Week Three of Advent: JOY, to the World

Luke 1:46-47, 49 KJV “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.”

Joy To The World!

We would like to think that during the Christmas season, joy would be a given. You’d go shopping for the holiday meals that you’ll prepare for the family, you’ll run into friends from church or school, exchange pleasantries and all will be right with the world. That is until the cashier goes to the intercom and announces over the loudspeaker “PRICE CHECK!” 

Suddenly your joyful experience takes a turn. The twenty people in line behind you all begin rolling their eyes, throwing their arms in the air, and grumbling about the stores' cashiers and service. Complaining along with anger has now overshadowed the season all because the stamp of a price fell off your top-of-the-line ham you were purchasing.

“Excuse me,” you whisper, “Can’t you price check in that little book of prices you have there?”

Through snapping gum the cashier barks, “No ma’am, these are new and not in the books yet.” She blows a bubble and it pops as if to say ‘this is all your fault for wanting to have a joyful experience’.

Now you yourself are becoming disgruntled. You just wanted to be prepared for when the family came rushing through the door with their red noses, gifts in hand and smiles on their faces on Christmas day. Looking back at the line behind you, there certainly is no smiles on those faces. The price arrives via a manager who has to personally tap in the code and she now decides to program the cash register for others who might be buying the same ham. 

By now the people are becoming vocal, all because you wanted a ham and a joyful experience on Christmas day. This is not Christmas day so you ever so slightly feel the anxiousness growing inside and are a bit angry that this has to happen NOW, not to the lady or man behind you but to you on your joyful shopping excursion. 

“Can we move it along now?” You tried not to sound snarky but the manager gave you a sword through the heart look.

“You’re the one who bought the ham lady,” she snapped back, obviously overworked and underpaid.

The cashier finished up, placed all your bags in the cart, now for the credit card to go through. A problem with the computer once again has the line grumbling and storming off to another crowded register while some stayed, unaffected by all of the bitterness going on around them. There they are you thought, the ones who really know what the joy of the season means.

The transaction finally goes through and you try to salvage some joy in the whole event after the cashier says, “Thank you and have a nice day. NEXT.” 

“Merry Christmas,” you say and it was as if you spit out a vulgar foreign language. 

“I don’t celebrate Christmas, NEXT!” She was now trying to shoo you out of her lane. Now it was YOU who were offended. What did she mean she doesn’t celebrate Christmas, how can someone NOT celebrate Christmas? You look around the store at all the flashing lights, filled to the brim shopping carts, kids running and screaming, and people with stress running down their faces. There was no joy in this flurry of expedient shopping. Joy was not here in the hustle and bustle of a crowded store with people last-minute Christmas shopping and missing the actual joy in what Christmas is all about.

Being aroused from your daydreaming, the young lady behind you with a small smiling child in the seat of the shopping cart with a few tv dinners and some baby food says, “Excuse me, ma’am,” as she tries to go around you, the daydreamer. 

You look at her. Her dark hair unkempt and a little scraggly, her coat weathered and worn. The smiling child with his puffy coat and stocking feet dangling through the holes looks at you with the brimming eyes of innocence.

You ask her, “Why did you stay in line with those few things in your cart?”

“I’m in no hurry,” she says, “I have food for another week, my son is happy, I have a roof over my head and shoes on my feet. There’s no reason to be hurried. He’s coming whether they like it or not.” She again tries to go around you.

You stop her. “Miss, I’d like to give you my cart full of food, is that okay?”

Tears brimmed her wide brown eyes, “Ma’am? You don’t have to...,” she went on to say tears now overflowing her eyes as you put your cart full of enough food for a family of eight in her hands.

You begin putting her little bit of food in your cart and offer to walk her to her car. She thanks you over and over again, placing her giggling child in your full cart. “God Bless you ma’am, God bless you, and Merry Christmas.” 

You begin daydreaming again amid the hustle and bustle realizing at that moment that finding joy in the season isn’t about the hurriedness, it isn’t about the blinking lights or the numerous expensive price tags on the gifts under the tree, joy isn’t even about the perfect family meal. Joy is about being content with what you have at that very moment, a roof over your head and shoes on your feet. And you know why? In a politically correct world trying to change CHRISTmas? HE IS COMING whether they like it or not! 

Startled by a bump in the now empty cart from a rushed shopper, you look for the young lady you gifted. She was nowhere to be found. Your face reddened and you smile feeling a rush of joy filling your heart once again knowing deep down, the reason for the season. He IS coming, whether they like it or not! 

Merry Christmas to ALL. May you find JOY in YOUR heart this Christmas season! 

Hebrews 13:2 (KJV) “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

All Glory to God

1 Cor. 10:31 “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the Glory of God.”

All Glory to God

Have you ever had one of those days where you woke to a crisp cold morning and felt like just staying nestled under the covers a while longer in the warmth of your bed? Yeah, I think we all have those kinds of days, and more times than not we have to force ourselves into the cold because of work, school, whatever, we wake and go. 

My job these days is giving Glory to God. That’s not a job, you might say but if you knew the pain I was in this past couple of weeks, you’d admit, it’s one chore that you wouldn’t look forward to for sure. I wake and am like a stick pretzel, very stiff from a long night of sleep. I’m prompted to wake, I force myself out of bed and begin my day, all for the Glory of God.

I cannot abandon the job He’s set aside just for me. I’m sure He has others doing jobs for Him but we are unique in our own way. I use my talent to glorify Him in any way I can whether poetry or a post guided by Him. It’s a unique job, but one I never in any way felt capable of doing. But when people say they get it! That the message spoke to THEM, it is at that time I feel my work is for a solid purpose.

I imagine all of the significant people (and some who seem non-significant) all felt the same exact way. Here they were living life, loving God and God stopped them short of continuing and asked them to do something major for Him. How much are we unlike the very people in the Bible?

I believe we’re all like at least one person in the Bible and that is the reason why the book resonates with us, we see ourselves in Esther, Sara, Ruth, Job, Paul or Peter. The list of people in the bible is very long. Is there someone in the Bible you connect with and after reading stand there thinking, 'that is me’? What has God called you, in this generation to do for others?

I was strolling along in life feeling like Mary Magdalene, the repentant prostitute who sat at Jesus’ feet, who sat below Him as He was hung on the cross, then at other times I connect with Job on many levels of feeling worthy and loved, but then discouraged only to find the love of God again and that I fit into His plan after all. 

How many of you sitting there reading this don’t feel worthy enough to put yourself in the shoes of a person in the Bible? So many of us don’t feel worthy to kiss the ground Jesus walked on; we feel like the onlooker watching as Jesus carried the cross or the person sitting at home going on with their daily chores as such a commotion as the hanging of an innocent man went on ‘up the road’.

Me, when I’m feeling unworthy and down I try with everything I have to connect with just one person in the Bible. This is the only way I can find a connection to this world and not as an alien on my home planet. 

The other night we watched the children’s movie Inside Out. I relate to that movie on many levels although it was targeted to be a children’s movie. Who did I relate to? Joy, sadness, fear, anger, or disgust? Every character was a portion of the main character’s personality. Riley’s family had moved her away from her familiarity into a big city of unknown. She feared, she was angry and mad and we had to witness all the worlds in her personality shatter and fall apart. In the end, we learned that we can’t have joy without the pain of sadness.

In the simplest form, that is what the Holy Bible is all about, finding joy through the pain; finding the light at the end of the tunnel. While I often feel alone and alienated in this world, I can at any moment pick up the Bible and relate to one (if not many) people in the bible. I wake in the morning and God is my first ‘go to being’ so I can begin my day. It is the only time I don’t feel so alone.

As I look out at the broken world and pieces of the puzzle are scattered on the floor I try extremely hard to find a fitting puzzle piece. Where do I fit in? How can I accomplish all that God has set out before me? How do I make a picture out of nothingness?

For three, almost four weeks now, I have woke in the morning and grabbed my cane to walk. I’ve led you down my path where I unknowingly fell off protocol and struggled to get back up again. Something happened this week. On the seventh of March, my mother-in-law wrote me an email and asked how I was doing. Did she really want to know or was she just being like everyone else and asking because she didn’t know how to approach me?

I had to wait two days to respond because at the time the email came in I was bitter and angry and not willing to lash out at her, I had to stop and think. On the ninth, I wrote her a letter and told her the truth. I explained going off protocol and eating wheat bread had nearly destroyed me and how my severe pain had returned.

A week passed before I received a response. My sister-in-law was visiting her from Arizona with her two kids and my m-i-l was busy with catering to them I imagine and more than likely didn’t turn her computer on one time. It was during that week that satan knocked on my door with his lovely doubt and fear message. 

“She doesn’t care about you, she’s too busy to be bothered with you. People have lives unlike yourself. No one cares about your pain!”

Yessiree, for an entire pain-filled, cane-embracing week, he was walking around my house like he owned it. I had weakened.

Sister-in-law went home on the sixteenth and poof like a magical leprechaun spun his little hand and poked his head in (I’m kidding here) my m-i-l sent me an email on the seventeenth. She said she was glad that I was so honest with my pain because now she knew where to target her prayers for me. I honestly was thinking ‘yeah right’ as satan was still here wandering around the cold gloomy days. I didn’t write back as I was still harboring resentment of her week of no response.

Sunday morning came, I reached for my cane to get out of bed. I woke, I walked but didn’t feel the need for it. Again, I was thinking, yeah right, I’ll need it in a bit, after my shower I bet. Guess what? It is Wednesday and I haven’t used my cane this week. Oh, I grab it because I’m not totally surrendering as I should be, but today, I feel like satan has packed his bags and is now huffing and puffing because once again he realized THERE IS POWER IN PRAYER!

Moral of the story? We might all feel like Thomas, doubting the power of God, second-guessing our purpose because of the pain we’re in but rest assured my friend, God has YOU in His hands even when satan thinks he is gaining ground. Our God is BIGGER and more powerful, and PRAYER HEALS! Through the pain, I give ALL GLORY TO GOD! On a dusty traveled road, I see Light at the end of the tunnel! I feel joy in the midst of my sorrow. 

Matt. 5:16 KJV “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

And I Wait...

Pss. 59:9 “Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence.”

And I wait…

I don’t know what to think and I really don’t want opinions of what I should do. These past two weeks I’ve had a setback. I mentioned it before with all that’s happened and I feel the setback was the wheat bread and the eating of the toxic grains.

I’ve eaten all these wonderful foods all of my life and never in a million years would I imagine something so good for you could be one of the elements causing this disease in me. I’m not even fifty-five years young and already I’m being affected by the strong-arm of an illness that has laid its hands on me, gripping me, expecting me to ‘submit’. I can’t do it. I won’t give up on God like others have done, I just won’t!

I hear people say they care about me but in all honesty, I don’t feel it. How can months (sometimes years) go by and people say ‘I care about you’ and nothing more? How is that caring? You thought about me? Because you think about me and my suffering, that’s caring? I just don’t get it. 

I’m trying to be okay with people passively thinking about me when it’s convenient for them. I’m trying to understand why I sit alone crying my eyes out and no one to listen to me or hug me and say it will all be all right. Just a comforting hug could go a long way in my isolated world.

I notice people give up too easy too. If they’re trying to lose weight, and it doesn’t happen instantaneously they give up. If they pray, and the prayer goes unanswered they give up on God for not being quick with a response. I’ve seen people give up on God who has received miracles, then just gave up with all that hokey stuff and lived life for themselves now that the miracle is over; enough time has passed, they should be safe, right? I guess so, if that is what you believe.

I myself feel I received a miracle of the regaining of my walking ability. For a couple of years the pain was so bad I was relinquished to using a cane and allowed onlookers to pity me with their eyes. People don’t realize their eyes are like speakers when sizing people up the volume is set to high and the bass is felt loud and clear from the person you draw eye contact from. I don’t need the eye contact to feel the faces of pity looking at me.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve come a long way in regaining my strength and the ability to walk, so much so I proudly traipsed around feeling invincible. No one is invincible; a few slices of bread and overconfidence will knock you on your butt and take it all away with one night of sleep. Let me tell you if you don’t have those backup supporters who say, ‘they care about you’ the fall hurts even more.

I’m a mess this week. I had a bad day that led to a couple more bad days and now I try to pick myself up from the rubble I’ve left strewn about the place. I’ve needed a good strong physical hug but even that is scarce because my pain is so bad, it hurts to have a hug. I’m straining to see the light at the end of the tunnel that I know is there. When the pain is so overwhelming it is hard to see or hear anything.

I love the fact that people turn to me for strength, direction, assistance, aid in helping them but in times of my hurting, those tasks are impossible so I shy away from the very venue of that portion of love I receive. I’m hurting, how can I help someone when I’m in the throes of a setback and no one can visually see how bad my days are, again because ‘they care’ but not enough to consider I might be having a hard time or bad day myself.

I want to gently show my friends that while I’m having this hard time, I still can see the light way off at the end of the tunnel. My tears stream, my pain unbearable, my cries to the Lord louder than ever and the echo, the echo of my voice is haunting. In the days of these struggles, the scripture that stands out to me is from Isaiah 40:31

 “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

I have a birthday coming up and I’m not even looking forward to the day. It’s just another day. That’s what people say when they get older, y’know? A good thing my son, who is young, says it now so he has no false illusions about the world around him. It’s just another day. I should get a plaque stating that and hang it on the wall! 

Along with my setback comes grumpiness, bitterness, and downright insensitivity. This is the point where I’m supposed ‘to think’ but I don’t. I put no rein on my thoughts or insensitive blurts. I fail. I don’t think of others and how they might be feeling when I boast of my weight loss when they can’t lose a pound to save their life, or my lack of pain when there’s has them bound to drug relief, or my rejoicing in how great I’m doing walking with a bounce in my step and light in my life. Maybe they want to hear the hard-grained steps I have to bear to wake up each day in the light of optimism. Maybe they long to hear of a setback so they can say ‘aha, I knew you should’ve gone another route’. I’m on the edge about to fall over the cliff and can’t find the upbeat rhythm of words they need to hear to get through their bad day. So there, I’m having a momentary lapse.

I have a loving relationship with God and I know we’ll get through this band of pain together. I wonder sometimes if people think that God has a special light set to shine just on my face but let me tell you, God’s love has no perimeter, His love for us is as personal as any loving relationship we’ll ever have in life. He has no preferential treatment for just me. He loves us all the same. Do we all love Him the same? I don’t know. I think we all try but we all have that period of ‘now we wait’, how each of us handles this period of patience is most definitely different! 

1 John 4:13 “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”

Going With Confidence?

Ps. 118:8 “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”

Going with Confidence?

I say this amid a week of doubts and uncertainty. While I still feel assured doing what I’m doing is the right thing, there are those days that doubt creeps in like the mouse you never knew you had peeks his head out as a crumb falls to the floor. You didn’t know it was there but sure enough, his eyes meet yours and he scurries away.

Here I am five days away from Christmas. The weather has been unseasonably warm, the winds brutal and just like Christmas itself will arrive, so will old man winter awaken on the twenty-first of December to give us our first real winter cold spell.

I’m going to be honest here, I don’t think I’m ready for the family gathering. I’ve noticed here lately it is getting harder to pass up those sweet treats, drinks and toxic (to me) foods. I do, but it feels harder than when this all began eleven months ago.

I caved last week after going through the entire food store full of Christmas cookies, eggnog, sprinkle-topped sugar cookies of seasonal red and green colors, biscuits and breads, turkeys and hams. I rounded the freezer section and WHAM there it was – a pizza – Maximus Supremus it said, with a window to gaze at the topping filled pizza. It somehow jumped into my cart and to my husbands' amazed eyes he questioned my choice. “I want pizza!” I exclaimed with tear-rimmed eyes and made it to checkout with pizza in tow.

That night for dinner I gobbled five pieces of the delicious cheese-filled topping exploding pizza after shoveling the small slices in my mouth savoring every single bite. Not without guilt, I might add because yes, the measly two pieces that were left, I left for my son to eat. Eleven months of not caving and cheating on my protocol went out the window for a brief moment in time when I indulged in satisfying my flesh! I caved!

While my husband himself has remarkably slowly given up his addiction to sugar and Pepsi, not for me, for his own health, still can eat what he wants. Most of the time the Doritos, or cheese and crackers, or the three-flavored popcorn in a tin, doesn’t bother me, but here lately with the facebook walls lighting up with sugar cookies and toxins that would kill me paint the walls in hopes of satisfying the ones that they will only slowly kill. 

The holiday is all about food and family here. It’s not about exchanging gifts, it’s not about seeing family you haven’t seen all year, it’s about getting together and sharing a meal. I remember last year on Christmas we were hit with a torrential downpour with hail, lightning and thunder crashing all around the vehicle almost keeping us from the visit. But we made it to our destination safely and of course, we had a great time. Their concern (after seeing we all made it) was wanting to know how I was doing and I basically said fine and that I’d have a doctor visit and would know more. And boy did I ever learn more. At the time I thought I was suffering from MS but little did I know it was much worse.

This year we’re going to be hit with a seasonal cold spell! Twenty-three degree high is predicted for Christmas Day. While many across the nation have already dealt with the blustery cold and snowy season, the fifties have spoiled us. This tiny woman, forty pounds lighter, might feel the biting cold more than I have in the nine years since I’ve been in Nebraska.

While I feel I’m doing well, I don’t feel ready to be seated around a table full of delicious smelling food that in years past I ate and enjoyed. I have to watch as people overload their plates, go for seconds, complain about needing to lose weight as they head to the dessert table and proceed to get two helpings. I have to remain silent as people overindulge, laugh and chuckle as they fill their faces, while I can’t as I’m writhing, holding back tears. I am going to need iron strength not to carry the bitter taste in my mouth that I have right at this moment.

Will this stop me from fighting my fight with everything I have? By no means! I am not faltering just because a Christmas party declares I NEED to eat the toxic (to ME) food served. I declare that I have at least twenty years left in me, assuming the world even lasts that long. I have a spiritual family online that loves and cares that I succeed and will lend me prayers where I need. I know I may come off as confident and secure but know, there are times I break, I cry, I pout, then remember to whom this season belongs to and am reminded that my strength lies in Him! I will go in confidence only because I know I am loved. 

Prov. 3:26 “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.”

Merry Christmas my Spiritual Family! I am counting on your prayers to carry me through with confidence! God Bless Everyone!

Elaine DeBoucher made this for me

Overwhelmed? Take it to God!

Blizzard of 2009

talk about overwhelming

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV), “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 

Overwhelmed

Have you ever been overwhelmed? Here lately my pain has overwhelmed me to the point of frustration and I don’t like that part of me, angry Joni.  The holiday took more out of me than I thought; I felt exhausted, tired and just totally done with the world. So what did I do, I took a time of rest! Something slashed me right across the face; maybe it was the 26 degrees below zero wind chilling temps?

While I love the cold I cannot and will not embrace extremely bitter, skin scarring, back biting cold. The winds alone feel like little shards of glass being plunged into your skin and any part of you that is exposed will surely freeze on impact and bleed when you thaw, so I stayed inside. While I consider myself somewhat of a recluse, the walls begin to close in on you and smother you in the bitterness of the season.

Top that off with a chronic pain and you have a recipe for disaster waiting to spin out of control and spit in the face of anyone that gets in your path. I try not to allow my pain to get that out of control and what is my saving grace? Well God of course. Prayerful meditation.

I realize that when people become so overwhelmed with say (snow) work, classes, bills, pain; their ability to fight is hidden and they shut down and give in to the ‘okay, you win’, worry and stressing about the overwhelming event, if you can call it that. It is what it is and that is LIFE. 

The only way that the events in life stop is if we die, and well, we don’t want that to happen, so what do we do? We deal with everything on a daily basis, sometimes by the seconds of the day and we need our prayerful meditations to just snuggle us tightly and get us through our life event. 

You know how people have huge walk-in-closets where they store everything but the kitchen sink? Yeah, I don’t have one of those. And then there are some smaller more reasonably sized closets; yeah I don’t have one of those either. Then there are the broom closets where you pack all of your junk in there until the walls are about to explode; yeah, I have one of those!

I’m telling you now, the bigger the closet the more problems of being overwhelmed you’ll encounter. People tend to hoard their life in a walk-in-closet when they only have a pantry size cupboard, that is when the overwhelming sneaks up on you and you burst. What to do? Take it to God and leave it in his mansion. He has plenty of room but you know what, He doesn’t store your problems or hide them or pile them back on top of you when you least expect it, nope He carries your junk effortlessly to the shores and places them by the sea. You see where I’m going with this? 

Have you ever watched waves crash on the shores? I remember when I was small we used to go to Ocean City, Maryland. I’d build sandcastles right close to the water but not too close for the waves to come and wash my beautiful creation away. By nightfall, the tide had moved in and my sandcastle became a part of the sea, no longer a part of me. 

That is what happens to our problems when we take them to God instead of storing them in our closets. He places them at the waters edge and it takes very little time for the hoarded problems to wash away. 

The other night I had a dream, one where our landlord came to the house for an inspection. The first thing he did was looked in our closets and started moving stuff around telling me that this closet needs to be organized. I woke with the overwhelming sensation of needing (no not cleaning out my closets!) but to organize my problems and prepare to load them up and take them to where God was standing and waiting for me to unload the accumulated junk in my life.(worries, problems, pain, stress) 

Sometimes we wait for a deadline to come upon us then turn to God when we should have been turning to God all along. We might think, ‘oh this is just a small problem (whether it is pain, bills, a dilemma) that we can handle on our own’, but we soon realize via the intensity, we’ve stuffed our closet to the max and there is no room. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve taken so much to God that I feel I overwhelm HIM and can handle the small things on my own. Boy, was I ever wrong! Like I said, He has a mansion the size of an ocean to store your problems, to Him they are but a grain of sand. Have you ever seen a grain of sand? To me, it is smaller than a grain of salt. To Him, my problems must be smaller than a grain of sand!

Don’t be afraid to take the small stuff to Him. Allow him to organize that closet to where your little pantry looks like a humongous walk-in closet upon opening and allow the sea breeze to swiftly wash over your face lifting your hair in a whoosh to carry your problems away.

It’s that simple, take your overwhelming worries to God. Don’t hoard the small stuff either, it just clutters the closet. ;) 

Matt. 6:6 “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Memory Lane

Annapolis Maryland

Pss. 23:3 “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”

The Path Down Memory Lane

Last week was one long stroll down memory lane. I understand we’re not to live in the past but to move forward, but something about the season of fall makes me want to stroll down that path, at least once a year to revisit the good and bad that I left behind.

I don’t wallow in the mire; I never cling to the dust, I just reminisce then brush it off like an over neglected attic. Sweep the lint, brush away the good and bad crud, filter what goes out and comes back in. Yeah, that’s the best way to deal with an unsavory past.

When people see me now they think, ‘oh it couldn’t have been all that bad, look how well she turned out.’ This statement might be true from your perspective, on the outside looking in, but from my perspective, life was not good in any way shape or form.  

I started writing my blog in 2005 but didn’t start taking the writing and expression of my thoughts seriously until 2008. In the very beginning the blog was just about my thoughts, most of which I deleted but by 2008 I turned the blog into helping writers and the craft of writing. 

I’ve been writing poetry all of my life and really didn’t get into writing fiction until about 2004 when WVU (Writers Village University) came into my life and changed my path forever. I was so excited with the new turn in my life, I shared it with my family who as always, never for one second encouraged me and didn’t really care about my writing unless I was famous and making tons of money. 

As years passed by my love of writing grew and my blog has been an important avenue of healing because it is here where I bare my soul and that’s why the name changed a few years back, I was healing and moving away from the painful past and moving into a new leg of the journey that God had carved out for me in my path to the future. 

My journey is not about making money, my journey is about healing and this is what you read, a sinner on the path of healing. I write from my heart and if my family read anything I wrote they would, I’m certain, be ashamed of not having more to do with me or they’d be angry and finger pointing but such as it is, they will only look for my writing AFTER my death.

Job 30:13 “They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no help.”

I have written my mother and father poems since I was very young. I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I bought a Hallmark card for them, I’ve always written my own. Maybe not Hallmark quality but it spoke to them and how much I cherished them in my life. My sister was always jealous of my ability to convey meaning to my parents via poems and she has tried writing a poem once but her one try in life came off as forced emotion; whereas my father adored my poems and looked forward to them with every Christmas, birthday and father’s day.

This is what started the stroll down memory lane last week when my mother was reading the poems I wrote to my dad and she told me that she cried with reading each one. She also said that my dad had kept a lot of them in his drawer, I guess so he could read them and feel somewhat close to me as I, his baby, was so far away from home. Then she said something that unknowingly hurt, she said my father read one and looked at her and said, “We’re never going to see her again, are we.” It hurt because he never had a chance to see me again or to hear the last poem I wrote him. (Thanks to my sister, he never got to hear it read. Bitter? YES! Admittedly so!)

While everyone is ranting and raging about politics, I’m taking a stroll, one that has me thinking selfishly about my healing, my growth and myself. Is that selfish? I don’t think so, I’m reminded of a childhood that was, I reminisce of the pain-filled life I left behind, and I look to a brighter future with my Lord by my side and Him whispering to me saying, “he (my father) heard the last poem you wrote, as did I, I am well pleased.”

Yes, He always talks to me like that. Always has and always will! The stroll down memory lane will end for now as I head into my future with my Lord and I walking hand-in-hand. 

Pss. 16:11 “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

Meditation

Ezek. 13:3 “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!”

Meditation is not some new aged practice; actually it has been around for thousands of years practiced by many different faiths including Christians around the world. As early as the book of Genesis (for you Christians) you can see that Isaac meditated. (Gen. 24:7)

Pss.1:2 “But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

I’ve meditated for quite a few years now because it is one way I use to put my mind to rest. I remember seeing a meme recently that said something like 'for those who go right to bed and fall right to sleep, don’t you have thoughts?' Well my quick response was: yes, but I leave my thoughts outside the door so I CAN sleep. And I sleep peacefully for eight hours, thank you very much.

Meditate:
to engage in thought or contemplation; reflect.
to engage in transcendental meditation, devout religious contemplation, or quiescent spiritual introspection.

What helps me in my meditation is the fact that I carry good thoughts; an optimist if you will. I meditate on the Word and reflect the word in my actions. It is easier for me to love than to hate. When people say they can’t/won’t meditate I have to wonder, is their mind so full of hate that they don’t have good thoughts to think about?

I try my best to steer clear of those who love and hate at the same time. They show love on one side of the fence but on the other side they show so much hate and rage I wonder how they even sleep at night, or do they?

Some people may call me a snob but I am far from it; I am not better than anyone. Because I choose love over hate is a choice of mine and I only wish more people knew the benefits that result from living a life of love. Jesus taught us to love and how to love but people put their own spin on what they deem as love. Kind of makes me wonder what else they misinterpret.

When people say they are seeking a spiritual path I have to ask, what are you doing? Are you placing more love and good in your life that over rides all that hate that fills you on a daily basis? If the answer is no then you are seeking the wrong path. Your actions speak volumes as to the path you are headed down and I only wish a boulder wasn’t blocking your way to finding what you seek.

Pss. 63:6 “When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.”

Meditating in the night watches to me means when I lay my head down to rest at night, my thoughts are all on Him and a peaceful night of sleep follows as I rest in His words. Some people have no other thoughts than thoughts of this material world that keep their mind roaming and unfocused. Thoughts of bills, food and all that is wrong with the world will keep any sane man or woman awake at night. 

Following a spiritual path doesn’t mean that you try meditating once and give up when your weakness allows you to lose focus. Meditating has to become an hourly part of your day where you focus on good, light, love throughout the day so the positive thoughts can carry you through a restful nights sleep.

I’m not saying that when I get older I won’t develop insomnia of some sort but right now, I’m not older and meditation is what has gotten me to this point of peacefulness that washes over me and I carry with me throughout the days of my life. 

What, you don’t think I have problems, bills and things to take my mind in places I dare not let it go? You’re wrong. I have a world of problems that could consume my thoughts but I won’t let ANYTHING take my thoughts away from God. The world is going to hell in a handbag and there is not one thing negative that I can say that will change that. 

Am I supposed to be filled with anger and rage because of the status of the world? The status of religions? The killing and hatemongering that will continue to consume man until he falls into the pit of hellfire?

The only thing that can fight hate is LOVE. This is what Jesus was trying to show us. The world is going and we’re going with it unless we fight with LOVE. Jesus’ message was not to HATE but to LOVE.

You can put your theological spin on the matter just as well as I can. I am not naïve, I am a child of God and will declare love until my very last breath because THAT is what Jesus would do, and that is what Jesus DID!

You can ask any one of the spiritual people that you may know, whether of the Christian faith or any other faith, spirituality is all about LOVE. To be filled with hate is to demean spirituality. Man cannot serve God AND mammon. You must serve one and know the difference in the lines you CHOOSE to cross. (note: God IS Spirit.)

Don’t call yourself a spiritual seeker and seek out what you can hate on any given day. Don’t call yourself a Christian if it is two masters that you serve. Don’t wear a mask that you think people want to see, show them the real you. If you’re not willing to show the world the real you, then take a look in the mirror and see what you don’t like and work to change it for YOU. Then show the world the you that you can be sure of.

Pss. 119:48 “My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.”

Meditation will drive you down the path of spiritual awakening that you seek. If you can’t let go of the hate in your heart, you are not ready to be awakened to the spiritual side we were destined to be a part of.  Do the world a favor and stay asleep, which leaves more room for those who are awake to actually SEEK the righteous path.

1 Tim. 4:15 “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.”