Endurance

The wheel... has endured the test of time

2 Cor. 4:16 "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."

Endurance

This post was going to be titled I’m Done, had it been written and posted yesterday. Instead, I chose to close down, go inside my head and feel the angst that I was being asked to endure. 

I had an extremely stressed filled month with my son seeking a job, the death in the family from chemo no less (I’m from the school cancer doesn’t kill, chemo does), and then there was hubby and his needed eye doctor appointment and a dental visit. Then there was me tossed in the middle with my illness and need to pick a new doctor. 

All of this came flurrying around my face like confetti from the sky. I blew it away as a wayward strand of hair falling in my face, but the stress had mounted and I could feel the shift, the pain, the hurt. I was trying so hard but it all came crashing around me and I was about ready to give up. I’m done, I said, I’m just done!

My thoughts and feelings were getting hard to catalog. I could not compartmentalize them, I had to face each one head on, I had to endure. I woke this morning with a swift slap in the face with a God moment. My Encouragement For The Day came via my Bible Gateway message. 

This is what greeted me today, first thing in the quiet of the morning:

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)

Wow, this is one not to be scanned over real quick; I was forced to read it after that intro. I went through word after word, the writer was a twenty-five-year breast cancer survivor and now after all of these years she’s faced with her daughter having to go through the same exact illness. She couldn’t protect her daughter from this event, they would just have to endure it, together. I’ll hit the high points of the email: Suffering produces endurance, Endurance produces character, character produces hope. 

There it is in a nutshell HOPE! I woke to hope! Yesterday I was done, I was giving up, I was just ready to shove a slice of pizza in my face, stop all supplements, have everyone laugh at me and say I told ya so, and I was making plans in my head to go home, to my Heavenly Home, that is. And I woke to this message of hope. What am I supposed to do with that? Endure and have continued hope is what!

2 Cor. 4:17-18 (KJV) “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Stress level on a scale of one to ten – nine! let’s go over it:

Me- In need of finding a doctor for this serious illness invading my body. (more on that in later posts)

My son – He found a really good job making good money and a week after he started, he asked for a week vacation at the end of July; a vacation to go to Kentucky to meet online friends. That’s what I taught him, run off and meet your online friends. He’s twenty-one and I cannot stop this train from going down the track, I have my own stress and seriously don’t need this, but it is what it is. He has a hard-as-a-rock head on his shoulders and I can’t say anything. (wow, he’s just like his mother!)

My hubby - An eye doctor’s appointment went well, but the eye doctor of eight years told us this would be the last time we’d see him. Shock, hurt, memories, everything came through the floodgates!

A funeral – Need I say more? His aunt succumbed to chemo.

The dentist – No insurance and a filling it wasn’t meant to be. I won’t say any more than that. This was the tip of the iceberg of a stressful month. Especially when the (doctor’s wife, hygienist) looked at me and asked if I was my husbands' mother. Insult after insult (my brother-in-law writes too, as a hobby, she says.) “Good thing you weren’t working so you could drive your husband to all of the doctor’s appointments.”  Slice after slice, cut, chop, throw me to the wolves. The wolf being a gray-haired, forty-five-year-old overworked mother. I was her target for the day and wonder how she even has the job she has.

I left in tears, wanting to just go home to the Lord. I’m done, I can’t handle this. I can’t handle all of the doubts coming through via my screen from people who say they support me but are really living Doubting Thomas’! The message of what to eat vs. what not to eat, what to take and what not to take, email after email asking to buy this cure in a bottle. No money has me deleting the majority of the supplement spiel.

I woke to find the email telling me to endure. To be filled with hope during a most trying time. To have faith where others wane. To stand tall and muddle through this thickened mire. It is my job to give hope and here I was being filled. I need a break from stress and worry. I need to stand in a downpour and release all that ails me. I need to embrace the journey and walk with hope in my hand.

The Holy Spirit flowing through us is God and His earthly blood/waters running through our veins. There is no doubting in the floodwaters. There may be pain, there sure will be stress, you’ll face trials of ignorance from the outside world but you’ll find the strength in God to endure, whatever it is you have to endure to get through another day.

Isa. 26:4 (KJV) “Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:”

I give all praise and Glory to God! 

Alleluia AMEN!

Quotation Saturday

Eph. 4:18 “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:”

NEGATIVE

“Save your skin from the corrosive acids from the mouths of toxic people. Someone who just helped you to speak evil about another person can later help another person to speak evil about you.” 
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Bloodshed begets bloodshed. Hatred begits hatred.” 
― Hiromu Arakawa

“Thoughts are like an open ocean, they can either move you forward within its waves, or sink you under deep into its abyss.”
― Anthony Liccione

“Beware of those who are bitter, for they will never allow you to enjoy your fruit.” 
― Suzy Kassem

POSITIVE

“When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” 
― Ashley Smith

“Do not dilute the truth of your potential. We often convince ourselves that we cannot change, that we cannot overcome the circumstances of our lives. That is simply not true. You have been blessed with immeasurable power to make positive changes in your life. But you can't just wish it, you can't just hope it, you can't just want it... you have to LIVE it, BE it, DO it.” 
― Steve Maraboli,

“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.” 
― Roy Bennett

IGNORANCE

“Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know.” 
― Eoin Colfer

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” 
― Daniel J. Boorstin

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” 
― Harlan Ellison

TOLERANCE

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.” 
― Lloyd Shearer

“It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” 
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.” 
― Albert Einstein

“Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.” 
― Malcolm X

Quotation Saturday ~ Humanity

Pss.10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

HUMANITY

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.”
~ Rick Riordan

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
~ Leo Tolstoy

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
~ Oscar Wilde

EQUALITY

“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?"
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.”
~ Joss Whedon

“Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.”
~ Dorothy L. Sayers

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”
~ Douglas Adams

TOLERANCE

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.”
~ Lloyd Shearer

“It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
~ Hermann Hesse

“It's a universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged”
~ Rumi

“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”
~ Albert Einstein

PREJUDICE

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
~ Charlotte Brontë

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

Prov. 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.”

The Ebola Scare

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Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things."

The Ebola Scare

Does even the name make you cringe? Here in recent news this is all you ever hear about, Ebola. I think people get scared because as in anything we don’t know a thing about and what we do know is all spoon fed to us via media outlets who are often one sided.

Are you the kind of person that when something serious happens, you want to know all the information you can about the event? You sit sometimes for hours seeking out news, listening to people, digging through fact-finding websites just so you can get some kind of handle on the situation?

It’s been an interesting month in the Ebola crisis. It began with U.S. missionaries flown here for treatment over the past summer, they were treating Ebola patients and came down with the disease and were brought back to America to be treated, then it went to a man Thomas Eric Duncan who came into the country with Ebola, and now two nurses are fighting the disease because they took care of Mr. Duncan.

Here’s what we know about the Ebola scare:

According to the World Health Organization, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has sickened 8,399 people since March, killing 4,033 of them -- making it one of the worst outbreaks of the virus in history.

We know that two nurses that had close contact with Duncan have now been diagnosed with Ebola and finally after two and a half weeks of exposure to the outside world, the 75 or more attendants of Duncan are being asked to have limited contact with the outside world.

Due to the lackadaisical attitude of the CDC and of the nurses who treated Duncan, Americans are now fearful of where the disease will show up next. I say fearful because the illness knows no bounds and I feel the Center for Disease Control is not as in control as they would like us to believe.

They are the people who didn’t restrict the nurses from boarding planes, jumping on a Cruise ship and exposing possibly hundreds of people to the disease. Why wasn’t after every single worker that came into contact with Duncan told they had to restrict contact with others for 21 days? Because of the inconvenience to this very selfish society? To me, it’s a very ignorant response to a lethal killing machine.

Then there is the lying factor. First, Duncan did not tell anyone he had come in close contact with a woman who died from Ebola. He exposed everyone on the plane but because he didn’t have symptoms, he ignorantly thought he was exempt from spreading the disease. He told the hospital the very first time he came in with a fever that he had just come back from the infected Liberia, but they sent him home.

He goes home and comes in contact with three residents living in the house, whom we’ve not heard a peep about since they were put in isolation. He is rushed back to the hospital, VERY sick, and is in contact with unprotected nurses and doctors again, who then finally diagnose him. He’s carted off to isolation and later dies.

We know the Dallas Texas hospital was not capable of handling such an infectious disease and instead of notifying a more capable hospital, only FOUR in the country, the ego won out and the hospital sat on a high horse claiming, “We got this handled!”

They DID NOT have the sources to care for the disease and because of their ignorance many are coming down with the disease. The country is blaming Obama for letting people into this country, pointing fingers at people for this and for that all the while the Ebola scare is becoming a real possible epidemic.

I blame the selfish ignorant people who sat on a high horse thinking they were exempt from such a disease even though they KNEW full well that they had been in contact with a contagious man, therefore possibly sharing their disease with hundreds of others. The spoon-fed smiling faces of the infected do not fool me into thinking I’m exempt!

Satan has got us in his hands. People are fearing, lying, ashamed, hiding facts, being selfish and thinking of only themselves and their pleasure. They are killing, raping, beating and devouring the very essence of morality in record proportions.

I have a funny feeling that people are going to be turning to their faith, any faith, flocking to the churches and finding peace while hiding from pain and fear of this retribution. These are the times I read about and the times I’ve prepared my soul for in the grand scheme of things. May the Lord God be with you all.

Isa. 52:10 The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Quotation Saturday

FAITH

He who has faith has... an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well - even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.
~B.C. Forbes

Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with. His mind was created for his own thoughts, not yours or mine. 
~Henry S. Haskins

Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. And lo, no one was there.
~Author Unknown
 
Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.
~Victor Hugo

Faith is raising the sail of our little boat until it is caught up in the soft winds above and picks up speed, not from anything within itself, but from the vast resources of the universe around us.
~W. Ralph Ward

BOLDNESS

Few novels or plays could exist without at least one troublemaker in the group, and perhaps life couldn't either.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
 
Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution. 
~Francis Bacon

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older.
~Michel de Montaigne, translated
 
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
~Theodore Roosevelt

IGNORANCE

Before we work on artificial intelligence why don't we do something about natural stupidity?
~Steve Polyak
 
You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do.
~Norman Juster

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
~Mark Twain

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
~P.J. O'Rourke

THE WICKED

Gen. 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
 
Ex. 23:1 Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.
 
2 Sam. 4: 11 How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?
 
2 Sam 22:22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

RIGHTEOUS

1 Tim 6:11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
 
Phil 1:11 Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
 
Tit. 2:12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
 
Rev. 22:11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

I'm Done...I Move on...

I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. ~Booker T. Washington
***

Well I’m done with it all. I’m done being attacked, spit on on, trashed and made to feel like an incompetent piece of crap. I am, and I know it, a much better person than that, and I, like all of you, deserve respect. We live in such a hateful world, that I think moving on is best for all involved.

I was raised to sweep everything under the rug. Never confront an issue, keep it all hidden, be pleasant always, therefore pretending, supporting things that you just don’t believe in. Well, when I was sexually assaulted at a young age and my elders did nothing, (swept it under the rug like the good soldiers they themselves were raised to do) Joni developed something new at the ripe old age of fourteen. I gave my life to God and asked HIM to guide me.

Wouldn’t ya know it, He wanted me open and honest? Truthful and trustworthy? He had me forgive my assailant and I did, quickly moving on in life. I found joy in writing because it was a form of releasing all my pains and heartaches, it was my way of dealing with such a sad life that I had gotten myself into.

The recent events had me reliving past events where evil entered into my (or tried to) life and made me feel incompetent. When something is not from God, I have no other name for it. And when it attacks me, it is not from a good solid foundation based on the Lord, that’s for sure.

I confronted the issue while everyone else cowered and climbed in their shell and just wanted it to pass over like a toxic radiation cloud. Can toxic radiation really pass over, without causing any harm? Well I was not about to let it ‘pass over’ me and destroy me, instead I opened the door of ‘communication’ so the problem could be resolved.

Again I was attacked, again I was the bad guy, but all in all, I’m good because now I see this person(s) for who they really are. They play the pity card well, they have all their ducks in a row and are happy and content with that and I wish them nothing but godspeed.

I am not a bitter person, I don’t hold grudges and allow them to cling like leaves to wet pavement. My best bet is to move on, be done with it all and find a new place. I don’t like being judged, and won’t allow the torture that my psyche has had to endure. I am moving on to save myself.

I am an adult, I at least expect my elders to act like adults. When I find that they really can’t...then I move on.

Love and hugs to all who have supported me and comforted me. Those who KNEW what *I* went through and were there for me, I thank you. May you all have a blessed day.

Next up: Quotation Saturday.... godspeed...

The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less. ~Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 1968

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.