God's Not Done...

Rom. 8:25 "But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

God’s Not Done

On Friday the 6th I began writing a blog post aimed at a Monday posting titled God’s Not Done… but if I had gotten it done, I would’ve posted it Saturday. Unfortunately it didn’t get done. Sunday I watched a sermon online, it was an Easter sermon. What jumped out at me were these words, “We can’t reach up to God He reaches down to us and assures us He is not done with us.”

Where had I heard those words, ‘He’s not done’? Oh that’s right, from my blog post I was writing on Friday! Coincidence? I think not! It was a direct message, a message on transformation! So here is what I had written on Friday.

God is not done…

God is not done with me yet! He’s busy transforming this broken, damaged, diseased woman into something beautiful; a cherished work of art that shines His Light in the dark places!

The statistics are in and the researchers have concluded that 90% of cancers are a result of diet, lifestyle, and environmental factors. And the single biggest factor is what you eat. Imagine that! We are what we eat! My lifestyle was eating junk and crud and look at me now in the battle of my life trying to reverse the damage.

It’s pretty sad that I’ve only begun embracing this new lifestyle after the diagnosis of an illness. I’m continuing to dig deep within my wounds, as deep as my arm will reach, to heal the core of the damage and make peace with my past. God and I are alone on this journey as there are parts so weathered and stained for the naked eye that I keep them there, never to write about. I guess you could say they are the demons in my closet.

Philippians 1:29 (NIV) “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.”

I’m not changing just a portion of my life, I’m changing everything one hundred percent! [finishing post] I’m surrendering my all to God because I know He is looking down on me, reaching out to me, shaping me and transforming me for a better life.

Life sometimes takes hold of us to where we’re blinded by all of the chaos in the world. From the crazy weather, to the sudden deaths, to the upheaval of life as we know it. If you tell me your weather is just fine and dandy where you live, give it time, you’ll see the craziness He has planned coming to your state. God is not done with us yet.

Moving along, at first, I was bitter and angry and slowly I was losing patience. I was paranoid and frustrated and sought to be healed or let go. He didn’t let me go, He held on tighter and tighter and popped open my eyes so I could see a little more clearly.

The chaos in the world can lead to isolation. You’re running along just fine until someone tosses a roadblock up and you sit idle for far too long. Maybe you’re in a raging storm held back by gridlock. Maybe an angry blizzard came up and movement forward is at a standstill. Maybe you’re getting tired of the unethical society being the controlling factor in day-to-day living. Maybe you think you have life under control but rest assured, He’s not done with you yet.

Job 14:19 “The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.”

Recently I’ve noticed a slow migration from Facebook. People are dropping off of the radar for days if not weeks at a time. Last week someone asked, why are people leaving Facebook? I mentioned that maybe they’re tired of Big Brother watching their every move. I received a very aggressive snappy reply that said, “If you’re tired of Big Brother watching you, turn off your computer!” It is that type of nastiness that is causing people to migrate away from Facebook. It’s no longer a place of fun and sharing information in a congenial manner. It’s a paranoid aggression at its finest.

I myself could care less if Big Brother is watching my every move; I’m not doing anything wrong so I don’t have anything to hide. I could care less if they control the Internet, I’ll just find a hobby that doesn’t enlist the aid of online research, like painting and coloring. No skin off of my nose but apparently something is causing this mass migration.

Something is causing this shift in weather. Something is provoking this deviation in attitudes of negative energy that people are sending out. Something is compelling people to wake up and realize God is not done with us yet and are removing themselves out of fear and uncertainty. At first, in my paranoia, I thought it was just me, feeling like I had gone and done something wrong in steering people to a healthier lifestyle. I’ve come to the realization that people are who they are, and kill what they must, they’ll continue where they will and dust what they dust.

Job 6:20 “They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed.”

As my, hopefully short, hiatus begins, I leave you, my fellow Christians with hope! There IS hope in tomorrow. There is hope in saving yourself. There is promise in transforming the old you into a new being of Christ’s. You might not see it as you gaze at the corrupt land you live; the unscrupulous badgering society is taking but there IS hope! God’s not done with you yet! Remember that with every breath. 

Death without the hope of the resurrection and eternal life brings despair!

He is RISEN! 

All Praise and Glory to God!

Acts 24:15 “And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.”

God's Not Dead, He is surely alive, living on the inside roaring like a lion! 

The Moral of the Story Is...

Easter April 1st, 2018 - Snow - Lots of it

Isa. 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

The Moral of the Story... 

All week I was undecided whether I was going to make it to the family’s Easter gathering. Since I haven’t been able to walk really well for a month now I cried out and said if I can’t walk I’m not going. It isn’t as if his family hasn’t seen me in this weakened state. Remember I’ve spoken many of time how their eyes speak of pity, dripping of poor Joni looks. It hurts me to see that look on their faces. It’s not my fault I can read people, but their eyes being the window of their soul, their pity pours from their eyes.

All month I’ve struggled to get better. His mom came out last week for my birthday and brought me an enormous fruit tray! She asked if we’d be coming on Easter and defensively I said, “I don’t even know how I’ll feel tomorrow nevertheless in a week.” I left it at that because each new day is a challenge and I feel different every day.

This week I almost forced myself to feel better. One day I would walk well and I kept myself busy and the next day the cane was back in my hand. Each day that I feel better I find myself trying to do too much in a day and am in pain the very next day. It’s the new game of what will I feel today. Friday I washed clothes, scrubbed up the tub and bathroom, vacuumed the floor as if I was preparing for guests to arrive! Saturday I woke and didn’t feel bad at all and went on with my chore for the day and that was going to be to make my mother’s classic macaroni salad to take with me on our Easter outing. With determination in hand, I was intent on going to a family get-together.

All week long the weather was predicting a cold spell for Easter Sunday. Cold as in twenty to thirty degrees after a mixture of the fifties and sixties on the clickity-clanking roller coaster ride of the transitional winter-spring event. I don’t know what day it was when I checked the weather and the word snow popped up but I paid it no mind and went on to healing, physically and emotionally.

Friday came and I checked the weather and it said more than just snow, it said Winter Weather Advisory! For some reason, I thought it was a nasty unethical April Fools joke but I knew deep down the professionals in the field wouldn’t do something of that magnitude. They were now calling for three to five inches of snow, eight if you were under the heavy band that was attached to the storm.

I trudged ahead with my plans; it took my whole day Saturday to make the macaroni salad with every intention of going to see the family on Easter Sunday. A whole day to make macaroni salad you ask? Well, when it comes to steaming the shrimp, cutting up the stuff that goes in it, hard-boiling eggs and mixing the sauce, yes, it takes about four to five hours to make it perfect, the classic way I remember it being made from childhood.

Everything seemed to be going wrong! I made this dish for years now but this time everything was going wonky on me from the noodles to the eggs, step by step it just kept getting worse and worse! The two-pounds of macaroni noodles were not the right ones. I usually use just the simple generic elbows but these were name brand and apparently, two pounds of simple elbow macaroni to generic brands is different than the name brands. I had enough fancier ridged noodles than I knew what to do with! 

From what felt like overcooked noodles to the undercooked eggs, and my dog circling my feet wondering if anything would drop for her, to my back in wrenching pain, this wasn’t going well. I persisted and went on winding up with making a meal for the guys with the excess noodles I had, making me something to eat and having more than enough macaroni salad for all. The optimist in me reigns!

For the entire week of Holy Week, I stayed focused on my faith and winding down the Lenten season with all that I’ve learned. My mornings and writings, as usual, were scripture, my movies at night were God related; winding down at a nice pace, pain in check but persistence won out very easily.

I didn’t even think of the snow until Sunday morning came. I woke and as I peeked out the window I could see a blanket of cotton covering the darkness. As the sun, or lack thereof, began shedding light on the horizon, I could see what I couldn’t see an hour ago, a little more snow than I thought. My son was due to drive home in the wintry white slippery stuff, yet again, after his two nights a week graveyard shift ended. He came home sore because of the shoveling he had to do and the lugging of salt. 

As the blustery temps remained below freezing, the snow kept falling and falling rendering us homebound for the day. I wasn’t willing to drive in the stuff since my back cannot handle the swerves a slick icy/muddy road causes and my husband, being blind in one eye, has trouble differentiating the ditch and the road when it is all uniformly white. We played it safe and stayed home. His mom was disappointed but she wanted us all safe too. Other family members couldn’t make it either, so I didn’t feel too bad about not being able to attend. Maybe she should set the time later than twelve noon from now on. Nope, tradition is tradition and one thing I’ve learned from this family is that they are steeped in routine and tradition.

I didn’t plan on being home for the day so now I had to figure out a meal. Plans are made to be broken I get, but I was certainly not ready for it to be seven inches of snow on April first to be what kept us home. Yes, we could’ve trudged through the snow, after all that is another thing I learned about Nebraskan’s, they don’t let snow stop them from anything. I live in a 4x4 red, white, and black state, Husker nation through and through.

By two o’clock the sun had pierced through the heavy blanket of clouds and the snow had finally stopped. I had shoveled a path for my dog earlier and the path was all but gone, filled in with snow, except for a sliver of brown peeking through. The roads looked very passable and finally cars were passing on the now slushy mess. The warming of the ground from many fifty and sixty degree days helped alleviate the plowing of the snow. The eight inches of snow I brushed from the truck was now sliding off the roof that I couldn’t reach, but the grass was still thick in the middle of the white stuff that defined the majority of the ‘Winter from Hell’! Temperatures stayed in the twenties the entire day of April 1st, 2018.

Then the words came through the tunnel…I have to go to the emergency room. * thud * I nearly fainted at the sight of blood and was rendered useless. Wrapped in gauze my husband drove off as I nurtured my near-fainting, dizzying spell and vomiting. Four stitches later and two hours passed (I was still woozy) my husband made it back home. Unless you want me to pass out, please don’t ask me what happened in my hubby’s new ‘workshop’. Use your imagination, DO NOT ASK! 

All in all the ending of the Lenten season’s highlight was the moral of the entire season; our plans are not God’s plans! Our ways are not His ways! He can and WILL do whatever He sets in motion to do! No one else is in control but Him! Let loose of the ego in you and be reminded, God is good all the time, ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD! 

Pss. 118: 5  “I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.

[6] The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”

[8] It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.

4 1 18 - Chrismas Pointsettias covered in snow! 

We couldn't have Easter without Christmas now, can we? 

Poetry Sunday ~ I Was Weeping

Christ-mas display in Texas 

John 19:25-26 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

I was weeping…

There were some who placed Him on the cross;

while others pulled His linen to toss.

Some were poking spears in his side

while women below were weeping and cried.

I was weeping.

Men were standing there mocking Him

some laughed and scoffed as His eyes grew dim.

Wails could be heard all across the way

as God put an end to the longest day.

I was wailing.

Some contend He was a guilty man

but only God knew his master plan.

Carried off to a cold empty tomb,

women followed; their faces bore gloom.

I was full of gloom.

In three days she came looking for

a Man that laid in the tomb no more.

Run and tell men to praise and sing

The Lord has risen, our Savior and King!

I was singing!

While many stood in disbelief

there were some who felt great relief.

Not all men nailed Him to that cross

Some people wept and felt the loss.

I was weeping.

Matt. 28:5-9 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Holy Week ~ In His Glory

Luke 23: 34  Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

~ In His Glory ~

(c) Joni Zipp 

I’ll deeply inhale the mornings' breath

walk through the day of your death;

Weep as tears falls from the sky

raise my eyes to ask You why?

Why did you leave us, why let man win

to bury the burden of human sin?

Will we sit idle and watch as you hang

forgetting all the Hosannas we sang?

Will we remember the blood on the cross

as we lust for life forgetting the loss,

can a man walk ‘round with his head held high,

knowing you came if only to die?

Agony washes through my veins

my heart laments for all of your pains.

I don’t pretend as hypocrites do

to immerse in honor every holiday or two.

I walk in the path that is set before me

trying to bathe in all your glory.

You rise to bask in heaven's glow,

and gave to me the right to sow.

I’ll carry your words, I’ll heal my heart

knowing that you will never depart.

Man tries to mask all that you’re seeing

not knowing You’ve leaked into his being!

I drench myself in the beckoning light,

that cradles me through day and night.

I drink from the cup of all your words

that fill my soul like fluttering birds.

My heart weeps red but unlike you

it only seeps my garments through.

Your bloodshed gives to me new birth

a righteous soul unveiled on Earth. 

All rights reserved: © Joni Zipp

Matt.28: 19-20 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

GodBless you ALL! 

Poetry Sunday ~ In His Glory

Luke 23: 34  Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

~ In His Glory ~

(c) Joni Zipp 

I’ll deeply inhale the mornings breath

walk through the day of your death;

Weep as tears falls from the sky

raise my eyes to ask You why?

Why did you leave us, why let man win

to bury the burden of human sin?

Will we sit idle and watch as you hang

forgetting all the Hosannas we sang?

Will we remember the blood on the cross

as we lust for life forgetting the loss,

can a man walk ‘round with his head held high,

knowing you came if only to die?

Agony washes through my veins

my heart laments for all of your pains.

I don’t pretend as hypocrites do

to immerse in honor every holiday or two.

I walk in the path that is set before me

trying to bathe in all your glory.

You rise to bask in heaven's glow,

and gave to me the right to sow.

I’ll carry your words, I’ll heal my heart

knowing that you will never depart.

Man tries to mask all that you’re seeing

not knowing You’ve leaked into his being!

I drench myself in the beckoning light,

that cradles me through day and night.

I drink from the cup of all your words

that fill my soul like fluttering birds.

My heart weeps red but unlike you

it only seeps my garments through.

Your bloodshed gives to me new birth

a righteous soul unveiled on Earth. 

All rights reserved: © Joni Zipp

Matt.28: 19-20 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Hosanna!Hosanna!

Matt. 28: 19 - 20 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Hosanna! Hosanna!

***

He gave life to the dead, cleansed the impure

healed the sick, became all lepers cure.

Fed the hungry, gave sight to the blind,

revealed the innocence of a child’s mind.

If you were thirsty, He gave you to drink,

Washed away sins with nary a blink;

Of His eyes we shined while light was dim

righteousness filled our cup to the brim.

Turn your cheek from the one that maims

seventy times if you burn with flames

Forgive, forget, move on I say

I’m reaching out to show you the way.

Disciples slept, while Jesus pleaded

to let him live unless he was needed.

Crying out He returned to die

while all looked on, not batting an eye.

They rejoiced and sang; praised his name

Hosanna! Hosanna! Into town he came.

Fronds of palms were laid at his feet.

All glory to Jesus our Savior we greet.

But lo and behold this man betrayed,

was scourged and beat but never swayed!

“My Father, My Father why have you forgot,

I gave them all that you said they’d have not.”

With one last breath he gave up the ghost,

shedding blood where man needed it most.

Our sins forgiven our God came as man

In a wondrous fete generations will span.

Will we remember the sacrifice made?

Can we ever honor the price that was paid?

Do we respect all things that He taught

our souls are free for sins his death bought.

My Glorious redeemer, Savior and King,

I bow with honor my soul shall sing.

 

 Blessed Resurrection Sunday to all!

Quotation Saturday ~ Resurrection Sunday is Coming...

Lent comes to an end…

As we embrace a new beginning.

Matt. 28:5-6 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

"As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus' thirst...'Repent and believe' Jesus tells us. What are we to repent? Our indifference, our hardness of heart. What are we to believe? Jesus thirsts even now, in your heart and in the poor -- He knows your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you."

~ Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

"Whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, take up his cross each day, and follow in my steps."

~ Luke 9:23

"Prayer does not change the purpose of God. But prayer does change the action of God." ~ Chuck Smith 

"Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers."

 ~ Sidlow Baxter

"It is not just about giving up our favorite food but its about going further and giving up things like hatred and unforgiveness. You need to clean your heart and prepare yourself for purity."

~ Amanda Jobs

“The Lord measures out perfection neither by the multitude nor the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them.”

~ St. John of the Cross

"You cannot be proud and expect to be transformed away from your sins. You need to humble yourself and have a spirit of repentance within you. Then you will see real change."

~ Mable Vine

“If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus' fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.”
~ A.W. Tozer

“The gifts of the Master are these: freedom, life, hope, new direction, transformation, and intimacy with God. If the cross was the end of the story, we would have no hope. But the cross isn't the end. Jesus didn't escape from death; he conquered it and opened the way to heaven for all who will dare to believe. The truth of this moment, if we let it sweep over us, is stunning. It means Jesus really is who he claimed to be, we are really as lost as he said we are, and he really is the only way for us to intimately and spiritually connect with God again.”
~ Steven James

“And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him the only life?”
~ Frederick Buechner

“May the resurrection power of Christ, awake in us a greater spiritual force and strength, so that we can passionately pursue our God-given dreams.”
~ Lailah Gifty Akita

“It saddens my heart when on this Holy Weekend so-called ‘Christians’ lose the war with satan and give in. Their eyes are not on Christ and satan loves that. Focus on the Life and the Resurrection, your soul will feel much better."

Job 27:8 “For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?

Saved by the Good book 

Lent: Day Forty-six ~ Quotation Saturday ~ Easter

Pss. 69: 16 Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

LENT

"All throughout my life I have been living recklessly. I have sinned a lot and done things that I know I should not have done. Now I will return back to God and change myself."

~  Genevieve Shaw

"As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus' thirst...'Repent and believe' Jesus tells us. What are we to repent?  Our indifference, our hardness of heart.  What are we to believe?  Jesus thirsts even now, in your heart and in the poor -- He knows your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you." 

~ Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

“God shapes the world by prayer. The more prayer there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces of against evil …”

~ E.M. Bounds

"Lent is like a long 'retreat' during which we can turn back into ourselves and listen to the voice of God, in order to defeat the temptations of the Evil One. It is a period of spiritual 'combat' which we must experience alongside Jesus, not with pride and presumption, but using the arms of faith: prayer, listening to the word of God and penance. In this way we will be able to celebrate Easter in truth, ready to renew the promises of our Baptism."

~ Pope Benedict XVI

FAITH

If I cannot hear “The sound of rain’ long before the rain falls, and then go out to some hilltop of the Spirit, as near to my God as I can and have faith to wait there with my face between my knees, though six times or sixty times I am told “There is nothing’, till at last there arises a little cloud out of the sea, then I know nothing of Calvary love. (Read 1 Kings 18:41-45)

~ Amy Carmichael

Believe that when you come into the presence of God you can have all you came for. You can take it away, and you can use it, for all the power of God is at your disposal in response to your faith.

~ Smith Wigglesworth

The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in.

~ R. C. Sproul

The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts in the soul of believers, the more miracles He will work in the body. By this, the world will recognize what redemption means.

~ Andrew Murray

 EASTER

When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself – a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman, a righteous or unrighteous man,…when in the fullness of tasks, questions, success or ill-hap, experiences and perplexities, a man throws himself into the arms of God…then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” with joy and gladness. He does not lie there now. Weep, when ye see the tomb of Christ, but rejoice because it is empty. Thy sin slew him, but his divinity raised him up. Thy guilt hath murdered him, but his righteousness hath restored him. Oh! he hath burst the bonds of death, he hath ungirt the cerements of the tomb, and hath come out more than conqueror, crushing death beneath his feet. Rejoice, O Christian, for he is not there—he is risen.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here.

~ St Augustine

“Dost thou understand me, sinful soul? He wrestled with justice, that thou mightest have rest; He wept and mourned, that thou mightest laugh and rejoice; He was betrayed, that thou mightest go free; was apprehended, that thou mightest escape; He was condemned, that thou mightest be justified; and was killed, that thou mightest live; He wore a crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear a crown of glory; and was nailed to the cross, with His arms wide open, to show with what freeness all His merits shall be bestowed on the coming soul; and how heartily He will receive it into His bosom?”

~ John Bunyan

NEW YEAR

If this is to be a Happy New Year, a year of usefulness, a year in which we shall live to make this earth better, it is because God will direct our pathway. How important then, to feel our dependence upon Him!  

~ Matthew Simpson

I pray that the Lord might crown this year with His goodness and in the coming one give you a hallowed dare-devil spirit in lifting the biting sword of Truth, consuming you with a passion that is called by the cultured citizen of Christendom ‘fanaticism’, but known to God as that saint ly madness that led His Son through bloody sweat and hot tears to agony on a rude Cross—and Glory!

~ Jim Elliott

We should take advantage of His faithfulness and make every day a fresh start. Resolve to make each day the beginning of a new year, a new morning, a new adventure. He wipes the slate clean and goes back to zero so we can be filled up again with His spirit and give it out all day long. Enjoy the blessings of a new year, in Christ, one day at a time! 

~ Debbie Carroccio

Renewal is rooted in faith, not in resolutions! They are made for New Year’s and forgotten on an average of thirteen days later, say the surveys. Faith is the result of a decision about Christ. I cannot make a new me or a new you, but Christ can make you new and me new, as well, if we decide for Him. 

~ Frank Harrington

Easter Sunday I celebrate my New Year. It is when I renew my Spirit in the Lord and thus go forth to a year of transition and change.

May the Lord God be with you all. Have a blessed Easter one and all!

Luke 7:16 And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.

Poetry Sunday ~ Vanity Has Risen

 Job 7: 3 So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

Vanity has Risen

My concern is for man

Who sits idly by

Watching as the world

Erupts in tears they cry.

A man content on living

And never really being

A source of light to all

of those that are seeing.

Words are bent and broken

Twisted in the sphere.

Truth mangled in the web

The dripping of a tear.

Why is man so willing

Happy to just exist.

Never seeking inner peace

In the land that God has kissed.

His vanity contains him

In works that he must do.

No blood of man is worth change

So he opts to muddle through.

No rest will lay upon his head

No peace will let him sleep.

His journey in the darkness

Is for him alone to keep.

Rise up you sleeping nation

There’s a duty at your feet.

Don’t wait until the judgment

When your Maker you will meet!

Rev. 3:15-16 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Happy Birthday Christopher

Pss. 91: 11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

To whom it may concern (or not) I am emotionally drained at this time and am in prayer for forgiveness, for understanding and for strength in fighting the enemy that sees me down and thinks this is the best time to attack. Just like him isn’t it? To kick me when I’m down?

You may say, “What’s wrong with her now?” Allow me to tell you.

Back in 1982 I found myself, a young teenager, pregnant. Two years prior I became a born-again Christian, so this pregnancy didn’t bode well with my Catholic family and me. My dad asked me what I wanted to do and without hesitation I said, keep my baby!

Talk about feeling unworthy! But by the grace of God I was saved and my pending due date was set for December 12^th of that year. By November of that year God had a different plan for my life and it was clearly evident to me.

On the cold Thanksgiving Day, November 28^th of 1982, I ate my meal and was feeling pretty sick with pains I assumed was gas. I was a child and knew nothing of what I was to feel, I thought the baby was moving around kicking me with no room to move with all that food I had put in my stomach.

The next day I arose, not feeling right. God and I had been talking, as we always did, and he was telling me it was time. Still young in my faith, I didn’t know how to interpret the meaning but I knew I had to go see the doctor because the baby had stopped moving.

I arrived at the doctors and my worst fear was realized, no heartbeat meant my baby had quietly fell asleep. I was sent to the hospital where they had ultrasound equipment to verify what I had known and felt. My baby was no more.

The father of the baby and my mother both went to the hospital with me and we all received the news, the baby was dead, gone, not meant to be. I was told I would have to allow my body ‘to reject the fetus’; those cold heartless words ring in my ear to this day! I would carry a lifeless being inside my body. I had to face my family and had to be strong or this would be the life of me.

Now keep in mind that my four brothers all hated the idea of me keeping the baby and had told me over and over again how I should’ve just killed ‘it’. My sister had her own issues with me keeping the baby. Only my mother, father and boyfriend had accepted my CHOICE in keeping my baby!

At 3:17 am on December 2, I gave birth to a son; a son who would never look me in the eyes. A son who would lay on that cold slab, never to let out his first cry. A son who made an angelic appearance at entry into the world by lighting the room to where even the doctor and nurse were mystified. Christopher Alexander was STILL born!

Pss. 148: 2 Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.

I didn’t hold him, I didn’t do what now in hindsight I wished I had done and left the hospital later that day to recover at home. Mortified and empty I felt alone.

Everyone had assumed I would hate God for this and at my follow up appointment with the heartless doctor, he asked me how I was holding up emotionally.

“Well” I said, “devastated, empty, lonely, heartbroken. Every emotion you can imagine.”

He began jotting down stuff. “Are you angry at God for this?”

“NO!” I exclaimed point blank. “God took my son because He needed him. He is giving him more than I could ever imagine.”

He jotted more. In later years when I had finally got my medical records through unlikely resources, I saw that the doctor had jotted down ‘patient is unattached’, ‘shows no emotion’!

I wanted to sue the man’s pants off but again, I was a child; I knew nothing but I did understand forgiveness. I had to forgive this creepy, heartless, unfeeling doctor if I was ever to move on in life.

Every year it gets easier, but this year the memories hit hard because Thanksgiving fell on the 28^th. The flood of emotions were overwhelming to the point not one person in my world can understand, and I don’t want you to just to spare you the pain.

I’ve grown a lot in these 31 years; I still speak to the Lord, I hear him in everything I do and carry Him wherever I go. Maybe now you can understand my indebtedness to my Savior and why I am such a faithful servant.

For by grace was I saved and He has never ONCE let me down. I may fall in the pit sometimes but the enemy won’t sway me while I’m down there, I carry a LIGHT within never to darken.

Matt. 4: 11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Poetry Sunday ~ Have We Forgotten

Luke 7:16 And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.


Have we forgotten?

*** 

Everyone seems to celebrate Easter
sitting at home on their keister;
gobbling down all the ham
forgotten is the Holy Lamb.

Glory to the Risen King
songs of praise to Him should ring.
For all the love and sacrifice
the blood for us should suffice.

Long forgotten is the Word
messages are never heard
We toy, we change all He taught
to fit our needs, like food for thought.

We justify all our deeds
by planting all unworthy seeds.
Are we to plant in desert soil
or boldly sow with weekly toil.

Minimize our earthly duty,
we give ourselves over to beauty.
Lame creatures, contentedly being,
shame on us for never seeing.

For me it is all praise and glory,
in my soul dwells Jesus’ story.
My soul remains entwined to His
I’m shown the truth of all Easter is.

Quotation Saturday ~ Happy NEW Year!

EASTER

Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there.
~Clarence W. Hall

The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world. Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice. But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice.
~Henry Knox Sherrill

Easter is the demonstration of God that life is essentially spiritual and timeless.
~Charles M. Crowe

On Easter Day the veil between time and eternity thins to gossamer.
~Douglas Horton

Celestial spirit that doth roll
The heart's sepulchral stone away,
Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul -
O gentle Master of the Wise,
Teach us to say: "I will arise."
~Richard Le Gallienne
 
The fasts are done; the Aves said;
The moon has filled her horn
And in the solemn night I watch
Before the Easter morn.
So pure, so still the starry heaven,
So hushed the brooding air,
I could hear the sweep of an angel's wings
If one should earthward fare.
~Edna Dean Proctor, "Easter Morning"

We live and die; Christ died and lived!
~John Stott
 
See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices...
~Charles Kingsley

God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.
~Robert South, Sermons
 
Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness.
~Floyd W. Tomkins

Easter is not the time to celebrate the Pagen holiday of bunnies, chocolate, candy and visiting a Church for the first time in the year. It is a time to celebrate life and the eternal blessing bestowed upon man from God! God is love, love God!
~ Joni Zipp

***

Today my Quotation Saturday is dedicated to Easter. I make no secrets here, I revel in Revelation of all I believe. Tomorrow, I celebrate my New Year and while some think it ‘weird’, others think. That’s right, they think!
 
Easter is not the time to think of Christ for the first time in the year, it is time to think of life, blossoming forth from the soil. It is where the dead meets the living and dances in your soul! It is a time to believe in something GREATER than your selfish self. A time to sacrifice. It may be the first time in your life you sacrifice a beer for water, ham for fish, beef for broccoli or anything worthy from your inner spirit that might not belong there. Sacrifice.
 
And if you find, that Jesus stands for everything loving, everything renewing, spiritually divine and prosperous in life and death, then you have found the Glory of God and all He is made of.

Matt. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
 
Matt. 7: 24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
 
[26] And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
 
Matt. 10: 27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.
 
Matt. 13: 9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

May you all have a spiritually uplifting day and May God Bless you!

Happy New Year!!!

Poetry Sunday~ He is Risen!

He is Risen
***
The road long and winding
the cry is loud and clear.
A message came in ample time
The King of Kings is here.

Rejoicing for His coming;
the palms laid at his feet.
He entered the city in triumph
all souls were there to greet.

His life was given over,
the battle not yet won.
Our sins were being beaten from
our God’s own living Son.

The Lord was set upon the cross
while flesh was torn away.
A seat on the throne in heaven
will be given to Him this day.

“Please forgive them Father
for they know not what they do.”
Thunder erupts while rain pours down
Making mankind new.

Three days pass when news has come
He is Risen from the dead!
All the sins have washed away
Our souls have now been fed.

Rejoice in the risen King;
Sing praises for his birth.
In life and death He came to save
all people on this earth!
* * *
Alleluia, He has won it all for me!