A Little Scare

Luke 12:2-3 “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”

I Had a Little Scare

I’m baaaaack! Did ya miss me? <3 b="" nbsp="">

Last week my hubby came down with a cold, just as Holy Week was beginning. On the eighth, he had to come home early from work because his head was more congested than a California highway during rush hour. He really gets bad this time of year with allergies and his asthma. I kicked into high gear and made him a small pot of chicken noodle soup, all for himself. 

By nighttime, his head was more clogged than the New York City streets on New Year's Eve and the box of Kleenex had dwindled. I asked him if he’d be willing to take a dose of vitamin C for me and he felt so bad, he complied. He had been talking earlier about going to the doctor on Monday so here he was, desperate (as all men become when sick) seeking the vitamin I offered. It’s a 5,000 mg powdered version that I take for my illness, and he drank it reluctantly but got it down like a good boy. 

When he rose from bed Sunday morning, his congestion had subsided and it was minimal. By Monday, he felt fine enough not to call the doctor and even did little things around the house. This is where my little scare came into the picture. 

While I was feeling fine, my throat was a little sore and I thought of the TTAC series that I had watched. What came to mind was a doctor saying, “It’s not cancer that will kill the person [fighting the illness] it’s the common cold. It’s pneumonia.” Patients fighting this illness are already immune-deficient and a cold could be detrimental. 

So, knowing the possible cold germs were invading my home, I had to be careful. Have I been taking supplements long enough for them to boost my immune system enough for me to evade this common cold bombarding my house? I’d have to wait and see. My diffuser was turned on and the air was being cleansed as I wrote. 

I rose Tuesday feeling somewhat fine but by midday, my congestion won out, I was on the sofa, head in hands saying, “what now Lord?” That’s when a little scare crept in. I’ve been doing so good in my healing, would the Lord allow this little invader to take me out? I know He wouldn’t but I also know what would! The place of fear and doubt and whoever is placing THOSE thoughts would take me out!

I turned to prayer and worship! I went on facebook and asked all of my spiritual friends to lift me in prayer as I fight this enemy, right now in the form of a common cold. I prayed and prayed along with meditation and some great worship music to soothe my soul, please be allergies! By nightfall, I was well ready for bed and looked forward to sleeping for eight hours. 

I woke to a sore throat. It felt as if I had swallowed razor blades. I needed something hot on my throat. I allow myself two cups of coffee and it was a sweet reward after a good eight hours rest. Then the sneezing began coupled with blowing my nose, numerous times. Here’s hoping it's just allergies from the seasonal blooming trees. The more the wind howled, the more I sneezed.

I could tell a force of nature, possibly a dark force, was driving this fear of a cold. I opened my email to see some spammer had tried commenting on my blog. This is the reason I have to verify comments but I haven’t seen a spammer in a couple of years since ‘modifying’ comments.

On an older, My Spiritual Friends post this woman was offering me a voodoo doctor. Seriously? A voodoo doctor? I’m obviously a spirit filled person for GOD why would someone think I’d be interested in voodoo? Then my husband on his YouTube channel posted opening and closing credits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yeah, don’t ask. I was being hit all around by the dark side, literally. I just added extra garlic to my morning breakfast. Hahahaha, that’s a joke!

I don’t fear the dark side attacking me instead, I prepare and fight back. Monday night my movie pick was God’s Not Dead! Ha, take that. Along with my bible reading and praise and worship the dark was sitting a mile up the road in way of darkened skies and cold temps. Monday, April 10th our high was 43 degrees with a windchill of 30! That’s spring for ya. 

Although the clouds, high winds and cold have kept me from my daily walk, I’m okay with it because I see it as God telling me I need a rest. For every negative, I see a positive! With this cold, I see it as seasonal allergies. With the cold weather, I see it’s time to do some inside cleaning of the house. As dark tries to creep in, I shine my Light so it has no place to dwell!

Wednesday night my movie pick was God’s Not Dead 2, Thursday Prince of Egypt, Friday’s pick Exodus, Saturday a documentary on Christ. My Holy Week had me drowning in the Holy and loving every second of it. No writing on my blog to bog my friends down with Joni’s woes, nope, I shared my heartwarming poetry for the entire week! This week I’ll be back writing, letting you all know how I know what I’m doing is working, maybe share some recipes of my new boring forced diet, and possibly share the dozens of supplements I’m taking. 

*By Saturday the 15th, whatever it was that had gotten to me, a cold, allergies whatever, it was gone and I was feeling almost back to normal. Not 100% but well enough to do some work around the house. 

I wrote this post during Holy Week because well, you just can’t keep a good writer down! I’ll update* this if need be but I hope you all had a most blessed Resurrection Sunday! 

Rom 5:1-5  “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: [5] And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

Advent: The Time of Spiritual Renewal

Deuteronomy 7:9 (NIV) “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.”

* author's note: This is a very worthy repost from Nov. 26, 2014

What Advent means to ME

The season of Advent is upon us and while many believe this is a season for the Catholic faith to celebrate the coming of Jesus’ birth, they are sadly mistaken. While the Catholic Church does celebrate through rites and rituals such as burning a colored candle each week as they focus on the coming of the Lord, many Christians such as myself celebrate Advent as a spiritual renewal.

This was a time in history documented and prophesied about in the Old Testament and came to fruition in the advent of the New Testament. The weeks leading up to Christ being born into this world are a pivotal proclamation to every single Christian. Our faith in Jesus Christ is solid proof, to ME, that the Advent of Christ is true to the biblical word.

Granted I don’t believe December 25th as the exact day He was born. But it is the day that man has chosen to appoint and celebrate as the day of Jesus’ birth. Advent to me is preparing for the coming of the Lord instead of getting all caught up in the commercialization of a sacred Holy Day.

We’re living in a world where people make up their own choices and minds with how to honor the King of Kings. Christians everywhere claim to be Christian but shrug off Lent and Advent and other spiritual expectancies that the very bible they claim to read speaks of and are happy just declaring they’re Christian’s. To me, that’s a mockery of Christ and the Holy Bible.

Yes, claiming to be a Christian is all well and good but it is more than just words, you have to put physical and spiritual ACTION behind those words for them to be believed. Even through my computer screen I can tell which friends are spirit-filled and which ones put on a show. When sitting in Church I can physically see who is there just to show people that they’re there. I am not judging people; I am confirming that I have eyes to see.

THIS is why a spiritual rejuvenation is needed throughout the year. THIS is why Advent and Lent are so dear to ME. Yes, I spiritually reflect throughout the year, but these two seasons take on special meaning to my spiritual growth.

I watch as a globe erupts in turmoil; races against races, wars against innocent, death to believers, fear in the loving. Satan is standing at the threshold of corruption, rising in great power throwing swords of fire at the earthbound physically and spiritually weak. The flames have reached every corner of the earth, blades of fire have licked the spirit of all as we sit and watch, waiting, just waiting to understand.

THIS is the season for true Christians to fully understand the biblical elements at work. This is where we gather our spiritual strength and prepare for the coming of Christ. We can’t shrug off what we are called to be; we can’t ignore and draw a blind eye of what is to come. We can’t walk and pretend that we’re doing everything in our power to prayerfully heal a nation in the throes of an uprising while we're too busy to reflect even once on the spiritual growth of our being. We’re not called to ‘just’ believe.

This is not a time to wear a mask and delight in the show of the Christmas spectacle; this is the time to be spiritually awake in the depths of your soul. This is not the time to look around at all you don’t hold in your hands; this is the time to be grateful for every little thing you DO have. This is not the time to walk in confidence knowing you have a faith and belief in God; this is the time to meditate on all you are, all you hold true and all you hope to one day become THROUGH the blood and power of Christ.

THIS, my friends, is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. (Pss.118:24) 

The Sin of Lying

Prov. 12:17 “He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit.”

“A minister told his congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon I’d like you all to read Mark 17.”
The following Sunday the minister asked to see a show of hands. “How many of you read Mark 17?” Every hand went up. The minister smiled and said “Mark only has sixteen chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon, the Sin of Lying.” 

This was a meme on my facebook wall. Yeah, my facebook wall is now filled with many prayer requests, scripture memes, flowers and little tidbits like this. I rarely post on facebook these days and only two people visit my wall so I really see no purpose in facebook anymore except for praying for people in need. That’s a great purpose in my eyes. 

The above meme caught my eye and gave me a little chuckle and reading the comments was interesting too. One woman said, “Everyone tells a little white lie at some point in time.” And another one said, “Now that says a lot.” One woman said, “Wow, they so want to lie.” I’m assuming she meant Christians when she said ‘they’? This is the image people have of Christians. 

I remember Pastor Mike pulling something like this on us when he asked (a trick question) “How many here sin?” My hand went up (too eagerly I might add) while only a couple more hands were raised out of two hundred people. I remembered the scripture all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) That is the only reason my hand went up so quickly, I know firsthand I’m a sinner. But others were not too quick to admit that because what, they are perfect and never sin? I don’t know. 

Lev. 6:3 “Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:”

To me, the question isn’t about the sin per se, it’s more about the reason why people lie about the sin in their lives. Shame, ego, pride? I don’t know that one either, I’m not the one judging you. 

While the term lie is found often in the KJV bible, it is usually meant as ‘to lie down’, bearing false witness is used as ‘to not tell the truth’. I believe one of my biggest faults is that I’m too honest. Many hear my words and think, she has to be lying but let me tell you, I would rather give you the blunt, honest truth than to lie.

Prov. 14:5 “A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies.”

The Christian life is not about happy joyful stories where everything goes right in our lives, sometimes our lives mimic the stories in the bible which can be pretty ugly at times. We as humans are no different than the biblical men and women. We color our world to look happy go lucky when deep down inside we suffer daily in pain and we strive on a daily basis to be a better person who doesn’t lie and hate, for what? For me, it is heaven. I long to see heaven and meet Jesus face to face.

Now I know quite a few people who don’t believe that heaven exists and I’m okay with that. I’m not okay with it, for ME but we’re all here to find something to believe in, strive to become something we see in others that we too can mirror. I think of all the people who boldly tell lies in a church to their minister what struggles they must be going through that no one will ever know because they hid so well amongst the righteous of the world. 

“All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” That statement was in a bible study email that we were reading. I don’t know who to attribute it to or I surely would but it really hit me upside the head. We can do good until we’re blue in the face, it doesn’t pave the road into heaven. We can appear to everyone to be the do-gooders of society but that doesn’t mean we’ll make it to heaven.

We can continue to sin up until the day we die and beg God for forgiveness five seconds before we die. We know he’ll forgive us but does THAT ensure us an entry into heaven? I don’t know, I haven’t died yet; I’ll let you know when I get there. 

THAT my friends is NOT what He wants from us. He wants us now in our day-to-day living to be better people than all that have gone before us. He wants us to know that there is a penalty for sin when we do it knowingly. He wants us to be like His son and work toward being with Him. Yes, we all sin. Yes, we will all fall short. No, we will not all make it to heaven. That’s a scary thought to me.