Storing Up Treasure

Col. 2:2 “That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;”

My neighbor is a hoarder. You know the ones you hear about on reality TV shows? She has piles of pallets sitting here and there, wooden crates stacked over here, trash everywhere so much so I feel like I’m living in the county dump until I walk outside and realize this is my neighbor’s treasure.

I saw a meme recently and it said:
“A spotless house is a sign of a wasted life.” 

I kind of took umbrage to that remark because my house is very clean. I wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘spotless’ but if you knocked on my door right now I wouldn’t have to run around straightening up before I opened the door. Does that mean I have a wasted life because I see cleanliness as next to Godliness?

Some people who are not too clean might like reading the above meme because it makes them feel good knowing they haven’t wasted their life cleaning their home. Maybe some people take pride in a dirty home, I don’t know, my neighbor sure holds no shame in her mess building, so why do I love and appreciate a clean home?

I was raised in a house with six kids, both of my parents worked so it was up to the two girls to clean the mess left behind by the others and often I found myself cleaning alone. I was married to a man whose mother was a hoarder and at her house, there was a path to the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms but clothes and trashy treasures lying around in case they were needed one day.

What is so funny is that my ex and I would clean her house immaculately when she went on vacation and within a day of her returning home, it was back to the same mess. It was as if the mess cradled them to sleep at night and gave them a secure feeling of safety. 

I used to clean houses for a living (when my back was able) and I loved cleaning for people who couldn’t do the hard labor themselves. I had one lady who would clean before I even got to her home but insisted she didn’t and would pay me to do the finishing touches. Fine by me! 

Now that my back isn’t what it used to be I can’t do the cleaning I would like to do but I still keep a nice house AND have a life. Oh dear, but has all the time I spent cleaning mean I’ve wasted my life? Why do I let a stupid meme get to me? Guilt because I’ve wasted my life cleaning and LIKING it clean?

Just to clarify, I LIKE my house spic-n-span. Now more than ever I appreciate my tidy house you know why because I’m still able to do what I can to satisfy my need-to-be-clean urge! In a couple of years I probably won’t be able to sanitize my house due to disability and I’ll lay there wondering why I wasted all that time cleaning when I could’ve been doing… what? 

Thirteen years ago I left behind every treasure I owned except for what I could fit into a small u-haul truck and most of what I brought was for my son. My cleanliness I brought with me and to this day my home here is as clean as the one I left behind. Cleanliness is a part of who I am. Not for any other reason than the enjoyment of smelling freshly washed linen, newly mopped floors, the aroma of Windex wafting through the air. Ahhh… life is good when it is a clean life.

Some people treasure trash while others treasure cleanliness. Whatever the case may be as I’ve heard many a time in my life, you can’t take what you have here with you when you die, but one thing I can take with me…my clean pure soul and that my friends, is good enough for me! 

Matt. 6: 19-20 “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:”

Daily Slaughter

Pss. 62:1-2 Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.

Daily Slaughter

I see it; it is happening all around me and far from me but it still has fingers to touch me; the persecution of Christian believers. Death and slaughter is on the banks of every shore reaching in and finding the ones who believe in God, in Christ, in anything but the distorted Islamic religion.

I won’t justify the terrorists by giving them a name, which is too good for them. I just like to refer to them as slaughtering beasts. By the reading of morning headlines, I see that the terror isn’t restricted to one part of the world. I see men and women losing their mind over here in the good old U.S of A. also.

We live in a world where sanity is laughed at, insanity is a way of life, so much so that even the sane people are left to feel somewhat insane. Slaughter takes on many shapes and forms and insanity is driven by an evil force although no one wants to call it what it is for fear of being thought insane.

I think people of today are finally waking up and seeing with their own eyes that there is something going on that cannot merely be explained as insanity. Just as light is a force of growth (sunlight causes trees and flowers to grow) darkness is a force that causes people to be driven from the light. Even the definition of darkness is ‘absence of light’.

While we stand in awe of the tangerine orb hanging in the sky, we know that it will settle off on the horizon only to give light of the cratered cantaloupe light hanging from the sky with its beads of pearls strung all through the infinite realm of darkness.

Daylight and moonlight are our sources of light in a darkened world but as humans we have not come to worship the sun and moon, we worship the Creator of such gifts. The insanity of life is formed when we are consumed with the worship of the physical and material aspects of life.

I often think of the time when the world was being formed and the angels were in discussion. Lucifer wanted control of the earth and God wanted man to be at the helm of its glory and thus the unraveling of the conscious mind began.

Gen. 1: 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

We can be told by scientist of the Big Bang theory and possibly believe it, but honestly, could an astronomical event create the human mind, body and soul? Did the Bang have the power to separate the Light from the Dark? Yes, you say? Well how did it divide the atoms to make up the spirit residing in the human mind called a soul?

Since the beginning of time the light and dark forces have been at war. These same elements are in us. IN US! Running through our veins in a rampant force just waiting to surface. Obviously, the dark forces causing us to do evil shadowy things in the land that we were to make prosperous and not destroy causes the insanity of man.

We’re taken back to the control of the situation. When I see men/women being beheaded I think of the control freaks doing the injustice and I see the demon gloom hanging from a sword. When I see beasts killing men and women in MY land with a gun or knife, I see that person who is dying for control, losing his mind to darkness that has blurred his vision stealing the light from within him/her.

No gender or age is immune from this cloudburst. No profession is off limits to the unruly behavior that the force seeks out to destroy. The dark force is upon us, hanging over in an impulsive manner almost forcibly shaking us to do what we normally would never do in a thousand years. Our only sense of self-control is to cling to our sanity.

I feel as if I’m in the midst of a Zombie apocalypse just waiting for the guillotine to wrap around my neck. I observe the seemingly sane give into insane behavior lapping up all the darkness that is there to feed off of.

How is man to ward off the evil taking over the world? Just as he did in the beginning of time, giving up control. Man is to give up control of his material possessions, his physical world and be bathed in the Light that God so freely gives to all.

Luke 18: 22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

I think of the entire fleet of atheist wandering around groping in the dark. If just once they gave control over to the Light, I can bet God would see them and they’d see Him, whether they want it or not. But it looks to me like they’re accepting living in a dark world of pessimism giving control over to the wind that carries them to and fro.

When I think of Israel and the land where my Savior was born, I also think of the persecution that went on there. I think of the first man and woman who were led out of the Garden of Eden with the promise of life. I think of the Eternal life that we are given when we choose, quite simply, light over dark.

While the world is succumbing to the evil darkness washing over us like a summer rainfall, we become parched and depleted in a world without light. The sleeves of armor are wearing thin as we watch the takeover. Our only saving grace is not out here in the physical world, it is in the moisture of our insides drinking the fresh, ripe fruit juice of the Spirit living within us.

Pss. 63:1-4 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.

Newcomers

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for ye
serve the Lord Christ." Colossians 3:23-24
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I have to admit, watching new writers makes me smile. They are just like I was about eight or nine years ago when I began to take this journey seriously; alive with creativity bubbling over their cup. Oozing with frothiness, layers of imagination whipped up for the course.

Some newcomers I sit in awe of as they have a natural ability to putting pen to paper and creating a dashing piece of art, not just words in a novel. The most fun part of being a new writer is learning. Learning new words, new techniques, grabbing ideas, tapping at the keyboard into the wee hours of the night, and being one with a new character. But the most fulfilling, is completion, I have to say.

Although when you complete your novel, you’re sitting there scratching your head wondering what to do next. We can’t go back and do revisions, it is too fresh in our minds, we won’t see anything wrong at least until a week later. So what is a writer to do?

Start a new story, new style, learn new words, different techniques. There’s a world of knowledge to be gleaned from the writing pool. As I sit in the stages of revising my nearly sixty thousand word novel, which will more than likely be more after revision, I think of where all this writing began.

Like many before me, writing was and is a part of  every day living, always has been and always will be. It began at a young age when I first held a pencil, albeit a fat one, in my tiny hand and began doodling. Ahh, fresh untouched paper, like a newly fallen snow with not one footprint, a firm wooden pencil clutched in my hand like the baby-blankie I gripped in the other hand; scribbling thoughts that surfaced, images, words, the love of pencil and paper began. Those were the good old days.

As I grew, the words took on new meaning, they shaped either a poem or a story and all throughout school, before I ever typed on a computer and had the luxury of internet access, I was born to write. I didn’t stumble upon the written word and think, “Hey, this is cool.” No, I read, read and read some more. Wrote, wrote and continued studying the craft of writing, all throughout my childhood and early adult years.

After my hand developed callus's from writing, my hands ached from the old style typewriter, then out of nowhere a computer fell into my lap and changed my world forever. That was almost nine years ago, and I still persist in writing, whether pen or keyboard, I still write.

The best advice I can give newcomers to the field, is persist. Don’t write for a year or two and give up, that does not make you a writer, nor just because you pen words on occasion, does it make you a writer. A writer exemplifies, PERSISTENCE! We’re a tough breed and I’ve learned that the writing community is more than a community of artists, it is a home away from home.

Welcome to the writing world F2k alumni! You completed lesson six, in the shroud of NANO, and now move on, to PERSISTENCE!