' was not the way to make me begin keeping a promise I knew I wouldn't keep. But, yesterday, and I'm not sure when, I came to a realization that I needed to attempt a promise to myself and this is it. I am, to all possibilities, going to attempt, not promise, to write here every day this year. The goal is not to write everyday but to have a devotional time with God everyday and write here what I believe God is trying to tell me through that devotional time. I'm not a prayer, its actually been a struggle to pray for me since April, but on some level I hope that this time writing will be my prayer time.

To Auld Lang Syne...which means in Scottish, to Old Long Ago, and the poem, yes poem, is not about forgetting but remembering those friends of the past and their friendships and life in our life. My new year's resolution... to take those times of the past, remember them forever and those in them, find a new promise in this year and heal those things which I am knowingly carrying forward with God's help. So there it is, 3 days late to start, and beginning badly, my resolution. What will yours be? And will it be reachable?

What Do I Write About?

2010-12-07T17:27:00.002-05:00

I have, after re-reading some of my past blogs, come to the conclusion that I have either way to much to say or some outside source has taken over and been allowed the ability to write whatever, whenever. I'm opting for the outside source. Those posts that have been unthought out and those that are very random in content that I write. What in the world.....Do you remember...How is it possible....that somehow make it from running amuck in my head to... paper(?) yet I write. So since I have opted for the outside source, of which I am firmly sticking with, I wondered if there was a reason, logical reason, one other than I'm simply going crazy. So to the internet I go! And what did I find, well not much. (figure that one out) What I did discover was that I wanted a source for the uncontrolled writing. What meaning does all the stuff thats out there, the things that no one should really read or know for that matter. Yet out the stuff comes and down the fingers to the page. So once more, I went over the things that I had written in the recent past and found that a majority of it was just crap. Yes I have graduated from stuff to crap! And I really can't remember writing or putting down these words for any particular reason. But in my head and in an attempt to figure out the oustide source, I did a little deeper research, within myself, and what I discovered is this: I love to hear the root of words, how they derived to our English language (actually more American than English) from Greek or Latin. What those simple English words in Greek/Latin means and the unsurmountable meanings of the Greek/Latin root. So I looked up "writing" or "write" and what it derived from and the word script is all that there is, that's it, nothing more nothing less just script. Very disappointing I have to say. But then I found something of a dictionary or what I thought was going to be a dictionary and found that the word script has a different meaning within sentences. The two most common meanings "to put down" or "to journal". At the same site it cross referenced script with scripture (this was not intentional by the way) and, altho I knew this, I found that many of the disciples wrote in some fashion. And yes, I know you know that too! But did you ever think why they did that? I'm mean besides the reality of no phones or internet. Why did these men write to their friends knowing that in the course of transfer they would be discovered by the Romans or Jews as Christians? I believe that in every instance when Paul or Peter start one of their scripts it was to pass encouragement and instruction to those abroad they were doing it as a journal, a putting down of words for their memory. Things were probably happening very fast and without order in Paul and Peter's time, I bet that they had very short memory spans, especially when under distress or anguish. So they write to their friends, encouraging them to stay on course. I don't know why the outside source in my head is putting the crap down that it is. I don't understand the reasoning when I re-read some of the crap that I wrote to come to an understanding of what I was trying to say. I don't remember writing those things most of the time. So why do I allow this outside source to continue to put the crap out there? For me. I ask friends to read this and offer it to friends who I think may benefit from my rambling crap but in truth the things that I write by the forced hand of the outside source is for my journal. The things in my head sound just like those that end up out there. In my head, I have those ramblings of 'what in the world' ' do you remember' and 'when this happened' running literally amuck just like they end up on the paper. So what do I write about....crap, sometimes literally but its all a glimpse for you into my head and journal of those things I don't remember for me.

Prisoner

2010-11-21T22:10:00.013-05:00

I have to say I am a very curious person. I want to know whatever I can even if it has no bearing on my life or family's life; I just gotta know. But of all the things that I am curious about I have never been intrigued or curious to know what it looks like inside of a prison. I honestly have no desireto hear or have knowledge about this subject, altho I have heard stories and have been informed by others without asking. So what brings about this conversation in my head, well every day I turn on Good Morning America and without fail every morning there is a story out there about a crime committed, criminal arrested, or the outcome of a trial, generall all dealing with prison in the future, prison forecasted, or prison term realized. I generally don't like watching the news but I do get sucked into the morning news barrage and inevitably receive information about 'prison'. And I have come to notice lately that 'prison' is something that outweighs almost all other news. In some sort of way, prison comes up in the news more than any other subject, to include Iraq and Afganistan. If you don't believe me, make a note for one week from news, even the 30 minutes of evening news, and make a point of how many times the news mentions crimes, criminals and outcomes.

So what does it look like in a prison? I'm sure all of us have some picture, image, description of what it is like in prison so I have no idea why this subject came up except that it was the subject of our pastor's message last Sunday. Funny huh??!!! (Come on you think so too.) The subject in wasn't really about prison but that's what I heard a story about prison and prisoners. The true subject was on Paul and Silas beign sent to Phillipi and the 3 different people who were the founding members of "the church" of believers. But in this message I focused clearly on prison... Acts 16: 23-25 "After they had been severly flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to watch them carefully. Upon recieving such orders, he put them in the inner most cell and fastened their feet in stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them." So this was just to me a story of Paul's trials of being a believer in Jesus and converting those around him to see and understanding the true God. Right? But what I heard on Sunday was different. First, I imagine someone in stocks as they are in the movies, and I'm sure you do too. Standing with hands and head thru a wooden type thingy (for lack of a better description), and pictures abroad don't help in describing 'stocks' or 'shackles' either. Even bible stories show pictures like this one of Paul and Silas sitting beside each other quietly praising God. Well who couldn't praise God in that situation! But that's not my perception anymore. It came to my understanding during this message what the 'stocks' actually were and it brought an image to my mind of the ending of Braveheart. 'Stocks' in Paul's day was a severe stretching of the legs until the hip dislocated and the prisoner was in severe pain and could only cry out in pain..kind of makes that whole stock thingy a lot more descriptive huh? And in the middle of this severe pain, Paul and Silas began praising and singing hymns, in prison, in stocks, in pain.... and in this time, the jailer wasn't listening, but the prisoners were listening.

I wonder and was asked 'what pain am I going thru that the prisoners are watching?' And my answer is not what it should be; my answer should be I am in pain but praising God and I'm not, not really. The writing on this page is my way of releasing frustration in a non-verbal way and put it out there to relate the way I feel to my friends who read it and my husband. Its not my way of singing or praising God, even tho originally thats the way this all started out some 2+yrs ago. But now it is just a venting match, at least in my mind. But I wondered last week, when I was listening to only the story of prison and prisoners, who is watching? I know that for reality I am not in 'prison', I am not in the stocks or shackles, in the physical I am free to walk and go wherever. But in the soul and spirit, mind and heart, I am in the stocks, locked in shackles, and in pain. And those around me, no matter how hard I hide those facts, can usually see right thru me, they are listening without me knowing that they are listening. So what pain am I going thru that the prisoners are watching? The pain of loss of a child, the struggle of believing that there is a pupose, the trusting God, and the constant fight to hide it all. And those around me are watching and listening, I wonder what I am saying? I wonder what I am really saying because just like you, I can't see me the way you do. I wonder if I am saying those things that are bad and focusing on those things or am I in some way telling them something else? I wonder if I could ever be like Paul and Silas, probably not, but I wonder about it. I wonder if somewhere in the mix of all this that I am in, somewhere in the background am I praising God? I wonder if there is something in me deep down that is doing what Paul and Silas were doing aloud and if anyone is listening/watching? I wonder those things, don't you?

Remember

2010-11-21T22:10:00.011-05:00

I live in memories sometimes, and I'm sure you do too, and remember things of past. Those memories of growing up in your home town or state where life was totally different that it is now. Some of the things that I miss desperately from my childhood home are the seasons. The definition between spring and summer when the first flowers, usually Johnny Jump-Ups or Crocusus, come up thru the cold snow and fill some of the area with color of purple. And how, after a long Michigan winter with snow all over every-where, these little flowers bring a memory of last summer's days and the promise of new days of summer with beach days and canoeing down the Manistee River and the trip that came every year to the Upper Penninsula - across the Mackinaw Bridge to Paradise (no really that's the name of the town) & the falls. And I can almost, some days here the falls and smell the rich hardwoods and sweet softwoods and pines in the house when summer is right around the corner. I love to remember waking up one morning and seeing just the slightest change of color of the trees around our home and how they start early in September to tell the tale of the coming fall. The crispness of the Poplars changing first in their bright yellows and singing the call of fall to the hardwoods. The sounds of fall as they creep along the hillsides and thru yards, allowing for piling leaves to jump in; and beautiful trips down backroads full of color. And how the trees, just like the flowers in spring, tell all around that winter is coming soon. And I miss, and as hard as it is to believe, I do miss the smell of our gas heater starting up to warm the house and the sound that the first snow makes as it lands heavily on the still colored leaves of fall. The way the sound of the water changes, and as hard as that is to understand, the water of the Great Lakes do make a different sound in winter. I can't explain it nor describe it completely for you except to say that the water, in its own way, sounds like that of a beckoning danger, some-thing harsh, that calls to those who like adventure and danger. And so with each season not so defined in North Carolina, I remember those things that I loved about growing up.

There are more these days that I remember, things that I have forgotten, things said and done that I didn't remember happening in the past 7 months. Things that make me halt and wonder when every memory will be complete and those things will make one full memory as opposed to small glimpses of moments. Those memories that make me stop in the middle of a thought, in the middle of work, in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of life. And how, altho I don't know if there is an answer, how do I get thru these memories and keep them in order, in place, and make a memory of them and am I suppose to? I don't know but I do know that thru all this time and these days and months, I found and relate to those who have lived similar lives. Job cried out to God all the time; the most faithful man of his day was also the most afflicted - Job14:13 "If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!" I don't know what how to describe the memories that I have I can't describe or detail what they do to my mental and physical life but I can relate to Job. I can relate to the fact that I wish God would set me aside and stop the pain that I feel and am living in and then, at some time set in the future, He would remember me once this time is past. Job wished and begged God to take him away and let this time pass him by and God allowed it to continue. So I have to wonder sometimes how much in control God is? And I know that is doubt and that some of you reading will call that sin and offer a message of faith. And I know that this is just a passing time, that somewhere in the future I will be over this time of doubt but until then I wish God hide me in a grave, conceal me from this time, and remember me later, much later. I know the ending of Job's story, I know that in the end he lost everything and gained 3 times that of what he lost. I wish I knew the end of this story, the end of this memory and doubt, the end of this loss and heartache, the end of feeling outside of God's love...I wish I knew it now. I wish that I would get an answer from Him, a reason to put these memories in place and make them easier to hold onto and make this time easier. But it will not happen, it is not meant for me to know and I know that but I don't like it and I don't have to like it. What I am having to do, whether I like it or not, it go thru this time. Live thru this time when the memories come and cause pause, when the tears come unexpectedly and cause dismay, and when the doubt comes and causes confusion. I must go thru this time of desiring being hidden and away from the afflictions and pain.

I don't like this, I'm sure you don't like your affliction either. I don't want to live thru this as I'm sure you don't want to live thru yours either. And so here I am, smack dab in the middle of the Michigan winter that I somewhat miss, hearing the water change its tune and beckon danger that I am drawn toward; a winter that this year looks to be longer and harsher then those before, a winter that even if I pack up and move, I still have to go thru...like it or not.

Marshmellows - Yep that's right marshmellows!

2010-11-09T06:44:00.004-05:00

I love to eat marshmellows, marshmellow cream, marshmellow filled cookies, you name it with marshmellows and I'll eat it!! And deep deep down you do too, just admit it and move on. And if you really look at the consistency of a marshmellow they are very easy to love to eat. They are full of nothing but sugar, they can be eaten hot or cold, if they get on something they wash out easily, and they come in every shape and size imaginable to man. I can open a bag and eat them right out of it or at night (in any season) start a fire (preferably outside) and roast them to a burnt crisp or toasty brown and eat them right off a stick. Marshmellows by far are the perfect candy.

This week, at church service, I heard yet again a desciption of a person using the word "marshmellow". Randy, our senior pastor, called people who weren't really living like the persecuted Christian, 'Marshmellow Christians'. And, altho I've heard that saying many times before and heard sermons and messages about the persecuted Christian (those living abroad in countries where they still kill those pronouncing to be Christians), this time the description meant something else. I can, now, after sometime of hearing this phrase and comparing it to my candy of choice see how this description 'fits the bill' so to speak. Marshmellows seem or appear to be solid. They are somewhat firm on the outside but not so firm that you can't squish them; and when you do squish them, their soft insides come mushing out. This week, prior to Sunday morning, in my leisure reading (now not so much leisurely) of the Shack, the writer descibes his view of himself as this "stoic, unfeeling faith" - the Marshmellow Christian in a much more real and descriptive manner but the same nonetheless. And I know that Randy's message was about 'doing' and 'being' and realizing that there are those in the world (outside the US) that are truly being persecuted. And I know that my book is relating to a man who lost something very dear to himself and has placed his feelings in a lock box and putting on a facid of 'okayness'. Two totally different situations - or are they.

I heard this description, Marshmellow Christian, differently this week and I think that most people heard it the way it was meant. I heard it as this: "Before, you were happy, life was grand and great, you lived your daily life knowing that everyday was just one more day of moving in the direction you were going; everything in your day was planned, the year was planned before today was over; you had everything right, your relationship with Me, your raising of your children, your love and marriage with your husband, everything was great. Now, without warning or preparation, you have to make a choice between being who I know you are and being who you feel like you should be; and I know that you are worried about what others think and how they look at you; and I know that deep down, locked away, and held for ransom, that you are desiring something more and afraid to take that step; and I know that you are going forward, slow as it may be,you are and you are My Marshmellow Christian." Odd that I heard that when Randy was speaking huh? Odd that I was not hearing of the persecuted, killed, hiding out Christian of the world but this. And after some days of retrospect, avoidance, running, hiding, whatever, I came up with this....Romans 14:1 "Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputible matters." It's amazing how words take a different form, how they take on a personality; a personality that says, "I know you are weak and small in faith, don't worry about those looking at you from the outside". Isn't that what this short verse says? I know it's Paul writing to the Romans, and I know it's more in depth that than but what does it really say? Who is Paul speaking for? I think it's that Marshmellow Christian. I know without doubt that I am 'playing Christian' right now. I know that I am dealing with little to know faith and sometimes I wonder if those around me, who know me and have known me for a while wonder if my faith is gone. And I offer to them this, I am a Marshmellow Christian right now. I am weak in faith and my outer shell, well its not so hard, and if you squish me, my soft insides will mush out and I will not stand on faith if put in that situation today. But I hope, one day, that I will be not so worried about the perception of others and soft in faith, and that I will, eventually, find the Rock to stand on and my faith will be strong once again.

Gardens

2010-11-04T07:17:00.005-04:00

I take after my mother in probably all things, but mostly in gardening (not the vegetable type). I love to have flowers, plants, set areas to enhance an outside area (altho right now that has been put seriously on hold), but nonetheless, I love garden areas. And in every area outside, front and back, I have drawn and scaled out a garden area or areas to bring the house finally to fruition of "home". They are literally all over the house these little drawings and while they change a little here and there, they are, at the core, the same, gardens of color. And while they are on hold right now, and every essence of doing anything outside with the yard seems overwhelming and not enjoyable, the drawings wait patiently for me to 'wind up', begin to move, dig, and frame in for the future finishing touch. I think that going to a home that has some sort of gardening around them make the house more like home, and truthfully I have no idea why. The only think I can say is that Thomas Kincade greatly captured the idea of a "homey" in his paintings of cottages with flowering gardens surounding those homes in abundance. The pictures just speak home, comfort, peace, joy, and on and on and on. Dont' you agree? The view of flowers overhanging a picket fence and flowing around a homes edge makes it 'home'. And this is why, I believe, I love gardens, they make a home look like a home from the outside.

While I have this plan to make a garden around my home and fill it with color and the look of joy and comfort, the truth is that would only be a facade right now. While I have moments of joy, brief as they are, I find that more than not the moments of sadness are stronger. I know, without doubt, that I am not alone in this feeling, maybe my reasons are different from yours, its still sadness. And in my failing attempt to find something to read, something to identify me with something out there, I have been reading just about anything, to find someone who knows or can identify with my feelings. So, on a fluke, really a fluke, I picked up something to read that wasn't a guide book and found myself reading "The Shack". I am only half way thru Chapter 4 and without giving anything away, I will tell you that each chapter, named diligently and descriptively, has a quote beneathe the chapter name. So far each quote has given an insight to the writer's mindset and a quick view of the chapter ahead. Last night, beginning Chapter 4, the quote was more than insightful, it was more than descriptive, it described sadness. "Sadness is a wall between two gardens-" Kahlil Gibran. I immediately idenitified with this statement, it gave sadness an identity, a figure that I could pick out of a line up, so to speak, and this, believe it or not, is exactly what sadness is, a wall. Just like these words between the beautiful garden on the left and the desolate garden on the right, that wall looks the same. Its as tho, I am standing on the wall and looking as what was and what I want to be again and where my emotions and heart is a large marjority of the time; a wall between two gardens. I want so desperately to be in the garden on the left but standing on the wall I am pulled between the two easily on a moments change. And in an attempt to find out how God is identifying with my sadness, I am looking, searching, digging to find something in "His Word" that will stand out and speak to me the way this one, half sentence did, and I have found some here and there. Today I searched for my word "garden", knowing or presuming that I would only be led to the info regarding the Garden of Eden, I was surprised to find more than this in Jeremiah. Jer 31:12 "....they will be like a well watered garden, and they will sorrow now more." Do you see the wall? It's the 'and' in this partial verse, the 'and' is the wall between two gardens. "And" a simple, non-jumping, non-descriptive, conjunction just became a noun. The well watered garden on the left is where, sometime I will be and I will sorrow no more without forgetting but now, right now, I am on the 'and', I am on the wall being pulled between two gardens.

I know, without doubt, that this wall, this finally described place that I am at, is not a thin wooden slat wall with a gate, but a long, thick wall of stone and rock. I know that this wall stands to challenge me and my faith, altho until this morning I hadn't realized that challenge it is exactly that, a challenge. So I stand on the wall, finally given a figure, finally the thing given description. The wall between two gardens, the wall between happiness and grief, the wall where I finally know I stand.

Racing

2010-11-01T07:20:00.008-04:00

I love horse racing! I can honestly say that its one spot that will get your heart rate up. And I know that the horse is a commodity and that the owners/trainers do whateve necessary, sometimes within and sometimes outside of the rules, to get the horse on the track. I understand that too because its a business and the horse is the business money maker. (So before I offend any animal lovers, if you have an issue with animal use for money, please takeheed that I use this further in my writing.) I came upon the realization that horses, like other livestock, are used in the general world as money makers. No matter which way you look at it they are, for the most part, not pets like I keep mine. And as hard as it was when I first started into horses to realize and accept that, I do know understand the reasoning behind it. Horses in the racing world, and probably every other type of equine money maker event, are drugged, worked, put in shape or out of shape, on the track to run for money. The trainer's job is to do whatever is allowed and necessary to get the horse on the track. Now I know that there are trainers who do not do this and are not in this type of racing business, but the majority of the big runners are treated in this fashion, a product. Do what is needed to be done to get a win....doesn't really sound like I should like horse racing huh??? Well you should know by now that I am not cut from regular cloth. So for the most part a horse is put to the test race after race, training morning after training morning, and day after day for their entire racing career (generally short careers). I use horses because I relate to them directly, I don't know why and I could try to figure it out but it would be a waste of time. How I relate to them in my life is that like a race horse being tested every day and every race, I am tested every day. Tested to see if I can be the person that I am suppose to be, trusting, faithful, and blind; or the person that I am, non-trusting, wanting to see every moment, and full of my own knowledge. Very prideful I'd say; something like a race horse. Most race horses are not very trusting of humans (not a trait born into horses by the way) and if they make it off the track for a second career, it takes years of work to get that trusting relationship in place. I have a trust issue and most of the time I just ignore the trust prospect and move ever forward in the life race I am in. And when I first started realizing, or first heard about the race that I am in, my life looked a lot like a group of horses coming out of a starting gate. Discombobbled, a lot of pushing and bumping, and a beat down struggle to get in first place (where to I have no idea!). A race to some finish, somewhere, for some prize, I just didn't know what prize or if that prize was worth the finish.

About 4 months into my realization of this race, I had a revelation. The race was just like my horse racing sport. It wasn't a prepared race, where I trained and built myself up to the race, it was a race that I was put in no matter what. Whether I was injured or not, drugged or not, in shape or not, the race was before me every moment and I had to run it. I don't know if training is an initial part of this confusing race or not? I don't even know if you can train for this race, but I don't believe you can. And how you do in the race isn't as important as how you come out in the end.

After a while of figuring out the training on the race, I started to see and understand that the race I was running was to get closer to an unknown end that was miles ahead of me and kept moving no matter how fast I ran. The race became of endurance and perserverance and I started to understand the race, started to not care how far ahead another was in front of me and to take the bumbs and pushes more in stride. I was starting to see the race in a different view, not of 'get in front and win' but 'stay on course and the home stretch will get to me in the end'. And the race became a joy and love and strength. Then out of nowhere, just when I thought I was figuring this stuff out, and becoming a runner, with the ability to race every day, someone cut me off. (Funny how I see the cutter offer as a horses butt huh??!) But that's exactly what happened, I was cut off, stopped short, and in racing of horses a jockey would have to use all his might to pull a horse, running 30+ mph back in order to keep from an accident - cut off. In Galations 5:7, I think this is Paul talking to the Galations, he says "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?" It's amazing how Paul was able to relate God's word to people. I'm sure to some extent people in those days had some sort of racing, altho I have no idea what kind, Paul was able to get the word to them in a way they could understand. In my race, I was cut off, someone cut me off from obeying the truth that I know, and that cut off is still in me. The truth is that I know, that I know, that I know, that God is in control and that even tho I miss him, my son is with Him. But in my head, the cutter offer, has placed doubt and the race is cut short and all I see is horses butts. And I struggle to beat down, get around, and get back in the race and no matter how hard I try, the cutter offer just gets back in front.

The race that I loved so much has become a race that my soul is struggling for and my flesh is fighting against running. And I have no idea when the race will start again for me altho I am sure that somewhere in my soul it already has and my flesh just refuses to catch up and move forward. But I know that the race is still going on, that I am physically in it because I can feel the strain of running. I don't know how to truly get around the cutter offer in front of me, but I know that eventually I will. I know somewhere in this race the horses butt in front will get moved out of the way and I will be back in the pushing and bumping race that I started out in and hopefully the race will be different. Hopefully the race will start to look like a pulling away, a stride ahead of the horses butt who cut me off, and then a few more and a few more and a few more, until I can see ahead of me the 3rd turn to the home stretch, because that is truly my goal.

What?What?

2010-10-29T07:47:00.005-04:00

I have always been a question girl...always, and anyone who knows me, knows that I can ask some questions. Just when you think there isn't a question to be asked, I can come up with a question. My daughter, Syd, is the same way. Ever since she was little she would ask some of the strangest questions; that hasn't changed and she's 15. It's like being around a 4 yr old child, you know the one that asks 'why is the sky blue?' Answer: (at least by most people) 'it's reflecting the color of the water.' Which definitely leads to 'why is water blue?' The proverbial chicken or egg first, huh? Well thats me too. But lately, I haven't had an answer for a question that keeps coming to my mind..what does sadness and grief look like? What does it look like from your, the outsider, perspective? What does it look like to me, the insider, the viewer? And as of yet I have not received an answer or even close to a guess as to what it looks like from either point of view. There are lots of views of grief from lots of people but no real answers. But for me this is what it looks like, like a long desolate area that is holding onto a lone tree, standing against the wind and barely holding on to the battle toward relief. A sole person, looking for their way thru a valley that has no way out but thru it, and holding a secret around the edge of turn that you can't see around, and to climb out is not an option.; the ridges are to steep and you can't see to the top. Jeremiah talked about sadness and grief too and described like this Jer 9:21 Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortress, it has cut off the children from the streets and our young men from the public squares. I know, only after reading Jeremiah 9 that he is prophesizing about the coming days of distress and the ultimate reclaiming of the world by Christ (note you well before Christ's first coming). But to me this verse says way more, it answers my question of what grief looks like to me and, maybe, to you. I don't truly care if you are aware of a coming death (the living thru a prolonged sickness of a loved one) or if death comes unexpectedly, it climbs into our windows and moves into our lives, our fortress. And while I and my family are living with grief and sadness, the look for outsiders holds true to the second part of this verse. Those who are used to seeing us out now do not, death has cut us (children) from the streets. This is figuratively because in reality, the physical, we are 'out' but inwardly we are not. And for those around us who grieve, no matter the situation, we look like we are cut off from the streets. My question answered.

But, as you know now of me, this answer leads yet to another unanswered question. When will this feeling of grief and sadness end? Where is the destination? I have asked these questions too. I have searched for an answer and everyone has different answers from "you have to work thru this" to "thru God you will get thru this". That's a large range of answers because, if you can imagine, there are a plethera of answers in between these two responses. I can hold onto remembering what it felt like to be truly happy, knowing that Kaleb was going to college at a small Christian college that he picked out, that Jennifer will be in soccer for 4 yrs at high school, and Sydney would always bring a smile and laughter at her constant changes in life decisions. Today, I do not hold onto those beliefs, I know now without any doubt that everything can change and I have not control over my long term happiness or future dreams. That is a reality an acceptance I have came to terms with (so to speak). But I long to know what these questions of mine will bring as answers and .... when? And when it happens what will it look like? Mostly because I have forgotten what it truly looks like. In Jeremiah (yes again), I found a response to what it will look like, even tho I have not found the when. Jer 31:13 Their maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness, I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. I know that this is nearing the end of Jeremiah's book of prophesy and that this is God telling of his promise in Christ but to me He is telling me in no uncertain terms that we will one day be full of true joy and happiness again. That one day our girls will dance in joy, and we will dance with our young men. And He gives those of us going thru grief and sadness that He will take that from us and give us joy and comfort. Even tho, He doesn't tell me when He will do this, He doesn't give me an end date or how to get to that point, He gives me this to share with you. That one day, somewhere at the end of the desert and thru the valley without climbing the ridges, we will get to joy and gladness, happiness and peace, and we will get to dance.

And one day, I will get to look like I am floating on air, both to myself and you. I will get to feel like dancing just because I feel like it and it will bring a smile to my face. And one day, maybe far away or maybe not so far, I will get to dance with my girls, my husband, and my son, once again.

Endurance Riders - The World's Unsung Equestrian Athletes.

2010-10-19T07:25:00.000-04:00

Someone Like You

2010-10-19T07:23:00.004-04:00

I first started enduance horse back riding when I was 14. I had no idea what it was, I had no idea what I was doing, I just did what the woman who was teaching me to ride told me to do. I found that I loved this sport; a sport that very few people know or understand, even those who ride. Riding endurance is something that becomes a partnership, a partnership of love of something, trust of someone, and dedication of love and not a sport. The riding of your horse for preparation of a ride with a one day distance of 25 - 100 miles takes a charge of two lives. In reality, that charge becomes a partnership. I dwell and love to become as strong as either of my endurance horses. I strive to love another so much that no matter what they ask, I would do that thing without hesitation, without concern for my body, and without doubt that the asker was leading me in the right direction. That is strength.

I posted a video a friend's daughter has on her FB page, and when I saw it, I had to watch it 4 times this morning. It is either a National or International ride that is set to the song Someone Like You by SafetySuit (a band I have never heard of until this morning). I watched this video on this morning of grief, sadness that has once again set in for 2 reasons now, 1st for the loss of my son and 2nd for the loss of a love that I once had, riding. But this video and song spoke to me in a different way and altho probably not about this at all, the song resonated a strength that can not come from me or those around me. I am not a strong person altho those around me seem to see me as strong. I am not as strong as my horses, Raychel, Myisha or Princess, I am not deep in love and trust, and I do not depend on others for anything. I am not able to trust anyone to lead me in a direction that I should go without questioning that direction. Strength is something that I was taught was something you had or didn't have and that it was acquired not gained. Right now, my strength is low. I feel like this horse and rider, struggling uphill to get to a ridge in the destination, a place of slight relief and healing, but the hill is just steeper than it looked from the bottom and my head is low and my heart is pounding trying to catch up with the physical exertion that is taking place. Strength is dwendling. 2Cor 12:10 "I delight in weakness...For when I am weak, then I am strong." There is more to this verse but these words stand out to me, mostly because I am weak, I am failing in all that I am trying to do, and I feel as those those strengths that I thought I had are no longer there. Odd to hear those phrases together, when I am weak then I am strong. I know that this is a reference to spririt weakness, of which I am in, but when I read this I hear a different kind of weakness. I can see my horse hitting the perverbial wall that athletes hit at long distances. How, no matter how strong she was when we began the ride, at a certain point in the midst of the chase, she becomes very weak, very tired, her head lowers and her stride slows. She becomes weak in every essence and yet in all that physical strife, she continues on - heading in the direction of those in front of her, going the distance that I ask of her without hesitation. And somewhere in someway, at about mile 39, her attitude changes, she perks up, her ears flip forward, her head pops up, and her stride springs back to her usual self. She becomes strong once more, once more at the point of her weakest moment, when her head is at its lowest, when water and grazing stops become a yaaaahoooo moment, she changes. She becomes the strongest at this point, her heart jumps into action and her mind becomes faithful to my request.

I don't know when I will be strong again, I don't know when my head will pop up and my heart will jump into action. I don't know that I am ready for it to happen and the wall is much thicker than I thought when I first saw it. I know that I am more and more thinking that my time with God is dwendling to nothing, and I feel as though I am going in the wrong direction. And yet, I still get up and go through my day, with my head low and my stride even slower. So these few words, "for when I am weak, then I am strong", speak of a future strength that is to come. A strength that I can not see but is out there on its way. A strength that, hopefully, God knows I need but also knows that I am not ready for because the wall is thicker yet ahead and the climb to the top of the ridge is only steeper than I can see. And somewhere up ahead, somewhere the strength that I need to make it thru the this weakness is waiting, and I will be able to make the last lurch upward to the point of strength that aludes me. And hopefully, one day, I will be to myself as strong as those around me see, one day, I will be able to say that I am weak because I couldn't be strong and that is exactly where I needed to be at that time. And now, at the end of the climb, the mountain doesn't seem so difficult and the last strides to the ridge are much easier to take. And one day, I hope to look like my horses do, I hope to look to myself like the strong person that God is preparing me to be and on the outside I look like I feel on the inside....strong.

Shut up!

2010-10-06T07:29:00.003-04:00

Don't you love being a kid? I loved being a kid because I had a big mouth, mostly as a teenager, and I could say just about anything and get away with it. Even in high school, I rarely kept my mouth shut...imagine that!! If there was something I didn't like or someone I didn't like, I had no problem telling them exactly what I thought about them or the situation. And I knew girls who didn't open their mouths, they were more temperate and calm, but I considered them weak. So, as I did and still do, I took up for them with my unshut mouth. I mean it was my position to do that especially when the uptaking was ripe for the picking.

As I've gotten older, I have been more cautious about my mouth but the mouth in my head continues to verse its own opinion even in the quiet of my mind. So inevitably, somewhere in the midst of a conversation, that opinion will sneak out (and I do mean sneak - altho I do tend to provide the open door or window for it to get out). And while, I believe for a small part, I have grown in my age and in my mind and the way I look at things and people, I still have that small part of me that just jumps without thinking. That part of me that holds grudges without releasing them and that part of me that just doesn't know when to shut up.

This morning, after several mornings of not reading anything or getting myself motivated toward God, I picked up my Streams in the Desert (a devotional that I am getting for all my friends - soon) and guess what the topic was....yep - basically in a nutshell - shut up! It was a short, broken up passage from Isaiah 53 - so of course I had to look up the whole chapter because Lord knows I've never read this or if I have it just didn't sink in - so off to crosswalk.com I went. (And yes I used the computer not my actual Bible-laziness!) Ok back on track, I read these first 7 versus of Isaiah 53 because I wanted to know who the author was talking about because this whole 1/2 page of devotional was about keeping your mouth shut. Ok so it doesn't actualy say that but when you get down to it and read between the lines, that's exactly what it was about. So I read these, or skimmed the versus, and it was about the affliction of Christ. Ok so first of all, wasn't expecting that altho I should have expected it, I've read in Isaiah before and the majority of it is about Christ. So the 'shut up' took on a different meaning this morning. An all in all different meaning this morning. In Isa 53:4 - 7, Isaiah (I think) says "....surely he took up our infirmities and our sorrows...but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our inequities...we all are like sheep and have gone astray each of us has turned his own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all...He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth, he was led like a lamb to slaughter...yet he did not open his mouth." I wonder if Christ, in his humanly form, wanted to set judgment on those afflicting him, wanted to shout out for the unforgiven person who was afflicted for words or actions, I wonder if he really had a lot to say and for our sake kept his mouth shut? Don't you? I wonder if I can ever keep my mouth shut, it was something that I was working on in the past, not taking up other peoples offenses and lately that has ebbed, I have no problem spouting off at the mouth and sometimes it sounds like my 18yr old self coming out again. And then I read this small passage that said 'shut up'.

So maybe I need to stay quiet and work on quieting my mind's mouth. And maybe I need to work on what really needs to take place in my life and the lives of my family and friends and truly let things that offend me and others go. Will I? I don't know and I can't answer that for sure with a definite yes, but I can say this, I know what matters in life now more than ever. I know that the little things, altho still a battle in my mind and out of my mouth, are just that little things. I know more than ever that the things people say and do are a trick, a target to get me to look at them and let my mouth run amuck. That doesn't mean that I don't look, I still do, but what I want it to mean is that I know and can recognize it now and cause that moment of looking to turn into a moment of shutting my mouth. I don't have to open my mouth, never have had too really, but I've wanted to and so leads my free will to do as I please, to go astray. So how do I keep my mouth shut? Well I don't really know, but I know that I know that I know, that I don't have to say anything...someone has already said it all, I just have to believe what He said was enough.

Prayer

2010-09-24T07:27:00.006-04:00

Have you ever been asked to pray for someone? That person, a friend, family member or acquaintance, is having a problem or issue and they ask you to pray for their situation? I have and like a good friend I would say yes and then in some none prayerful moment, when they crossed my mind, I would ask God to give that person strength. That was prayer to me, mostly because I was much to busy to do any sit down praying. But as I got started moving along in my walk with Christ I started spending time talking to Him and really asking for his protection and help over those who would ask me for prayer. I can say that over the past 5 months that prayer life that I worked so diligently to create and mould has dwindled away to almost nothing except the occasional outburst or statement of fact toward God. And I have written in the past about praying and prayer so I'm not totally lost on the prayer life factor, it has however become a 'job', a 'work' that I do not strive for or strive to accomplish.

Last week, yes last week, I read a blog that I have been following for the love of a horse and like in the past, I am stealing something from his blog. Mind you, I do not know this person, I have never met him, I only follow his blog because he details the past of the Arabian horse of which I love to read. Last week, he had "Push" on his blog, so as interested as I am I had to read it (curiosity didn't only kill the cat - it lured the cat first). So I began reading about the writers friend who was dealing with what she thought was an old and sick horse. How all of her attempts to fix it had led to an act of desperation to call a horse communicator (the only thing I can tell you - since I have never heard of this type of person - is that there are people called "horse whisperers and I think this 'communicator falls into that category). Even more interested, I dove deeper into the blog. This communicator couldn't get any response or feel for the older sick horse but in the midst of the field a yearling filly came running up to her with, apparently, a lot to say. So the communicator asked the filly about the old and sick mare and without hesitation the filly responded "oh you mean the praying mare". The communicator asked the filly what she meant and in quick response, and I can only equate this to a child who would instantly respond to a question, the filly said "she prays all the time, alone and apart from the rest of the heard, and she prays that the evil spirits that are attacking her owner are not successful and that He will keep her owner safe." I have always had animals and when I was about 12 received my first horse, so I have become in-tune with them knowing that something is wrong with them by the way they act or don't act in the field, at feeding time, and other small thing that they tell me by their body language. This is the first time I have ever heard anything like this communicator heard from this young filly. And it made me start looking in my pasture at my mares, and I remembered noting over the past summer, that one of them would be off alone without the other 2, grazing and not really caring what the other 2 were doing, and I thought the 2 together were being mean to the one. After reading this blog, I wonder how much praying they were doing? I wonder if, for some reason, they know that in this house is a sad spirit that moved in 5 months ago? And I wonder if the one's separateness was not driven separateness but intentional separateness? In Romans 12:12 Paul tells believers "be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer". I don't know who he was talking to and I don't know that it matters. I do know that these are words that have escaped my life and have become a struggle. But in the midst of this struggle and lack of joy, patience and prayer, I wonder if the mares I spent so much time with in the pasture have taken that responsibility upon themselves? I know you're thinking I'm crazy!! But why? Why would it be so different for a pet, that loves me, to ask God, whom I believe they know, for protection?

In Matthew 6:6 Jesus is talking and tells His followers "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." I know that this is relating to people not being 'hypocrates' and showing off but I wonder, somewhere in my heart, if my horses have not done just this? They have no room but by separating themselves they are, in essence, alone and in secret, praying. I can, with all parts of my spirit, believe this; I was not reading that particular blog for something to do at night but delaying going to work that morning. And I believe, to some extent, that God was trying to tell me that someone was praying for me that was closer to me than I thought. And you may not believe it and you don't have to believe. But I do, I see one of my mares off and alone and I look at them differently now. I don't start fretting that something is wrong or there has been a clique formed but that maybe just maybe that one mare is doing something for me. Maybe they are being faithful in prayer for me, someone that they love, when I can not be faithful. So call me crazy, nuts, coocoo, and odd; don't believe that my pets have the connection with God that I missed; but I ask you, what are your pets doing that is stricking a concern in you? What are you looking at that they are doing differently? I bet, and more now without much doubt, that they are taking up a position of prayer that you may not have right now. A position with thier God too and asking for your protection in a time when you can not ask. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer.

Crazy Life

2010-09-22T07:26:00.003-04:00

I have had a crazy life, you don't believe me, well I wouldn't either but I'm living it...still. The reason for this title is because my girls have got me hooked on Michael Buble's Everything song...in it he calls life crazy and then tells the woman he's singing for that she's his everything. That's exactly what my life is, crazy, not just in times but the whole thing. I never really had a permanent home, not until 9th gade. We moved all over the place growing up. When I semi-grew up, I got married, actually that's not true. I got pregnant first then got married. Remember I said crazy life, I apparently didn't do anything the correct way first...it was a learning experience of life in happening. We, Lee and I, had times where we didn't know what we were going to eat, when we were going to have money, how we were going to feed Kaleb and then, came Jennifer. And shortly after her, Sydney. More craziness!! And if you don't think having 3 children under age 4 is craziness, believe me - don't try it for yourself. So on the surface that doesn't sound crazy..it sounds like life. But being inside of it is crazy at the time, now looking back at that craziness, I wouldn't have missed that for anything.

Now, in this place it seems our family is at, we are in a crazy life. I don't know how the girls are doing, not really, truth be told I've been avoiding that part of my motherly duties. But for me and Lee, I think our life looks exactly like this picture....no direction, or if there is we don't know which way to go. Just as soon as it seems like its suppose to be a left turn, a road sign goes up and I'm on the wrong road. I started something this week, Grief Share, and I'm not liking it because the book asks me to detail my grief. And so I have but seeing this picture, this is what my grief looks like, total craziness and confusion. And I've been in craziness and confusion before but not like this, not where it seems like every way is the wrong way. And I read something this morning, Jesus talking to Peter about Peter's betrayal. He says 'Satan wants to sift you like wheat and I have prayed for you that your faith will not fail." (Luke 22:31) I've read this before but not in the context that I was given this morning. This morning I read craziness and confusion instead of "sift". I never eally understood this verse or what Jesus was telling Peter and I may be completely wrong on this but I think that Jesus was telling Peter that Satan was asking but he was doing at the same time. Peter didn't understand that in his moments of wanting to be faithful in words, he was being confused and made to feel like the things he was being told were crazy. And when I look at this, I think that is what my life is - sifting. Just like when I take a hand sifter and put flour in it, I stir it up that is what is happening in my life. Sometimes the sifter is just steadily sifting and all is ok, the road signs are clear and then someone goes and uses their hand to beat the side of the sifter to make it go faster and the pain, confusion, anger, and loss of faith fill my life.

I wonder, and hope, that Jesus is praying for me like he did for Peter because praying isn't something I do much of anymore. It seems right now a waste or lost effort, something that was a direction that now is just blocked from me taking that road. So in my place of confusion and craziness, and I need to find something that is the song, the words, the lines, everything, I find Lee. Somewhere in the midst of all thist confusion I can find Jesus too sometimes, not often, but sometimes and I get a glimpse of Him. I don't know what He's doing but I hope He's praying. Don't you?

Bland Faith

2010-09-17T07:25:00.006-04:00

I saw this saying on a page I was on this morning, a columnist for USA Today used it in describing the "peace" between Christians and scientist. And out of curiosity I had to read the article because of these 2 words (naturally I was curious wouldn't you be). The columnist states his opinion that science and believers have come to a unsettled peace because of believers "bland faith" (this from a non-believer - became very interesting). And, truth be told after reading the article, I kind of believe the columnist. How do I live my faith? How do I feel in my faith? Do I trust in my faith? Or is it just something that I like to say I have? Right now, I believe it is something I just say I have, or maybe had at one time. But how is my faith or was my faith? Was it bland? Or was it alive, full of flavor and real to those around me? I found this picture of God making the earth and us, and I thought it interesting that His quote is "And just to make things interesting..." as He is adding "jerks" seasoning to this world. Kind of funny when you look at huh?!! I thought so and then I thought, seasoning huh. I wonder if God looks at my life as bland? Day to day? No excitement, no life, no taste, no faith .... just bland.

So without thinking this morning about this set of words, and before I actually saw them, I read 1Sam 3:18 "....He is the Lord, let Him do what is good in His eyes." I had never read 1 Samuel and I needed to know more, more about what this one sentence meant and why. This is Eli, the prophet talking to Samuel, a young student of his, after Samuel had a vision of God in the temple. God spoke to Samuel and he heard every word that God spoke telling him about the judgment on Eli's family to come. Eli, of course knew this was coming (I gathered from this chapter) but asked Samuel what God had told him. Eli, being faithful, told Samuel and Eli responded with "He is the Lord, let Him do what is good in His eyes." Eli just said "ok". He knew that judgment was coming on him and his family by God and he said "ok" (totally in our current terms that what he said). That is faith, not bland or unflavored faith, but real faith that he knew that what was to come before he was told by Samuel. It was acceptance of something that he had no control over.... "ok".

For Eli and Samuel I think their faith was more than alive and real, I mean they were prophets and had visions of God, they spoke his actual words and watched them get fulfilled. And they had no idea where or what was to happen to them personally but they did what God told them to anyway. When I read 1Sam 3:18 and in the state of mind that I have been in for a week or more I didn't hear or see anything. I especially didn't say 'ok' or see 'ok whatever You say'. But then I saw the article with those 2 words - bland faith- and wondered if this is what I have, bland faith. No taste faith, no seasoning faith. And I went back and re-read 1Sam 3:18 and I got a little more, but this time it was like this comic of man talking to his dog..... And it made me think that this is exactly what bland faith is....God talking to us in words that we hear as blah, blah, blah, Theresa, blah, blah blah blah.....Theresa, blah blah blah. This is what I've been hearing; a lot of blah and in the midst of it my name being said then some more blah. And I know that I've been struggling with faith lately and so this is not a surprise to me but more of a revelation. That the one thing that I need to have or desire to have if faith, strength in my faith, and a surface faith that is full of seasoning and I see bland faith.

I want and desire more than anything to not live blandly, to live like Samuel did totally blind of himself and full of faith. To become a seasoning with more spice and taste than I have or had, to know that my faith is not bland and yet I know, deep down, it is and will be for a while. So I wonder if I will get to the place of faith that I was at before April 24th, 2010? And I wonder when it will happen that I can hear more than 'blah blah blah blah Theresa' from God? Maybe like Samuel I need to let Him know that I'm willing to hear Him, that's all the advise the Eli gave Samuel. Maybe that's what I'm not doing, saying "tell me what You want me to hear". Until this morning I'd never heard the 2 words 'bland' and 'faith' together; I'd never read 1Sam anything; and I haven't been asking to hear what God has to say. Am I ready to say "ok, you are the Lord" and "let whatever happens be what You seem to be good"? Not completely, not yet. But like Samuel, who thought Eli was calling him through the "blah, blah, blah's", I want that faith to say "tell me what You have to say because I'm listening". Bland faith is more than just 2 words thrown together to create an oxymoron, altho they make a good one, they are a truth that I don't want to hear. A truth that I know and didn't want to believe.............Ok God, I'm listening what do you have to say. I may not like it, as a matter of fact I won't and don't like it before You even say it, but I want to hear You. What do you have to say?

Ode to October

2010-09-15T07:26:00.002-04:00

It's close you know, the coming fall, the brisk nights are on edge
they clammer against the warmer days building slowly their cooling hedge.
And when the morning breeze blows, the fall begins to ebb
flowing away in the sunlite days the bring the warmth instead.
This is just the beginning moments, the glimpses of your fall
winding slowly through the plains then mountains with trees so tall.
Your flow is more than any can stop, is more than any can cease
and yet in all that comes and goes, the warm summer days decrease.
You push your way no matter what tempest blows
telling all your plans ahead by the trace of leaves that glow.
And when your nippy nights come fully, you do not delay your stay
you bring with more than coolness, you carry on your wind a sad, long day.
For as your brisk winds travel this way, a day of worry is settling fast
waiting to bring to me a rememberance of those things not to be and things of past,
and in that fleeting moment, the day will come and I will fall to your cold heart
not knowing what is to happen or how I am to play on thru this part.
So here I beg and hope your heart will change, to ask for you to hold your way
but on I beg to wind and breeze and you came forth without delay.
And just like every breezy day, you moved thru here as tho there was no reason to wait
on you went, your regular way, and took no charge to my heart sad and faint.
Now with few days to go to your end, I ask for you to pass this on to those behind you
hold your presence and delay your inward move, give us a rest, us weary few.

The Lies

2010-09-10T07:25:00.005-04:00

I was never a good liar, which was probably a good thing for me looking back, but when I was in the moment of lying it wasn't so good in my view. I would stand with my fingers crossed behind my back and think that would cure everything and I would be able to get away with the white lie that was being planned in my head and would soon come out of my mouth. I would, inevitably, begin to smile or laugh when I was younger and as I got older that trait turned to dismay and anger, offense that the person I was lying to would call me a liar; even tho it was true. Lies would be part of me in many fashions - words, actions, in my mind when I was thinking about something-literally anything- and they would play out in my real life. Why? Well because, I think, like most people (not all) I believed that I was due something that I didn't get. What? I have no idea but I truly believe that was the reason for my continual, habitual lying when I was another person. That part of my life, in the recent past, has changed, thankfully (and on a side note aren't you, my friends and family, thankful too). But just in the past week, I heard a song that the lyrics, the chorus, says "I love the way you lie". If you haven't heard it its an Eminem with Rhianna song, word of warning if you want to hear it, you can go to youtube and watch the video its very good but the lyrics from Eminem are filled with 'f-bombs' (I think actually 3) and some other colorful language. But the song, after looking up the words and watching the video and researching where the song came frome, is at its core about physical abuse. Mostly a song that Eminem wrote about his marriage with his ex-wife Kim and their elongated, abusive relationship, and how, after several times of trying to make it work without abuse in that relationship, he (and I undestand Kim too) would lie to the other about no more abuse the next time. The song is very pointed to this type of relationship. For those of you wondering, no I'm not in an abusive relationship or a bad relationship...thought I should clear that up.

So why this song? Why this title? Well, I know the lyrics but this morning, get this, during my devotionals, this song came to mind, actually the chorus came to mind. I am, to some degree still lying...to myself. This song is about abuse and lying, and it held a different meaning to me. It is, in essence the lying of me to me. When the words "i love the way you lie" come to mind, I think of the perverbial abused woman who continually returns to the abuser. When I heard these words this morning, playing on in my head, I thought of the internal me, the one that lies to me about who I am, what is happening around me, why things are the way they are, and in essense I listen to that inner me...loving the way it lies to me. David wrote about lies he believed in Psalms, if you read it David goes from joy to fear to anger to happiness to distress to relief and on and on. In Psl 41 David says "I have waited patiently for the Lord, he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." This wasn't always David's prayer or words; throughout his time of being 'on the run'-so to speak- David finds himselft in a lot of places where he doesn't believe that God is listening or working for his good. I bet David, during these times, was living in the lies he heard from his inner self and those who told him of rumors from afar by his enemy. This passage is a promise from God to David, one that I have found in the past few weeks or month, and I wonder if it is real, wonder if it is true. I believe that in the midst of David's struggles and distress, when he would hear a blessing or promise, he believed it without haste. I also believe David went thru, after this promise, many different emotions and anguish during his trials, so the inner lies did not stop or cease during the small flashes of promises.

I'm still living in the lies, even tho they don't come out of my mouth, they still are part of my life. They live in the inner me telling me the things that I don't want to believe but love to hear, they take over when I struggle to shut the voice up, and they continue even in moments of living in a promise. I don't think this is bad, I think it is where I'm at right now, walking thru durations of lies with moments of promises that don't last long. But in the midst of the durations, somewhere in the middle of the lies that I love to hear, I know that the promise of being lifted out of the "slimy pit" "mud" and "mire" is true, even tho the lies out wiegh the fleeting moments of promises, the promise is still there.

The Last Post

2010-09-09T07:16:00.004-04:00

So I sometimes go back and re-read what I write just to remember the place I was at in that moment, what was happening at that time to write those words. Well, yesterday in my last post, I felt like I was struggling thru it but when I re-read what I wrote I thought "what in the world!" And after reading it I wanted to delete it from the page and thought better. I remembe things that I want to remember, things that I don't always want to remember, and things that have no business being in my memory bank. But the words that I put on this page or in my written journal seem to flow like I'm not the one writing, and so the last post stays. And I remember in this post that when I look back, which I am doing more often then looking forward, I am reminded that I can't always see directly behind me. I remember when I used to put pictures up on my blogs and am trying to get back to that mostly because pictures tell a story that can't be put in words. Like this one, one of my favorite, a horse looking over its back. Horses can see all the way around them except directly in front and right down the middle of their back and directly behind them, so they turn their heads, like this guy (or girl), to look behind them. They check for their herd to make sue everyone is ok and close and they check for danger from behind. I, and I'm sure you do to, do this only differently. I check behind to see what I missed, what mistakes I've made, what I regretted doing or not doing, so I check behing me. I check to see if the path that I took is full of grass and pastures, flowers and towering trees of life or if it that path is sand and dirt with only my footprints winding endlessly to the point I am standing. I check.

In all this checking, I find myself lost in what I did or might have done, what I didn't do and what I wish I had taken the opportunity to do. And I forget that I'm still walking forward, see unlike horses I can't see where I'm going with one eye and check behind with the other, so I find myself stumbling and that is where I was with yesterday's post-stumbling. I desire more than anything to be free from looking behind and that causes stress, concern, and the unwanted desire to look behind. My fear of doing the same thing over, more than likely the wrong thing, has set me up for the look-back, look over my shoulder, turn around mentality in my mind (and that is truly where it is - in my mind). And, in this struggle of looking back, which it is, I am finding more mistakes in my life than good; more regrets than accomplishments; these are part of the look-back clause. I find all the tiny mishaps, mistakes, regrets and dwell on them, like a fine mistake in a forced blog (i.e. yesterdays) to find a way to discredit the doing. I read something this morning that took me by suprise, and brought on this look-back, in Matthew (Matt 13:3-8). Jesus was talking to a group of people and like He did, all in stories, He said "...a farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun cam up, the plants wee scorched, and they withered because they ahd no root. Other seed fell among thorns which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop...." I bet you're thinking what does this have to do with looking back because I did and then I re-read it (ahh the look-back). I wonder how the farmer in this parable knew what happened to all of the seed he scattered? The only way he could have known was to look-back over his shoulder to see the birds, to go back once he was finished and see the seed that fell on rocks and in thorns, to nurture the seed that landed where he wanted to be and make it grow. He had to look-back, go back, but he didn't re-do. I know that this parable is talking about the seed of life, the nurturing of faith and how one takes that from the sower but to me it talked about looking back.

I see the things that I did that landed on good soil (so to speak) I see those things every day when I get up and when I go to bed. I see the things too, looking back, that I did that landed in hard, unforgiving rocks and thorns, and those things are still there because they are things that I did in my life that I regret doing, or not doing correctly. So I still look back, just like the farmer and his crops. I see now that those looking back moments are ok, they let me see something that I should have seen the first time I traveled that path, but I can't change I handled those moments but I can learn from them. Learn that the little things are just little and don't need my attention when they want to be big problems; learn that even tho I have worked my life for a career, I don't have to let that career be my life; learn that the moments that I spend laughing with my husband and children were moments that out weigh the split seconds of not laughing; learn that friends are friends no matter what and are always a part of my life no matter how far away. And I would like to think that in those moments are like the farmers seeds that fell on good soil. So what does my look-back path look like? I don't know but I hope that it looks something like this path, full of tall trees that flourished through hardship, winds of storms, and forest fires; lush grass that edge the narrow path that I chose but clear enough for my children to see that there was distruction off to the sides but clearing when I stayed true to what as needed to be nurtured and that which fell on good ground. Do you look back? I bet you do. I wonder what your path looks like? I wonder what you think your path looks like? When I started this writing, this picture wasn't what I saw but I think it's what God sees. Maybe I need to adjust the crane of my neck to look over my back, maybe you do too.

The Draw....

2010-09-08T07:09:00.003-04:00

When I heard this word this morning (figuratively I mean), I didn't think immediately of 'drawing' or to 'draw' like I'm sure you did when you saw the title. Actually what I heard was from old movies where mothers and fathers tell their children to 'go draw some water' for dinner. Strangely odd that came to mind for me and not lets draw something for mom. And its not like I grew up in the netherlands of nowheresville and had a well to 'draw' from, so this was odd to me that this word brought up a memory from old movies. The second thought was 'draw your gun and shoot' again from old westerns that I have no true memory of...well except for Gunsmoke at the beginning when you see the sheriff's boots walking in the street and a quick turn and shoot from his trusty gun tied diligently to his leg. Now after hearing those two thoughts the word draw has a lot more meaning than what it sounds like at first. Its funny how a word that in our life means one thing actually holds more meaning in other ways then we gave it credit for or wanted to acknowledge.

I draw from a lot of things and people, I draw emotions from places that are tucked away in my mind and when they come to the surface, not unlike that bucket from a well, the bring a new round of hurt, confusion, anger, frustation, and often those draws bring smiles, joy, and laughter. I draw toward people for something that I long for in them that is not in me. Strength from friends and Lee, humor that only we could get from past memories, commrodery over frustration, and the list goes. I draw from that well regularly it seems and when the bucket hits the light the emotion and memory brings a wealth of the water that I did not necessarily want to receive. Truth be told, I don't even know how or when the drawing takes place but once one bucket makes it to the surface a wealth of other buckets are hot on its tail. I've been working at drawing from another place too. Working in a struggle to draw from a place that is of comfort and peace. This well has been much harder to draw from, mostly because I hesitate. Why? I'm not sure but I do, and then the drawing becomes a job a work of labor that I fail and walk away from quickly. This well is deep and is, right now, hard for me to get to and even tho I struggle with it, I desire to find and draw from it. This place, this well is where comfort and peace live continually. Where understanding and need to know are put to rest and I can just dwell. And yet I struggle with this draw, struggle to find a way to get the bucket over the well edge, because I am struggling to believe and have faith that this well will provide those few things the draw is harder. Jesus said "...the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). And honestly, I believe His words, even tho I struggle with the well I believe those words He spoke and they make the drawing much harder. If this well is a spring of life, I am, I'm sure, suppose to live thru this time and in this time to be something more for someone outside of my life to get water from this well inside of me....Follow? As difficult as it is for me to see this, I want it to be true and full because there in that well bucket comes peace and comfort. There in that well bucket comes the things that I long for and struggle to get on my own. So the draw now has meaning that it didn't have at the beginning, it has a destination, a goal, a focal point, and not an end, it has a place in my life today and someone's future. The draw, not of a gun, but of that well water longing to be pulled from the deep into life. Where is your well? And who is it meant for? I'm still waiting for my answers and struggling with the draw from this well that is calling but I will struggle and hope the draw will be fulfilling, will you?

Pictures and Portions

2010-09-03T07:31:00.002-04:00

I have never liked taking pictures, not ever. I do whatever I can do to stay away from being pictured. Why? Well, I've never thought myself pretty and so in light of that, I avoid pictures. I am to say the least, not a girlie girl, never have been so to me when I am asked to take a picture, I have to work to be who I'm not. In reflection, when I see pictures of me, I find flaws, mistakes, and someone who really doesn't remind me of .... me. So avoiding pictures is me. BUT, I love to take pictures!!! Love to take pictures of anyone doing anything at anytime. I especially like to take pictures of my kids doing things that they probably wouldn't be pictured doing. My aunt took pictures of all of us kids growing up - when we were sleeping! That was her favorite to set up some crazy scene with us sleeping and take pictures. And, I inherited that act of craziness from her...actually I think I took it but we'll call it inherited. So throughout the lives of my kids and family I have pictures from Lee smiling crazy from behind a Redskins baseball cap to Kaleb playing under the kitchen sink (no worries there was nothing under it) to Jenn playing her first game of T-ball to Syd dancing on the beach (you can imagine everything in between). Pictures of my life.
Pictures have become a reflection for me too, they have become a sight of the past that, in retrospect, shows my portion in life. These pictures show lives of my children that I have forgotten, sections of the portion that I been blessed to live through that I, in the busyness of life, have forgotten happened. Pictures of Lee, Kaleb and I when we first moved into our first home. Pictures of Jenn in a walker and Kaleb throwing fall leaves on her in my Mom's front yard. Pictures of Kaleb, Jenn and Syd on Bobbi's front yard at Easter. Pictures of Lee and Kaleb in Dotty's kitchen when Lee first realized Kaleb was 5'10" (7th grade). Pictures of Jenn and Syd in the car going who knows where. Pictures that reflect the portion of my life that was fulfilled and I feel as tho I missed when looking at them now.
David wrote about his portion, altho I'm sure he didn't have pictures to reflect on during this time. Davis wrote in Psalms 16:5-6 "Lord you have assigned me my portion and my cup, you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance." Odd that David writes these words in the midst of anguish, pain, fear, and fleeing. I wonder, alot, if David actually believed what he said? I wonder if somewhere in the back of his mind he had doubts that he was surely going to be killed and the words he said were just words to comfort him? Don't you? "Lord you have assigned me my portion" looking at David's life it doesn't sound like he had a good portion all the time. I know that my portion doesn't seem at all fair, or something I wanted to have assigned to me. "Boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places" Yea right? I mean really...pleasant places??? Where, I think, I'm not sure, but David was speaking from a land of his enemy in a cave, doesn't sound to pleasant to me. I don't remember where the pleasant places in my days are, altho I find the off and on in the pictures I see. And somewhere in the middle of David's flight he saw a "delightful inheritance". I don't know what that inheritance would be and I don't think David did either.
I don't see that my portion is pleasant and I don't know how to find that pleasant place again, but I do know at the end of this long winded blog, that I have a delightful inheritance. An inheritance that started with an unexpected pregnancy and will end with two beautiful girls fulfilling a legacy that started in an undesired way. I hope that one day those pleasant places reappear; I hope that my portion is now and today and not only in pictures but in the day at hand; but in all of this I know that my inheritance is delightful, even thru pictures that cause reflection and pain, the inheritance will be more than I expected. Maybe yours will be too. Maybe in this time you are in, you can't see the pleasant places in the cave, and your portion isn't what you want, but at the end the place that you can't quite see yet, your inheritance will be delightful.

Server?

2010-08-31T07:42:00.002-04:00

I have to say that I worked for many years in the restaurant business; being a waitress, mostly, a hostess, bartender, floor manager (for a short time), and other things, and I used to (at a much younger age) love it. I could work Thursday thru Sunday doubles on pay-day weekends and make more money in tips than you can probably imagine. And, of course, being the totally dishonest person, I was not claiming all of those tips in my paycheck for taxing. Why???? Well, why? I mean what kind of doodoo would do that!? Certainly not me! We, Lee and I, were working opposite shifts trying to get as much money as possible to raise 3 very young children without 'dishing' out as much as was needed to survive. Daycare alone would have been astonomical even 15 years ago it was unbelievably high, so we worked around daycares, work schedules, and kids to make a buck. And trust you me, I did make a buck or two waiting on tables....ok maybe more than a buck or two! And I loved the money I made; it was like free cash because you only have to claim 10% (probably 15% now) of your sales. And goodness nows waitstaff is making much more than that, so why claim it...right? Well I don't work as a waitress anymore and haven't for many years...but I still, to some extent, live by the waitress mentality of "if the feds don't know about it, why claim it?" So maybe I do work a job on the side here an dthere for under the table money...but still I don't claim that as extra income, like I should. But who's the wiser right? Or at least that's my take on it!!!
Money has become a staple to me, not because we, as a family, are or ever have been money wealthy, but because since age 15 I have worked to make money. This November, that will all change, I am leaving my career position of the past 11 yrs and making a change to serve my family and be available for my children. This will, by no uncertain means, probably drive me crazy. You understand if you know me, but I have decided that I don't want to regret missing anything that my girls do or want to do because of my loyalty to money. And when you look at it the right way, that's exactly what it is, my loyalty to money. I have no problem putting work first, feeling bad when I ask for time off, work late for free or off the clock, and put my children after the making of money....that is, without a doubt a loyalty to money. So I have, as you can imagine, a little anxiety about this leaving the working force and being a 'stay at home mom' for my teenage girls, but for no other reason than because I will not be making money, cash, denaro, mulla, etc, etc, etc.
So this morning, I looked for anything that would give me a sense of peace about my decision, a confirmation of what I was doing was right, and found 1Peter 5:2 "be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers --- not because you must but because you are willing as God wants you to be, not greedy for money but eager to serve." This spoke to me, God spoke to me and spoke directly to what I was worried about, money! I have no idea who wrote this, my guess is Peter but my guesses are usually wrong, but for argument sake lets say its Peter, I like Peter because he tried with human might to be perfect and right and continually screwed up. So, he is very much like me and probably even you. But this passage, these words gave and give me new direction, 'be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care'. Now I'm sure that Peter was talking to a group of religious/spiritual leaders, but to me, God says 'be the mom that you need to be (be a shepherd), the mom that I made you to be, even when you didn't want to be a mom, you are and you were created for that role, to raise and watch over the (flock) children that I gave to you'. And I'm sure that Peter was telling this group that they needed to serve in the position that they were in because they desired and wanted to serve not because of the money (or offerings) that they were receiving on behalf of God. But to me God said "don't worry about the money, that's been your priority for long enough, don't make this about the money but about your family, your children, your friends, who will need you more than you know in the coming times; serve Me not money". So for me 1Peter 5:2 says "This is your calling, one you missed for many years but one that is still waiting for your attention, this is your place to watch and raise My children, to serve Me and be a blessing to those who need you and not be needy for money but for the joy that has already been placed before you. I will provide and care for your needs, you provide and care for My children with a willing heart."
I wonder what else I like to serve? I know that there is more, maybe deeper within me that I haven't found yet, but I know and trust that Lee has all the right decisions regarding our finances and that God has our back. All I have to do is let it go and follow that calling.

Pressure

2010-08-24T07:35:00.003-04:00

Have you ever thought of how many things in this life are named with the word "pressure"? But think about it, we have atmospheric pressure, low pressures, high pressures, blood pressure, pressure gages, pressure cookers (remember those fund things!!), peer pressure, and the list can go on, and on, and on. There is even a song about pressure "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen. It seems like no matter what is going on or what is not going on there is pressure everywhere. Pressure to make a decision, pressure to cook dinner, pressure to get up, pressure to go to bed....and if you don't think you're under pressure....think again. At some level in my life, I hope that the pressure lessens, that the pressure dissolves and goes away, wishful thinking huh?! I am, for lack of a better description, built with a pressure gage (and I think we all are-some of us just control it better than others). And like pressure gages, I have in different parts of me different types of gages. Currently, I have the one with the red area that tells you when to shut off the pressure and stand back (or as with me, you really can't see the pressure gage but you know when it's in the red). Its not, believe it or not, by choice. The pressure seems to build up quickly, especially lately, and it seems like just when things kind of even out, the pressure starts back up. The song 'Under Pressure' talks about pressure in the same way (if you have never read the lyrics look them up-very interesting). And when I get to the red, I'm generally like a pressure cooker..... the steam has nowhere to go but out. So why so much pressure? I thought I knew the answer to this question when I started typing this morning.....that changed in this paragraph and quickly. But in looking up the lyrics to the song 'Under Pressure', I found that I wasn't on the right track.

David Bowie & Queen, as wierd as they are, talk about pressure of the world and how it puts us in places that we never thought were possible and how pressure can destroy us. A very cool song really, not what I thought the words were when I first looked them up this morning. The lyrics begin "under pressure pressing down on me, pressing down on you no man ask for under pressure - burns a building down, splits a family in two, puts people on the streets" - not what you were expecting huh? Paul was under pressure too (as with many others) but he writes to his friends in 2Cor 1:8 "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We are under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despair even of life." I wonder if Paul and his followers in Asia were under pressure similar to what Bowie and Queen talk about? So much pressure that they were on the streets or families were split in two? Truthfully, I was surprised to see the word "pressure" when I looked it up. Paul says "we despair even of life", that seems like a lot of pressure and similar to the pressure in the song lyrics too. And I bet Paul was under such pressure in Asia that he felt like he was loosing his faith. I don't know for sure but this passage seems to talk about such strain that Paul's only out was to write to his distant friends, to detail what kind of position ('we') they were in to those far away. We despair even of life, that's pressure, pressure that even though I may not feel to the point of loss of my life, with which I identify. Pressure.

So how does this pressure affect me? Why is pressure so vivid and real in my life? Mostly because I focus on the pressure, really that's the reason. I focus on the pressure just like all of you do too. Focus on the things or thing that brings pressure; see that pressure gage is more real than if first appeared. But I wonder what would happen (not that I am advocating this procedure) if I focused on something other than pressure? Bowie & Queen goes on to sing "Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking, can't we give ourselves one more chance, why can't we give love one more chance....cause love's such an old fashioned word, and love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night, and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves". I bet that through you for a loop!!!! I mean this song is about pressure not love...right? In comparison, Paul writes throughout 2Corinthians to his friends not only about pressure and despair (and only in two occasions) but throughout these letters about love. In 2Cor 2:4 Paul writes "For I wrote to you out of distress and great anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know of the depth of my love for you." Paul uses the word "love" and compares it in difference to the pressure of the times. He, in these letters of 2 Corinthans, challenges and encourages those he writes to continue to love, to show love, to be sincere in love, to be forth right in love, to give in love, love, love, love. Not to unlike my song. Paul used the description of pressure to show his distant friends that he was under and continued to be under pressure but not to bring them the same anguish he was under but to show them that in all the pressure love had to prevail.

Remember I told you that the reason I started this was not what it ended up to be by the end of the first paragraph. The pressure is huge on me right now, for a lot of reasons that I can not go in to detail about, but somewhere in all this pressure, God found a way to show me how to get my focus off of the pressure and on to the real focus, love. Maybe the pressure was suppose to bring me to a breaking point, where I would dash and run under the pressure? I think that was its (I do identify pressure as a thing and active thing-yes) sole initial purpose but somewhere in all the things that I see daily and don't really see, the pressure isn't really the thing I need to be focused on, more over its what I can make out of the pressure. So I wonder what pressures you are facing today? Pressures from work that trickle to home? Pressures from home that trickle to work? Pressures from outside beings that seem to trickle to every other part of your life? Maybe those pressures are designed to tear you apart, I know mine was and to some extent still is, but I think I have the passage way out of the pressure. Just change my focus, maybe you can too.

All Things?

2010-08-20T07:34:00.003-04:00

I loved being a kid, the kid that believed and trusted everyone no matter how much that person might be lying or misleading, I would trust them. I even liked knowing that there was a pattern as I grew up and became a teenager, the fact that school was school from September to June and the teachers knew what to tell you, not entirely an issue of trust but on some level it is. I trusted that they would be in class and give me instruction (even when I didn't like it). And growing up, I learned that trusting is a difficult thing, that's what growing up does to you, makes you synical. I stopped trusting sometime when I was younger, I could tell you approximately when but it really doesn't matter. The fact that I stopped trusting is what matters. And I'm sure somewhere in your life, you had something happen that made you not be so trusting too. Maybe toward a person or type of person, situation or circumstance, but it happened and you have a wall around your heart that secludes you from being all trusting. It's ok, I haven't met an adult yet that totally trusts everyone in every situation for all things, so we're not alone. But on a level deep down, I miss that no fear of trusting, I'm not sure where it went but I do miss it. I miss not being afraid of getting to know someone and being able to be a friend and trust them. I know crazy. You're probably thinking, well you shouldn't trust everyone anyway. Well you're right I shouldn't but everyone, in some way, needs to know that someone gave them a chance. Don't you think that they, just like you deserve an opportunity to be trusted?
I have been building walls again, walls that will stop me from being to close to friends, walls that block who I am from the "real world". And I have found that in all things I am less trusting of even friends I have known for a very long time, people whom I know and who know me, people who I have no reason not to trust, and yet the walls are being built. The opportunities that I want so desperately are being whitled away from my path and I have no real desire to stop the process. No need to want to stop the process actually.
This week, unlike other weeks in the fairly recent past, I have not spent anytime in trying to trust God. Not unlike me in case you don't know me. I find other things that are far more important and far more needy of me than my spirit's desire to seek Him. But I read something from this week that I missed earlier - due to my lack of wanting to do it - and it struck something in me. The story is long but in short it was placed in a time when they had no other means of travel except an oceanliner from Europe to America. The water was socked in with fog and a man on the boat had to make an engagement in Quebec. The captain told him it was an impossible mission, the man said otherwise, he said "my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life." He prays and then the captain goes to kneel and pray and this man tells him "do not pray. First you do not believe He will answer, and second I believe He has, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it." Kinda egotistical huh! But the man then told the captain to look outside and the fog was gone. The man made his destination on time. Acts 27:25 "I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." I believe God. In all things He controls every circumstance of my life, I believe He has..... Total trust in belief that what you ask has already happened. The fog in this story was real but to the captain it was also a fog in his life for not believing God would 'do'.
How do I get through this fog that I am in? How do I believe in all things again? I don't know but I hope (altho I should believe) that God does know, that even tho my heart is untrusting, that I can not believe all things are for His purpose right now, He knows. He knows that somewhere in the path ahead, the walls being built, altho they look like Jericho's walls from the inside, will sometime in the future fall like rubble. He knows, I hope, that when I don't seek and my heart walls are thick somewhere deep inside I am trusting. He knows that the fog is thick right now but soon I will see it clearing and find my way. He knows and I just have to believe.

Directions.

2010-08-15T15:27:00.005-04:00

When I was growing up, my mom traveled all over the place and me and my little brother, Scott, was in the car or truck with her. In those moments of traveling across the country (literally), we would, like kids do, call 'shotgun'. And happily the winner would jump in the front seat. But in our family, a different chore came with riding up front, we were the 'navigator' for my mom. So we would be given the road map shown where we are and told that we were traveling on 'I-80 West to wherever' and it was our job to tell mom where the exits were and what road was coming up that might be a place to stay and sleep over night or a good place to have lunch or dinner. And we learned how to read a road map and give directions. A trait I cherish today. Why you ask? Well for two reasons, one was learned during our office's Christmas party when I was traveling with 2 co-workers and handed them a road map and asked them to give me directions.....believe it or not they couldn't tell me where to go or read the map. The 2nd reason, over the past couple months Jennifer has been going to friends' homes where she hasn't been before and relied on directions from friends (who live in the houses we are going to) who could not give us directions. This weekend, I giggled about it but told Jenn "what is it with your friends and directions to their homes"; and she said "I don't know. They all have GPS on their phones." Ah Hah!!! The Reason! I jokingly told her that I was going to youth and give a class on giving directions (maybe not such a joke after all).
I was never good with giving directions correctly, you know the go north on blank road then turn west on that street. I even, as an adult, have to tap on the passenger window when I mean right and snap when I want a left. I really can't tell you why either, I know my left from my right I just have a problem getting the correct word out. But I can give directions by landmarks, something that people have told me that women do well, and I can give pretty clear directions to other women when using landmarks - by the way, men hate it when I do that. I can't believe how simple it is to give directions really. I mean you do live at your home, and at some point in time, you have had to leave and return to your home, so you should be able, to some extent, give directions to get someone to your home. Right? Well, maybe not so much anymore with dependence on machines and satellites why do we need to be able to give directions? My opinion, if you can't give directions you can't take directions. In Luke 10:27 Christ gave simple instructions on how to get other people 'home' to his disciples "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Pretty simple instructions I think, although I may be having problems with those simple instructions, they are pretty simple and straight forward. Christ gave a lot of direction, very simple and straight forward directions on how to get 'home'. In Matt 28:19 He says "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." Again pretty simple instructions, right? Ok so these instructions may be a little more difficult to follow but its pretty straight forward. I picked these two directions from Christ for a reason. The first one is really simple, easy to follow, love the Lord with all of you, that means everything in you, by you, through you, you. Equate this to a neighbor coming over and you tell them "leave your drive way go left go two houses and your at my house". TaaDaa! Directions!! Pretty easy simple here ya go there's no way you can get lost. The second one, a little more difficult - go right out of your drive way, take a right down 15/501, go 2.5 miles, take a left on Pinebluff Rd, go over the bridge and stay straight, go thru the stop sign to the 2nd stop sign, take a right on US 1 North, go approximately 3.0 miles to 15/501 South, make a right go about 4 miles until you see a split in the road, thats Stubby Oaks go left, but don't take the immediate left its not the road you need, stay straight for about 1/2 miles and take the first left dirt road. That's easy to read but if you didn't know any better, I just sent you in a circle from my house to my house. The second set of directions Christ gave was to go and make disciples of all nations. How in the world do you do that? I can't tell you for sure, I'm not doing a very good job I don't think, but I think Lee is. He's working on leading yet again another group of men teach them to be teachers, or disciples. Lee and I both started with the simpliest of directions, Love the Lord your God. After that the directions seemed to flow without struggle or re-reading, like going from our house to our close friends house, natural.
So why are directions important? If I can't give directions to my home, like those friends of Jennifers, how am I ever going to be able to lead someone to Christ? My home is easy to find, and God's love and eternal life is too, you just have to read the directions.

The Love Factor

2010-08-13T07:38:00.002-04:00

I grew up, probably like you, saying 'oh I love that'. And at that time really in truly meaning it, flying from one thing to love to the next. From any food that was just amazing to any pet, friend, TV show, or as a teenager, young man. 'I love' this and 'I love' that became a thing that was more than just words as a young girl, they were the words I would live by. If I loved something it was all about that something, I loved to watch TV and so at one point I could have told you every TV show on every channel (mind you the local channels we didn't have cable) on every night and even the times. No need for my mom to have a TV Guide at all with me around. I loved to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with orange juice right after school, I know yuck right there's no way I'd eat those together anymore, but at one point in my life, every school day ended with that snack. I loved my first car all beat up and old as it was, I loved it. I loved my best friend and she was really the only true friend I had growing up in Kalkaska, so I clung to her alot for protection and to be accounted as someone. I loved finding a nitch with horses, something that I thought would go like other loves but has stayed indefinitely in my life. I loved my first true boyfriend, I mean who didn't!! I really thought that we would be in love forever, unitl I found out he was sleeping with a friend of mine. But I loved all the things about, I loved them.

Now as an adult, I have found a different kind of love, a love that is strong and true love, a love that isn't come and go, its here to stay. So what is love, and where does it come from? In 1Cor 13:4-8 says " Love is patient, love is kind. It does not evny, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not selfseeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. it always protect, always trust, always hopes, always perserveres. Love never fails..." I think that really seems to sum up what love really is, deep down love is all these things, true love holds all these attributes. This week, I found a deeper different love. I met a part of my 14yr old daughter, Sydney, that I hadn't met. Odd to say that, especially since she is my daughter, but I found something that I hadn't noticed before. She loves from her heart and carries her heart on her sleeve, something I already knew, but something she never did before was express it outwardly. This week every day in the morning after she leaves the house, I've been getting a text message from her that is a simple "I love you" or " Have a good day, I love you". How simple a set of words? How non complex or extreme? These three little words hold so much more than I thought. I love you has much much more meaning. I am patient, I will not be quick to anger, I do not keep your wrongs in my mind, I trust you without question, and I will never fail you.
I bet there are things you love, in different ways for different reasons, but it is real love or just the words?

Inspiration

2010-08-12T14:14:00.002-04:00

There are lots of things that inspire me, from a book that might spark an imagination that I totally forgot I had to a person who pushes me to an achievement. I was inspired by a senior in my high school who could just run, even around a track, something that I had a difficult and hard time doing. She would finish before me, alot before me, and would stand on the in field and encourage me to finish and not stop. I was inspired by an unexpected pregnancy to become a mom, something I never wanted to be. My favorite was when a woman I didn't know allowed me to show my abilities by putting me on a horse. Inspiration!!!! It became more than an inspiration it became a love. I took alot of miss directed anger and insecurity and found a thing that became part of a life that drew out that part of me that I hid for so very long. I was inspired to become something I had never imagined would happen, a horseman (or horsewoman). Its funny how different things inspire us at times that are the most unusual.

This morning I was not inspired, I was - for a brief moment- very happy, then in the blink of an eye, I became very overwhelmed with anger. In the literal blink of an eye, a person I never met, turned my day inside out. Is that considered inspiration? I think on some level that's true. At some point of anger there has to be inspiration for that issue, thing, or person, to drive me to anger. Don't you think? So immediately my good morning turned to a morning full of inspiration - I have to say that I like inspiration much better than anger, don't you? So it began, like most things that inspire me, I am thrwarted to writing. So started my email (one I haven't sent yet) to an unknown character in the world. See this morning I was set on a course to defend my actions of allowing Lizzie to live with us but a family member who has never met me and, I'm sure, has only heard of me from other family members. And believe you me I was on the rampage but in an elegant way of words. I explained solely that who I was to this unknown person, from being a mother and wife to being a confident to my daughters, to being the one who pushes Lizzie to stay in contact with her family. And about the time I was ready to hit "send" I got a text message.
"Deuteronomy 4:31. Read it. Like now!" It was a message alert that Jennifer put on her facebook wall in the middle of the day. So out of sheer curiosity, I looked it up. "For the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will not abandon or destroy you, or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath." This book of the Bible I have never read! I mean parts and pieces and I know it has some of the story of Moses and the Isrealites, but I don't know much about this part of the Bible. So I read a little before to figure it out. And I believe it is the time when Moses was getting forgiveness for the Isrealites sin of creating a golden calf to idolize and he is reminding the people of the mercy of God because of a convenant that God had with their forefathers. Why was this inspiring? Well first of all it came at a moment when I was ready to tell the unknown person why the 'real' world wouldn't want to be come or having anything to do with Christians because of the actions of this person and her extended family - who are pronounced Christians. It came at a moment when I needed to be inspired by God, and He did a good job getting to me through my daughter, Jennifer, at high school, in the middle of the day. I was inspired, to know that God is merciful, and no matter what one person believes or says, He knows the heart of the matter. I was inspired by the drive of my daughter to be closer and closer to God and through that she drives me closer and closer. I was inspired to allow mistakes and show compassion for a convenant that was made with God when I was saved and He will stand by His convenant with me.

So I was inspired today, but not so much as I thought by the person unknown but by my child who has a heart for God and got to me through a text message. What inspires you? Do you know? And can you identify it daily? I'm getting better and learning that more inspires me daily than I think.

today- form of a 16 yr old high school junior

deuteronomy 4:31

reason

Josh Wilson - Before the Morning

2010-08-09T07:59:00.000-04:00

Truth or Dare Anyone!

2010-08-09T07:20:00.002-04:00

Remember playing this game in middle school, maybe late elementary school, where someone says 'truth or dare' and everyone in the room gets the "uh-oh look" - well except the boys. So you and your friends would get together and someone would start with "truth or dare...Theresa" (I'll use my name since I'm writing-I figure its only fair). And inevitably, the first one was always truth, no one - again except the boys- wanted to accept the dare, truth seemed so much easier. So around the room you'd go, kind of like duck duck goose now that I think of it - truth truth DARE- finding out something about your friends that you never knew and then finding out that someone would do something so outrageously stupid you knew they would never do....like Josh kissing Megan, or something crazy like that; and no matter how much embarrassment went on, it seemed like when you were together with a group of friends sooner or later truth or dare showed up too.
At almost 40 now (wow and yikes!) and in looking back at my adult life, its been a truth or dare game the whole way. At some point in my everyday life, I've had to play this teenage game, whether it is in my work or family life. And if you look closely at your life, you've been playing too. On a truth, I was fired from a job and on a dare I went to college late in life. On a dare, I sent my resume out hoping for someone to throw me a truth to get an interview. On a dare, I went out with a young man not knowing that I was going to be his wife. On a dare, we had and raised 3 children (if you don't think raising children is a dare-just wait). On a truth, I am a confident to my teenagers. On a dare, I try not to show the "OMG" on my face when they tell me stuff. On a dare, we took in a teenager girl, and on a truth our son convinced her that we are trustworth. On a dare, I am told stuff daily as a secret and on a truth I keep those close to my heart and hidden.

My spiritual life is truth or dare too (and so is yours). On a dare, I was asked to believe in something that I couldn't (and still can't see) and on a truth I was asked to have faith. On a dare, we were asked to accept something that was unbelievable, on a dare we are being asked to continue living, and on a truth we hope we are standing. The reason for this truth and dare game? I don't know, I am struggling with my spiritual truth and dare game. Trying to hold onto a belief it took 36 years for me to grasp onto. Wondering if its real this thing we call faith, wondering if God is real, and altho I 'know', sometimes I don't feel like a truth is being played right. About 3 weeks ago, I heard a song "Before the Morning?" The words are exactly the game of truth or dare... Truth of the song "Do you wonder why you have to feel the things that hurt you if there's a God who loves you where is He know?" Dare of the song " Would you dare, would you dare to believe that you have a reason to sing." Would you dare? I don't feel like playing truth or dare anymore. I don't feel like I have a truth to rely on - I know that there's a truth somewhere or at least I hope there is - because I need to live a truth and not a dare. So how do I find this to live on? How do I stop playing truth or dare and just play truth? 1 Peter 2:19-20 says "For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God....But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God." A couple of days ago, I found a promise - something that would cover my wondering if God was forgetting me or not. Maybe I found a truth this morning, unconsciously I was playing truth or dare, and got a truth.
So are you playing truth or dare? I am daily playing truth or dare, in my life life and my spiritual life, truth or dare is continuing. Would I dare to believe that in this suffering there is a truth that is coming? I'm trying to believe, and maybe I'm trying to hard, maybe this truth or dare game isn't suppose to be this hard. Maybe the dare that I'm in, like in 1Peter, is more commendable to God than I think? Maybe your dare is too.

The Deed to be Done!!

2010-08-06T06:59:00.004-04:00

Remember being a kid and having chores to do at home, like dishes, trash, clean rooms and bathrooms, laundry day, etc? And like kids, we would delay, come up with excuses, find a way out of it, hunt for a way out of it (like homework), anything to avoid doing the chore! Tell the truth you know exactly what I'm talking about!!! Or how about homework where you'd get an assignment and you'd put it off until the night before it was due....ahh those were the days! Delay, delay delay!! Any excuse would work, and I do mean any excuse. I delay today to, now even as an adult, I delay work that could be done immediately for watching TV, riding a horse (sometimes), talking on the phone, playing on the computer, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure you do the same thing. I think all of us do, we just get tired of going from one thing to the next that when we get the change to not go to the next - we take every opportunity, or excuse, to not do it. So we delay, waiting until the very last minute to do the 'deed' that we have put off. For me, its usually when people are coming over, then it gets done.
My excuse lately has been reflective of those who didn't do things they were suppose to from the bible, I figure if they can do it well ... so can I. I mean that makes perfect, logical sense right??? Sure it does. Look at David he spent years yelling at God for foresaking him and David was mad for having to run and hide from Saul for years. So I'm good for yelling at God!! And Peter was not saint, he told Jesus he would die with Him and he would never deny Him. He delayed all those things. He outright denied Jesus, with no conviction, and he definitely (or as best as I can tell) out lived Jesus by many years. Ok so I'm good with denial and lying...whew! And look at the Isrealites, the complained to God to save them, then they were and then the delayed taking something that was theirs from God for 40 years!!! So, delaying is something that I'm definitely good with especially when a whole nation can do it for 40 yrs. Right? Maybe not........ David did a lot of yelling but he did just as much if not more praising of God during his trials. Do I do that? And Peter who was always messing up, became a rock foundation for Jesus's church. Am I part of that? And the Isrealites when you really look at them were a bunch of idiots. I mean really, 40yrs! But in the midst of these thousands of people God saved, 2 men, Caleb and Joshua, did not want to delay, they didn't see an obstacle but a promised home. Do I see that?
David spent days, sometimes weeks, without food talking to God and while yelling at Him, David found soltice and comfort in praise afterwards. And Peter, although the regular, in general screw up, gave everything he believed in to becoming something he didn't believe he could ever be, a foundation. Joshua and Caleb were the only 2 Isrealites from Egypt to see the promised land. So what deed need to be done? One of accepting forgiveness, one of becoming a foundation, and one of not delaying. I think Caleb and Joshua had it all figured out, "...do not be afraid....the Lord is with us.." (Num 14:9) I keep wondering if He is, maybe I need to stop wondering, stop worrying, and stop delaying. Maybe you do to.

Thanks...but for What?

2010-08-04T07:33:00.002-04:00

I was brought up to say 'thank you' for just about everything or 'sorry' if there was a problem that may have been caused by me...even tho in my head the sorry probably meant nothing, and the thank you became just words. What's funny is I raised my children to say 'thank you' too (dropped the sorry unless it was warranted) and they learned to say thank you very early in life for receiving something or having something done for them. And like good, well trained children they say thank you correctly with no prompting and sometimes they say thank you with a hint of sarcasism leaking out of their teenage mouths...not my favorite but most of the time in fun. So just like me, they learned to give thanks for whatever it is they got or asked for or didn't ask for but just received; probably not unlike you.
But in my life of growing up we were never taught to give thanks to God for anything, except the perverbial "thank God for....." but I don't know if that really counts, its not exactly a thank you. So, like my life, I didn't teach our children to give thanks for much to God either....not a big deal, right???? The only reason I bring this up, not because I want to, but mostly because I need to get it off my chest (so to speak), the way that I feel about giving thanks, especially lately. I know, I mean I KNOW, that God created, gave life to, and timed everything in this world - believe it or not its true (something I had a hard time getting to peace with in my journey to being a believer). And I know that I should give thanks for a lot of things, like my husband who I was fortunate and blessed to have met 19 yrs ago, and my children, and my home, and on and on and on. But truly, I don't, I mean given the facts of things, I really don't thank God for many things and mean them, not really, and looking back (figuratively of course) I can't remember when I thanked God for just the stuff.
This weekend I heard a message about giving thanks...first...before you receive the blessing or request. Well you can imagine how that settled, I don't thank afterwards why would I thank before and for what? The message was about 2 Chron 20 where Judah & Jerusalem had to fight 3 nations that were coming against them, and in the midst of their concern they were told to have faith. And they did. They sent out people singing and giving thanks to God before the war, that God was going to deliver them...well that just doesn't make sense!!! I mean really to the simple mind (the one in my head) that just doesn't click. So I heard it, dwelled on it for a little while (like a couple hrs) and then - fump- out of the mind it went. Until this morning when I was reading and the passage was about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. John 11:41 says "...Father I thank you for you have heard me.." Then he called Lazarus from the dead. I never read this before, not read, read it. And, even my little book calls this a 'very strange and unusual order....the thanksgiving precedes the miracle of resurrection. I thought that the thanksgiving would hav risen when the great deed had been wrought...." Well that makes perfect sense to me!!! How about you??? I mean you ask for something, and when it comes, you say 'thank you', makes perfect sense. So why did Judah & Jerusalem thank first? Why did Jesus say thank you first? What did I miss here??? (And don't play coy you're wondering the same thing too, you're just afraid to say it!!!) Well apparently, I missed alot. I never have thanked God for the miracle of my children. Never thanked Him for the life He gave me of 18yrs with Kaleb, 16yrs with Jennifer or 14yrs with Sydney, not before or after or even now. And I think that's what I'm missing, not that this little insight unwinds my brain or covers my pain but it is what I missed. So this morning, with tears and stuttering, I thanked God for 18yrs of Kaleb's life, for his smile and way. It didn't make me less angry or more strong but it made me realize that I am sitting here waiting for a 'big' something, when its not always even big, like a resurrection or winning a war. Most of the time, the thanks has to be first just for waking up and being part of lives that I have the power to shape, encourage, destroy, or enlighten.
Thanks, for what? Thank you for this morning to see Jennifer and Sydney grow up to wonderful young women. Thank you for the friends that don't have to be friends. Thank you for the husband that goes to work every day and loves me for me and not some unexpected wife. Thank you for allowing me to be a mom to children who don't know the meaning of the word 'mom' and those who have grown up without a mom. Thank you for bringing those blessings to my life without asking for them, without seeking them out, and without knowing that they were something given.

Mountains or Palms

2010-08-02T07:05:00.004-04:00

When I was growing up my mom used to take me places that I didn't really like to go, as I'm sure your parents did too. My most unfavorite was the 'friends' house...usually a friend of my mom's who was older and had no other children to play with, so my brother and I would have to sit quietly and ...do nothing. Sounds like great fun for 2 kids huh?! There were other places too, like the 2nd hand stores, and to the grocery store to use food stamps, not the highlights of a yount teenagers life in a small town. And while I was in that moment, they were embarrassing, non-fun, and caused anxiety. Now understand that I was not raised with rose colored glasses on, we were poor. My mom worked sometimes 3 jobs and we lived in a 2 room trailer in town, and drove a car that barely ran when it was suppose to and mostof the time without heat in the winter (in Northern Michigan). I knew that and I knew that my mom did everything she could to make our lives sufficient and as good as she could, that didn't change the fact that I was - internally- embarrassed. Unlike most of my friends, I started working at 15, the earliest possible time, to help with food and to buy my own things. And thats when my independence started, my ability to do things and work for things very hard, and .... among many other things...not ask for help. Ahh the joys of independence!!!
I've gone thru my whole life basically independent, even while married, I never really asked for 'help' in many things or situations; you can imagine the stress that has on a marriage. And lately I have been attempting to fall back on 'me' to handle and deal with the anxiety of the loss of our son, and like most things, it has not been pretty. I have been walking thru this life, lately, without direction or without knowing any direction and holding back just a little part of me in everything I do. That holding back is one of many things you learn when you grow up to early. the other part of me is just doing as much as possible and not asking for help, the part of me that is just actively trying to prove that I'm getting along, something you learn when you grow up without 'things'. And for the most part, I am surviving, but that's about it just surviving. I avoid things that I don't know what to do about, and I restrain from giving all my heart to something to avoid hurt. Yet all month I have been faced with words in a book that speak of my heart, I hear songs (both secular and spiritual) that are more than just songs but mean something to me. And everything is directing me even tho I resist. This morning I read Isa 49:11 "I will make my mountains my way." (I believe that is the King James version). And truthfully I didn't like this passage, not one bit. Because this one sentence didn't say anything except "suck it up". Really that's what it said to me this morning, and I didn't like it. Then I opened Isa 49 and read the passage before and after verse 11. From verse 9-26 it is about the restoration of Isreal. The verses before 11 talk about the time of God's favor, the time when He will answer all things and the day of salvation. How He will keep His people and they will walk beside the road and find everything they need. How His people will come out of every direction, north, south, east and west. And how, even when He is rescuing His people - a forgotten land will cry out how they were forsaken by Him. And He answered "...I will not forget you. See I have engraved you in the plams of my hands..." This is what spoke to me today; verse 11, alone, just brought to me that God in all His ability made mountains that are, right now unsurpassable. But together, I see that God is talking about salvation thru Christ and the mountains are going to be made easy passage. Still not much meaning to me, not really. But I relate to Zion, the forgotten/foresaken land. When they cried out that God has forgotten them. I don't know much about Zion except that it seems like they were believers, or Jewish, and had just not followed all the rules and they felt as tho God had foresaken them. I don't know but I can guess that Zion did their own thing; took on things independently, without asking for help; again just a guess. And in the time of salvation, they felt as tho God had forgotten them truly. That's the way I feel, and I think that's the way Lee and my friends feel too. That we have been forgotten; left to go on in life without the hope of restoration or fulfillment. So, probably like Zion (again a guess), our hearts are hardened and our emotions are tacked to our sleeves, and we go about it independently, feeling forsaken and forgotten. Then in verse 15 & 16 God answers Zion by saying "I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.." In this verse and the rest of the chapter God tells Zion of all the things He has in store for them......but not when they will get those things, just that they are there.
I don't know all of God's promises, people keep telling me there are hundreds of them throughout the bible, but I think I found one. This one "I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands..." Maybe that's all I'm suppose to know, this one promise - maybe that's all that is needed to be known and it doesn't matter if I am going on with my life independently, He know and He hasn't forgotten me, and I am engraved on His palms.

Forgive and Forget...Really?

2010-07-29T21:08:00.003-04:00

I am a hard person to like, always have been and probably always will be. I'm not a people pleaser and tend to hold grudges for a long period of time. Most women find me abrasive and harsh, I think mostly because women can't handle hearing the ugly truth, and this leads to few friends. I used to, literally on purpose, see what I could do to make people mad or if someone made me mad I would hold on to that hurt for ..... ever. Forgive and forget is something that my mom used to tell me, and I used to say ....ahh, no! Because really do we ever forget, let alone forgive, I don't think so. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the 'thing' that started the whole mess to begin with - even if there is some sort of forgiveness - I remember!!! I'm like the perverbial elephant...never really forgets anything. I also have the gift of carrying someone elses grudge. If a person hurts (emotionally mind you) a loved one of mine (friend or family) I immediately take up the offense. I become the avenger, even if the loved one isn't offended. It's truly a gift that I acquired (sarcasism enhanced here). These parts of me have ebbed over the past couple of years, I mean things still get to me, and I still get mad and hold a grudge for a while but I usually get over it very quickly and, whether or not spoken, I do forgive...altho the forgetting part....ya not so much, at least not yet.

Just recently I have been dealing with an anger issue that has become very, very deep seeded in my soul. I mean to tell you this anger and truly hatred has settled in deep in me and it fires me up when I have to talk about it to anyone. This person has done nothing to me, not directly, but to Lizzie directly and I, being the taker upper of offenses, have taken up the offense. (For those of you who don't know Lizzie is Kaleb's friend who was kicked out of her house in December and Kaleb came to me and Lee and asked if she could stay with us. Out of compassion we said yes.) Lizzie has been in our home for 6+ months with no problems for us, none that aren't unusual for a teenager anyway, and although we have been telling Lizzie that she needs to mend things with her family, as of late, I don't know if I (or Lee) really believe what we are saying. I know for me the things I tell Lizzie are things that if it was a direct offense to me I would never do. And yet I press her to move the way of forgiveness, when I would (in a former life) like to go to her mother and begin a fight (physical fight). For whatever reason, one I can't decipher, Lizzie's mother seems (or so it appears to me) to be doing everything she can to destroy everything Lizzie does or plans to do. When she found out Lizzie had worked all spring to become declared independent for college, she called the college that accepted Lizzie and told them she wasn't truly independent, thereby stopping Lizzie's chances at college this year. This is just one incident of many that I am angered about. And so anger and unforgiveness settled into my soul strongly in my heart over this woman's plight to offend and hurt Lizzie.

Then last night when I was driving home, alone for the first time a while, I had out -of nowhere ( and I do mean out of nowhere because I know my mind didn't come up with this)- ...I don't even know what to call it except a word. A 'word' I didn't want to hear and one that kept resounding in my head... are you ready for this!!!????? Good because I'm not ready to tell you...but here it goes, 'why are you not forgiving this woman?' So, that was it it was on!!! For 2.5 miles I was on fire! There is no way at all that I was forgiving that woman at all no way no how....and this went on for a long time...well 2.5 miles anyway. It even egged me all night last night until I got on Crosswalk.com and looked up 'forgive'. And the 2nd & 3rd reference were Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you to. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. This was not what I was looking for ...not at all!!! And, this little part left out, while I was on my way home, I was feeling the desire (and actually have all the words) to write Lizzie's mom a letter. Whether she'll read it or not, I don't know, but I have most of it written in my head already...AUGH!!!!! The first thing this morning...same thing!! How am I suppose to work and get thru the day, already a weepy day, with this stuff running thru my head??? So I started writing it here. And believe it or not, weepy and all, laughing with Lizzie and crying over facebook, its starting to make a little sense. I have issues with Lizzie's mom because I can't wrap my head around what her mind thinks, I have over the past years stopped reliving my children's mistakes and tried to keep them in the past where they belong and find all the good in them, and Lizzie's mom does not. I go and see Kaleb all the time, and she lives less than 1 mile away and has made no effort to come and see Lizzie, so my mind does not wrap well around the way she thinks...but something about me writing this letter to Lizzie's mom is suppose to make me better, not her. It's not meant to bring guilt on her- or I don't think it is - and its not meant to make her instantly change - I hope it does - but it's for me. Remember I said I think it makes a little sense, not complete sense. So today, against my worst judgment, I'm going to write the letter, ask a friend - someone not related to the problem - to read it, make sure I'm not my typical nasty self, and send it. It'll probably spark something I'm not ready for, but then again, I don't have a total idea of what this is yet, but I am hoping that it will make sense....sooner rather than later....here goes nothing - or is it everything. I guess this is only the first part of my title, because I don't think forgetting is as close.

So I guess the question is, are you holding onto something too? What is it that you're being told to let go of for you own good and are still holding on to? I bet you know, I bet you even know what you're suppose to do but don't want to do it for fear of looking like the weaker party. Maybe what you're suppose to do is for you not the other person.

Against All Odds

2010-07-29T07:16:00.002-04:00

For those of you who don't know this was a song and also a movie title... way back when, when Phil Collins still wrote and sang new songs and the movies were very long and with full dialect and a point to them.... Ok so why this title, well believe it or not because of what Job went thru in his life. Kaleb used to be amazed that Lizzie didn't know who Job was because, as he would say, "Job is one of the most important people in the bible". And then he would go on to tell her that it was ridiculous that she didn't know who Job was and then begin to tease her about not knowing others in the bible. A bantering that would continue for a little while and then end. Its funny how I remember little things like this converstaion with Kaleb in it, odd too I think. But against all odds it seems that these types of conversations, small as they are, keep popping up in my head. And I remember another conversation with Kaleb, one that happened shortly before he was saved, when he got in the car from youth and I asked what they all heard about that night. He immediately said Paul and then said "Did you know that Paul wasn't always Paul? And that he was not a very good man? And if God can save Paul than anyone can be saved." And the one when he realized that Caleb and Joshua were the only two people from Egypt that made it to the promised land and that Joshua and Caleb were the only two who trusted God enough to want to take on the whoeverites prior to the Isrealites wandering in the desert for 40 yrs. That little fact made Kaleb amazed at his name and the journey of his name.... against all odds.

So what sparked this journey this morning, Job's life. Against all odds, Job persevered through the loss of his entire family, loss of wealth, loss of friends, loss of his physical health, and loss of some of his faith for a little while and then persevered thru the trial that he was in and against all odds he was blessed 7 times over. So how did Job perserver? What did he have that we don't see? I have no idea!!!! And how did he get thru the years of pain and suffering to blessings and life? Again no idea!!!! But I can guess, I think its because he was blasted by all of his spiritual leaders, family members and friends to be against and despise God and he didn't, instead he talked to God. Job listened to God and God responded promptly and with info to Job to perserver. I guess that's the answer that Job just listened to what God had to say. Maybe that's the answer.. to listen to God speak. And someone asked me how do we know when God speaks? I think He still speaks, truthfully I do, I just think that our heads become so full of stuff that we don't hear his voice. Not the loud voice but the voice that is speaking in situations, circumstances, friends, family, books, and the bible. That voice. And even when I'm not listening - someone is, and the words get to me somehow, in some way, from somewhere - even when I don't want to hear them. And against all odds no matter how bad the place I'm in is, His voice still resounds, soft and in the distance but still there. Do you hear it?

Old Friends & Faith

2010-07-28T07:06:00.002-04:00

I was wondering this morning why it is that we have and make so many friends that come and go in our lives and then some friends that stay close forever? If you look at the facts it really doesn't make much sense really. I mean if we make friends and are good friends they should stay good friends forever or at least to some degree, but thats not true. I wondered this when I read Kaleb's facebook page this morning. I looked at the people who write on it and wonder how he could have known and how they know him. There's a lot of people that I have never heard of writing on his page and I wondered how close of friends they were. When you read their stories you would think they were very close friends. How Kaleb would make them laugh when they were upset or give good advice when they needed to hear a 3rd persons opinion. But I know Kaleb's friends the ones that were and are his friends forever. I know them. So I wonder why people come and go in my life and how they are touched or not touched by my presence. I have friends who I've known for a long time, I mean a long time, and there are friends ones that are a close email or once in a while call. And then I have friends who I've met that are an everyday email, I.M., phone call or text message. So what makes these sets of friends so different? Sure some move away and some stay close in location but that can't be all that makes them different, there has to be more... right?

This morning I had forgotten what I had read yesterday in my devotional book, so I recapped because then I started to wonder if I had read it at all. In a few moments I remembered that I had and went on to today. But something kept drawing me back to yesterday's scripture base, Gal 5:5, so I re-read that scripture. Mind you I'm not very ambitious as of late so if a scripture is not given to me then I just don't read it or attempt to find one. Gal 5:5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. Ok, so on the surface this has nothing to do with friendship right? Right! Except it does. I have read a lot of scriptures (one at a time) lately, and what they mean on the surface has little affect on me but what they say in my spirit means much, much more. So a little background on my point, I got this Streams in the Desert in June from a friend, and without fail had to read what April 24th said, it was all about faith and having faith in God. On July 24th (also a Saturday) the devotion was on faith. On Tuesday July 27th again on faith. Maybe faith is not so far from friendship after all...

Faith in the spiritual sense is believing in something you can't see, you can't explain, and you don't understand.... not to far from friendship is it? Friendship is something, when you really get to the core of it, can't be explained or reasoned. You can't take something out and say "see this is friendship". Friendship like faith is unseen, it is a presence between people that is just there and ready for use. We even use these two words together -my "faithful friend". Faith and friendship are not to far apart in my worldly life, and maybe faith is my friendship with God. I can't see faith and I can't 'see' friendship. I know I have friends and I know I have faith, even when I don't feel like I do, faith is still there in my life. My friendship with God is faith based, as I'm sure yours is too, and like a friend, He is there when I call on Him, altho I can't physically see Him, He still shows up. And just like friends, He can disappoint me, make me laugh, make me cry, fill me with joy, give me comfort, and just stand back and wait for the storm in my life to ebb away. When I least expect it He knows when I need His help, His words, His peace. When I don't call on Him, don't look for His number, don't search for His presence, don't want to be around Him or hear His name, He is there...a faithful friend.

Blessings or Heartaches

2010-07-27T07:13:00.002-04:00

I have a thing for telling, not asking, for other things. It's the way I have always been and I have, even with some training to curb that part of me, still been very bossy. Yep that's the thing, bossiness (I'm not sure that's even a word, oh well!).I have been pretty bossy these past months - mostly at work - and I haven't regretted words that have escaped my mouth. I really haven't, I thought I would and had this been last summer, I probably would have regretted the escape and went immediately and apologized for my lapse in judgment. But now, I find that I am acting just as though I have always wanted to act. I don't really ask for many things or suggest many things I actually tell or state abruptly the way I see things. Part of me that many of you have never encountered. And I see this 'me' mostly at work, I'm still reserved or under control at home and with friends. The other place that I am bossy is with God, I outright told God that I was not going to continue working at the law firm, I told Him "I'm leaving this job, I don't care if it's what You had planned or not, I'm going." I told Him that and I am sticking to it, I have not asked for His blessing and I don't know if Iwill ask for it (even tho deep in my soul I know I should).

See I was blessed with this career. Even when I didn't believe in God, I was blessed with being fired from a dead-end job and the ability, at the worst possible time to go to school. I got this job on a fluke interview and constant persistence by me to have a job that was Monday thru Friday. And I have been blessed with the ability to work for a business that generally lets me come and go, for the most part, as I please. Those are some of the benefits of having the same job for 11 years. Now I believe in God and know that this job is a blessing for our financial life...but it is heartache for my physical body and mental health. It is daily dealing with the death of a clients loved on, having to talk to people, spouses or children, about their recent loss of their family member and my heart aches with every call or email.

I know from past experience that not all things work out the way I plan them, and this will probably work out for the worst at first. But that is because I have already started formulating a way to make this plan not work, kind of a sabotage of myself. I don't believe it is God showing Himself thru these things, it is truly me sabotaging myself in order to have more heartache. And I know from the past few years that God sheds blessings where I least expect them. Proverbs 10:22 "the blessing of the Lord brings wealth..." Well, I had hoped for a long time for wealth in the financial form and was blessed with a job that pays very well but it miles and miles away from where my children go to school and have their life. I read this verse some time ago and thought yeah! Because we were financially doing very well. I looked up the word 'blessing' today and came across this verse and saw it differently. The word 'wealth' does not mean, to me, financial wealth. I mean it can and it has but on this day it doesn't mean financial wealth, it means wealth of the soul.

God may be looking for me to ask to leave this job that I am in, He maybe waiting for me to realize that I can't do this on my own, which is fine...it may not happen anytime soon but I understand those concepts. And I know that I should be looking for His direction and blessing but right now I am not, and by the way- He's knows that, its not a secret. But this morning when I was looking for something, I don't even know what, Proverbs 10:22 stood out to me. The wealth is not in the money, not anymore, the wealth is in my life and the lives of my children and husband. I've never been a real family focused person, I mean I've been at every event and happening but truly family has not been at the top of my list. Now it means everything to me. So maybe blessings or heartaches shouldn't be my title, maybe it should be from heartaches to blessings.