Refiners Fire ~ Perfection

Zech 13:9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”

I’m Not Perfect!

I sometimes feel like I come across as a miss-know-it-all. Let me stop you right there in that thought, I am the farthest thing from known perfection since my son was born. To me, he was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen!

Guess what, he grew up and is not perfect either! Wow, how did something so perfect, reshape and transform into an imperfect being? Life, that’s how. Life happens to all of us and instead of being perfect we are refined. We are but grains of sand in a shell waiting to become the perfect pearl.

We are an imperfect species and as we grow we, in all of our instabilities, try to refine ourselves to become the most perfect beings possible. To me, there is only one way to achieving such status and that is to allow the Holy Spirit to live in me and take up a residence in my soul.

Only through the storms are we going to find the refiners fire to go through the hailstorm and shape our inner beings into something of perfection. Maybe not what perfection is to you but what perfection is to me. Since we’re all on different paths leading to different places we will all achieve our own perfection in our own time. Maybe not even in the time that we want or expect but by the Holy Spirits time. 

As I woke today and encountered a double rainbow I knew right then that there was a beauty that was going to encompass my entire day. If I were to allow negativity to drive my day it would have wiped the slate clean of such beauty so early in the morning.  The sun was struggling to peek through heavy clouds in the east while I was facing west and there it was a double-arced rainbow alight in wondrous color right before my eyes. 

I tried with all my might to see the beginning and the end of the rainbow and what I saw was myself, standing midway underneath the joyous arc. I smiled taking in all the beauty and became one with the luminous shape, so much so, I stood in the quiet coolness of the morning and allowed the aroma of the crisp air to shape my day.

As the day progressed the clouds swallowed the rainbow; lightning crashed as thunder erupted in a calamity of rumbles unleashing a torrent of rain that washed over the parched fields. I sat in the stillness of the darkness that had blanketed the room. The rain, calling me to write…I embraced my inner peace of perfection and sat to write today’s blog. 

No, no one is perfect and judging people for their imperfections makes you even less perfect than the Holy One had intended when he refined the pot of gold He shaped you into. He never left you alone to sort out this thing we call life. He never once made you feel that you had to achieve perfection because one thing I’ve learned, He loves us the way we are, only because in his perfection He created you! You ARE perfect in His eyes.

When my son drove off today to go to work in the rain, my maternal instincts wanted to worry about the muddy roads, the nighttime driving when he comes home and all the worries a mother faces but the words ‘I love you, mom’ as he drove off, was like a rainbow of peace washing over my soul. I thought of him going off in his own direction perfecting what his soul means to him. 

Peace has completed my day!

May the Light of the Lord wash over you all and bless you on your individual journey.

Moralistic Matters

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ~Edgar Allan Poe
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I’m curious, how many writers write with morals in mind? I’m a King fan and often some of the things he writes, I have to just hang my jaw and let flies creep in as he seems to be writing from an immoral frame of mind.

When writers write do they fly outside the box and curse like a sailor, (I’ve never heard a sailor curse, so they may get a bum wrap.) Seriously, if you are a moral person, or like to think yourself one, and you’re a writer, or are at least trying to be one, do you have the right to write things that you would never in a million years write?

It’s like eroticism. I came across an eroticism writer on facebook and was appalled by what she publicly was displaying for all the world to see. Not only did her book house a naked woman on it with a mans hands in... places I won’t go there, but the whole incident made me think of what kind of woman this writer was. Was she lonely, desperate for love, needy, what? What causes someone to turn to basically pornography as a means of a living?

Isn’t that selling your soul? Selling your self worth. Just as the men or women who read and gawk at that stuff, to me they are all on the desperate train for some form of affection and needs their desires met, through words, images, whatever, to get their juices flowing. (NO PUN INTENDED HERE!!)

The woman has a facebook wall, and her posts were as sordid as her cover of the book. Her banner was sleazy, her daily posts were sleazy and it took everything in me to keep from actually vomiting! Needless to say, I didn’t want to be friends any more with the person who had accepted her as a friend.

I know there are romance writers out there and they give the women what they need. A titillating tale, that gives them just enough imagery to go off into the fantasy world with say, Fabio? I’m wondering if we’re such a deprived society. Deprived of love, if we need to sink our teeth into anything and everything that takes us on the broom ride of the fantasy world so we don’t have to face reality.

Westerns, sci-fi, and spooky horror tales are one thing, but is there an invisible line placed on the snow-blank paper, that will keep YOU, the writer, away from tapping into the desperation that your heart and soul is calling for?

I will admit, I’ve never read a romance, don’t ‘get into’ the fantasy of Harry Potter or any witches and werewolves tales, and thus, I will never write a lurid romance, or a tale of witchery, because I have morals that I abide by, and won’t cross them for some fantasy, or for the almighty dollar that everyone seems to cling to.

I am me, and there is no other!

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He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. ~Joseph Joubert

Freaky Friday~ Sanity

The Heavenly host cried out in joy the day you were born. Know you are here for a reason and REJOICE!
~joni~
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Sanity...part II

Okay, after reading my post yesterday I’ll get into clarifying it up, hopefully. It sounded like a cryptic message lay hidden in there and if you know me personally, there more than likely is.

The year started off in a weird way. I was searching for myself and somewhere along the line I got lost; what with the move and all. Some thought I was uncertain of the move, unsure of where I wanted to be but in my heart there is only one place I wanted to be and that is here in Nebraska.

My writing took a big back burner because now I was taking on tasks that I never had to do before. I think life got flipped upside down and confetti flew all over the place (those were my brains) and I found myself here on a farm out in the middle of nowhere with chores that needed tending. A good five-six hours were spent mowing, raking, weeding planting, sowing, reaping, washing, drying, all kinds of chores!

I was sure my writing was going to pick back up but excuse after excuse,distraction after distraction kept me from writing. Now keep in mind, I’ve worked hard to become a writer and all of the sudden things stopped. I didn’t want to write, I hated writing. Writer’s block? No, stuff happens. I was putting others before myself and my writing was what got cut short.

If I could put the year in review? I put my heart and soul in the blender and pushed ON! There I go, look at me twirling all around, jumping through hoops, press STOP and I find it’s Christmas already!

Last week, something happened. I felt a shift in the atmosphere. I got hurt. Hurt to the point I’ve been trying to pull myself together like a worn old teddy bear needing someone to sew his arm back on. I’m not one to dwell on crap, so I move on, but I’m telling you...it was a polar shift and I don’t know if all the pieces will fit together again. Where do *I* fit into this puzzle? I don’t have nostalgia here, or old friends, family, memories. Nothing, so where do I fit in? :::shrugs:::

I was moving right along, enjoying everything this world has to offer then, WHAM, this boulder started rolling like in the Indiana Jones movie? Rolling, I’m running, running, it’s rolling and WHAM! I’m crushed! Like a cartoon character I pick myself up, stick my thumb in my mouth and blow, POOF, I’m whole again.

Come January my writing is going to take precedence in my life once again. No more excuses. No more problems getting in the way! I’m doing it and that is final!! I need to find myself once again and I will turn to the strength and love that has come to comfort me in my darkest of moments, my Heavenly Father. I know I’ll make it because He is going to carry me as if I’m a feather!

godspeed my friends...