Poetry Sunday: God's Healing Touch

Pss. 45:1 “My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.”

Shimmering reflections of pain I feel 

Lost in fragments I needed to heal

A mending touch if truth be known

Is in His fingers pressing stone.

By chance, my aches towered then crashed

A mighty sword by flames were dashed

Slicing through with torments rage

Remnants bound in an open cage.

Not being confined by a limited view

My heart beheld all that was true

The night sky opened gems bedazzled

Made whole of me the frail and frazzled.

Armed with faith my body to restore

The strength therein the open door

No longer doomed by fate I’m driven

With all the tools that God has given.

I was blinded by mortal shame

And only had myself to blame 

Shaving off my arrogant pride

Unearthed the healing deep inside.

Once I freed confined vanity

Not veiled behind bent sanity

I relieved myself of the crutch

Bare I found God’s healing touch.

Job 37:23 “Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict.”

Peace Be With You

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Isa. 26:3 KJV “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

Peace Be With You

When I listen to Josh Groban sing, Oh Holy Night, tears puddle my eyes and begin the descent down my cheek. This is what happens when I hear songs of Christmas like Oh Holy Night, Silent Night, or Mary did you know. I’m not the jingle bells kinda gal when it comes to Christmas music. I want something that touches my soul from a voice and words who understand the meaning of what a holy night is.

Here lately it doesn’t take much for my eyes to water but it does take a lot for me to cry. Pain usually does that but during this season, some songs touch me so deeply I cry like a baby waiting the day I meet the Lord in His home, instead of the other way around.

This season calls out to me to share peace and love. While I can visually see the negative taking place in the world I’m like a horse with blinders on for this month and not seeing the darkness that will eventually smother the country. For this short time, I’m spreading peace and love to people so they understand the Glory of God in times of turmoil.

How can a person who’s been diagnosed with cancer find peace on any given day? I was telling my husband just the other day that people take life too seriously. I realized when I uttered those words that that is what makes me different. I don’t take life too seriously if I take it any way it would be in peace. The diagnosis may have come out of left field and I could’ve taken it so seriously I succumbed to the illness but in my eyes, I see it as just another hurdle and another day to share my Lord with my readers.

I know I said I won’t use the word for this disease, but sometimes I need to brush my face with a bit of reality, it really keeps me grounded and helps me to visually see the strength I carry with me every day. Some days I don’t feel like a strong person, I cry, I hurt, so I review my year and realize golly doggone it, I AM strong. It then fills me with the resources and confidence I need to move forward and to share my gracious words of truth with you.

When I speak to my mother she always asks what I’m doing or what I did on this or that day and I’m always telling her I’m writing. I told her I had a blog and I share my life story on a daily basis. I’ve told her this numerous times before but nothing sinks in unless it is negative then she holds onto it for years upon years. She said to me, “Well, you don’t share the bad stuff in your life do you?” I let her know quite bluntly (again) the same thing I bluntly tell my readers. “I am an open book! Good and bad, I hide nothing.”

I think she was shocked because after a few more words she said she was getting nervous and her voice was obviously agitated. I have told her numerous times that I'm a writer over the years but this time it sunk in for a brief second. This is the very reason she has no idea about my illness, she cannot handle the truth in any way shape or form and everything becomes negative. I sometimes wonder how I ever turned out. I know I shouldn’t badger my family and I don’t specifically pinpoint one person as the culprit of all the bad that took place in my life, I tell MY story.

Let me ask you this if you read my blog and day after day I told you how great and perfect my life is or my upbringing was, would my blog be worth reading? Honestly, don’t you like to read about someone who is just like you a sinner, having hard days, surviving a hard life against all odds just like everyone else on the planet? 

I’ve never been one to pretend or hide the truth of how I got to where I am today. I lay it out like an indoor/outdoor carpet and let everyone walk over the words and take them for what they need. I am who I am today not because of my mother and father, not because religion shaped me but because I found my God to be more trustworthy than any man walking the face of the earth.  I NEED to let you all know what He has done for me. The pits were pretty dreary and difficult but yes, we can all be pulled from the depths of hell and be carried into the Light.

I find a peace wash over me this holiday season knowing I am honest, loving, and caring. The stress that sometimes accompanies the holidays has not bitten me in the rear. I’m not even dreading the family dinner come Christmas day because my plan is to take for myself a mega salad that I’ll enjoy immensely. I may even eat a piece of ham and have a bun. They need to see God shining from me too as much as my readers need to see it. If you walk away with anything from my blog, walk away with seeing and knowing that God is ever present in this world, in me and through me, let the Light shine through.

All praise and Glory to God! 

Fight the Good Fight

1 Tim. 6:12 “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also 

called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.”

Fight the Good Fight

Since I gave myself permission to use the word FIGHT, not as a negative but as a positive, this statement came to mind, ‘Fight the good fight!’ Usually when something comes to mind more often than not it is from the bible and sure enough, I dug around to find where the term comes from, the term is found in Timothy 6:12!

I need to find a peace in my use of the word fight. I’m not using the word, fight, in anger as if I’m mad at this disease that is in my body waging war; no I’m fighting the good fight. As a child, I always fought for what I believed in going against my parents, Catholicism, and any other form of opposition that rose against me. And believe me, my entire life has been a battle; the war didn’t begin with the sudden appearance of this affliction. 

In my eyes, complete internal and external healing can only take place by the individual person, not by a drug dealer. An open wound may need a surgeon but your chronic illnesses need an all-over healing that is not going to take place with drugs. When you decide to go the homeopathic route, you need to tend to your damage by taking good care of you. You need to go deep within yourself to heal portions that you thought were dead and buried and are often found in the abysmal caverns of your soul.

Digging into your childhood to find those old wounds that made you feel broken need to be mended, not just stitched up or pacified but HEALED. Find the cause of your sickness that stemmed from your inability to handle any adversity that boiled but you left the stew on simmer thinking the problem would just go away or eventually evaporate. As you get older and one crippling illness after another creeps up on you, look to your past. 

As I was growing up, my body told me that I have a built-in defense mechanism. This mechanism rears its head on life’s path as disease/illness and healing. I can go back to my early childhood and peek in the window of my past and see what the cause of each illness I had, from mumps to strep throat to mononucleosis and onto psoriasis and other ailments like arthritis. All of those illnesses rose from an unnatural childhood. There was alcoholism, drug use, being bullied and sexual abuse. These evil elements manifested in my ill health. My immune system was basically fighting the good fight against the enemy. A condition surfaced because I was not winning the battle against abuse to my mind, body and my spirit. The affliction was my immune system kicking into overdrive to defend and wake me up. Either I was too young to take care of myself and listen to what my body was saying, or I was just too blind to see.

When this recent malady came upon me, I knew first and foremost what needed to be done. I needed to look within myself, go on a spiritual journey and heal from within. As I’ve said over and over since January there is more to this attack on my body than just popping pills, radiate, slice and dice to heal; the disease is an attempt to awaken you. You need to bring your mind into sync with your inner cogs. It’s called a WAKE-UP call, so to speak.

I’ve never depended on doctors in my life. They, to me, believe egotistically that they are gods and demand submission. Doctor’s are opinionated, meaning they are right and you are wrong. The scare tactic is the tone of your diagnosis from the heavy voice of your doctor.
“Well sir, you have (fill in your illness), I can give you (name a drug) for that. We’ll take some tests and let you know what more we can do for you.” (Prescribe more scripts) How many of you just nodded your head in agreement? Granted there are a rare few who actually listen to YOU. I’ve not found one since my one pediatrician back in the day but I know they’re out there.

When was the last time you went to the doctor and they offered healing? Not surgery, drugs and medication, real healing sending you to a naturopath, holistic healer anything but offer you fear and drugs. Can you answer that, honestly?

You walk into the doc’s office with a pain in your back. “Okay ma’am/sir, we’re going to schedule you for some x-rays and an MRI but here is a pain medication to hold you over.” First, they ask you about allergies and such and you give them the answer but don’t really know yourself if you’re allergic to the new synthetic drugs, but hey, you take the pill and find out because the doctor said so.

After getting fancy tests, he informs you that you might need surgery. That is a fear tactic used over and over again. After you break out in hives and vomit, he then tells you that you might be having an allergic reaction to the pills he gave you. He then proceeds to give you a different one. Does he EVER tell you about the side effects you might experience? Does he read the fine print to you? You know, liver damage, heart palpitations, a rise in blood pressure, or suicidal tendencies? Of course not, it’s a wait-and-see what works. Most doctor offices are paid to prescribe, not to heal. How many of you are being hounded to get a flu vaccine? One that has been untested on the flu virus of the season.

The above scenario is the exact instance that happened to my dad, right up until the day he died. Now my mother is being led down that same path with type2 diabetes. She’s on ten pills and was told to watch her sugar intake, that’s it! She was never told about watching out for the processed foods or the toxicity of meats, or how the GMO’s could make her illness worse, no, just take some pills and call me when problems arise.

I cannot in good conscience listen to the doctor when I have an Almighty Healer prescribing me herbs and fruits of the earth. He whispers to me and I hear what He is telling me. Now I’m not saying that YOU should do or hear the same thing as me, we are all uniquely individual and programmed differently. I just don’t believe that drugs are the end all-cure all of this addicted society. As I take, ‘Fight the Good Fight’, consciously, physically, and spiritually I find a healing peace wash over me because His Power is made Perfect my weakness!

All praise and Glory to God!

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” 2 Corinthians 12:9a (NIV)

Checkmate!

Hope In The Hopeless

2 Cor. 1:3-4 (ESV) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Hope in the Hopeless

Shocked, saddened or heartbroken, that is the reaction you get when you tell people your diagnosis. The Big C has always carried with it the equality of a death sentence. They don’t see the hope of Christ living in us and working through us, they see disaster, dread, empathy, basically, they see death in us.

I’ve learned in my life that Jesus overcame death and it is not something to be feared. If we feared death with every downfall we have in our life, every affliction, every illness, and disease, we would see it as a disaster about to happen. Opportunity knocks in the strangest of situations. Some people are used to show you the Glory of God in an affliction as we show you the Light of Christ shining through us.

There IS hope in the hopeless; you just need to be willing to see past your own hardened observations. Empathizing is a lot different than sympathizing.  Empathizing is almost like feeling sorry for a person going through a difficult stage in their life where sympathizing is feeling equal in understanding what the person is going through. 

Definition of:
Empathy – the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Sympathy -- harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.

When my Dad, Aunt, and Uncle were all battling this same disease, I felt sorry for them because I couldn’t do anything so I felt helpless and I didn’t understand what they were going through because I had never been through the same thing. As individual and unique as this disease is, we all handle the diagnosis and treatment differently. 

Many are conditioned to see a death sentence. Many see no hope in the hopeless, many also would rather turn their heads to ignore the situation than bringing HOPE to the hopelessness people feel.

I’ll admit, after hearing the initial diagnosis, it crumbled me like a cookie. I saw my life slowly flash before my eyes and I saw an imminent death sentence awaiting me. The oncologists fed me their lies and I believed them, even after I had accepted this illness, they continued to shovel in the fear and hopelessness. I would enter the office full of hope, I would leave wondering where the broom was to sweep up the mess I’d leave behind. 

I would regain the hope I walked in with not long after leaving the office and I promised myself I wouldn’t put myself through that series of negative mud-slinging ever again. I would build on my strength with the Lord and I would walk a path few are brave enough to face. Even if it is not considered bravery, there needs to be an inner strength and willingness to walk the path that might look dim to others but to you is a path of Light.

I see hope in the hopeless. Just like the rain filled days, I always saw the sun shining through. The stationary bike is a perfect example. I could see the days on end of rain as taking my newly formed walking routine away from me but instead, I saw the bike in the basement as a ray of light! And this week, I learned from hubby’s mom, who gave us the bike, that it had a story behind it.

Just a reminder, things always walk through my door free of charge or of minimal price when I need them the most, the bike rode in when my husband was suffering from blindness. The bike sat in his mother’s basement doing nothing and she didn’t want to get rid of it, but when her son needed something to keep his idle body busy, she offered the bike to us.

Many years ago, his mother had found out that someone had entered her name in a raffle. She is not one to sign up for raffles for her own reasons but this person signed her up and guess what she won? The bike! It’s a nice stationary bike, a Schwinn to be exact, with an arm exerciser as you peddle too! She took it not knowing what to do with it so it sat in her basement, years on end until her son went blind and she offered it to him. Little did she know that it would be a blessing to me also. We moved to Nebraska eight years ago BECAUSE of his blindness and had we remained in Texas, no bike, no story. His sight was restored in another miraculous moment that I wrote about, years ago.

God works in mysterious ways of bringing HOPE to the hopeless! I frequently see meme after meme telling me not to donate to the Goodwill because they are making millions off of us people. I have to disagree, I have never gone into a Goodwill where a Cadillac was parked outside and the manager was wearing an expensive Armani suit. No, I see people of my class or lower, working the register, working the backroom unloading donations, I see people WORKING and not for millions of dollars either. That is the only place where I can go and AFFORD nice jeans and clothes and I’m not ashamed to admit it either! I donate clothes to them and I buy clothes from them. 

Hope in the hopeless, from a 2011 post of mine: “Ok, Shady Brooks is a place in my mind where water ripples downstream, I create the illusion of the rainbow permanently above my head inspiring me to move forward in life, sitting on the edge of the water with my notebook in hand. No laughter, just the rushing water, wind-chimes off in the distance and me sitting there, alone, waiting for sanity to brush my face and as they slowly appear, I realize, they are all new people, that have entered my life and are lifting me to the heights that I need to be.”

It isn’t just me bringing hope to the hopeless; it is my friends bringing hope to me, too. They are surrounding me with support and without them, I don’t feel this path would be as easy going as the past four months (fourteen years of friendship for that matter) have been. Sure I have my down days but there is HOPE waiting for me at the beginning and end of every single day! I make the most of a day and I find a peace in my affliction and will continue to share my HOPE and Light with you!

God Bless You, one and ALL! 

Pss. 111:1 “Praise ye the LORD. I will praise the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.”

There is no one like our God!

God of this City