Settling In...PTSD

1 Sam. 10:26  "And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched."

Settling in...PTSD

Settling into my home was not as easy a task as you’d imagine. Happy-go-lucky Joni was a shell of a being. The nurses had noticed in the hospital and nursing home, and they didn’t even know me, the physical therapists saw it, and my family just assumed I was sad. No, the trauma I had experienced was a little more than depression or sadness, it had all the earmarks of PTSD.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not a light analogy of depression or sadness, it is a severe trauma that is triggered ever so lightly by sounds, pictures, faces, or names. It is a fear so intense that not even the Light of God Himself standing beside you can wash away, it is THAT severe. People who don’t have PTSD will never comprehend the magnitude of pain a person suffers through.

Last year is almost a complete blank to me, except for the trauma. Have you ever opened an MS page and saw a blank screen staring you straight in the eye and you felt a trembling panic for a few seconds not knowing what you were there to write? Every morning I open my eyes a blank page lay before me; what I put on that page shapes my day physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. What people say or do become triggers like a bullet waiting to be tapped and released from the barrel, words can shoot a person down. Without even knowing the triggers, friends, and family set off a ticking time bomb inside the psyche of a person suffering from PTSD. Anger, fear, frustration, guilt, and shame all become an open floodgate in the way of tears streaming down my face at any given time. At home, the doctor's office, the physical therapist office, or even in the food store, tears unleash without warning.

When my home health nurse noticed my PTSD along with my physical therapist, I was put in touch right away with a counselor. While I liked Dee, she was more about telling me her story than hearing mine. It was fine because that is the kind of front I put up, I’ll help you, you can’t help me; it’s an unbreakable barrier. I basically thanked her for listening and sent her on her way as I cringed inside. I was broken.

I could see the pieces of myself scattered on the floor. I wanted ever so much to take a whisk broom and scoop the particles onto a dustpan and toss them in the trash but I was immobile, disabled. There was no scooping going on any time soon. I would sit in the silence of the house, meditate in the quiet of aloneness, and pray to the only God I know and worship. Only He could get me through this, in time. HIS TIME, not my time. Here we go again.

Settling into my new surroundings would have me fearful of nightfall. Sounds would ricochet off the walls while shadows would pirouette. You would think that home was familiar surroundings but to me, I felt as if I was an orphan dumped off to this house with a family I didn’t recognize.

As the fragments of my life lie on the floor, images of last year shine like a mirror swaying in the sun, blinding me as I see good and bad portions flailing about. This trauma was not a phase I was going to laugh my way out of as if nothing bothers me. Each step I take would be like tiptoeing in a minefield, a trigger to tears or to laughter, to pain or to joy. I don’t have a choice in the matter, I just tread lightly and make every day a new day, every step a step toward healing.

God's time is not my time as I stroll along the healing path. I’ll endure the steps I needed to take to get me to the healing sea where I will eventually take a luxury dip and swim like a fish in open waters. Right now I’m still in an saltwater aquarium awaiting release in the open sea. God tells me ‘patience’, ‘faith’, and most of all ‘TRUST’, and in Him is where I’ll find my healing. The Joni I remember is still there in the windowed world… it's just going to take some patience, faith, and trust to find her again.

Lam.3:23 "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

MONOPOLY!

Job 40:20 "Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play."

MONOPOLY

Deut. 33:27 “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.”

This was going to be one of my Gateway to Health continuing series on STRENGTH. I got sidetracked because of my Google browser.

Gateway to Health: Strength
Through all of this soul searching, I realized another thing that makes me different from a lot of people. It isn’t just my intense love of the Holy Spirit within me, it is my strength to get through trials. Since I found out I have this disease my strength has grown to immeasurable heights. I know when I was younger my sister always deemed me ‘the strong one’. I never felt strong but she said I handled things differently than everyone else.

When I looked at this disease and the statistics in getting it, supposedly 90% was caused by stress. I don’t know how accurate that statistic is because it seems Google is waging a war against the holistic healing facts that I found one year ago. Genetics only make up three percent, and a chronic growing fungus like my psoriasis is another percentage. Add them all together and you have the Big C! Now do people with none of these ‘symptoms’ get the C? I don’t know, they’ve had to get these statistics from somewhere.

It wasn’t until about fifteen years ago when I started taking my writing to new heights with my first computer did I decide to get my story out to the world via the intranet. I didn’t care if it was in book format and no one read my words or a blog or another format, I was working on cleaning out the impervious closet.

I literally had access to thousands of outlets to post the heartfelt pain that I had suffered over my lifetime. My poetry writings in my notebooks made the long journey with me when I left home. I transferred some of my favorite poems to the newfound Word documents and the world now became mine to conquer; the new avenue was full of traffic.

Poetry was my healing outlet as a child. I could write my pain in journals and no one would be the wiser. No one would know that the walls of my closet were black because they assumed it was yellow and sunshiny bright inside my head; that is how God protected me. He allowed me to barrel over the waterfalls of life, with the sunbeams in front of me and rainbows behind me. I didn’t feel I was hiding my pain but apparently, I hid traumatic events in my writing.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t feel I was hiding the trauma. Through my writing, I was healing myself and when looked at, it appeared I was strong because I showed no sign of weakness but here I am with an illness that was awakened by the dark closet I had closed to the outside world all those years. How this transferred into the disease of a lifetime I may never know the true facts of the matter. I’m not here dissecting my pain I’m here to show you that strength wins out in the end.

Strength momentarily halted. Read on…

Since January first the ever-popular search engine Google has shifted. For a year I’ve been searching through page after page on cancer, the healing protocols, the holistic avenues I need to take. It was my understanding that your search engine ‘follows you’ and will then send like-minded pages to the front end of your searching. Holistic healing, natural herbal remedies being my most searched have now turned a sour negative note. I don’t know why but I won’t let it stress me as it is trying to do just that. Example? This link is just one example. Last year I found numerous pages that pointed to stress as the cause of this disease, but this morning as in recent weeks, I had to dig through numerous Psych central and the like pages! Page 1 listed pages that contradicted everything I saw last year pointing TO stress being the cause. This year stress is basically laughed at on page 1.

The Truth About Cancer and similar pages used to be the first pages that showed up, but it has mysteriously gone from my page one searches on EVERYTHING. It’s not doing a good job of following me, and now everything is from science this, scientific that. Where in the world did these pages come from? Now Google has its own agenda??? And people wonder why I don’t trust this superhighway? It is becoming like the rest of the outside world, unpredictable and untrustworthy with its own politically governed agenda.

Strength and monopoly merge…

I think there lay one of my biggest strengths that I was never a part of this mega mind of technology. I had a washing machine but clothes were always line dried. I cooked in an oven, reheated on the stovetop. I had no desire to be a part of the threads of the web. I got snared and tangled in it fifteen years ago and life has never been the same. Some say technology is for the better, and granted in some aspects it is, I like being able to dry my clothes in a dryer now. Life is now about speeding down the highway, closed are the bookstores and shining high are fast food joints, coffee shops, and toxicity! That’s the new world! Even the medical world has quick fixes; drugs, slice dice and radiate. Great!  Life for me has changed forever.

So if you see fewer links to my alternative holistic healing process it is because I need to find a new search engine that isn’t politically motivated or monetarily funded by the pharmaceutical corporations or the richest search engine in the world. Like cancer, the internet is one big business. I thought I was being over paranoid but no, here it is in black and white. 

My strength continues in LISTENING and OBEYING my Lord before any other entity on the planet! What a tangled web the earthlings have woven is an understatement! This is not a democracy or a republic, this is a manipulative game of Monopoly and some of us were sent to jail without a trial.

2 John 1:8 “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.”

It Strikes Me...

Prov. 31:25 (NLT)“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” 

It strikes me…

Well, it hit me again, I was walking through Wal-Mart and it strikes me as odd at a number of people not even paying attention to what they’re buying. They just look, grab, and place the merchandise in the cart. Me, I’m scanning every label, reading every ingredient, more times than not replacing the product back on the shelf, even when it says organic.

Now that I know what I’m looking for at the store, it sure makes shopping much easier, because I can avoid the aisles with stuff I don’t need and if hubby wants something, he goes off on his own to get it without making me venture down the ‘toxic aisles’.

Then something hit me this week. I rounded the bakery section and was heading to the checkout and it caught my eye, a pink shirt with the decal on it ‘FIGHT FOR THE CURE’. As I got closer to the shirt, touched it, looked at the bold lettering and the pink ribbon, tears began to well up in my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry in Wal Mart. I knew what the shirt was saying, I knew all too well. 

You see, I always looked at those things and just became saddened for other women who fought, were fighting, or had lost someone. But for me? I never associated the pink with me. I never saw myself as a ‘one day that’ll be me’, no, I never let it cross my mind, I never grasped that straw.

And here I was gazing down at the pink shirt, touching the fabric, running my fingers over the letters and realizing it is me. That decal is referring to me. I’m one of them; one of the hundreds of thousands of women who this pink ribbon stands for. I felt small, I felt like an ant in the middle of the store with all the big humans passing by not seeing me carrying the heavy crumb. They were passing by not giving me a second glance. I was nothing on their radar. They were hurried and rushed and I stood there just looking at this shirt.

I let it go. I didn’t want the pink, I didn’t want to associate with what the shirt stood for. I in no way wanted any part of it. Just like the disease that is running through the very cells of my body, I don’t want any part of it. I seek normal, I just want what I deemed to be normal back and yet as I run my mind through the reality of it all, I have to let it go. Normal will never come back and this new lifestyle is the new normal for me. I have to accept that.

As we were driving home I asked my husband what the shirt said. My brain to me said FIGHT THE CURE, and my husband said no, it said fight FOR the cure. So as I held that pink shirt in my fingers, my mind was telling me a truth FIGHT THE CURE. That is my reality. THAT is the shirt I want to wear.

To me fighting FOR the cure could mean giving the oncologist their rights in filling innocent women with poisons. It is putting your support behind the victimization going on and treating everyone like little gathering ants. Give them a crumb here and there but don’t you dare give them wings! Ants can’t fly and by allowing them to think they can is going to start an entire new breed of ants! Fight FOR the cure could also mean that there has been no cure found. The oncologists give you pacifying drugs but chemo is in NO WAY the cure, so we women must FIGHT FOR THE CURE to be found.

And to me FIGHTING the CURE means just that, fight the very thing that doctors are feeding millions of women. Fight what truth they believe and set out to find your own leg to stand on. Fight everything they hold like poisons to be the ‘cure’. Because as I’ve learned over these past eight months, the doctors are only selling you what the pharmaceuticals are selling them. I could be 100% wrong, but again, all that I’ve learned in the past eight months tells me that I and thousands of other people are feeling the same thing I am and trusting their instincts and finding what works for them!

Our bodies were created with an immune system. That immune system is in place as a healing mechanism that the human body utilizes. To me, not trusting God’s creating abilities, is in a sense not trusting God at all. When you look at a DNA strand, do you realize how intricate that strand is and all it stands for? The strand is God in an intimate shower within you.

Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (NIV)

When you were little, didn’t you come to depend and trust your father? You looked up to him and held him in the highest esteem and trust. When he told you something, you believed it to be true and to this day, I can almost guarantee you utter the words from time to time, “My daddy always said…”
Why would we think that our Heavenly Father is any different than ‘our daddy’? 

If truth be told. God is our daddy and we can trust Him as we walk. Just like your earthly father, He will never lead us down the wrong path. We’ll stumble, we’ll fall but he’ll see to it that his gentle loving hand lifts you back up and sets you on the right path again. We just have to trust Him like we trusted our daddy all of our lives. He did NOT give me this illness, that’s like saying he led down the wrong path like he made me destroy my body. Nope, we all know where sin comes from and my torturous life led me to this illness, not God. 

It strikes me as kind of odd that people put more trust in a human than the intricate, intimate Creator. Maybe it’s just me; maybe I’m the odd one. I separate myself from this disease so it doesn’t own me. I face the enemy with the Sword of Truth. I strike the lies before it strikes me!

James 4:8, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (ESV)

Quotation Saturday ~ Healing, Health, Faith

Pss. 143:1 (KJV) "Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness."

Disease

“Don't destroy yourself by allowing negative people to add gibberish and debris to your character, reputation, and aspirations. Keep all dreams alive but discreet, so that those with unhealthy tongues won't have any other option than to infect themselves with their own diseases.” 
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it” 
― Maimonides

“In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.” 
― Oliver Sacks

“Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, 'cause it's gonna have a long day doing it.” 
― Jim Beaver

Health

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” 
― Hippocrates

“Top 15 Things Money Can’t Buy
Time. Happiness. Inner Peace. Integrity. Love. Character. Manners. Health. Respect. Morals. Trust. Patience. Class. Common sense. Dignity.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“The individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it.” 
― Tricia Cunningham

“The First wealth is health.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

HEALING

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” 
― Jalaluddin Rumi

“Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world.” 
― Marianne Williamson

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it but also the father who wipes away the tears.” 
― Criss Jami

FAITH

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” 
― C.S. Lewis

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” 
― Corrie ten Boom

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” 
― Søren Kierkegaard

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” 
― C. JoyBell C. 

“As the disease washes over me, I look at my health and discover a healing path through my faith; a road I’m willing to take.”
~ Joni Zipp

Poetry Sunday ~ Soul Harvest

Gen. 8:22 “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Soul Harvest

The time is near, the hour nigh 

Moonbeams droop in a blackened sky 

Blazing sun scorches the land 

Earth erupts in a quivering stand 

Encircling us is ravaging hate

Lust and greed severs our fate 

I sit and watch as lives unravel 

The boulder of strength now merely gravel 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Souls bewildered by mistrust 

Doubt and fear, they give rise 

To muted pleas and mournful cries

As souls ascend and souls descend 

It is our own that we must mend

Bringing forth joy, love and peace 

The decorum of beauty will never cease

Firmly tread as the time is here 

To boldly proclaim, all we revere 

The harvest of souls its beckoning plea 

It's craving you; devouring me

Come forth and share your wholesome beauty

Unleash love, as is our duty 

Reap what you sow, seek and find 

Then you my friend, won't be left behind. 

Copyright ©joni zipp

Rev. 14:15 “And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.”

I wrote this many years ago and have posted it before but this seems timely to this very day. God Bless you all.

The Cave Dweller No More

Luke 12:27 “Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

It seems like the last year I’ve been living in a cave. The world is going on around me and many things have gone on in this world that I care not to discuss because I can discuss them quietly at home and in the depths of my mind, I don’t need all of my thoughts out there for the world to see.

I stop by facebook once a day to see what people are sharing and well, it’s the same ol’ same ol’ basket full of deceit, cunning opinionated news (usually lies), abused animals, lost children and prayer. My page is full of prayer request and that is just how I like to start my day by being in prayer for those in need. 

I’ve changed my facebook page so much I no longer get the negative feed that was turning my stomach early last year. With every visit my heart hurt, my mind ached and I was left puzzled by some of the things people felt the need to share, so I climbed into the cave crowded by grief and didn’t ever want to come out and view the social world again.

Something happened along the way. God spoke to me and asked me what I was doing sulking in the cold darkened damp cave. Never one to shy away from God, I told Him the truth about what was bothering me. He set me on a straight and narrow path and I came out the other end of the cave dragged there by the light that was pulling on my shirt.

After God showed me what was wrong, I took action to change. Then the New Year erupted and I made a commitment to be more focused on my writing craft. I don’t need a best selling novel, I need to WRITE! If I write one word that changes the way people see the world, one word that speaks volumes to them, one word to encourage them, then my writing is not in vain, my gift is being used the way God intended and the positive energy that comes from my writing will light me up and allow me to SHINE!

Since I don’t believe in coincidence, what do you make from this meme that came across my feed? 

“God wants to bring you out of your cave, out of that place in your mind where you have been lost.”

Now some will say, it’s just a meme. Well, since I believe God works in mysterious ways, more ways than the human mind can comprehend, I believe I was in the right place at the right time. Has that ever happened to you? Well it clarified what was truly on my mind and that is that God doesn’t want me languishing in the cave. He wants me out here in the spinning world sharing my words that are ‘on my mind’ and words that might reverberate in other minds also. 

Also, this lovely sentiment came across my screen:

Believe it... in your mind. 

Receive it... in your heart. 

Achieve it... in your life.

I sat up, took notice and got busy working on the plan God has set before me to change the darkness into light, to take a breath, inhale and exhale the positive flow that needs release to this world of negativity. 

I know it’s a stretch but if others see me actively taking a stance to change, maybe they too will follow suit and by years end I will have changed some small portion of the world. Remember this, social media is not just a place to share pictures, memes, and what the news media wants you to believe, it is also an avenue to share the true inner you that the world has come to know and love. 

Continuing down the same path as last year, you are consciously blocking the pathway to change. The choice is up to you my friends. Live, grow and change! It is after all a New Year.

God Bless each and every one of you!

2 Thes 1:3 “We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;”

Wisdom

“The Gospel is meant to change the sinner. Not for the sinner to change the gospel to suit their sin.” ~ author unknown

Wisdom

Job 28:12-13 But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.

People seek out wisdom as if it is out there in a book with words attached to it, or from a minister who delivers a message, philosophers, and scientists. But Job clearly states that wisdom CANNOT be found here among men in the archives of the library.

I am not set to judge how you find wisdom or how you put what you’ve found into action but I see many people wandering around like balls in a pinball machine. They jump from one belief to the next, then one minute praise God and the second minute curse their hearts out. Accepting the lost path as a way of life. They’re seeking but not finding wisdom.

I know it is no way of life to be disrespectful, rude, ignorant and selfish but I see too often people who are claiming to be Christian dividing their time between what they believe and what they practice. They believe themselves to be Christians but their actions say something totally different. I wonder why they even walk the path if they are not going to adhere to way to light and life.

The fear of the Lord is threaded throughout Job and it does not mean to be scared of His wrath it means to have RESPECT, reverence for God and to be in awe of His power over your life. I hear so often people saying they gave it up to God but again in the next sentence saying something opposite of what it means to give it up to God.

You don’t give it up to God then continue in your sinful ways. You struggle day after day to bite your tongue, you battle with your flesh filled thoughts striving to lace your conscience in the spiritual nature God had intended for mankind.

Is it an easy fun-filled task? Not at all, it’s hard work! You don’t pull a veil over your eyes and become blind to everything. Why do you think the bible states, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Yeah, this is one of those non-literal meanings.  God was not referring to just a camel or just the rich man. If you have wisdom, you know the difference.

What is wisdom and why is it so important to God? Because the closer you are to wisdom, the closer you are to God. It sounds simple but it is one of the most difficult journeys in your life you’ll ever embark on!

You see with different eyes. You are no longer filled with hate, anger, disgust, or antagonism. You see with loving eyes and embrace all the beauty that is freely offered. Without wisdom, you’ll turn from the true being that God intended for you to be.

When you have wisdom you also have a tendency to reflect the Light of the Lord back into the world. You have the wisdom to know the difference in mean-spiritedness and being spirit-filled.

Being wise is not a goal solely for the Christian believer; the spiritual aspect of life has been around long before Jesus was born. Since we could determine right from wrong, man has been trying to find a way to know God spiritually. Through wisdom we find Him.

When I die, it is not my physical body or my material life that will meet the Maker face to face, it is my spirit and all it is filled with that will join me together with my Heavenly Father. Our physical bodies are tainted and spoiled by the darkness in the world. The spirit is shaped, molded, refined and formed by God. Those who have wisdom, let them hear.

If a man (or woman) call themselves Christians, that means they’ve sought out Christ. They know there is something about Him that holds weight in the world and seeks to find the Holy One. Without a spiritual journey, the path becomes askew; they believe one thing, say another and act however they want. They are lost sheep always seeking but never grasping the truth of the matter.

However, the spiritual journey leads you to a path of wisdom. No, you won’t know God better than He knows Himself. You will not be on a journey of being better or equal to God, but you will be able to discern good from evil in an unveiled light. You’ll discover innately the essence you never knew you were born with. You will then seek to see the good in all and it empowers you to be a better person all around, not just in ways that suit you.

Yes my friends, the spiritual journey brings you closer to the plan that God Himself intended all along. Wisdom is not gained by a belief in Christ. Wisdom is knowing instinctively the difference.

Soul Ascent

Pss. 11: 1 In the LORD put I my trust: How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?

Soul Ascent

I peered up at the towering mount,
That glistened from the snow.
Would I reach that velvet cap,
That no one dared to go?

The very tip seems to drift,
In a string of pearly lace.
No end in sight for it was hid,
Upon this rocky face.

Burgeoning trees whispered still.
They called within the deep.
Nature would carry my weary legs.
If for my soul to keep.

Every aching step I took,
Impelled in me to climb.
A voice was beckoning in my head.
Transcending the sublime.

I walked on faded fury,
As the summit reared its head.
The stones were trembling underfoot,
My essence being fed.

Every time I stumbled about,
My eyes would raise to see.
The brilliance of the lemon rays,
Shining down on me.

I gasp for air my final steps,
What seems to last for miles.
My bated breath my moistened brow,
Slowly, sweeps the aisles.

I let it out a HOWLING yell!!!!
I gaze at the valley below.
My echoes resound in empty space,
My soul begins to glow.

I reach the powdered summit.
My mind now crystal clear

It's never the journey taken...
It's relinquishing all you fear!!!

Poetry Sunday ~ If

People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

If

if on scorched land i fall

will someone carry me through

will i find relief  through it all

parched lips will cease to be new.

if on the flaming fire

i search for seeping rain

will someone see the mire

and save me from the pain

if on knees I crawl

can you come to clear my mind

while all along i maul

i seek but cannot find

if all alone i fail

to the Lord i will confide.

on the seas i sail

He will be my guide.

Holy Week ~ Holy Life

pic taken from the internet

Ephesians 5:8 “But be filled with the Spirit”

It would seem I am on a Sabbatical. This is the time I am reflective as my New Year is coming on Easter Sunday.

I’m strange that way, you know. I never celebrate the New Year on January 1^st because really all that is, is a calendar change. A man-made calendar no less. Easter on the calendar is a man-made holiday, but spiritually it is so much more to me.

I know many of my readers are not Christians, per se, and whatever you believe is fine with me. Don’t judge me and I will surely not judge you and your faith/beliefs/religion.

When I was a child, I was being raised as a Catholic. We were in no way devout Catholics, we went to Church, not as a family, but to put our little envelope in the offering plate, so we’d have reduced tuition for our Catholic school upbringing. Is THAT where I found God? I’m sorry to say, no. It is where I was introduced to Him, but not where I FOUND Him.

Later, when I was about 13 years old, I was sent to a Christian school for my high school years, this is the place I FOUND not only God, but Jesus, in action. I turned myself over to Him and became a born-again Christian, a foreign term to my family. They assumed it meant I was going to be weirded out and a ‘Holy-Roller’ in the process. By no means is that what being born-again means!

(Author’s note: I use the term Holy Roller loosely because we lived across the street from a Church of God, and the people of that church worshiped nightly, praising God.  To each his own.)

Being born-again, means turning your life over to Christ and allowing Him to live in your soul, via the Holy Spirit. In a sense, I did get weirded out, because I was no longer bound to ‘mans’ law, I was bound by God’s laws.

Did becoming a Christian make me a sinless person? Again, by no means. Instead it made me aware of being a sinner; awakened me to my sins. I call myself a Spiritual Christian, only because the Spirit lives and dwells in me, making me aware of all of my surroundings, my actions in life, my mistakes and most clearly, my sins.

I have found inner peace, I am one with nature and the universe, but note I believe that God is the driving force of inner peace, nature and the universe. These truths can be found in the Holy Bible, Old and New Testament, and while many will retort, “The Bible is man made.” I will reply, yes it is, man made, God inspired. Can you deny that? I mean really, I’m a writer with a creative mind, but even I couldn’t come up with the stuff in the Holy Bible and have ancient artiFACTS to back up the testimony, no less.

Matt. 13: 9 “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

That means, since the formation of Earth and before, there has been something out there divinely inspiring us to be better people, to be aware of our surroundings, to be awake in a world that sleeps in the closet called materialistic/consumerism/media-driven life.

So where did I find this ‘Jesus’? I didn’t find Him in a school, a church or even a book, I found Him in…my soul. He was there all the time, I just needed to awaken that spirit, to come alive in me, and practice all that He was showing me.

“…you have to be willing to sacrifice everything to follow God and to follow what He’s called you to do.” ~Patricia Heaton

Ten years ago, I did one of the scariest things in my Christian adult life. I gave up everything: my home, all the materials in the home, my husband, and many cherished belongings. I kept my most precious gift and that was my son and I swept him away because God was calling me to do something. Something against my nature and everything I had been raised to believe, and put my entire trust in Him and where He was leading me.

I could not see where He was leading me and it took a few years to grasp what it was He would have me do, but as I sit here now, ten years later, I have clarity and celebrate the New Year this Sunday as a continuation of my faith, beliefs, and trust in the only being that trusted me, 100%, no questions or doubts.

Throughout the ten years, I was brought into a church, I rejoice with like-minded people, and God’s grace showed me that not ALL churches are built on hypocrisy. Each Church, He chose for us, we attended, and found Spirit-led people, who loved and honored Christ.

In 2007: Roundgrove United Methodist Church (Lewisville Texas), Grace United Church (Lewisville Texas), to the place we praise and worship now, 2009-present: Efree Evangelical Church

As many of you will celebrate Easter in dressy dresses, new shoes, beautifully done hair and accessories, I will walk into church with the same clothes I always wear. Why? Because God accepts me as I AM!

I have changed a lot since I was fourteen and coming to Christ, but one thing that hasn’t changed has been this; I live by the Spirit and will die by the Spirit. Whether you believe or not, we are all interconnected and EVERY-THING happens for a reason.

May the Spirit that lies within you be awakened and guide you through your life. It’s a journey worth living.

Godspeed!

Luke 11:9  "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

Poetry Sunday ~ A New Day

Pss. 14: 2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

***
A New Day

A new day is dawning
the sun peeks through the trees
In a blazing show of splendor,
I drop down to my knees.

His grandeur took my breath away
in a winking of wondrous bliss
I stood there waiting for Him;
this moment I couldn’t miss.

A new day is dawning
I sense it in the air.
Change is painting color
across my heart with vibrant flair.

I reach for quiet victory
in His arms I find my peace.
Always praying His amazing grace
will grant my soul release.

A new day is dawning
inhale His holy light.
Glory will shine through you
with radiance so bright.

You've got Character

Eph 4:[23] And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;[24] And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
***

Well we’re on our way. Like linking lego’s together we’re building our characters. Like an erector set, all the pieces are going together and fitting nice and tight, but we still have a few screws loose.

Now we need to tighten up the bolts and make the character unique. I was thinking of this today. Dean Koontz likes to give a lot of his characters, too many to mention, green eyes. I think, “It is not every day that you see a dazzling emerald green eyed person pass you by.” Koontz thinks it is unique enough to use it all the time but dang Mr. Koontz, it is getting old!

In his Odd Thomas series, Odd (the main character) has blue eyes that when closely looked at, and when the sun bounces off of them in a certain way, have a purple hue. Now that is odd! Unique. But you can’t give tons of characters purple eyes now can you?
By the way, that is an excellent book, a must read!

This is where we’re at. We know that there has to be something unique when we have a character in mind. Sometimes it can be a big nose with black framed eyeglasses, or it can be a skull tattoo across the mans face! Or maybe it is an unusual piercing, like in the fingernail or something. Whatever the case, you need something that is going to make the reader want to come back to this character and by making them unique in many ways, is almost a sure fire hit; one that will keep your reader reading and keep them coming back for more.

The characters are going to carry the story, so if they aren’t unique or stand-outish, you better get back to the drawing board. The setting might help a bit but it is the antagonist and protagonists that are going to melt the tale together and form the building of your dreams, all out of out of the erector set that you started with as just a bunch of pieces laying on the floor. :-)

My friends and new writer’s at f2k are well on their way to constructing the masterpiece of their dreams. I’ll find the holes, weed out the inconsistencies, pluck away a ton of adverbs, scrape a ‘but’ here and there, never overlook the over-use of the word AND, then we’ll revise the tale until it is whole and maybe, just maybe they’ll get a submission out of it.

And maybe I too will get some writing done. This is looking like a good start to Twenty 10 to me! May it be for all of you, too.

Market Monday

Market Monday

Cross that bridge from writer to marketable writer. *smile*
Here’s a new one for all of my followers. How about some markets for you to send your work out to? I’m in WVU, Writer’s Village University, and the one thing we don’t have is a room where we can post markets to help other writer’s along. It’s like this big search for yourself kind of attitude and I’m of the sharing type, so here! Here is some markets and I’ll make Monday’s my market day.Just a few to get you started. Next Monday, you’ll find more as I pretty much know what my fellow classmates write. Hope you all enjoy!

Title: THE UPPER ROOM, USA
Description:Encouraging Christians in their personal life of prayer and
discipleship.
Pays: $25 per meditation, upon publication.
Click Guidelines: http://www.upperroom.org/devotional/how_to_write.asp

Popular newspaper:

Title: USA TODAY, USA
Description: Accepts unsolicited opinion pieces for The Forum, its Op-Ed page.
Columns typically run 650 to 750 words in length. Paying market.
Guidelines: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2005-08-10-guidelines_x.htm

Title Christian Science Monitor
Description An international daily newspaper produced by The Christian Science Publishing Society. Pays up to $225.
Web site http://www.csmonitor.com
Guidelines http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/guidelines.html
Country USA

Title: U.S. Kids is committed to publishing high-quality health and
fitness material to educate children. They publish the following
three magazines:

Title: TURTLE MAGAZINE
http://www.uskidsmags.com/cbhi/magazines/turtle.shtml
Description: Magazine for preschool kids ages 3-5. Pays up to $0.35 per word.
Fiction up to 350 words, nonfiction up to 200 words. Guidelines:
Guidelines: http://www.uskidsmags.com/cbhi/writersguidelines.shtml

Title: HUMPTY DUMPTY
http://www.uskidsmags.com/cbhi/magazines/humptydumpty.shtml
Description: Magazine for kids ages 5-7. Pays up to $0.35 per word.
Fiction/nonfiction up to 450 words.
Guidelines: http://www.uskidsmags.com/cbhi/writersguidelines.shtml

Title: JACK & JILL
http://www.uskidsmags.com/cbhi/magazines/jackandjill.shtml
Description: Magazine for kids ages 8-12. Pays up to $0.25 per word.
Fiction/nonfiction: up to 700 words.
Guidelines: http://www.uskidsmags.com/cbhi/writersguidelines.shtml


Title Dialogue Magazine
Description Welcomes the submission of freelance material from visually impaired authors for possible publication. Fiction and non-fiction. Pays $15 to $35.
Web site: http://www.blindskills.com/dialogue.html
Guidelines: http://www.blindskills.com/submit.html
Country USA
Region North America
Pay PAY
Payscale UNSP

Poetry Sunday~ Seek and Find

To Seek is To Find
***

This love is so deep; so overwhelming
it sweeps me off of my feet and I’m
transferred to a loftier place in time.
It’s all mine and all His.

He owns my soul as I melt in the stillness;
I’m forever in awe of His amazing grace.
Dying was not enough for me; He picks
me up off the floor and embraces me.

While in His grasp he dances with me;
we spin in an array of spacious circles
as I'm left floating weightless; comfortably
my head is nestled on His shoulder.

I drink from his overflowing cup of devotion,
lay back against Him and breathe deeply,
feeling his heartbeat in rhythm with my own
in the essence of peace that surrounds Him.

Why has he chosen me to be the love
of His life and I Him, my everlasting affection?
The more intensely I seek...the higher I find.
the further I find...the deeper I love.