Stolen Again

So, here is my new bike. Someone stole it last night. If anyone sees the thief. Please return it.!
The reason I purchased this new one was because someone stole my other one this summer. This is getting more than frustrating!

Place of Risk

I feel like I'm living in a place of risk. Firstly, it is a huge risk to spend over 66,000 dollars on rent from your small retirement funds. It is frightening to see the years loom that I may have to work to replace that, so retirement seems like a dream... a dream I would love to have become a reality. I am already at early retirement age and may never be able to retire unless really miraculous things happen in my life.
Talk about living in a place of risk!

Flat Out Guts

Find Someone to Share The Wealth With...

So, a good day for me is when I can do all those 'wifely' kind of things like make soup, bake a pie, exercise an hour, and do a little cleaning...
What a blessing... just wish I had a good man to share the wealth!

What Makes You So Attractive?

These days it is difficult to find comfort but it is the most important work every believer can do right now. Prophecy has always been a favourite subject for me so I listen to many prophecy teachers these days... it comforts me.

I am anxiously awaiting the rapture... expectantly.

While I wait, I am living my faith and learning as much as I can to live it clearly and deliberately. So, yesterday, I learned a lot. Well, reading over my journal notes of the last few weeks is just so encouraging. It's like a treasure trove of wisdom... I put Scripture quotes in large letter form in a lovely hand written script...

"The hand of the diligent shall bear rule." Proverbs 12:24 KJV 

Just a few words but, wow, do they encourage me. The school of learning never stops for the diligent. Listening to teaching, then writing it down is my way of learning. Sometimes I write notes in the dark because I am relaxing and I don't want to turn on a light to write so the note looks interesting when I look at it even this morning... 'the weakest reed'  looks precisely like what the words say... even that provides a signature of humility and soft compassionate thought to the fragility of life. Sometimes I write a simple strong statement...

CHARACTER BEFORE IMPACT 

That was the only note I wrote one day in June. The day before this, I wrote the name of a man and what his name means. 

A few days later I have notes on the most fascinating story I watched which proves the scientific blood analysis of Jesus' blood... the man who discovered that has passed on but his story is powerful.

Words matter. 

Think about this title for a sermon I listened to this last week... 

"What makes you so attractive?"

Essay for Today

What is love?

I know what the baptism of fire is because I experienced it. That is not quite the same subject as love but, somehow, it is linked. Is it possible that the baptism of fire always has its seed in love? My personal baptism of fire came out of duty love. I would not let myself out of the requirements that God had placed down in His Word so I made myself do them even though I did not feel like I should have to, for any earthly reason for sure. Earthly reason meaning the selfish idea of ‘if I’m not getting love why should I give love? That way of thinking, yes, thinking. I knew that way of thinking was wrong even as a child! So, as an adult I required myself to do the work of love that I felt God wanted. This led to my baptism of fire which lasted a few weeks at that time.

Soldiers will speak of the baptism of fire and I have often wondered if it is the same for each individual who experiences it. There is no fear in a time like this when you have to do something because the spirit is so strong there is just no room for fear. Maybe it is courage that fills. All I know is, it is a spiritual fire. God ordained. You can do anything you have to at a time like that. It is an amazing power that contains everything you need. I have had two in a completely different, well, I thought they were very differently targeted places… one the church, and one the home and yet, are they really separate for some believers? I wonder if that experience comes often for some. I do not know but I, somehow, don’t think it can be continuous because the body could not handle it. You would waste away to nothing because you don’t even need food at a time like this. I have way more questions than answers about what God has given me over my lifetime so far. People don’t really talk about these things which has often worried me about the church in general. Is there an awakening needed?

Just like trust and loyalty are linked. You do not find one without the other, entwined they are, like vines. 

God is not a God of separateness but a God of completeness so it makes logical sense that many of the gifts of the spirit that we love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, should coalesce within a person even though we often write them as separate entities like a list.

I try to make sense of God’s spiritual anointings to see if they have separate purposes. I ask myself these questions to see how to apply these experiences and appropriately place the knowledge of them into some form as to be useful to others as well as just an experience for me. When I have told my story of how loved I was, spiritually, during my divorce, the response I always get is, “You are lucky.” Sometimes it is followed with, “I got nothing.” This is all in the way of love. Some people suffer greatly but some people just suffer deeply. They are different for me. To suffer deeply is a mature suffering because you are, possibly, embracing the recovery through the acceptance of the trial. People who suffer greatly may be living a very different scenario which does not have the love assurances through the manifestation of spiritual feelings giving them a reason to believe the trial has reason. And if not a reason, at least some significance to God. Does God care that I suffer this loss? Does God care that I suffer loneliness?

Reason and a season… every person who suffers through something needs the assurance that it is only for a season… That love will grow again, mend the heart, become spring with freshness and newness and then togetherness.

I just do not have the answers to all the things I have experienced. Maybe I would not have survived my ordeal if God had not drenched me with so much love. ‘I survived’ is no small thing when people say this about having come through a difficult trial in life. To survive something is to get through it and still believe yourself to be mostly a whole person even if some numbness still remains some days. Knowing where you’re at and expressing it and finding someone to express it to is very important. Getting back in the saddle ready for more living and even then, daring to believe in love again is a very good sign.

To never give up on love seems to be the sign of the victor.

If there be any good thing in our daily living that can be sifted and God does sift us, each good act of any kind must have its seed in love. Love is the power. This is why so many people tell you to find something you love to do and then do it because the work will show forth the evidence of your love and how you feel about it. Maybe this is why my one son kept pursuing a career he wanted while working on one he didn’t really want. His heart wasn’t really in the one that was earning him money so he kept pursuing the other one. Heart matters.

 All of life is really just serving in one form or another. But when we serve something other than love or when we serve without love the result is not good. Because God never meant for weeds to grow, weeds grew from the ugliness of sin, not the lushness of love. For God to toss his first humans out of his beautiful garden and put angels with flaming swords at the entrance so they couldn’t get back in… He must have been some angry! I suppose if a person creates ‘a home’ that they believe to be the best they can give their family… the one who created this beauty and love is also angry at the one who destroys it. So, as a human we are exactly as God was then… mad at the people who mess up the good things.

Therefore, love is protection. People protect and defend what and whom they love.

Coming from a pacifist background, anyone I have ever come to know laugh themselves silly when I say I’m a pacifist. I am one but don’t confuse that with a willingness to pursue peace through love. That is a battle! Every day! A person can’t even walk down a street of a civilized country, such as the one I live in, without some feral dog behind a fence wanting to tear you to pieces. It’s intimidating!

Love is complicated if one does not have courage. Courage takes chances on ‘a moment.’ Emailing a stranger… the moment was there. Do it or don’t do it. It’s up to everyone… every day! What can I lose? I always think this way! I am never afraid to put myself out there for some good to come back to me. The first effort is natural… it can become that as we grow in human spirit. Where will it lead? God has a reap and sow principle that gives and gives and gives as we give and give and give. It’s beautiful! It’s work and effort but beautiful work and effort!

Love is big! Love is powerful! Motivates me like nothing else does. I don’t know how people live without it. This is impossible for me.

Before I had the overwhelming feelings of love…

my love was protective, motherhood love… that love was a lion at the door if anyone was hurting my children. That protective love is very powerful too. That is also a ‘lay down ones’ life for’ kind of love. This is the reason every parent wishes to die before their children.

Duty love is maybe what I gave in the marriage I had because I was not loved the way a wife should be loved so I was always ‘keeping things together, fixing things, working to keep a household going’ but these are duties. Requirements that a thinking person can perform because they need to be done. Borne of necessity and a deep desire to do no harm… this duty love cannot replace what God designed love to be between a man and a woman.

I heard it said this week again by a teacher… a man and a woman who marry must grow together… even at the same pace. The only way I can see that happening is if they spend a lot of time together, melding, synergy… maybe goals that need to be similar…

Heart goals need to be similar. A desire to… make the world better by… We will, together…  build this… this relationship will be a love bond… we will invest in this… protect it… enjoy the fruit of the trust, release ourselves from the wanting by fulfilling each other… when people find this, I think then the work can happen. People have too many needs, unfulfilled, and that creates too much of a daily hunger that isn’t getting fed and then it might all be duty… when we all long for beauty. And beauty, beauty is love!   

On the bank of the river

Restless... I am restless... and searching.
This last year I was sitting on this same bank of this river... today I felt less hopeless than the last time I sat here.
I was searching for a place to live but the place I went to see today was not right for me... pictures on the internet can be very deceiving!
I am not really sure why I felt less hopeless seeing as I was not successful in finding a new place to live but, there I was, enjoying the sunshine.
I was probably the only one without a fishing pole on that bank and I had to laugh when what surely seemed like a huge fish jumped out of the water right in front of me... twice!