Living Water

John 7:38 “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

The Living Water

A few weeks have passed since the butterfly event when we changed the mower blade. As I stood there firming up the mower for Hubby who was doing the hard part, changing the blade, I was leaning the mower back so it made for an easy blade change. As I stood there my shadow was cast, and as I looked I saw the shadow of a fluttering butterfly landing on what looked to be my shoulder. I slowly turned my head to the left and to my amazement a butterfly was sitting on my shoulder.

I don’t know how many times you’ve had a butterfly land on your shoulder but to me, it sure was a spiritual experience. As my head turned and he was in my field of vision he realized where he was and took flight. After little squeals of joy, I went about my day thinking of the experience. I love butterflies and with the changing of the season, there are many fighting for their last days collecting pollen from the flowers. But for the fragile beauty to land on my shoulder? I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

I’m always driving my family crazy with my interpretations of events. I’m always saying that was a God moment or something like, that’s Jesus doing His work, more creatively mind you. It happens daily, almost hourly that I’m seeing God in everything so much so that when talking to my son I pointed out that I didn’t even bring Jesus into the equation that time. His response was something like, “You always brings Jesus into the equation.” I smiled ear to ear and said thank you! That is the best compliment someone has ever given me.

If my son and husband see me as always bringing Jesus into the life equation then everyone else must see it too like a crocheted blanket, I weave the warmth and love of living water to everyone who comes in contact with me. Some are open to the interpretation; some roll their eyes, while some must sit in wonder. They wonder just what is this living water I speak of.

From the moment we’re pushed out of the womb to join in this world we thirst, which is just the way God intended. From the moment the nurturing umbilical cord is snipped we long to find the living water that sustained us for nine months. We don’t quite know at the beginning but we begin searching for God from that very moment we breathe life and we seek out the peace and serenity that carried us into this world. 

Jesus explained, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13b-14).

Eternal life. We don’t know it yet, but that is what we all pursue from the minute we take our first breath. It’s not about living and obtaining materials. It’s not about being rich and successful. Life is not about you, you, you, or me, me, me, it has and always will be about Him.

When you’re walking along a stream crunching leaves and watching as the river flows, you thirst, you want to bend over, cup your hand and drink from the flowing water. It’s only when we bring Jesus into the equation do we really comprehend what it is we’re thirsting for in this life. 

You can look at a river, swim in the stream, but you can never really drink in the eternal life that God has offered you unless you make your life about Him. The living water taps you on the shoulder, lands on your shoulder, presents truth and you either see it for what it is, or you continue swimming in life blind, consumed with selfishness and greed, not even close to being awakened by drinking in the Spirit.

I’ve thought a lot about life and death over these past eight months, more so than usual and I’ve come to the conclusion, it isn’t about my illness or how or what I do to heal, it has and always will be about Him. When I pass on, it won’t be about me, again, it will be about Him. You’ll weep for yourself, for all you did or didn’t do, you’ll weep not for me because deep down you’ll know I have eternal life, not because of what I did in this life physically but what I drank in spiritually and that is and will continue to be, all about Him! No longer thirsty, my life is about drinking the Living Water into my body, reconnecting the umbilical cord that grants me eternal life.

Continued Change

Pss. 55:19 “God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.”

Change…I can smell it in the air.

Ah, the year of change has commenced. I can smell the aroma as it drifts in my window, I can see it pass me by in my words, I can feel it erupting in the core of my being, change the ever fearful stir. 

Some people face change like a thick wall of mud, they can feel the impending surge coming but they’d rather walk through the wet clingy mud and drag their feet along until it hardens on their feet leaving them growing stagnant stuck in nothingness. In other words, they stay the same never embracing change and turn into a rock-solid mudpack.

The moist stench that this unchanging community leaves behind is nothing to be reckoned with. They will spout the darkened soil, cling to the cracks in the road and try to move into a positive sand-filled vicinity but would much rather just linger with their shoes stuck in the mire.

Rom. 1:25 “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

This change I sense is not one of my own making. I didn’t set a date and say, this is it, this is the year of change. No, it bubbled down inside of me around September and built itself into a surge that was released by the end of the year. I felt the geyser of emotions inside and knew I had to take a form of action. I’m not one to allow my soul to stagnate because I fear change, I embrace the force that calls me into an active pursuit of positive energy, meaning change is inevitable; cradle and nurture it until something beautiful forms. 

If we cling to the negative energy that is released in the world, and it is there, we cling to a darkness that envelops our soul and never allows streams of change into our being. If we allow the negative influx to win, we are allowing our ego to take the reins and put its own spin of confusion on the table. Our babbling becomes just that, babble that no one wants to hear. Everyone sees the walls of gibberish and passes by quickly so as not to be affected by the negative overtone.

Now, take the reins of change and put them through a whirlwind of a positive nature, then people stand up and take notice, they listen to what you have to say, are delighted by your presence instead of being filled with emotional turbulence. No longer driven by the ego, the world around you takes on a different form. It begins to be satisfied with the change that surged within you and surfaced on the path of honor. You find contentment with the light of each new day because within you is sheltered the glorious light of God. 

Can the world run on light alone? No, there needs to be darkness so we can see the tiny glimmer of hope in the stellar nation that emits light. Can the world run on change? Yes, as long as it is not a forced change and allowed to flow from within, the world could be a beautiful effervescent place. Will it ever be content? No, because people want what they want when THEY want it and there is NO change in that position, stagnant. The earth becomes a gurgling cesspool of mudslides and the people of the earth become mummified. 

Change, it can only happen from within. That is our greatest challenge.

1 Cor. 15:51-52 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

Poetry Sunday ~ The Flow of Change

Prov. 24:21 “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change:”

Flow of Change 

In a pool of standing water

There is no ripple to bear

In the running of the river

Seamless change fills the air.

Flowing forward flawlessly

The sediment staggers below

A rocky road emerges

To sever the seasoned flow.

If life is like a puddle

Silent silhouette to remain

Through the open window

Surges streaming pain.

If life whispers like a river

The tide of change will rise

Echoing in the morning wind

Released in dewdrop cries.

The year of change is colored

By departure of all sin

Behold the rampant glory

Emanating from deep within.

1 Cor. 15:51 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,”

Something's Missing

Deut. 15: [13] And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:

***

Did you ever get the feeling that there is something missing in your life? Have you ever read an incomplete sentence and wondered, “What’s missing?”

I’ve been reading lately about modifiers, clauses, conjunctive something or other and cumulative what’s its. Does any of that make sense? I didn’t think so, there is something missing. Oh, natural flow and form.

I form a sentence with no thought in mind of how it is structured, or if I’ve placed the modifier there, is the adjective where it is suppose to be, the verb, oh dear, how about the noun? There just seems to be an empty space there when I do that.

I’m a writer and what I write is off the top of my head as I think a thought. There we go, maybe I shouldn’t be studying about the sentence and its structure, maybe I should be thinking about the way I write and speak.

I love philosophy and I can learn a lot about writing from the great philosophers, just as much as the great writing teachers of the world. But I can not grasp the concept of dissecting my writing, cutting it down and picking out a conjunctive clause. A generative what, an aural what? Others may remember independent and dependent clauses, prepositional phrases, and how to diagram them, but not me. This is not me!

If you want to be a writer, this is what is in your arsenal of language and writing skills, but again, there is something missing. A point to be made? I’m missing the point.

You mean to tell me if I can get all of this crammed into my brain, it will make me a better writer? If I practice these skills, will my words become aural and not verbal? Will I then take people down a yellow brick road and deliver them to the great and all powerful Oz?

What?

Oz was nothing but some short man hiding behind a curtain, threatening the dickens out of innocent people and a DOG! Why would I do that? Lead you to the Wizard of Oz? I’ll tell you why. If you remember, Oz led Dorothy home. She had many a conflict, abounded in aromas, poetic muse filled the screen with a play on words, prose and otherwise. I remember the screen going from black and white, to vivid color!

I get it now! Your writing will go from dreary black and white to being full of color and magic and with all of this new arsenal in your backpack of writing skills, you too, can bring home what you were missing all along, the point!

Using the Flashback

Flashback Friday...

Flash back to a point in time. Last night? No, thanks anyway. The day is done we go on and we flashback to a place in time where we’re going to add to the story, enhance what you’ve written and give the reader more insight into your character.

We use flashbacks to reveal something in our characters, the antagonist or protagonist, that the reader doesn’t know about. I remember reading The Haunting of Hill House and being led down multiple parts of Eleanor’s personality through her flashbacks and insight to what she was experiencing in the here and now. (That’s an excellent book by the way.)

Some writer’s use the flashback tool without the reader even aware that they are using it. The flow is effortless, the flashback keeps the pace with the rest of the story, and it is never over-used to where you’re reading nothing but flashbacks.

Have you noticed in movies, the way flashbacks are used? They can be a tool for screenwriters too. How about in the movie The Sixth Sense, we get a glimpse of the character and through the use of Flashback we get a darned good ending to the whole story.

I understand that the flashback is sometimes necessary to the movement of the story, but over-done and you lose the reader. You need the FB like you need your morning coffee, and it will taste just as fresh and creative to the reader.

Writer’s Digest has an excellent article on the Flashback and how to use verb tenses, to shift the scene. Be careful though because you have to know the POV (Point of View) that you are in as a writer and which tense you began the book with.

I remember a time in my childhood when things were simpler, I never worried about bills, actually I never worried about life, it flowed for me without me even being aware. Then the time came I ventured out on my own (at 17) because I was a big girl and then all hell broke loose. Life happened, spun out of control and segued into my future. Nuff said.

So what are you, writer, going to write about? Are you going to tell a story without a flashback? Making everything clear from word one? Or are you going to tease the reader a bit with a dangling piece of chocolate and carry him down memory lane so he/she can see where the character has come from, where they’ve been and where they’re going.

It’s all up to you. You are in the creative driver’s seat and you need to head down the highway of bringing a story alive! I only hope that I’ve helped in some way of getting the points across for you to begin!

Write on writers!

A Power to Writing?

Dissecting your writing?

Are you the kind of writer who dissects every word? Do you find yourself not enjoying writing because of the nit-picking that you’re doing?

I’ve seen people take a sentence and rip it apart until it is perfect to their eyes. There is a course called Masterful Sentences and I just can’t find myself taking that class. I mean is there really a MASTERFUL sentence? Do you think all of the Master writer’s before us took this course, you know to make sure their work was perfect?

I don’t think so. I think one can put too much time into mastering the perfect sentence all the way down to the point of not finding a natural rhythm and flow to their writing. Something is lost along the way when your eye keeps picking out the wrong adjective or adverb or lazy modifier.

As writer’s we are in a state of wanting to get the story out and on paper. Type, type, type,click click goes the keyboard sounding like rain on a tin roof. We get the story out in a storm of words then it’s time for revisions. Now is the time to dissect your words. BUT and this is a major but, do you want to pick the story apart, sentence for sentence word for word and make it as perfect as you can? Sure you do.

Are you going to dissect it at a workshop and have everyone point out your weak modifiers? Poor use of adverbs? Sloppy use of an adjective? Did you write your story with the reader in mind or the grammar queen in mind who is going to read and dissect instead of enjoying the story?

I write a story so everyone can enjoy the flow of the words that feel right to them. Sure grammar usage is important but I really don’t want to lose the flow or the natural rhythm that I have going. I love writing! I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t write. But to think of dissecting my writing making it so illegible that not even I can recognize it as my own makes me cringe at writing. It literally causes me NOT to write which kind of scares me because it is something I love doing.

I write a lot of poetry. Now hand it to the pro’s in a workshop they can find words that are too redundant, they can find words that sound too forced, or they can pick a pair of alliterative words and say they don’t work. Change any one of those words and the poem loses its rhythm. It loses the heart and soul which once again, scares me. I won’t write a poem to be dissected. If it doesn’t have the iambic meter that your looking for then don’t read my poetry.

Now if you’re going to read my words because they touch you or make you feel something deep inside, then my writing is for you. Continue reading my friend.

Poetry Sunday~ A River of Tears~

A River of Tears....
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp

I cry a river of tears'

swim in the empty abode set before me.

My silence is echoed by a resounding stillness

rippling downstream in caution,

as if someone were to hear my pleas.

He stoops at the river’s edge,

cupping hands...

to scoop my tears.

Cleansing His face with my pain.

Feeling my dormant presence,

He wishes to heal...

a river of tears

that is ceaseless in its journey,

streaming down my face.

He remains...to bathe in me...

to caress my glory and bring about a peace

to this ever flowing

river of tears.

I raise my head to see the sun

beginning to warm

my wrinkled body

as He wraps His love around me.

I become one with the glorious light,

enshrouding my being; I dry ~~~

no longer crying

a river of tears.
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp