Happy New Year...To My Return!

The frozen Platte River

Prov. 7:19 “For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:”

Happy New Year…to my return

Well, that break went well, except I missed writing every day. I tried and I am committing myself to pulling out some of my fiction and working on it but my blog needs me, my friends need me. 

You might think I don’t see you suffering in pain, and you might think I’ve left you all behind never to spare another encouraging word but it is that need that pulled me back. I need you all as much as you need my encouraging words.

Again I am not pinpointing anyone out here; my words are for many who see themselves in what I say. Pain. Who doesn’t relate to that one? Sickness! Who can’t say they haven’t been warding off a sickness these past couple of months (if not years); Not many I’m sure. 

I realized something the other day and am quite honored to say that people respect me and expect a certain manner and moral compass from me. They look to me for inspiring and encouraging words and will quite surely make note of when I’ve veered off track.

I posted something on facebook the other day with a negative overtone. While everyone expects the positive and encouraging words from me, they are quick to call me on anything negative. It’s kind of funny though, for an entire year I watched people day after day (and still do) share negative and hate filled posts and no one calls them on spreading hate and negativity. They just bask in the glory of feeling good about themselves by sharing the hate with the world.

That’s when I realized something, people respect me so much and have come to expect a positive energy from me that when something appears to have a negative overtone they steer me back on the enlightened path. That’s when you know your words actually are having an effect on the masses. That’s when you know that you’ve touched the souls of many.

So by realizing people miss my words of encouragement, I of course do what I normally do and that is WRITE! I think you all miss my blog because it is like I am journaling and you like peeking in on all that is going on with my life and how much like your journey is to mine. Not in a bad nosey kind of way but a good concerned kind of way as you relate. You think to yourself, ‘I wonder how Joni is doing’ and maybe wonder what I do to get through the same pain-filled days you yourself might be trudging through. I think you might need that bit of encouragement that has left your reading days empty while I was away. 

I’m back. I can’t give up writing and I certainly can’t leave you all hanging in wonder. I’ve decided to take you on this journey of discovering my medical condition so I don’t feel so alone is the process of whatever is going on with my body. 

I’ll seek a doctor, I’ll get diagnosed and I’ll let you in on the homeopathic process I hope I’m allowed to take. The only way they can diagnose MS is through a spinal tap and just reading about it made me cringe, so that is a big no! An MRI okay, if it’s an open tube (I’m claustrophobic), if not, I’ll live with my disability as I’ve been doing for four almost five years now MED FREE! 

I have some stuff to share and no facebook post is enough space, I NEED my blog, I NEED to write, and most of all I NEED YOU, my friends who CARE about me. So come along on my continuing journey of Christ and see where it is I’m being led to now. If you’re reading this, like it or not, God called you along for the ride! 

My trees awakened by the morning sun!

A New Year ~ 2014

Pss. 65: 11 Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.

A New Year ~ 2014

My eyes shall see tomorrow

For today has gone away

A year that I put in the past

A new one’s come my way.

While others all celebrate

In partying lights galore

I’ll be home in quietness

Your peace for me I adore.

My eyes shall see tomorrow

I’ll face a brand new day.

With sunshine and happiness

That can never go away.

I’ll see the Light forthcoming

And it will shine from me.

Through works and salvation

I taste true purity.

Jer. 29:11-13 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Poetry Sunday ~ A New Year

Pss. 51: 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

A New Year

***

The New Year comes in a cool swift wind

Time for change in the hearts of men

Trees are bent some boughs are pinned

Seasonal snow once again.

The tides of change, a raging sea

Tossed me about this year of need

All my friends heard my plea

Reached out to me in blessed deed.

With twists and turns the year gave rise

Silent echoes stirred the night

Stars they dripped from the skies

An answer to, my inner plight.

My soul made whole by years end

The stormy sea now rests.

A new day unfolds, my body to mend

I embrace the new years quests!

***

Isa. 40: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Rom. 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Quotation Saturday

NEW YEAR

“Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...”
~ Alfred Tennyson

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
~ Neil Gaiman

“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.”
~ Brad Paisley

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”
~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.”
~ G.K. Chesterton

“Make New Year's goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come.

Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction.

What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed?

What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What would you like to have happen in your family life?

What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career?

Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go.

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.”
~ Melody Beattie

“The great miraculous bell of translucent ice is suspended in mid-air.

It rings to announce endings and beginnings. And it rings because there is fresh promise and wonder in the skies.

Its clear tones resound in the placid silence of the winter day, and echo long into the silver-blue serenity of night.

The bell can only be seen at the turning of the year, when the days wind down into nothing, and get ready to march out again.

When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart.

It is your immortal inspiration.”
~ Vera Nazarian 

“Faith is why I'm here today and faith is why I believe I can achieve something in my life.”
~ Jonathan Anthony Burkett,

“It is with each New Year that you realize: you’ve grown, you’ve matured, you’ve won the battle...of yet another year!”
~ Joni Zipp 

Happy New Year to all! 

My friends, my foes and everyone in between. 

May you have a blessed start to a New Beginning! 

I know I will!

Quotation Saturday ~ Happy NEW Year!

EASTER

Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there.
~Clarence W. Hall

The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world. Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice. But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice.
~Henry Knox Sherrill

Easter is the demonstration of God that life is essentially spiritual and timeless.
~Charles M. Crowe

On Easter Day the veil between time and eternity thins to gossamer.
~Douglas Horton

Celestial spirit that doth roll
The heart's sepulchral stone away,
Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul -
O gentle Master of the Wise,
Teach us to say: "I will arise."
~Richard Le Gallienne
 
The fasts are done; the Aves said;
The moon has filled her horn
And in the solemn night I watch
Before the Easter morn.
So pure, so still the starry heaven,
So hushed the brooding air,
I could hear the sweep of an angel's wings
If one should earthward fare.
~Edna Dean Proctor, "Easter Morning"

We live and die; Christ died and lived!
~John Stott
 
See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices...
~Charles Kingsley

God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.
~Robert South, Sermons
 
Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness.
~Floyd W. Tomkins

Easter is not the time to celebrate the Pagen holiday of bunnies, chocolate, candy and visiting a Church for the first time in the year. It is a time to celebrate life and the eternal blessing bestowed upon man from God! God is love, love God!
~ Joni Zipp

***

Today my Quotation Saturday is dedicated to Easter. I make no secrets here, I revel in Revelation of all I believe. Tomorrow, I celebrate my New Year and while some think it ‘weird’, others think. That’s right, they think!
 
Easter is not the time to think of Christ for the first time in the year, it is time to think of life, blossoming forth from the soil. It is where the dead meets the living and dances in your soul! It is a time to believe in something GREATER than your selfish self. A time to sacrifice. It may be the first time in your life you sacrifice a beer for water, ham for fish, beef for broccoli or anything worthy from your inner spirit that might not belong there. Sacrifice.
 
And if you find, that Jesus stands for everything loving, everything renewing, spiritually divine and prosperous in life and death, then you have found the Glory of God and all He is made of.

Matt. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
 
Matt. 7: 24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
 
[26] And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
 
Matt. 10: 27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.
 
Matt. 13: 9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

May you all have a spiritually uplifting day and May God Bless you!

Happy New Year!!!

Poetry Sunday ~ A Hazy New Year

A New Year
***
As all the people gather round
swigging drinks, guzzling them down
They hold the festive new year show
to move the calender to a new low.

They think it’s fine to wander from Him
for just this day to revel in sin.
As He sits right on their shoulder
they blink Him away, as blood gets colder.

They’ll praise His name the very next day
as the smell of beer lingers this way.
As all the folks try to look upright
The Lord Himself has bowed out of sight.

Justify why their breath has been poisoned
the wine with which their lips were moistened
Carry me from this hidden society
into a world of livid sobriety.

I sing a song of praise to You
as we embrace on Heavens hue.
Glowing Light shines forth for me
A New Years delight, for all to see!

***

Happy New Year
may it be full of blessings for you!



Judges: 13:4 Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:

***

Deut. 32:33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

The Year in Review

Pss. 6: [2] Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
***

Well I have to admit this has been a year of roller coaster riding. Up and down, then back up and then down.


January -- Found my dog hit by a car and for weeks I nursed her back to health. With ice packs, and the mounted up snowfall, January started off on the lower section of the roller coaster. The shoveling was taking its toll on my back, but I plowed right through. Hey, I’m young, right?


February- March -- Found my dog healing and finally the medicare kicked in for Steven and he was able to get to the eye doctors, one that God chose, not one that anyone had referred him to. We were high on the roller coaster now, things looked good from up here for a bit.


April-May -- These two months found us in high spirits with the opportunity arising that a cornea transplant would come soon. With a doctor visit; the physical was done, and now  he was on the transplant waiting list. We did just that, waited. And waited. In the meantime there was mowing to be done, a yard to tend to, weeds to pull, but the cold air was hanging on tightly and May was just too chilly to really get out there and sink my hands into the soil.


June-July -- These months warmed up nicely. Weeds were sprouting everywhere, so much so I could not keep up with them. Adam and I mowed and yanked weeds. I planted and pulled more weeds, and my back was crying in pain but I went on. You just pull your big girl pants on, swallow the pain and become friends with Mr. Heating pad! I’m not one who likes to pop pills to relieve pain, so just some stretching exercises and nice relaxing days.


August- September -- Ahh the start of school! I had to get Adam in for a dentist appointment. He got a cleaning and two small fillings, then a clean bill of health. The school year started off on a good note this year and he’s been doing pretty good with his grades. I guess home schooling all those years before high school made him a well adjusted teen. Good job! Here we were still waiting on the cornea transplant to arrive and the long summer wait was now turning into a Fall wait and see. Patience my friend, patience.


October -- We got the long awaited call...the cornea had arrived. On the 10th, the operation took place and after an initial scare, which took us to Omaha five times in the month. My back was beginning to feel the pressure and an excruciating toothache held me captive the entire month. The month ended with sight restored and an amazing miracle as Steven could see his hometown in full color after two and a half years of being blind!


November -- This was the month that as Steven healed, my body crumbled. I had a tooth extracted, but the infection in my mouth was needling at the nerves in my back. A back x-ray showed that I had facet-joint arthritis and as I looked into more info on it, it flares up in the presence of an infection in the body. The dentist didn’t think the pain in my back related to the infection in my mouth, but then again she had no idea that I had arthritis which is just another name for inflammation.


December -- Found me at the dentist again with some not so great news. Close to ten grand needed but a down payment would get me and all the work needed started. She may have sympathy on me and possibly only 4500 will be needed but still she says this to a woman who hasn’t a penny to her name. I am poor, and found myself actually begging for my life. Literally.
Where is Steven in all of this? Well, he is on Social Security, and medicare, and if not for medicare, medicaid and the Lions Club, he would not have been seeing all the lights this Christmas. It will take a year of healing, and possibly the sutures on the cornea may not be taken out; the doc will watch him closely for a year.


I’ll end the year not knowing what tomorrow will bring or the New year, but I can say, I AM BLESSED! My family of writers/ artists, my church family have all surrounded me and comforted and help me in ways, you can only dream about. I am loved. And the year isn’t over!


I will rejoice in the New Year. I hold my head high and rejoice in the Lord and Savior, for it is He who carries me through each and every day!!! I WILL heal and I will come back fighting to the writing world! But for now... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!


Read more at: BenningsWritingPad

Quotation Saturday ~ Happy New Year

~HAPPY NEW YEAR~

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
 ~ Bill Vaughn 
 

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ”
~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

“New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights 
~ Hamilton Wright Mabie 

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~ T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

“The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul”
~ G. K. Chesterton

“People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas”

~ Author Unknown

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
~ Benjamin Franklin
 

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
~Hal Borland

The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!
~Edward Payson Powell
 

Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth.
~ Martin Luther

A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~ Edgar Guest
 

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
~Oscar Wilde