Seeing LIGHT In The Dark

Prov.16:9 “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps”.

Here’s My Take: Seeing light in the dark

I know many of you think me to be ‘flighty’ with the peppy step in my words. You can only visualize my happy-go-lucky happiness that I carry with me every day, so for many of you to hear of my breast dilemma it might come as a surprise that I’m taking it as lightly as I am. 

I think you all kind of understand my beliefs of right and wrong, good and bad, Light and dark, God and Satan. Yes, God and satan (nothing about him is proper so I don’t capitalize his name.) If you don’t understand then read my past seven years of posts to enlighten yourself.

For forty of my fifty years of life someone (or something) has always tried to steer me away from the truth and light that I hold dear to my heart and soul. Everyone thought me weird and strange because of my beliefs and many of you believe the exact same thing as I but have too much pride built inside yourselves to admit to it. I’m okay with that, I’m a warrior and I’ll carry that uneasiness for you. I got your back.

My take on the entire situation from my back problems to my breast problems is going to bring God into the equation as always, of course; with a little dash of satan tossed in because where there is Light there is dark hanging in the outskirts waiting to drown out the Light. 

Let me take you back in time a bit and remind you of my husband becoming blind. From the search for a new home (in Nebraska) to a new doctor to medical funding for a cornea transplant, all happened in God’s time not our time. Sure hubby would’ve liked not going blind at all but, such as it was, he did and got his sight back when God was good and ready for him to receive such a miracle. All of those years were fought with the Light and Dark.

Almost immediately upon the return of his sight, my back went haywire. I told you how driving for three eight-hour trips to Omaha did my back in (to me - four hours each way, three times in a week) and as much as hubby and his mother (she can make the Omaha trip in two and a half hours – each way) want to think otherwise, the driving did me in completely. Then we had to do it again when he lost his other eye completely. The trips through the high winds, torrential downpours all took its toll on my overworked back. With limitations on his driver’s license due to being blind in one eye, I was the sole driver in the household.

I went to get my back checked out by a Nurse Practitioner in town. I know they are not doctors but she would set me in the right direction, right? Wrong. She sent me to get an x-ray and I never heard from her again. The x-ray people called and told me I had Lower Lumbar Facet Joint Arthritis in my back and that physical therapy might help with the difficulty walking. Don’t ask how it was paid for because that was nothing short of a miracle also. 

Fast forward to four almost five years later and I still can’t walk right and of course, satan is all too ready to put negative stuff in my mind to have me thinking of all of the WRONG things, and searching google doesn’t help either. I’m sure most of you are accustomed to checking out headaches or insomnia only to find a dire explanation via WebMD or any other source??? Like, you have a brain tumor and death is imminent. Well yes, we’re all going to die, but google searches will have you there much faster than God ever intends.    

As much as I want someone to say this is all normal for a perimenopausal woman, I’ve had no such feedback from anywhere except the worldwide satanic web! It is the dark in a lightened path, I tell you!

So, here’s my take on this as whispers from God come into my ear but resounding trumpets blare in my ear from satan. In other words, I’m listening to that still, small voice who reigns my soul. I’m going to see the light where the dark tries to obscure my vision.

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.” 

 I saw MS info on facebook and the meme seemed to be clearly referring to my disability since I have eighteen out of twenty symptoms. Now as I sit here today with hindsight and I see satan’s machinations at play to get me to believe in something that just isn’t true, I have arthritis AND I'm premenopausal! That’s it! I will NOT be put in a tube to be radiated to find out otherwise just so you know. 

The storm last week keeping me from my doctor visit? Somehow instilled fear in me that I hadn’t had up until then, I’ve been prancing around and joking because I don’t believe it is as serious as satan would have me believe. He used the FEAR of my aunt, uncle and father’s death to have me second guessing MY disability and illness. 

The ice storm Jupiter gave satan ample time to play with my head as I scurried to make a new appointment and had yet another week of waiting time. All time that he has to mess with my head. BUT, I don’t think he was expecting me to place God higher than himself. He expects everyone to listen to all his lies and deceit and as people listen, it then becomes their truth. 

HA! I have a lump on my breast, a cyst, it will be drained and all will be okay. And if this isn’t the case and the negative thoughts win out in the end and cancer is found and I’m given six months to live, let me tell you, I will die in the arms of the Lord because this will be HIS will and no other will can play in the game of chess except dark and light, white and black, good and bad, right and wrong. I love playing chess and yes, I ALWAYS choose the WHITE side of the board. I don’t ever remember in all of my life ever choosing the black side of the board. This is not racism, these are just colors, and technically neither is a color.

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” 

― Ted Grant

Luke 11:36 “If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.”

Our God is an awesome God He reigns!

Quotation Saturday

Eph. 4:18 “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:”

NEGATIVE

“Save your skin from the corrosive acids from the mouths of toxic people. Someone who just helped you to speak evil about another person can later help another person to speak evil about you.” 
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Bloodshed begets bloodshed. Hatred begits hatred.” 
― Hiromu Arakawa

“Thoughts are like an open ocean, they can either move you forward within its waves, or sink you under deep into its abyss.”
― Anthony Liccione

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

POSITIVE

“When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” 
― Ashley Smith

“Do not dilute the truth of your potential. We often convince ourselves that we cannot change, that we cannot overcome the circumstances of our lives. That is simply not true. You have been blessed with immeasurable power to make positive changes in your life. But you can't just wish it, you can't just hope it, you can't just want it... you have to LIVE it, BE it, DO it.” 
― Steve Maraboli,

“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.” 
― Roy Bennett

IGNORANCE

“Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know.” 
― Eoin Colfer

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” 
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” 
― Harlan Ellison

TOLERANCE

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.” 
― Lloyd Shearer

“It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” 
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.” 
― Albert Einstein

“Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.” 
― Malcolm X

UnAmerican

The American Flag at Fort McHenry

Baltimore, Maryland

Pss. 136:1 “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.”

UnAmerican

I’m jumping on the bandwagon here. I’ve been called un-American so many times it makes my head spin. Why? Not standing for the National Anthem? No. Not picking left OR right? No. I’ve been called un-American because I don’t like chocolate or fatty foods like bacon and enormous amounts of cheese. Well I’ll be!

I don’t think this post is really about being un-American as much as it is going to be about what riles the world, gets under their skin, irks people to no end. If the cause does not fit into the norm, meaning the [supposed] majority, then you are on the outside, the minority. If you’re black you’re in the minority, orange, minority, alien minority. What if you’re Irish or German does that count you as a minority too? Are the majority of Americans Irish and German? I don’t think this day and age they are. 

It makes you think. What does it mean when someone calls you un-American? I respect soldiers who were drafted at a young age and basically forced to fight for this country. I admire the men and women who choose to continue to fight for this country day in and day out. But does it make me un-American because I don’t and won’t conform to what YOU might want me to post on facebook, Instagram, or twitter?

I was and never will be someone who votes because you tell me I HAVE to vote or be called un-American. When the National Anthem is on, STAND, place your hand over your heart! Say the pledge of allegiance daily. Well, we want our kids to pledge allegiance to a flag for twelve years of their life and we get all riled up because some lying meme says it’s going to be taken out of schools? Americans want everything THEIR way and you’re UNAmerican if you disagree with one or two people who don't think like you think.

I think that our founding fathers when writing the Constitution knew back in the day that God (or mere mention of Him), our rights or our liberties would continue to be an issue in the distant future. I don’t think they thought that allowing people from other countries here was going to be such a big issue but here we are being our American selves and not wanting immigrants to share in our wealth and prosperous land. (I say that loosely as I look around at other countries, impoverished nations and their debts.)

You know, I find it quite amazing that individuals are not allowed to think for themselves, speak out about something they don’t believe in or are shamed because the small brained feel it necessary to be louder than the minority of people who just want to be heard. I thought we had rights to protect us but year after year, political figure after political figure wants to change the way things are run.

I blog today because it is my right as an American to say what I want to say but to lump me together with the other billions of Americans is offensive to me because I am not like them or you for that matter. I don’t read the ‘what people are talking about today’news. To be honest, I go to facebook and see what people are griping about, reeling about, who is offending whom on this or any given day. Then as the writer in me takes over, I research and see if it is worth blogging about. More times than not, the answer is no because I won’t conform to what the masses expect from me. I won’t be a part of the hate brigade and if that makes me un-American, then so be it, off with my head!

Yup, I’m all about God and I’m sure that offends the majority of people but I don’t care. I don’t live to serve man and debate about who’s right and who’s wrong; I live to serve God. Not a country, not a flag, not a battalion, not a president, not anything but God, so yes, if serving ONE God makes me un-American, then Hail to the King of Kings! 

God you reign, God you reign!

Forever and ever… God you REIGN!

Tunnel Vision

2 Cor. 4:18 “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Tunnel Vision

There is a world around me that has tunnel vision. They only see one point of view and that is theirs or people who believe in the same thing while all others are wrong and considered a liberal. Their vision is so shallow, any attempt to steer them right they become boisterous, overbearing and sometimes downright rude.

I try desperately to separate myself from them but as a living loving soul, I see a good spot in all people, in all walks of life and in many different colors. Here lately what has been bothering me has been the bashing of Religions, Races and Lifestyles. I just don’t get it or understand and I wish someone could enlighten me without bashing me and calling me a Libtard, why because I have an open mind as opposed to being close-minded?

Take the Muslim religion. There is such a hate for them because of what they see on TV, read on their screen, or listen to a minister bashing the Muslim faith. Do people try and understand the religion or would they rather jump on the bandwagon of hate? You cannot brand them all the same and if you took one second to stop hating, you might see a human being in there somewhere.

Note: Have you ever walked past a Mosque and had Muslims come running out with machetes ready to behead you? Of course not. You only hate what the Arab country and their men are doing. You don’t even understand the culture OR religion, you just want to hate

Then there is the black community. They are not all the same! They don’t all agree with the hate that is thrown at them. They don’t all want to riot and start fires and protest, they want to be HEARD but it is the people with tunnel vision who only see blacks as a degrading term. Have you ever had one in your home, eating off of your forks? I did and guess what, they are human too!

Note: Have you ever lived in a black community? Did they run the streets rioting and burning down houses? Of course not. You only hate the black community when it fits to your form of hate filled attitude. You have never tried to understand the culture or the person of a different color.

And guess what? I’ve sat at the same table and on the same church pew as a homosexual. Did I move away as if the person had the plague? Did I run home and put on facebook, “How could they allow those people in a church?” What sick and twisted mind thinks like that? I’ll tell you what kind, the people with tunnel vision who only see what they want to see and agrees with only those who are in agreement with their line of thinking.

All other people are just wrong!

Let me ask you this, do you bash the Catholics? They worship false idols. I was born and raised Catholic and around the Church sanctuary there are statues of Mary and Jesus and I have many times seen women at their feet praying to the statue. They place statues of Mary in their yard in hopes it will bring them good will and grace. They have priests who have been molesting small children long before there was EVER an internet with social media coverage. They pray and worship the Saints too. Are these atrocities any worse than the raping of women or the beheading of Christians?

Do you bash the Jews? They don’t even believe Christ is the Son of God. But do you bash them? No, or maybe this is one of those things you hide when you proclaim, “I stand with the Jews.” Do you really know what you’re standing for? Of course not, you don’t WANT to understand their culture.

You pick and choose the scripture that suits you. You also pick and choose which religion is wrong (meaning not the same belief as yours); you pick and choose who you love and hate. When Jesus said, “Love your brother as yourself.” He NEVER said pick and choose which brother you’ll love and hate or surely He would have HATED Judas for betraying Him, right?

You might not want to believe this but you are the Judas’ of Christianity. You are selling out Christ for what YOU believe in. Selling out mankind for all that Jesus taught, for what, a political allegiance, an ‘I’m right, your wrong’ attitude? 

You pick and choose sin like it is today’s bread to eat. “It’s only a small sin. I stole a gumball not a car.”  Isn’t stealing, stealing? Can we choose our sin too? Mankind is lost with his tunnel vision intact, seeing and believing in what he picks and chooses, not what is right and what is wrong.

When Jesus said, “Man cannot live by bread alone.” For some reason, I don’t think He was talking about the loaves of dough we eat; He was referring metaphorically to the Word alone. His Word alone is nothing and meant nothing if you don’t PRACTICE what He PREACHED!

Alleluia Amen! God bless each and every one of you.

Phil. 4:9  “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

Baltimore Riots?

Mark 13:8 "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows."

I grew up in the city of Baltimore. A very house-to-house packed on the row-home filled streets. We lived in a white community surrounded to the west and east of South Baltimore by the black communities.

We didn’t venture there because we were taught that it was just a bad community. Granted I had a couple of black friends who ventured into our area, they said the same thing, they moved because the areas in the outer limits were pretty bad.

I lived about five blocks from the Inner Harbor that later became a Mecca of diversity with shops of different cultures lining the water’s edge. Fort McHenry, Federal Hill, and the Inner Harbor were just a couple of my hangouts while growing up. I was in the center of the city and all that city living entailed.

Believe it or not I didn’t turn out to be prejudice, ie: unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group, or a racist ie: the doctrine that one's own racial group is superior or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others, even though both were in full sight all around me.

When I moved to Texas quite a few years ago, we lived in a predominantly black apartment complex. I’d say it was a 70/30 ratio, us being the minority. I didn’t feel out of place because it was basically the same community I had grown up in, diverse. I welcomed and was welcomed into the community.

My son learned racism quite quickly in Texas as he was called names he had never heard before such as nigger, cracker and white trash. Yes, he learned the ‘N’ word from a black kid who had called him a nigger and he came home asking me what it meant. I explained that it meant an ignorant person which is exactly what the child who called him that was being raised to be. The kids even teased him when he told them we were moving to Nebraska!

“That’s white man’s country.”

We soon understood what they meant when we got here and were hard pressed to see a black person anywhere. Maybe 1 in a 100? Yeah, this is white man’s country here in Nebraska. It is also an extremely conservative state meaning don’t declare yourself an independent because that is seen immediately as a liberal, or libtard as so many conservatives in their hate spew. Anyone who doesn’t agree with their hate is a liberal and they themselves become the ignorant, hateful, violators.

With all the rioting going on in different states it is pretty hard not to become prejudice. Not against a color per se, but against criminal thugs, period! To destroy, burn and loot your own neighborhoods you are destroying humanity and thugs see only themselves as the ‘misunderstood’ people of society. They are the fatherless, druggy criminals raised by the same. Nothing more, nothing less.

Human beings are human beings and as such we should ACT as such, not the vile animals that these rioters seem to be. Maybe I don’t understand and maybe I do. I’m trying hard not to spew hateful words as to offend anyone but the state of our country saddens me and all I know to do is pray. Pray for the lost souls who may have never been prayed for before. It is what Jesus calls me to do and I will honor Him.

So while people are filled with vile anger, souls churn inside with hatred, blind eyes are everywhere to every atrocity surrounding them and they cling only to the negative portion of understanding. They, to me, are no different than the criminal thugs wanting justice.

A friend told me, “This is not our world.” I know this and understand it more than you know.

When 4,000 people are killed in an earthquake and all that people can talk about are politics and agenda’s, or the soup of the day, it isn’t just the criminal minds that are at fault here, it is the human race living as if they are cancer-stricken with no cure!

Baltimore will rise from the ashes; Nepal will rise from the rubble, maybe just not on this side of cosmos, but one day. I pray.

May God be with you all.

Luke 21:11 “And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.”