Quotation Saturday

Pss. 74:20 “Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”

OFFEND

“We cannot choose who offends us, but we can choose how to respond when we are offended.” 
― Moffat Machingura

“You may not be able to do anything about how you feel; but you can do something about how you act. People will definitely offend you willing or unwilling by their words and actions...but you can choose to let that offence sink you down or not....” 
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.” 
― George R.R. Martin

“Sensitive people are the most genuine and honest people you will ever meet. There is nothing they won’t tell you about themselves if they trust your kindness. However, the moment you betray them, reject them or devalue them, they become the worse type of person. Unfortunately, they end up hurting themselves in the long run. They don’t want to hurt other people. It is against their very nature. They want to make amends and undo the wrong they did. Their life is a wave of highs and lows. They live with guilt and constant pain over unresolved situations and misunderstandings. They are tortured souls that are not able to live with hatred or being hated. This type of person needs the most love anyone can give them because their soul has been constantly bruised by others. However, despite the tragedy of what they have to go through in life, they remain the most compassionate people worth knowing, and the ones that often become activists for the broken hearted, forgotten and the misunderstood. They are angels with broken wings that only fly when loved.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

RESENT

Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment.” 
― Suzy Kassem

“Only those who are in-charge are tackled and criticized by others so criticism is something desirable and should not be resented.” 
― Emmanuel Moore Abolo

“Beware of those who steer you away from your heart’s true happiness. It would make them happy to see you steer yourself right next to them, sitting with both your hearts bitter.” 
― Suzy Kassem

GOSSIP

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” 
― Socrates

“How would your life be different if…You walked away from gossip and verbal defamation? Let today be the day…You speak only the good you know of other people and encourage others to do the same.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“Isn't it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?” 
― Sean Covey

“Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

RESPECT

“The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them.” 
― Steve Hall

“If the traditional Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic) are the basics that we want our children to master academically, then reverence, respect, and responsibility are the three Rs that our children need to master for the sake of their souls and the health of the world.” 
― Zoe Weil

“Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.” 
― Jane Austen

“After all, everyone may not start with the same financial opportunities; however everyone does start with the choice to live their life with integrity, trust, love, respect,understanding for each other and oneself.” 
― Tasha Hoggatt

The New World?

Isa. 25:4  “For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.”

The New World

This is the world we live in, the headline reads:

“Driver Causes Major Accident While Trying to Use a Snapchat Filter”

The young speed demon was given a simple fine for crippling a man. People drink and drive lose their licenses after too many DUI’s, texters kill people and get off of murder charges for ‘suffering from affluenza’???

People are deleting/blocking out friends from facebook for sharing political/religious posts. Twitter is inundated with pics that you have no control over removing, and YouTube is a doorway to hell that people flock to in droves to see the next hot moment in history. More and more children are sitting inside behind a techno gadget instead of playing hopscotch, basketball or jump rope. 

We have a nation fed up with political garbage and are fleeing to a non-political man for president because somewhere out there, people are tired of this crazy world we live in! We have politicians doing what they do best and that is manipulating the system underhandedly trying to oust the non-politician creature from the fold and people are going to vote for these politician shysters again? 

This is the world we live in. A non-caring, hide-behind-a-screen society and the only voices being heard are through the tapped out words on a keyboard or the sounds of gunshots taking out entire families. We’re so quick to point fingers at others but how often do we point fingers at ourselves? When was the last time you condemned yourself for being so hateful and mean toward others?

We applaud the sickness eating society, we use words on a wall to show our anger and do nothing to step outside and participate in actually changing this hellbound world. As we eagerly ignore all the signs of the fallen times we wonder why God has shaken us off as the world has utterly cut him off like severing the umbilical cord from a baby, we’re free from Him.

We all want rights but I notice the ones that are winning are the ones actually out there fighting for them. Everybody else just sits back on their computer and rages and spews what they dislike is going on getting nothing accomplished but adding more hate to the world.

Men are becoming women and vice versa, children are walking around confused slicing their wrists for attention and parents fear the transgender world is going to bring out all of the pedophiles in the world to attack their children while Hollywood can legally promote pedophilia and call it art?

I ashamedly watched a movie called Moonrise Kingdom and it was one of the worst movies I had ever seen. It looked like a theater play, the acting was generic and yet this movie had a 7.6 rating from the IMDb site. I’m thinking just because the movie had Bruce Willis and Bill Murray some higher ups PAID to get that rating.

I say ashamedly because I had to sit through two twelve-year-old children in a ‘coming of age’ plot? You know where they ‘innocently’ discover one another through their depression. Had I checked the IMDb Parents Guide, I would have never watched that movie. I was not alone in my being creeped out.

Such as it is, Hollywood glorified the innocence of children and that went a little too far for me but then I realized, this is the world we live in now. I’m a prude because I felt embarrassed watching a twelve-year-old kid touch a twelve-year-old girls breast (justified by, “It was through her training bra”) and for the said children to embrace and the girl comment on his erection saying she liked it? Prude or not, that was one sick scene. I get that this is Wes Anderson’s way of making movies, I get that this is what children experience but did it need to be as graphic as it was to get the message across?

I wholeheartedly admit that I’m a prude and that childhood sexual abuse has damaged me to where I cannot see innocence where it is intended. The world is drenching themselves in perverse behavior and no one is fighting for the innocent in all of this. I may be wrong and judgmental in this but movies like this are the very reason why my rose colored glasses seem foggy.

Eph. 4:29 “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

It’s a hard job building the world up one brick at a time when satan is always one step ahead filling someone out there with the desire to topple those bricks that you’re laying. I have to understand that this is the world we live in; a land of confusion.

God help us all!

Astri Celia ~ Still Born

Hos. 9:11 “As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.”

Astri Celia 

b. 4-26-04 d. 4-26-04

So many have forgotten her

They never knew her name

What people here don’t realize 

I’m left not quite the same

I held her tiny body

My fingers brushed her face

Life was taken out of her

Right from this earthly place

She never felt the sunshine

No chance to run and play

I was faced with living

Without her near me every day.

Seven months of bonding

As all pregnant mothers know

You’re threaded by conception

To this child you’ll watch and grow.

So many have forgotten her

Astri Celia was her name

What people here don’t realize

I’m left not quite the same.

Ecc. 7:1 “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.”

Weeds

Proverbs 21:3 (NIV) “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.” 

Weeds

Now that Spring has arrived after the drenching rains it is time for the weeds to pop up through newly green grass that is calling out for a good mowing. You see, with such a mild winter, the grass really didn’t have a chance to go dormant. With warm weather mixed with a good two or three inches of rain the grass has shown signs of overflowing in greenery.

That greenery has called out to its friends the weeds to show up in abundance. A lot like life, we need to sort through the weed negative influences to get to the good greenery stuff that makes the air fresher and the lawn more beautified.

The thing is, is that the weeds are strangling the lawn and not allowing the grass to surface in many places and so my lawn looks like a patchwork quilt, grass here, weeds there all so suffocating. 

The only good thing is that the weeds are a pretty disguising purple, then there is the over abundance of beautiful sunshiny dandelions that certainly brighten the green. I’ve been reading lately about the health benefits of dandelions. 

While I say that my facebook is riddled with weeds, I can see a little teensy bit of beauty in the woven patchwork of posts. While the negative posts try to suffocate me there ARE means of getting rid of the dastardly demon non-do-gooders. The only health benefits I find in the negativity swell of weeds taking over the place is that I learn a lot of what NOT to be like as a person. 

Weeds are strangling the earth as I write. People are seen clinging to the negative affect of fellow weeds not wanting to be in the greener pastures with the few who are trying to save this world from imminent destruction. You see them every day wallowing in hate, spitting out ugliness, clinging by the root to the destructive weeds that invade the good green earth. Don’t be fooled by the little purple or yellow flowers that they toss out in disguise. 

People use God as a means to an end. Families are fleeing the church in record numbers because of these weeds that put on a pretty show but in reality are destroying the green trying to come up with the rain.

Galatians 6:8 (NIV) “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

Are you a sower or a reaper? Are you a shepherd or a sheep? A sower just takes and takes and fills his bag with the hate that has accumulated in his life. The anger at the world and the hate that has accrued over a lifespan have the sower replanting all the weeds he can so that everyone feels suffocated. A shepherd is a leader, one that will guide the lost sheep to safer grounds where they can eat the abundance of good, pure greenery that might be left. 

I might ask, are you a weed? Are you the one feeding the germination of decline that is crippling the world? Are you the spore that is repressing the possibility for new growth? Are you the man or woman who is a follower of animosity as opposed to the leader of replenishment? True colors come out in the actions that are prevalent in your life. If you continue to be a weed, then consider yourself among the community that is slowly depleting the earth of any significant life.

I see you cheering on the lessening of lives. You put people in their place and stand on a high platform with fist raised in enjoying the moans and grumbles that applaud you in your uncaring fashion of spewing YOUR logic.

Spock says, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Captain Kirk answers, “Or the one.”

Yeah, I went there. Now let me change it up a bit. “The weeds to the many outweigh the weeds of the few or the One!” You see, the seeds of weeds you feed to the many are outweighing the seeds of the One who is trying to resuscitate the earth. Your hate is depleting the earth of vital growth and until you see that picture as whole and it touches you so immensely you’ll continue in your weed garden. 

Do the many need to hear your hate mongering? Are we now the world that accepts underhanded backstabbing, knife grinding, bait dangling as a means to accomplish a goal? Is this what we’ve come to? 

As I walk through the shadow of the darkness that is Earth, my very last words on my tongue will be of Him who will save me. To the non-believer I say, I would much rather carry the words of love on my breath than the world, filled with hate and destruction on my lips that everyone seems to carry on theirs.

Are you a weed or a seed? Think about that. 

“We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings, we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.” 
― Chögyam Trungpa

Poetry Sunday ~ One Day I Will Die

Matt. 4:16 “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”

~ One Day I Will Die ~

One day I will take my last breath

what will you remember of me?

My intense love of life

My emotional good spirit

or God’s Light that has set me free?

Will you hold my laughter in your hand

Will you see the joy I shared

Am I the girl you’ll always say

“Now there’s a woman who cared”

One day I’ll whisper my last breath

What will I leave behind?

The pureness of heart

A well lit path

For you to try and find?

Will my passion for nature linger

Will my presence always bloom

Am I the one you’ll remember

Who lit an entire room?

One day I’ll breathe my last breath

The memory of me you’ll trade

Will any portion 

Of me remain

Or will my essence fade?

God light the fork before me

So I know which road to take.

Allow them to keep a part of me

That I know I dare not take. 

Matt. 22:5 “But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:”

Quotation Saturday ~ Choose Wisely

Proverbs 13:3 (NIV)

“He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.”

SHAME

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.” 
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“You will never find the real truth among people that are insecure or have egos to protect. Truth over time becomes either guarded or twisted as their perspective changes; it changes with the seasons of their shame, love, hope or pride.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“I am ashamed of anyone who has eyes and still can't see.” 
― Kathryn Lasky, The Journey

RESPECT

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them.” 
― Steve Hall

“We live in a world where people hold no respect for others, only for what their ego or love of self, allows them to embrace as to what is right in their minds. Shaming people makes them feel good about themselves and in the process, they lose respect for their own self. Tis’ better to love all than to love self.”
- Joni Zipp

LABELS

“If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.” 
― Joseph Sobran

“I'd be a conservative if I'd never met any. They're selfish, mean-spirited, egocentric, reactionary, and boring.” 
― Pat Conroy

“When the focus becomes ‘What would Jesus do?’ instead of ‘What has Jesus done?’ the [conservative/liberal] labels no longer matter.” 
― Michael S. Horton

“In essence, I find that the foundation of modern conservatism is driven by a clinging to God in fear of the world, whereas the foundation of modern liberalism is a clinging to the world in fear of God; albeit, the true foundation should be one's clinging to God in fear of God.” 
― Criss Jami

“Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul. In the final analysis, words mean nothing. They are labels we give things in an effort to wrap our puny little brains around their underlying natures, when ninety-nine percent of the time the totality of the reality is an entirely different beast. The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them.” 
― Karen Marie Moning

“And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone or that's an evil one because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.” 
― Philip Pullman

Free Will

“You hold the power within you to change, it’s a CHOICE. You either choose to remain the same or you CHOOSE to change. The CHOICE is yours to LOVE or to HATE.”
~ Joni

“God created every man to be free. The ability to choose whether to live free or enslaved, right or wrong, happy or in fear is something called freewill. Every man was born with freewill. Some people use it, and some people use any excuse not to. Nobody can turn you into a slave unless you allow them. Nobody can make you afraid of anything, unless you allow them. Nobody can tell you to do something wrong, unless you allow them. God never created you to be a slave, man did. God never created division or set up any borders between brothers, man did. God never told you hurt or kill another, man did. And in the end, when God asks you: "Who told you to kill one of my children?"

And you tell him, "My leader."

He will then ask you, "And are THEY your GOD?” 
― Suzy Kassem

“Have you ever stopped to consider the number of choices you make daily Paradoxically speaking, every time you have a choice to make and you don't make it, by default, you are making a choice not to make a choice, which is, of course, a choice. You have no choice in the matter. This is an important question because the more conscious you are about your choices, the more likely it is you will end up where you want to be at the end of your stay on this planet.” 
― Dennis Merritt Jones

My Spirit...

Pss. 83:15  “So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.”

My Spirit

My spirit rests in heavenly skies

Stars erupt through spatial sighs

The cosmos is an open foray

For souls to land and spirits pray

Earth below the physical realm

Worlds collide to overwhelm

Stardust sings in blissful pleasure

Music for the spheres to treasure

The source of peace forms within

The heart and mind will then begin

To show the world this shape you take

Energy flows the storm’s awake

My spirit soars where dead men roam

I found in heaven a place called home

There’s no place here on earth or sea

I’ll fly alone just God and me

Woman with Issues

John 11:4 “When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.”

Perimenopause

Great news. I’m not just a grouchy insensitive woman I am now (added to all of my other disability issues) going through perimenopause. This is great news that as a woman who is now ‘not getting any younger’ has even more issues to deal with. At least there is a reason for my instability of the mind going, I’m a woman! I feel so sorry for men who have to put up with women, love or no love, no wonder they’re considered the stronger species, they never have to go through HALF of what women go through, they just have to put up with us. That takes strength, my friends, even though men are the biggest babies I’ve ever seen at the slightest of ailments.

By the way, this post isn’t for the single man, stop now. 

Everyone’s experience of perimenopause is unique. This is nice to hear.

35 Symptoms of Perimenopause

Hot flashes, hot flushes, night sweats and/or cold flashes, clammy feeling
Irregular heart beat
Irritability
Mood swings, sudden tears
Trouble sleeping through the night (with or without night sweats)
Irregular periods; shorter, lighter periods; heavier periods, flooding; phantom periods, shorter cycles, longer cycles
Loss of libido
Vaginal dryness
Crashing fatigue
Anxiety, feeling ill at ease
Feelings of dread, apprehension, doom
Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion
Disturbing memory lapses
Incontinence, especially upon sneezing, laughing; urge incontinence
Itchy, crawly skin
Aching, sore joints, muscles and tendons
Increased tension in muscles
Breast tenderness
Headache change: increase or decrease
Gastrointestinal distress, indigestion, flatulence, gas pain, nausea
Sudden bouts of bloat
Depression
Exacerbation of existing conditions
Increase in allergies
Weight gain
Hair loss or thinning, head, pubic, or whole body; increase in facial hair
Dizziness, vertigo, light-headedness, episodes of loss of balance
Changes in body odor
Electric shock sensation under the skin and in the head
Tingling in the extremities
Gum problems, increased bleeding
Burning tongue, burning roof of mouth, bad taste in mouth, change in breath odor
Osteoporosis (after several years)
Changes in fingernails: softer, crack or break easier
Tinnitus: ringing in ears, bells, 'whooshing,' buzzing etc.

What else is good to know is that I have two more stages:
Menopause. This is the point when it's been a year since a woman last had her last menstrual period. At this stage, the ovaries have stopped releasing eggs and making most of their estrogen.

Postmenopause. These are the years after menopause. During this stage, menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes ease for most women. But health risks related to the loss of estrogen rise as the woman ages. 

Great, more health risks after all of this? I guess my eight-hour sleep-filled nights will be over too! Maybe I’ll be an exception to the rule, but I’m not counting on it. 

I thought I had permanent PMS but since I’m no long in my thirties, nope, it’s the OTHER PMS woman syndrome, PeriMenopauseSyndrome. Yeah, I made that up because I’m so happy to find out that what I’m going through isn’t a life threatening illness that is going to take my life so early, although, I’d probably be glad to get away from the earth at this point in my GOS, (growing old syndrome).

So you probably thought this was yet another God post or something and stumbled upon a woman and her issues post. Issues is an understatement, I’m trying to figure out what in the name of God I am going through. (See what I did there?) Well there you have it, I turned this into a God post after realizing that this is part of the woman’s suffering.

Gen. 3:16 “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

I guess I’ll just have to live with it AND die with it, YAY women. I think I’ll find ways to deal with these issues that are bombarding me like a fourth of July fireworks show. I’ll be a better person for it, right, dealing with the syndrome with grace? Praise be to God. 

Working Through Resentment

1 Sam. 2:3 “Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.”

Working Through Resentment

Working through resentment is a tough pill to swallow. It is so hard to just forgive and let go but this is truly what I’m trying to do, if only the pain didn’t go so deep. I feel like I’m swimming in an ocean with no life preserver and I’m sinking due to the weight of resentment laying heavy on me at this time. 

I resent having to eliminate much of my facebook feed to only see three or four friends that I KNOW aren’t out to butt kiss and show off. They’re actual people with things to say and post things of actual interest to me. I think the root of the problem is my actual resentment towards facebook for not being a friendly place anymore and just being a load of political zombie garbage that no one wants to take out, they just dump it in the ocean and swim. 

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” 

― Mahatma Gandhi

Who would’ve thought that Gandhi would be helping me out in this? Not me that’s for sure but I don’t judge a man because of his faith and religion and I admire a man of words, real words. But I’m sure there is someone out there ready to chide me for my choices. Oh well, such is life.

“With each opportunity before me, God presented me with a choice. I could accept His offerings, His wisdom, His grace. Or I could choose to hold onto the pain, the anger and the resentment a little longer.” 

― Sharon E. Rainey

I could go on and on of the list of the resentment war path that has curled up inside of me like a snake warming itself but seriously I’d rather work through the resentment and find a healing place where I can find solace and be free to think of my own fruition instead of having to daily build walls. But please know I do have someone ready to clean up the mess I leave behind. God is by my side all the way and I find He wants this healing from me too. He’s brought along the shovel so as we climb the mountain together we can shovel this mess over the side of a cliff and release it to the air.

I can in good conscience say this didn’t all start with the political postings that get on my last nerve, no this began when I lost my father and I’ve had a hard time dealing with the surfacing of resentment that bubbled up from the pit. 

Mrs. Peppity-Pep Goodie-two-shoes is pooped out. I’m tired, I’m done. I just can’t put on the brave face and act like nothing bothers me when here lately looking at me the wrong way will get you your head chopped off. People reach out their hand only to pull it back (fear of it being chopped off?) People know of my disability but they expect so much more than my pea brain can manage. They want to help but do nothing. How is offering to help someone by a few words helping someone, with no follow through?

My friends, I’ve said it before and I will say it time and time again that actions speak louder than words. Your actions hurt people more than help. I was already struggling not to go down into the pit but add the hate-spewers to the mix and they forced me into the pit like dunking my head under water and holding it there. Thank you. Now go on with your life pretending to be who you are not and feel good about yourself. Just know that your ignorance shines brighter than ANY scripture you can post. The bad/evil does not outweigh the good. 

I wanna be the one to walk in the sun, oh yeah, I just wanna have fun. Oh yeah I just wanna have fun. ~ similar to Cyndi Lauper’s, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. 

Am I still grieving? No, my dad is at peace and I find peace in knowing he is safe and happy. Am I depressed? Yes, the world suffocates me and I’m laughed at for my beliefs although I don’t carry that laughter with me, instead I carry God with me, the very one you claim to believe but do nothing to follow. Again, ACTIONS speak louder than WORDS.

I will lower my head for now and work through my resentment. I’ll work through the anguishing pain (another thing no one understands) and I’ll go forward into the spring with dandelion bouquets sprouted on my lawn and I will appreciate their beauty for all that they are!

I will read this poem below as daily as I pray. I will hear the words in my heart and I will find a healing place. Away from you, away from the negative flow, away from the pain burning inside me. 

Godspeed…

REMEMBER THE LOTUS FLOWER

Great people will always be mocked by those

Who feel smaller than them.

A lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena.

A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey.

A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song

At the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker.

Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower.

Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud,

It does not allow the dirt that surrounds it

To affect its growth or beauty.

Be that lotus flower always.

Do not allow any negativity or ugliness

In your surroundings

Destroy your confidence,

Affect your growth,

Or make you question your self-worth.

It is very normal for one ugly weed

to not want to stand alone.

Remember this always.

If you were ugly,

Or just as small as they feel they are,

Then they would not feel so bitter and envious

Each and every time they are forced

To glance up at magnificently

Divine YOU.

― Suzy Kassem

Hope vs. Hopeless

Job 7:6 “My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.”

Hope vs. Hopeless

I know there has to be hope out there somewhere in the crumbling world. I love searching out the good in the bad, the hope in the hopeless, the light in the dark. That is what the past couple of weeks have been for me. I took a long walk through a darkened tunnel that I knew the water drips I heard off in the distance meant that there was hope in finding a way out. 

The length and the depth of the cave I did not know but I walked on in search of something, a discovery of my inner self that often wrestles me to the ground holding me firmly in place. I would not allow the struggle to beat me into submission.

Prov. 13:12 “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”

Facebook has become the world mostly filled with political zombies who are out to create their own world of feeling good about themselves no matter the cost to others who just seek out a good friendly natured place where their friends frequent. So I tend to stay back so as not to get entangled in the quagmire.

I’ve been dealing with my own bubble in my own world and while I’m working on the resentment I harbor, it has been a lovely ball of yarn unraveling in the strangest of ways. As many of my readers know, I turn to God for everything and yes that means when all hope seems lost I turn to him for the comfort I need to get me through and a guided hand whose word I TRUST!

One strange instance was last week when I walked outside to watch the sunset as I normally do. There it was, a face in the sky. A face so beautiful I call to my hubby and son to come take a look! It wasn’t hidden in the white fluffy clouds shaped like a face, instead, it was sketched in the fine wispy clouds looking like an artist had used a charcoal pencil to sketch the face on fine blue paper. The piercing eyes, the gallant nose, the arc-shaped mouth and square chin were very prominent, so much so I ran and got my camera because I wanted to share this awesome face with all of you. 

The next day when I tried putting the pictures (I took three) onto my computer, I was faced with three blanks, nothing, there was no picture to be had. “Jesus,” I cried out, “where are the pictures?”  I checked to make sure the camera was working and sure enough the next three pictures I took came out clear as a bell.  Adam, of course, tried to dismiss the missing pictures by saying maybe the lens cover was on or my finger was in the way. Just so you know, you can’t click a picture with the lens cap on because it pops off as soon as you turn the camera on and I had the zoom lens out which makes it pretty difficult for my finger to be in the way. By the way, the two pics before those three were taken were there as were the ones after.

So there you have it, I’m left with MY theory of the three missing pictures. Let me first say that when I walked out the door, I gasped, I was taken aback thinking I had seen the face of Jesus himself. So much so a tear welled in my eye but didn’t spill over in my excitement of getting the camera. When there were no pictures to be seen for others to look at I realized that seeing the face was for my eyes, not for others. Not for me to send out into the viral world, not for me to make money off of, just for my eyes. To my husband and son, it was just a face but to me the face sketched in the sky was so much more that chills still run up my arms as I write this. It is firmly planted in my mind.

The other obstacles we’re dealing with are my husband’s work hours bothering us. He really likes his new job but the minimal hours had him wondering if it was time to seek out a new job. I did what I always do when faced with a dilemma and that is pray. Friday he came home, down because it was a schedule with more minimal hours. He’d like at least 25, 20 to survive, but two weeks of fifteen hours were going to hurt. I prayed.

Well, an Alleluia AMEN is in order because he got a call Monday morning, his scheduled day off and was asked to come in to work ‘a couple hours’. He said, of course, not a problem and off he went. A couple to me is two but it turned into five and a half hours! Prayers being answered.

People often wonder why I am such a God person and I tell them flat out because He has always answered my prayers! Even when I’m praying for others, He answers. They can frequently be heard saying, “He never answers MY prayers”, and that is much of the reason they turn FROM him. Me? I must be praying for the right things because He has never let me down and has always unequivocally answered my prayers.

No, I never pray to win a million dollars, a bigger house, a new car; I pray for food, sustenance and He provides. The hours of work didn’t fall out of the sky, they were coincidentally there at a time of the manager’s need and my hubby provided. And as you all well know, I don’t believe in coincidences. 

I’ll end this with saying, pray for the right things a couple of times. What are the right things, you might ask? Well, when that prayer is answered you’ll know. 

God Bless

Prov. 15:8 “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.”

God of this City

Chris Tomlin

Quotation Saturday ~ There Is Hope

Pss. 130:5  “I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.”

ATHEIST

“I don't profess any religion; I don't think it’s possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words ‘spiritual’ or ‘spirituality.'”
[Interview, The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005] 
― Philip Pullman

“The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.” 
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“...it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being."

[Letter to William Short, 13 April 1820]
― Thomas Jefferson,

AGNOSTIC

“As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.” 
― Bertrand Russell

“You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility.” 
― Carl Sagan

“My lack of faith in God is not a dilapidated house.
It does not need to be razed to the ground or burned down to cinders.
I refuse to be the wounded woman on a cross
that you crucify with your disapproval like nails;
I will only be the woman who believes in thunderstorms
the same way lightning loves the tops of trees it strikes
every time it gets tired of being pent up in an unforgiving sky,
the only difference is that I believe these are natural weather phenomenons,
not God’s belly rumbling or synapses firing.
When my doorway is filled with groups of people
wielding religious conversion pamphlets like crossbows,
I will be the martyr who steps aside to let the arrows
crack through the plaster in my wall instead of piercing my chest.
This is not a eulogy to the believer I could have been.
This is a battle cry to the believer I always have been,
believer in sunsets like splashes of paint, handholding
like willow branches brushing one another, new mornings
after old nights spent drowning in despair, believer
in love as an entire language instead of a single word.
Just because my beliefs align themselves on a different spectrum
does not mean they are the wrong wavelength or color.
And even though I think the universe was created by the Big Bang
instead of a God with magic dust shooting from his fingertips,
my universe does not contain fewer stars.” 
― Meggie Royer

FAITH

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” 
― C.S. Lewis

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.” 
― Elbert Hubbard

“Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith.” 
― Lauren Kate

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” 
― Søren Kierkegaard

BELIEF

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.” 
― Mitch Albom

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” 
― Stuart Chase

HOPE

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” 
― Paulo Coelho

“Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all.” 
― Emily Dickinson

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.” 
― Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

Belief vs. Knowledge

Ex. 31:3 “And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,”

“I no longer want to be a Christian. Oh, I want to follow Christ and stick to my beliefs but to be a person who calls herself a Christian I feel like I have to put on an armored coat while all other Christians walk around pretending to be a Christian and wearing the face mask the rest of the week. They are the Sunday only Christians I spoke of in another post.”

Please note I do have on the full armor of the Lord and that the term ‘Christian’ I found only three times in the bible:

Acts.11:26 “And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”

Acts.26:28 “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

1Pet.4:16 “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.”

Also, note that I make the statement above to see a reaction, not as a statement of me giving up on everything I believe in. And you just know there will be more posts, so hang in there before judging me. I’ll say this also, if any man (or woman) suffer as a Christian, let him glorify God on this behalf. 

Belief vs. Knowledge - I can see this topic is not one that I’m equipped to just spew out an answer of the differences in a few hundred words, so links will be added so you can read your heart out. 

Belief vs. Knowledge an interesting read.

Knowledge definition: 1. facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.

Belief: 1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.

My belief comes from knowledge not via books, or an encyclopedia or the internet, not from scientists or ministers, it comes from what I’ve experienced and know to be true to ME. That is what makes my strong belief different and that is that it comes from hands-on, visual, and sometimes spiritual experiences that have happened to me in my life. After an experience, I would check a book to see if I’m crazy or not and more times than not my experience is not much unlike many of the people that I’ve read about in the bible and others who have been on the same journey.

Let me just say, before everyone goes off thinking I’m losing my faith, satan himself has tried to shake my faith and I’m still here writing about what has been MY experience, in a nutshell, I AM NOT LOSING MY FAITH.

My post is not here to sway you to think MY way, my post is here to have you and you alone think, to search, to read, to feel for yourself what is the truth that lies within YOU.

Yesterday’s post about agnostics vs. atheist struck a nerve in veins I never thought reachable. The journey I’m on has me meeting many different people, ones I don’t understand and subjects I need to do a little research on so I don’t come off as someone who don’t know what they’re talking about. 

My post yesterday brought about a slew of links, worthy of a share.

Are all religions the same? 

Hypocrisy in the Church: 

What IS the Church? 

Church bullies? 

What NOT to say to someone who has been hurt by the church: 

As with all of my writing, I aim to gain knowledge, to grow as a person and to share with you my experience along the way. I’m not writing so you can tell me I’m right or wrong, just as your opinion to me is not right or wrong, it is growth, internal or external growth is what we are all here for on this planet. Growth is the very reason we were planted.

My suffering is a part of that growth. I don’t announce to the world that I’m struggling or suffering to gain pity, I offer it to you so you can see my growth through my suffering. You get a visual of what my suffering entails then the further writing of blog posts show you how I as a human being have grown through the pain. 

I am human. I am a sinner. I am the very hypocrite you fear (not for my lies but for times I may judge wrongly) yet the one you long to speak to and embrace. I am a living testament to MY belief through the knowledge that I gained via experience. In truth… I AM ME!

2 Thes. 2:13 “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:”

Agnostic vs. Atheist

2 Thes. 2:13 “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:”

I don’t know much about agnosticism or atheism but I’m going to do a little research and find out. Maybe it’s because I don’t understand the language.

I have a friend who said he’s agnostic but now he says he’s a Christian; my son who was a Christian now says he’s agnostic. This riddled my brain because I’ve been a Christian for the majority of my life and I don’t understand the concept of not believing or needing proof. My son tells me that my beliefs are like a foreign language to him, he doesn’t understand me, and so here I am trying to understand something I may never understand. 

The definition of agnostic is:
A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

The definition of atheist is:
A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.

To me, an agnostic needs proof to believe in the existence of God where an atheist could care less if there is a God and they live every day waiting for the cold, clammy earth that awaits them after death. 

Agnostic vs. atheist - Atheism is about belief, or specifically what you don't believe. Agnosticism is about knowledge, or specifically about what you don't know. An atheist doesn't believe in any gods. An agnostic doesn't know if any gods exist or not.

When raising my son I took him to church, a church that baptized him and saw him through the ritualistic practices every Sunday. He attended the youth groups and he enjoyed it at first but I always told him that he was his own person and could believe in what he wanted to believe and that I could not force him to believe in what I believed. 

Around the age of seventeen my son told me that he didn’t have the same belief as me, he was now an agnostic and though it was a little startling, seeing as I tried so hard raising him right, it hit me like a swift angry wind, it stung. What did I do wrong? I was assured I had done nothing wrong and realized he was now his own person and could make decisions on his own. 

When I asked him what had happened, as vocal as the young man is, he told me point blank, hypocrites happened. Adam has eyes to see and ears to hear and when he witnessed so-called Christians, they were of the Sunday only variety. They looked and performed the Christianity on Sunday but the rest of the week they would drink, curse and be filled with hate so unchristianlike he assumed most Christians were fakes hiding behind masks. He also told me this, “Not all Christians are like you mom, they don’t see what you see.” He went on to say that it was like if I went over to China I would not understand their language just as they wouldn’t understand my language or my faith. He did have a point. I tried to teach him a language he didn’t understand.

As I dug deeper into this agnostic vs. atheist it helped me to understand where my son was coming from in his beliefs, since we were obviously on different pages. I asked him if he believed in Jesus and he said yes because there is proof of His existence. 

This site answered it better than I ever could. 

Tim Staples wrote: “An agnostic is someone who believes human beings simply cannot know anything metaphysical or beyond the physical realm; therefore, they cannot know whether things like spirit, angels or God exist at all.”

Pss. 53:4 “Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God.”

There it is in a nutshell for ME. You see, I’ve always put God on the metaphysical level understanding the spirit so as not to be led into a belief of some man high in the clouds sitting on a golden throne judging the lower man of earth. To ME, Jesus was a man, God was the spirit in which He was created thus to me, Jesus IS the Son of God. 

I hit another point to ponder: Austin Cline wrote: “One major problem is that atheism and agnosticism both deal with questions about the existence of gods, but whereas atheism involves what a person does or does not believe, agnosticism involves what a person does or does not know. Belief and knowledge are related but nevertheless separate issues.”

An AHA moment for sure. Belief and knowledge are related but totally separate issues. I wonder if there is another blog topic in here that I will most likely do research on, belief and knowledge. To ME, my belief is my faith and my faith is built on MY knowledge. I can’t judge what others believe because it is a foreign language to me. Only they know what knowledge they have so who am I to judge whether a person is an agnostic or an atheist.

The so-called Christians who turned my son from God is another topic I’ll delve into because they certainly have their eyes on me so I will turn the camera on them. 

Job 36:4 “For truly my words shall not be false: he that is perfect in knowledge is with thee.”

Quotation Saturday ~ Peace

Prov. 109:22 “For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.”

RESENTMENT

“With each opportunity before me, God presented me with a choice. I could accept His offerings, His wisdom, His grace. Or I could choose to hold onto the pain, the anger and the resentment a little longer.” 
― Sharon E. Rainey

“Beware of those who are bitter, for they will never allow you to enjoy your fruit.” 
― Suzy Kassem

“But yester-night I prayed aloud 
In anguish and in agony, 
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd 
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: 
A lurid light, a trampling throng, 
Sense of intolerable wrong, 
And whom I scorned, those only strong! 
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will 
Still baffled, and yet burning still! 
Desire with loathing strangely mixed 
On wild or hateful objects fixed. 
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! 
And shame and terror over all! 
Deeds to be hid which were not hid, 
Which all confused I could not know 
Whether I suffered, or I did: 
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe, 
My own or others still the same 
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.” 
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them. Forgiving was not about accepting their words and deeds. Forgiving was about letting go and moving on with my life. In doing so, I had finally set myself free.” 
― Isabel Lopez

WOUNDED

“We are all broken and wounded in this world. Some choose to grow strong at the broken places.” 
― Harold J. Duarte-Bernhardt

“So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.” 
― Ann Aguirre

“Sensitive people care when the world doesn't because we understand waiting to be rescued and no one shows up. We have rescued ourselves, so many times that we have become self taught in the art of compassion for those forgotten.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“God has hewn out a hidden path more glorious, tantalizing and adventuresome than the path trod by most, and it is a path seen only through the eyes of our wounds, felt solely through the heart of our losses, and singularly traversed by those with a limp in their step.” 
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

HEALING

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” 
― Rumi

“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” 
― Rose Kennedy

“Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it, but also the father who wipes away the tears.” 
― Criss Jami

PEACE

“Be a light unto the world, and hurt it not. Seek to build not destroy. Bring My people home. 

How? 

By your shining example. Seek only Godliness. Speak only in truthfulness. Act only in love.
Live the Law of Love now and forever more. Give everything require nothing.
Avoid the mundane. 
Do not accept the unacceptable. 
Teach all who seek to learn of Me. 
Make every moment of your life an outpouring of love. 
Use every moment to think the highest thought, say the highest word, do the highest deed. In this, glorify your Holy Self, and thus too, glorify Me.
Bring peace to the Earth by bringing peace to all those whose lives you touch. Be peace. Feel and express in every moment your Divine Connection with the All, and with every person, place, and thing. 
Embrace every circumstance, own every fault, share every joy, contemplate every mystery, walk in every man’s shoes, forgive every offense (including your own), heal every heart, honor every person’s truth, adore every person’s God, protect every person’s rights, preserve every person’s dignity, promote every person’s interests, provide every person’s needs, presume every person’s holiness, present every person’s greatest gifts, produce every person’s blessing, pronounce every person’s future secure in the assured love of God. 
Be a living, breathing example of the Highest Truth that resides within you. Speak humbly of yourself, lest someone mistake your Highest Truth for boast. Speak softly, lest someone think you are merely calling for attention. Speak gently, that all might know of Love. Speak openly, lest someone think you have something to hide. Speak candidly, so you cannot be mistaken. Speak often, so that your word may truly go forth. Speak respectfully, that no one be dishonored. Speak lovingly, that every syllable may heal. Speak of Me with every utterance. Make of your life a gift. Remember always, you are the gift! 
Be a gift to everyone who enters your life, and to everyone whose life you enter. Be careful not to enter another’s life if you cannot be a gift. (You can always be a gift, because you always are the gift—yet sometimes you don’t let yourself know that.) When someone enters your life unexpectedly, look for the gift that person has come to receive from you…I HAVE SENT YOU NOTHING BUT ANGELS.” 
― Neale Donald Walsch

“Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.” 
― Roopleen

Mark 4:39 “And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”