Sight

Sometimes we see only what we want to see. I try to see what God sees when looking out at mankind. I’m as discouraged as Him.

Ruth 2:13 “Then she said, Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens.”

1 Chron. 22:8 But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight.

Neh. 1:11 O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king's cupbearer.

Pss. 9:19 Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight.

Pss. 76:7 Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?

Pss. 101:7 He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.

Ecc. 2: 26 For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Ecc. 8:6 Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him.

Isa. 38:3 And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.

Mal. 2:17 Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Rom. 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

2 Cor. 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)   <--- b="" emoticon="" first="" found="" here="" in="" is="" kjv.="" smiley="" the="">

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
[13] Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Heb 13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

May God bless you all!

Discouraged

Blessed are those whose every instinct, every impulse, and every passion is under the control of God’s Spirit! They will be right with God, self and others and enter the life which God alone can give.

(Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ) Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:8-11

It is with great sadness that I write this. I’m feeling a bit discouraged and I feel THAT is what satan wants. How does one of great faith get discouraged?

I attend church on a weekly basis, I am spirit-filled on a daily basis, I spread love, scripture, the Word, light and love every chance I get, so how and WHY am I discouraged?

Let me tell you. People discourage me, recently my very own church has discouraged me and life in general is discouraging. People who share hate and scripture within three posts just about makes me lose faith in all humanity. Seeing people LIKE filling their screens with hate/judgment and watching others in agreement downright scares me.

I’m a sinner and it depresses me that I’m a sinner. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much love I spread, I’m still a sinner. I try NOT to sin but here I am LIVING in sin.

Things have changed at church since Pastor Mike left. We knew it would but didn’t think it would be so drastic as to discourage people from coming to church but here it is, the change that wasn’t for the better.

We’ve attended this church for the five years we’ve been in Nebraska. Whenever we had a need out of desperation we would turn to the church and lovingly they’d reach out and help. It wasn’t like we were sucking the blood out of the church and using them to give, give, give; we were desperate not having anywhere to turn and the church made us feel like helping us was a good thing on THEIR part. And yes, we DID give back to the church, just so you know.

On July first we hit a desperation level. Our propane was critically low, meaning we’d have no hot water, no stove, etc. Steven works and pays the bills but the propane has just been too hard to catch up on and they wouldn’t give us more until the bill was PAID IN FULL. So of course we asked the church, our church, the loving place you turn to in time of need. The place that makes you feel good knowing that God-loving people will reach out to you and lift you up.

That didn’t happen this time. We were asked to come in and fill out a ‘request’ form, stating our need and it would be ‘reviewed’, AND we’d have to meet with one of the pastors. No problem, we’re desperate. We went in and filled out the request.

Steven went in, had the ‘meeting’ with the pastor the next day and he said he’d ‘be in touch’. Five days passed and the pastor called and informed Steven they could only pay HALF and that another ‘meeting’ was needed.

WHAT???

Steven was wearing thin. The ‘meeting’ was set up for the FOLLOWING Tuesday the 15th because we were busy helping his mom after the major storm damage that she had. His sister had damage too, but she has kids to help her so we focused on mom on his day off. Tuesday was his other day off so that was the set meeting.

The meeting? It would be about us living in sin. It wasn’t about the help we needed, our cry out in desperation, any counseling on money management, it was going to be about us, living in sin! After the meeting, the bill would then be ‘partially’ paid.

Steven caved. He was hurt, depressed and angry. He went to church Sunday with some cartoon T-shirt on of the Thundercats? Something he has NEVER done. I saw as he was going down. I have NO CONTROL over his fall.

He cancelled the meeting. Told the pastor we hit a critically desperate point in our propane and would seek another way to get help. Pastor said he’d still like to have ‘the meeting’. Steven said no and that was that. He told me he could care less if we ever went back to that church. “How about another church?” I asked. He adamantly said, “No, I’m done.” He’s giving up on God.

So that’s where I am; lost and confused holding onto my faith and love of Christ. I did find comfort from a dear friend at church. *I* am not in a relationship with my church, I’m in a relationship with MY GOD! THAT should never be discouraged from mere mortals!

I’ve had no posts because my connection to the internet was limited. After a visit from server providers, they told us a few limbs on a tree were keeping our signal at its lowest. We set out yesterday and with teamwork, we removed the limbs and carted them off to the incinerator to be burned. They were too big, so they went beside the incinerator. The internet was back and all was happy!

Happiness is always short-lived. We were relaxing and watching the limbs burn and even put a couple of marshmallows on the fire… until a police officer came, squelching the ‘happy’ feeling with one breath! He said a neighbor must not like us. He called off the fire department, which was deployed, but it was too late, they arrived, fining us $150 bucks for a burn without a permit!

Seething anger filled my body. A hot despicable unleashing of very colorful words left my mouth. Satan was winning. (I did wait for the officer and the fire dept. to leave before I let my anger show at my nosy neighbor who called the police and is extremely jealous of us.) I didn’t confront them I just let off steam in the house and slowly composed myself and let it go.

But now *I’M* discouraged. Too much is happening!!!

Words of comfort from another dear friend:

These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NASB

"With all the beauty He surrounds us with daily and with all we get so busily involved doing, perhaps the trials and troubles are good to remind us to stay close to Him because though sometimes it seems to go on forever, this is all temporary."

I’ll hold onto that. I just pray Steven could understand.

Please hold your comments of “Jesus died for your sins, you are forgiven.” Jesus did NOT die so I could LIVE in sin! More later this week…

No Doubt

"Squelch the doubt with a challenge, you'll be surprised how high you climb." ~Joni

I sometimes come off as harsh, and if yesterdays post offended anyone, please accept my apologies. Anyone that knows me, knows I’m honest, to a fault. I tell it like it is and I tell the truth. It may not be YOUR truth but it is all I know to be TRUTH. And yes, the truth hurts some of the time.


A lot of times as I’m writing I have no specific person in mind, but often I’m told, “That spoke to ME!” I’m glad that in my writing, you can see yourself there. Honestly, this is more about me, finding my place, but if it speaks to you, well then, all the better.

We as writers live in self-doubt. We always doubt our work, our sincerity, our façade. What? You don’t have a façade? Come on now, be honest with yourself and you’ll feel better. A façade is like a mask. You wake in the morning, slide your foot into your slippers and shuffle off to make coffee, making plans in your head of what needs to be done for the day.

You put your face on as you listen to the computer hum to life. “I’m feeling good about this today.” You say to yourself, “I’m going to write.” Then it happens, the façade slips over your face, you head somewhere you have no intention of writing and spend your day, wallowing in self-absorption for hours on end and then wonder, “Hey, where did the time go?”

No writing was accomplished and that was truly your intention when you slid in the chair in the morning, but by now it is afternoon, and you have so much more of life to take care of, like washing clothes, cleaning, the mundane chores. Then when it is time to slide into bed, there it hits you, the self- doubt. “This just isn’t for me” you say, “I’m no good.” Blah blah blah.

To get over this hurdle of self- doubt, you need to prioritize your time! Sometimes we have every intention of coming in and writing but we’re sidetracked, not because we found something more interesting but because we’re really trying to subdue our intent. We intend to write, but we’re not forced to do it, so we don’t.

Make writing a priority. To do this, open word document instead of the Internet. I, a lot of the time, get lost in my email and reading today’s Top Stories, then I need to share what I’ve read and then it’s gone, the precious moments of the morning in which I choose to write.

Note to self:

1. Prioritize – If you are really serious about being a writer, you must make it a precedent and force yourself to ignore emails, facebook, Top News.

2. Mantra – Adopt a mantra that you’ll repeat over and over again. “I’m going to write!” or “I can do it, I know I can.”

3. Set goals – This is important too as you don’t want to start off like the Hare in the Turtle and the Hare race. We all know what happens there don’t we? “I’ll start off with 500 words a day, and raise it when I’m comfortable.”

4. DON’T GET DISCOURAGED – This is easier said than done. Sometimes we see we’re not getting anywhere, so we give up. If you hit this block in the road, it is important to find an avenue you’re comfortable with. Find a site that offers prompts, copy many of them down, and get off the internet to WRITE!

5. Turn off the voices – You know we all have them, that’s where self-doubt rings in our ears. If they become too insistent, play music. It sometimes distracts you from the voices, puts you in a zone to write.

6. Determination – Be determined in your writing. Determined to accomplish a great feat. Determined to alter the negative voices into positive inspiration that will feed you on your journey.

Now get writing. Stare at the blank page as if it were a conquerable mountain that you dare to climb. Dare yourself to go there and write as if it is a challenge that you’re going to tackle head on. Our voices don’t like challenges, because that is where self-doubt is born.

I can’t encourage you every single day to write your heart out. I can’t hold your hand and walk you through this but I can offer you a positive, uplifting voice, that you’ll never hear, only read. It is now up to you to go forward with NO DOUBT.