Happy Valentine's Day: Another Year

Pss. 116:1 "I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications."

Another Year...

It was here and then gone

the year that was then wasn't

We started off on a slippery slope

the days of does and doesn't.

I try to make some sense of it all

but memories mesh together

A sunny day here, a rainy one there

all measured by crazy weather.

Then there are days filled with pain

coughs, sniffles, and sneezes 

your hand in mine, memory blind

a warm soft hug appeases.

We've made it through some blizzards

together all seemed so easy 

fierce lightning storms and raging winds

with love, it passed as just breezy.

Here we stand once again

confusion trying to take hold

but we're too strong to let it win

Our souls should stand so bold! 

This Valentine's day remember

as all the ones in the past

The year might soar in a whirlwind

but it's our enduring love that lasts! 

To my honey! 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

God Is Not Silent

Pss. 28:1 “Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.”

God Is Not Silent

It is so easy to see God as the silent type when suffering is at your doorstep and you’re begging for help that never seems to arrive. You ask for prayers to be answered, you’re pleading for compassion for your cause, you implore Him to come and relieve your stress but all seems lost and broken. Prayers are hanging in the balance as you impatiently wait for a response.

It is during this time when you begin to doubt and fear whether God even exists and hears you. It is during these times of slow-moving molasses you let fear trickle into your thoughts. Sometimes you see me as a strong woman barreling through doubts and fears but let me tell you, I have days when I too say, My God my God why hast though forsaken me?

Zech. 2:13 “Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.”

Let me just say up front, I never doubt that God exists or fear that He’s not hearing me. I know He exists and hears me but for brief moments like when you’re waiting for honey to drip, by the time the drop makes it to the intended place, there’s a smidgen of Him just seemingly letting you fall on your face.

I know it seems like He’s silent but I also know from experience this is when He is doing His finest work. It’s me who feels I’m not patient enough, or I feel insignificant but rest assured, with every breathtaking sunrise He lets me know He’s there, listening and working for the greater good.

Job 4:16 “It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,”

When I was first diagnosed with the disease of a lifetime, I prayed like never before. I begged and pleaded for a miracle that never came and I know full well because I was praying for a whoosh of a magical wand and the reappearance of a normal looking breast and all of this would be whisked away and put into the bad memory box.

God is NOT Merlin the magician! Did He just whoosh Jesus’ suffering away? And here He was God in the flesh suffering bleeding, begging, pleading. Jesus died. While this very well could be my fate, I don’t believe for one minute God is silently planning my demise. He could have had me go the slice, dice, chemo method but that song was not my dance. That was the dance for millions of other people.

He also could’ve just taken me right away, why give me a warning and a chance to change? God works in mysterious ways and while we’re straggling along in a world of distractions, He’s not being silent. He is busy at work preparing the entry of billions of souls to His banquet, in His time, not our time. A legion of Angel’s awaits our arrival and the song of the choir will ring out for us to dance among the stars.

God was not silent when Valentine was imprisoned then beheaded. He allowed such a horrendous physical act to take place because it would one day be a day cherished for all of the love that Valentine brought to the world. Valentine would be remembered for hundreds of years for his earthly love! God is LOVE!

My hope is that God is not preparing me for such a horrible death but for a wonderful life of endurance, patience and beauty that will be carried into the future of those who remember my time here. My prayer is no longer for myself, it’s for the people who need to see, this day and age, that God is never silent. Oh no, He is very much alive and busy at work!

He could’ve given me an instant miracle but what would I or anyone learn from that? He needs the world to see that there are steps to take, patience that is needed, endurance and unfathomable strength to make it to His bountiful banquet. 

He has me writing, teaching and learning at the same time as you. Although He could at any given moment pretend to be a magician for those who need instant gratification, once again, God is not of the fantasy world and He most definitely is not a magician.

Do I paint a grim picture of a punishing God? A God who wants to see you suffer? You’re wrong. Like your very own mother and father, do you see them as the punishing, child-reprimanding beasts that you saw as a child? I know children of an abusive background might see their parents as demons incarnate but the majority of people reading this right now all have been chastised as a child. We were not created as instant all-knowing adults, no, we had to grow and learn from our mother, father, and our surroundings to be who we are today.

If you look at the grand picture, we were once seeds! Watered and nurtured, pruned and snipped, given the right non-toxic fertilizer to bloom and grow. There were times in our life where we didn’t receive enough sun, we were stunted by toxins, and left to learn before growing again. I can’t paint a more poignant picture than that. 

God was not silent then and He most certainly is not silent now! As I endure another day filled with supplements, a disfigured image in the mirror, and a strict diet that will save my life, you might ask, is all of this worth it? And I will say to you now as I did in the beginning, every day I get to see another sunrise is worth every step I take in the ballroom dance of life as I head to the eternal banquet of souls waiting to greet me. YES! Every struggling pain-filled step is worth the enormous abundance of LOVE that I have the pleasure to partake of!

All Glory to God in the Highest! 

Quotation Saturday ~ Love

VALENTINE

“To love is the supreme right of the human heart.” 
― Debasish Mridha

“Love transports mortal beings to the existential plane of spiritual eternity transcending the emotional, mental, and physical limitations of an inaccurately perceived finite existence.” 
― Ken Poirot

“A soulmate will never leave you. They will always be a part of your life until one day the chance is given for them to become your life. It is then you will become one.” 
― Faye Hall

“Love is an afternoon of fishing when I'd sooner be at the ballet.
Love is eating burnt toast and lumpy graving with a big smile. 
Love is hearing the words, 'You're beautiful,' as I fail to squeeze into my fat jeans. 
Love is refusing to bring up the past, even if doing so would be a slam dunk to prove your point. 
Love is your hand wiping away my tears, trying to erase streaks of mascara. 
Love is the warm hug that extinguishes an argument. 
Love is a humbly-uttered apology, even if not at fault. 
Love is easy to recognize but so hard to define; however, I think it boils down to this... 
Love is caring so much about the feelings of someone else, you sacrifice whatever it takes to help him or her feel better. 
In other words, love is my heart being sensitive to yours.” 
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“Selfless love, is the fountain of youth...” 
― Samer Chidiac

LOVE

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.” 
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” 
― William Shakespeare

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” 
― Robert A. Heinlein

“He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.” 
― Bob Marley

ETERNAL

“It is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age.” 
― Robert G. Ingersoll

“A great ring of pure & endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart
And breaks apart the dusky clouds of night.
The end of all is hinted in the start.

When we are born we bear the seeds of blight;
Around us life & death are torn apart,
Yet a great ring of pure and endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart.

It lights the world to my delight.
Infinity is present in each part.
A loving smile contains all art.
The motes of starlight spark & dart.
A grain of sand holds power & might.
Infinity is present in each part,
And a great ring of pure and endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart.” 
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Ring of Endless Light

“Life has no meaning, the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.” 
― Jean-Paul Sartre

Poetry Sunday ~ Bloody Valentine

Job 8: 13 So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish:

***

Bloody Valentine 

The sunset does not glisten

like the stars soon to follow.

The night sits calm and quiet

as pain has left me hollow.

Night creeps in to peek its head

the crimson seared my mind

The barricades have been built up

across the sands we’d bind.

Often times a glimmer of hope

will shoot across the sky.

But morning claws toward me

I lay here left to die.

Tears they stream silently

upon my bloodstained heart

where has all the love gone;

my pain soon to depart.

The moonlight shadow dances

across this soul not mine.

I hunger for him evermore

my bloody Valentine.

 

Emotional Overload

Jude 1: 2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
***

Well how was everyone’s Valentines day? Good? Good.

I personally think that it is one day that is way overrated. Did you ever notice that as soon as the Christmas stuff goes down in January that they start loading up the shelves with everything Valentine?

From teddy bears, to chocolates, to balloons, to flowers. Simply over stuff the shelves and people will have Valentine’s Day shoved down their throat so much that they can’t miss it! Take that, consumer.

I’ve looked at the legends behind February 14th and some sound outrageous but others sound plausible. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men (gasp) — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

St. Valentine would HAVE to be of the male species wouldn’t he? It seems more believable that a woman, whose heartstrings play the tune of love daily would be the reason behind this day of love but no, a man is to blame.

According to yet another legend, Valentine actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl — who may have been his jailor's daughter — who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed 'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? Are we humans that gullible to put our whole being behind a day that was in essence began as a pagan ritual? We have Cupid the god of love, St. Valentine, the bearer of tidings of love, put them together, you have another pagan holiday thrown at your feet.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well because, you see, we’re writers and we have the imagination of the ancients. We can create, spread and make immortal legends of our past too. Of course they more than likely won’t make a holiday where you have hundreds of thousands of dollars spent but hey, the story is there at your fingertips waiting to come alive.

I want today to be St. Joan of Arc Day! Now let me get my fingers tapping and make a story out of it, create a legend and voila! Create a legend. Enjoy the 21st century.

So what did I do for St. Valentines Day? I attended church, came home and had nachos. End of story. (Oh, I wrote a LOVE poem, but I do that all the time and for any occasion.)

Remember this, you don’t need one day to be put aside to give, share or feel love! But, I guess we humans of the 21st Century do need a day to be reminded to love.

Uh oh...better look out...here comes Peter Cottontail and the Lucky Charm leprechaun.

Poetry Sunday~ Destiny

DESTINY
by: Joni Zipp
***
The stars they tiptoe across the sky
emitting light for you and I
A twinkle here, a shimmer there
a pirouette without a care.

A bold ballet in the expanse
friction of light; nothing to chance.
How we met and came to be
was nothing short of destiny.

Our souls collided with light fair ease
a wayward laugh lost in the breeze.
Never knowing where we’d be led,
with years behind and many ahead.

Our love will dance just like the stars
within the cosmos across to Mars.
On the horizon and into the plains
springtime showers, the summers rains.

From here on out our love will grow
display a gorgeous wondrous show.
No need for eyes to dearly impart
all the warmth lain in my heart.

All the years we’ve shared together
through the wind and stormy weather.
For years to come our love will soar
Eternity lasts forever more.

On this day I duly declare
all my love beyond compare.
As rays of light have no end,
My Valentine, to you I send!
***

I.L.U.S.D.B.A.F.T.I.B.

***

Matt. 22:37 Jesus said unto him,thou shall love the Lord your God with all thy heart,and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

Poetry Sunday~Bloody Valentine

Bloody Valentine
***

The sunset does not glisten
like the stars soon to follow.
The night sits calm and quiet
as pain has left me hollow.

Night creeps in to peek its head
the crimson seared my mind
The barricades have been built up
across the sands we’d bind.

Often times a glimmer of hope
will shoot across the sky.
But morning claws toward me
I lay here left to die.

Tears they stream silently
upon my bloodstained heart
where has all the love gone;
my pain soon to depart.

The moonlight shadow dances
across this soul not mine.
I hunger for him evermore
my bloody Valentine.