Gateway to Health: The Mind

Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (NIV)

Gateway to Health: The Mind 

Today we’re going to venture into the power of the mind, the weak mind and the powerful mind. Please note, a weak mind does not in any way mean a weak person, it just means you don’t have a powerful mind. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think the mind works in an optimistic or pessimistic flow of thoughts. A powerful minded person is usually an optimist, who sees healing powers whereas a weaker minded person is a pessimist and doesn't necessarily believe the mind holds any power.

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” 
― Marcus Aurelius

I know there’s a scripture that says there is strength in numbers.

Ecc. 4:9 “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour."

Matt 18:20 KJV “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

In context, strength in numbers means people out of context suppose it means THOUGHTS.  Two [thoughts] are better than one.

Where two [positive thoughts] are gathered together…

Think about it. The world would be a much better place if optimism ran rampant in the minds of humans. Such as it is pessimism [is not realism] it is negativism! Doubt and fear are humanistic but fear and doubt are not of God and all He stands for. Being born a pessimist is quite hard to change, just as being an optimist has its hurdles too, but the mind IS a powerful thing to waste.

“Any fear is an illusion. You think something is standing in the way, but nothing is really there. What is there, is an opportunity to do your best and gain some success. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
~ Michael Jordan

The gift of disease can be a blessing to the optimist, devastating to the pessimist. Where I see a time to change, they see a time to give in and give up. Where I, an optimist, see my diagnosis as a positive change, a blessing, to the pessimist they will see a diagnosis as the end of the line, a curse to reckon with.

When I got the diagnosis almost a year ago to the day I asked two oncologists, an M.D. and a P.A a question. If I don’t for one minute believe chemo will work for me, will it work? All four said, “Absolutely NOT!” They all agreed that the mind is very powerful and what I think and believe will shape the outcome.

So when someone (usually pessimists) questions the route I’m taking, I point them directly to my BELIEF that this is healed and the path is already laid out, I’m just following the yellow brick road, so to speak. I obviously have a very strong mind. I sleep eight hours, of good restful sleep, I exercise, eat right and healthy and am an eternal optimist!

The doctors tried to use fear to get me to succumb to their line of treatment. We NEED to slice, dice and radiate you! NOW, we can’t wait, the longer you wait the less chance you have of survival. “Okay. Doc,” I said, “I’ll take my chances with faith.”
Some (pessimist) see this as crazy. Faith doesn’t mean to carry a serious diagnosis like this lightly, is what they think. Then I’ll ask them, just what DOES faith mean to you? 

I read the link from The Truth About Cancer, if you also scrolled to the bottom and read the comments, the one lady says how this is not a gift, it is tiring always looking over your shoulder and hoping. Sad to say, but I don’t feel that all the supplements in the world are going to heal that woman. I read too much negativity from her and she sounds like a pessimist at heart.

If you are a pessimist [realist, whatever you call yourself] there is no easy alternative treatment for you. Go to the doctor, believe your doctor and your doctor will heal you, or at least the drugs you think will can. I am an optimist, I don’t believe for one second a doctor or his drugs can heal me and I have every ounce of faith that my Eternal Healer has already healed me. This does not make me right and you wrong it makes us different, just the way God designed us to be, different.

Pss. 143:5 “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.”

The mind is very powerful. I believe the nation is in the troubles it is in because of the culmination of negative thinkers, the pessimists of the world. Pessimists, by no fault of their own mind you, but by the very power of negative thinking have shaped the world with their doubt and hate. The collective conscience of society has had a detrimental effect on society as a whole. 

While I see the positive beauty in the world, I see hope filtering through from behind a veil obscured from view, yet the negativity shines in the night as a planetarium; it is full of light in the darkness of the cosmos, not the other way around.

Through my Gateway to Health series, I will try and lead you all onto a lighted path. A healthy mind is ESSENTIAL to healing! Please leave your pessimism at the door I just mopped the floor. If you are not willing to TRY and change (I’m not talking about religion here, I’m talking MIND) then you really don’t want to be here. I’m all about ooey gooey optimism and the power of positive thinking. Granted I live for my Lord, positivity can be had believing in light, love and spirituality.  The choice is yours, not mine, I’ve already made MY choice. 

Next up: Spirituality and Meditation

Be Still...

Pss. 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.”

Silence

Have you ever tried listening to the sound of God’s voice? Try as you might you can’t because of all of the noise surrounding you. Sure you’re alone in the house, windows and doors closed, your place is silent but it is so silent that you can hear a clock ticking, a refrigerator humming, a car passing outside, sirens blaring, winds stirring, or your neighbors hanging a picture. Where is the silence in that?

Being ‘still’ is not just about sitting completely still and then waiting to hear God’s voice. You need to be in complete silence where this day and age, complete silence is fleeting. Even in the woods, there is no silence as birds call out, trees sway in the wind, leaves are rustling, water sometimes flows downstream, and silence is always disrupted by a noise. While nature has a host of sounds they’re not as distracting as life away from nature but not everyone can live surrounded by nature, now can they?

To seek and find God’s voice in the murmurings of the day, to hear His voice you need to hear nothing but silence, be still and breathe in the silence of the moment. Try it, can you? For fifteen minutes a day can you turn off the distractions of work, the computer, the washer, the noise, can you find silence somewhere in your day? You think you can but there will always be a noise to distract you and pull you away from God’s voice whispering in your ear.

I think I realize why I love the cold snowy season so much. For the very reason that out in the middle of nowhere, where I’m located, the snow renders the farms silent, the only sounds are the wind, even the trains often heard in the distance become silenced. It is during these times I can have a most meditative walk with nature and listen for God to whisper in my ear. It is at these times I talk to him too in a most silent and peaceful surrounding; I feel as if I’m touching a little bit of heaven.

I think humans are a lot like trick-or-treaters on Halloween. First of all, they dress up and put on a costume for the world outside their home to see; then they’re always going from house to house, city to city, job to job searching for a treat of some sort to make them happy, a quick-fix so to speak. For some reason, they cannot find the overwhelming peace that is needed to get through a day nevertheless a month or year. While I understand that not everyone is open to God or even cares to listen out for Him, they seem unhappy at any event that passes in their life. They claim happiness but deep inside when it comes down to it when they rest their head on the pillow at night, sleep eludes them.

They’ll blame medication, they’ll blame insomnia, they’ll point fingers at the noise of the stirring of the cauldron but they won’t blame themselves for the inability to find peace. The world is addicted to noise that distracts people from finding inner peace, from finding that still small voice of God.

I’ve always been a person who prayerfully meditates, listening for that still place of peace where I hear the words of God, and I do understand that not everyone has the ability to find that place because of all the noise, noise, noise. Yeah, I may have channeled Dr. Seuss on that one but you understand. You’ve tried without success to be still, but it is hard to be found oftentimes because our minds are the loudest noises we hear. You find yourself over-thinking a situation, a bible verse, a chore, a drive, or maybe loneliness. Those are noises that need to be quieted.

Now that I’m among millions in the throes of an illness, I seek even harder to find that silence brewing inside of me. Without my prayer and meditation, I would’ve never embarked on the journey of alternative treatment. I feel with every fiber of my being that God placed me on this path because He too knew I was ready. I cannot speak for others and their journey, or to those who have no God, I can only speak for myself because right at this moment in time, this is MY journey.

I try to share my journey with you so you can see that while I am one of the sinners and noisemakers of the day, I find that still small voice of God trumpeting in my ear for me to come and follow Him and it is only then that I can find solace in my healing journey. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory but I tell you now, even if it is the last resort for you, finding yourself at the mercy of Gods feet will find you some peace in moving forward on the railways of life. May you find the peace that a still small voice will give to you.

Pss. 32:7 "Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah."

The Ten Commandments to Kill The Toxic Invader

Ps. 9:2 "I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High."

The Ten Commandments

To Kill The Toxic Invader

1) Open a vein and look inside the window to your life. Observe yourself and all of the past open wounds that have been seeping all of these years. If you feel scarred, you will feel glass separate you from your inner self, the you in your past. Look deep within your relationships, go back in time to nurture, face and heal those intimate sections of your life that might have been buried. Look at what shames you and causes you to turn your head if people were to know the truth that you’ve burdened yourself with. What guilt do you carry around with you that has kept you from healing that part of the child, the teenager, the woman? Look at the stress and all of the ugly pain associated with that part of your life. Number one will be the hardest thing you face in this healing journey. You know what they say, ‘One is the loneliest number.’ 

2) Be honest with yourself. If you’re going to stand and look in the window and see a perfect person, who knew no sin, then you are the toxic invaders next victim! Honesty is a healer. It can slowly stitch up the severed portion of your skin so it can begin scabbing over and healing completely with no scar left behind. Yes, that’s right, no scar left behind! Be honest in your healing, the non-truth will only hurt you. You’re the one that needs to heal.

3) Change… the norm! Change your fears, change your shame, change your diet, embrace a new you. There are going to be many challenges and changes in every way, shape, and form, literally. Two years from now you’ll look back at this time and wonder who you are right now. You won’t be staring in the window of a traumatized person, you will be looking into the face of a healed wounded soul. Change your way of thinking. Change your food, change your water, change everything from pots and pans to the soaps and shampoo you use. Now is the time for change…drastic change!

4) Pray and meditate! To whatever you believe in, now is the time to pray. My earnest faithful prayer is toward God in heaven. If you’ve ever read any of my blog posts, you will know, God is first and foremost in my life. Without Him, I would never attempt alternative treatment. If Jesus isn’t everything to you, then He is nothing to you. If healing is taking place in you then you know what it feels like to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe. 

Meditation also brings the healing to the surface as it slowly simmers the blood in your veins. You face what has leaked into your body to cause the cells damage head-on, you face the trauma in you with the One and only healer. I cannot attest to any healing taking place if you believe in nothing. All the diet change in the world won’t save you, it might be able to help you deal with chemo, but that is NOT an alternative route to healing this disease.

5) Just say no! We all have the power to say no, but we all know that sometimes we can be weak and never say no to anyone or anything. Take for example our food choices, we know they’re no good for us, our doctor has warned us, you’ve read about the dangers but you still reach for tempting, heart-damaging, health ravaging toxins. Say no to chemo, so no to oncologists that only believe in the almighty dollar. Believe in the power of real healing and you’ll begin to feel a real healing taking place. The only way to accomplish that is Just Say No! 

6) Research. Research your heart out. You might feel overwhelmed with information but then you’ll need to surround yourself with supportive like-minded individuals. The more research you do, the more empowered you’ll feel in your fight against naysayers who think you’re crazy. The more empowered you feel the more doorways to healing present themselves and God Himself walks beside you allowing channels to miraculously open that you thought might have been closed off to you. 
As the months' pass, you’ll feel the best you’ve ever felt. Pounds will shed like dandruff, food will have an enhanced flavor, skin and hair will take on a new luxurious look. While other cancer patients are falling ill, vomiting, sick in pain, you’ll be feeling great and wondering why more people haven’t gone this route. Fear, they fear the stigma surrounding the diagnosis, not the disease itself.

7. Supplements. Your body has announced over the bullhorn to you that you're sick, something’s not right and the noise and static have starched you into attention. Your cells are screaming out that they’re damaged and need repair. The symptoms have been clawing at you year after year, your instincts have been poking you with an icepick for you can’t remember how long, you’ve waited and waited it out and the problem never went away. Now with your immune system shot, your cells are done, they’re dying. Unless you save them! SAVE the cells you’re blessed with! Wake up and take charge, seize the very moment you’ve been given. Your doctor might want to hand you drugs and you readily take them because after all, he is a doctor. If he/she has heard of supplementation, ask if they are willing to work with herbs and vitamins BEFORE the drugs. They will, of course, say they can’t because they don’t know enough about them. It’s okay, you know why? Because you have already read through number six and are now aware of more than when you walked into the doctor's office.

If it is a matter of life and death: like you’ve had a heart attack and they need you to take medication to live, then by all means, listen to your doctor. If he tells you that you have the Big C, that leads us right to number eight.

8. Never fear! The word cancer in and of itself conjures fear. WHY, because everyone has lost someone to this disease. They’ve never heard of or known that there was another way to healing, why? Because of fear. The doctors' race in with the fear tactic even when you’re stage one, non-invasive. Did you know there are four stages? Why would a doctor tell a young mother who has found a rice size lump that she is going to die if she doesn’t get that piece of rice slaughtered out of her breast? Then they’ll radiate her to make sure they got it all and more times than not, they NEVER get it all. That’s because the tests, the digging, the radiating, the chemo all cause the C cells to spread. They don’t tell you that do they? No, they sure don’t. They tell you they got it all, send you and your drugs on their merry way and if you’ve done nothing to change your life, I can guarantee the C will resurface. But because of the research, you did in number six, you no longer live in fear!

9. Repair. Do everything and anything, legal or illegal to save your own life because rest assured there is nobody going to do it for you. Everyone is out for their own selves in this dog eat dog world, so save yourself with the love and strength of God and most importantly keep the faith in healing. Repair the inside and outside of you with all of the above tools. Fight like you’ve never been in a boxing ring but are well prepared to go a few rounds. Come out fighting and believe you're winning!

10. Rejoice! This is one you’ll want to do every day that you wake up alive and get to look in your husband or son’s eyes. Another day to be with the ones you love who are there for you in your world, making your concern their priority. You’ll want to rejoice in your healing. Praise God for the opportunities in front of you. You need to REJOICE in the midst of doubt and fear; wash off the dirty sediment that fear tries to sling at you. Rejoice in being alive. You are HEALING! Live it! BELIEVE it!!!

God Bless You!

A rock God placed in my path! 

Overwhelmed? Take it to God!

Blizzard of 2009

talk about overwhelming

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV), “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 

Overwhelmed

Have you ever been overwhelmed? Here lately my pain has overwhelmed me to the point of frustration and I don’t like that part of me, angry Joni.  The holiday took more out of me than I thought; I felt exhausted, tired and just totally done with the world. So what did I do, I took a time of rest! Something slashed me right across the face; maybe it was the 26 degrees below zero wind chilling temps?

While I love the cold I cannot and will not embrace extremely bitter, skin scarring, back biting cold. The winds alone feel like little shards of glass being plunged into your skin and any part of you that is exposed will surely freeze on impact and bleed when you thaw, so I stayed inside. While I consider myself somewhat of a recluse, the walls begin to close in on you and smother you in the bitterness of the season.

Top that off with a chronic pain and you have a recipe for disaster waiting to spin out of control and spit in the face of anyone that gets in your path. I try not to allow my pain to get that out of control and what is my saving grace? Well God of course. Prayerful meditation.

I realize that when people become so overwhelmed with say (snow) work, classes, bills, pain; their ability to fight is hidden and they shut down and give in to the ‘okay, you win’, worry and stressing about the overwhelming event, if you can call it that. It is what it is and that is LIFE. 

The only way that the events in life stop is if we die, and well, we don’t want that to happen, so what do we do? We deal with everything on a daily basis, sometimes by the seconds of the day and we need our prayerful meditations to just snuggle us tightly and get us through our life event. 

You know how people have huge walk-in-closets where they store everything but the kitchen sink? Yeah, I don’t have one of those. And then there are some smaller more reasonably sized closets; yeah I don’t have one of those either. Then there are the broom closets where you pack all of your junk in there until the walls are about to explode; yeah, I have one of those!

I’m telling you now, the bigger the closet the more problems of being overwhelmed you’ll encounter. People tend to hoard their life in a walk-in-closet when they only have a pantry size cupboard, that is when the overwhelming sneaks up on you and you burst. What to do? Take it to God and leave it in his mansion. He has plenty of room but you know what, He doesn’t store your problems or hide them or pile them back on top of you when you least expect it, nope He carries your junk effortlessly to the shores and places them by the sea. You see where I’m going with this? 

Have you ever watched waves crash on the shores? I remember when I was small we used to go to Ocean City, Maryland. I’d build sandcastles right close to the water but not too close for the waves to come and wash my beautiful creation away. By nightfall, the tide had moved in and my sandcastle became a part of the sea, no longer a part of me. 

That is what happens to our problems when we take them to God instead of storing them in our closets. He places them at the waters edge and it takes very little time for the hoarded problems to wash away. 

The other night I had a dream, one where our landlord came to the house for an inspection. The first thing he did was looked in our closets and started moving stuff around telling me that this closet needs to be organized. I woke with the overwhelming sensation of needing (no not cleaning out my closets!) but to organize my problems and prepare to load them up and take them to where God was standing and waiting for me to unload the accumulated junk in my life.(worries, problems, pain, stress) 

Sometimes we wait for a deadline to come upon us then turn to God when we should have been turning to God all along. We might think, ‘oh this is just a small problem (whether it is pain, bills, a dilemma) that we can handle on our own’, but we soon realize via the intensity, we’ve stuffed our closet to the max and there is no room. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve taken so much to God that I feel I overwhelm HIM and can handle the small things on my own. Boy, was I ever wrong! Like I said, He has a mansion the size of an ocean to store your problems, to Him they are but a grain of sand. Have you ever seen a grain of sand? To me, it is smaller than a grain of salt. To Him, my problems must be smaller than a grain of sand!

Don’t be afraid to take the small stuff to Him. Allow him to organize that closet to where your little pantry looks like a humongous walk-in closet upon opening and allow the sea breeze to swiftly wash over your face lifting your hair in a whoosh to carry your problems away.

It’s that simple, take your overwhelming worries to God. Don’t hoard the small stuff either, it just clutters the closet. ;) 

Matt. 6:6 “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Meditation

Ezek. 13:3 “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!”

Meditation is not some new aged practice; actually it has been around for thousands of years practiced by many different faiths including Christians around the world. As early as the book of Genesis (for you Christians) you can see that Isaac meditated. (Gen. 24:7)

Pss.1:2 “But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

I’ve meditated for quite a few years now because it is one way I use to put my mind to rest. I remember seeing a meme recently that said something like 'for those who go right to bed and fall right to sleep, don’t you have thoughts?' Well my quick response was: yes, but I leave my thoughts outside the door so I CAN sleep. And I sleep peacefully for eight hours, thank you very much.

Meditate:
to engage in thought or contemplation; reflect.
to engage in transcendental meditation, devout religious contemplation, or quiescent spiritual introspection.

What helps me in my meditation is the fact that I carry good thoughts; an optimist if you will. I meditate on the Word and reflect the word in my actions. It is easier for me to love than to hate. When people say they can’t/won’t meditate I have to wonder, is their mind so full of hate that they don’t have good thoughts to think about?

I try my best to steer clear of those who love and hate at the same time. They show love on one side of the fence but on the other side they show so much hate and rage I wonder how they even sleep at night, or do they?

Some people may call me a snob but I am far from it; I am not better than anyone. Because I choose love over hate is a choice of mine and I only wish more people knew the benefits that result from living a life of love. Jesus taught us to love and how to love but people put their own spin on what they deem as love. Kind of makes me wonder what else they misinterpret.

When people say they are seeking a spiritual path I have to ask, what are you doing? Are you placing more love and good in your life that over rides all that hate that fills you on a daily basis? If the answer is no then you are seeking the wrong path. Your actions speak volumes as to the path you are headed down and I only wish a boulder wasn’t blocking your way to finding what you seek.

Pss. 63:6 “When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.”

Meditating in the night watches to me means when I lay my head down to rest at night, my thoughts are all on Him and a peaceful night of sleep follows as I rest in His words. Some people have no other thoughts than thoughts of this material world that keep their mind roaming and unfocused. Thoughts of bills, food and all that is wrong with the world will keep any sane man or woman awake at night. 

Following a spiritual path doesn’t mean that you try meditating once and give up when your weakness allows you to lose focus. Meditating has to become an hourly part of your day where you focus on good, light, love throughout the day so the positive thoughts can carry you through a restful nights sleep.

I’m not saying that when I get older I won’t develop insomnia of some sort but right now, I’m not older and meditation is what has gotten me to this point of peacefulness that washes over me and I carry with me throughout the days of my life. 

What, you don’t think I have problems, bills and things to take my mind in places I dare not let it go? You’re wrong. I have a world of problems that could consume my thoughts but I won’t let ANYTHING take my thoughts away from God. The world is going to hell in a handbag and there is not one thing negative that I can say that will change that. 

Am I supposed to be filled with anger and rage because of the status of the world? The status of religions? The killing and hatemongering that will continue to consume man until he falls into the pit of hellfire?

The only thing that can fight hate is LOVE. This is what Jesus was trying to show us. The world is going and we’re going with it unless we fight with LOVE. Jesus’ message was not to HATE but to LOVE.

You can put your theological spin on the matter just as well as I can. I am not naïve, I am a child of God and will declare love until my very last breath because THAT is what Jesus would do, and that is what Jesus DID!

You can ask any one of the spiritual people that you may know, whether of the Christian faith or any other faith, spirituality is all about LOVE. To be filled with hate is to demean spirituality. Man cannot serve God AND mammon. You must serve one and know the difference in the lines you CHOOSE to cross. (note: God IS Spirit.)

Don’t call yourself a spiritual seeker and seek out what you can hate on any given day. Don’t call yourself a Christian if it is two masters that you serve. Don’t wear a mask that you think people want to see, show them the real you. If you’re not willing to show the world the real you, then take a look in the mirror and see what you don’t like and work to change it for YOU. Then show the world the you that you can be sure of.

Pss. 119:48 “My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.”

Meditation will drive you down the path of spiritual awakening that you seek. If you can’t let go of the hate in your heart, you are not ready to be awakened to the spiritual side we were destined to be a part of.  Do the world a favor and stay asleep, which leaves more room for those who are awake to actually SEEK the righteous path.

1 Tim. 4:15 “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.”

False Prophets

Discernment comes when you meditate on the word of God day and night. The Spirit reaches into your soul and fills you with the truth that only He can give. False prophets tell you what you want to hear and more times than not, it is lies.

“An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign…. “ (Matthew 12:39)

Matt. 12:39 (KJV) But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas”

“…I hate every false way.” (Psalm 119:128b)

Pss.119:126 (KJV) It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law.
[127] Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.
[128] Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.
[129] Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them.
[130] The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
[131] I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for thy commandments.
[132] Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.
[133] Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
[134] Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep thy precepts.
[135] Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; and teach me thy statutes.
[136] Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.
[137] Righteous art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments.

People seem to tune into every wind of doctrine that a pastor, leader or Church sermon can lay at their feet. If we are so easily swayed how then will we know when it is the Lord who is speaking to us?

I see so many boasting the word of God, but very few living the Word of God! The first to come to mind is say, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen. They seem to be the false prophets of the day while there is many more leading you to believe what they’re selling. You unwillingly saunter right into their puffed up vanities and feed their ego allowing them to believe that they ARE spewing the Word. It is their truth, not the biblical doctrine I have come to know, love and live.

2 Cor. 10: [3] For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
[4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
[5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
[6] And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
[7] Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.

Oh foolish nation…

Deut. 32:21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

How to spot a false prophet?

When their outward appearance is more important than their inner self.

When they can dwell in a mansion and have the poor at their gates. Take notice!

When the cost of their shoes was more than your last meal. 

When they ask for money, all in the name of God, and call it tithing to make you feel guilty. (Tithing is done from the heart, not out of guilt)

When they tell you that tithing will bring you closer to God. (this is the biggest lie!)

My friends, allow me to say, there is no way a minister, a church or a religion will bring you closer to God unless you seek Him first from the inside of YOU! The way to God is to pray and meditate on His word day and night and allowing Him to LIVE through you DAILY. (Notice I didn’t say weekly?)

Pss. 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

Pss.63:6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.

Pss.77:12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.

Pss.119:15 I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.
[23] Princes also did sit and speak against me: but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes.
[48] My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.
[78] Let the proud be ashamed; for they dealt perversely with me without a cause: but I will meditate in thy precepts.
[148] Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word.

1 Tim 4:15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.

Listening to a minister or pastor is all well and good, but not meditating on what they are saying and taking the words spoken to God, leaves you an open doorway for False Prophets to walk right in and deceive you. When you TALK with God, you learn to WALK with God and all without one ounce of boasting will the world see the benefits. 

May the Light of the Lord bless you all on your journey!

Quotation Saturday ~ Advent

From the internet

Matt. 1: 23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

It is under the false assumption for people to believe that Advent is for a denomination and full of rites and rituals. Advent is a Spiritual Christian Season that all Christians normally celebrate. It is the love of Christ, the Coming of Christ and a season to cherish the gift that God gave to us. THIS is the reason for the Season! ~ Amen

“One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God’s grace that gives us that faith. As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are true, and equally true, at once. The mind can’t grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul.”

~ Michelle Blake, The Tentmaker

“ADVENT—the four-week period that leads up to Christmas—is a series of events designed not to delay the celebration of Christmas, but to enhance it. It’s a kind of delayed gratification that culminates in a … satisfaction that is all the richer for the waiting.”

~ Joan Chittister, Listen with the Heart

“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.”
~ Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas

“The spirituality of Advent calls us to start our journey in expectation of the second coming of Christ. The end time is the period in history when the work of Christ will be consummated, when the powers of evil will be put away forever, when the earth will be restored to the golden age described by Isaiah and St. John.” (see Isa. 65; Rev. 20-22).

~ Robert Weber

“IT WAS NOT suddenly and unannounced that Jesus came into the world. He came into a world that had been prepared for him. The whole Old Testament is the story of a special preparation … . Only when all was ready, only in the fullness of his time, did Jesus come.”

~ Phillips Brooks, The Consolations of God: Great Sermons of Phillips Brooks

In Advent spirituality we are also called on to meditate on the birthing of Christ in our hearts. In this matter we are dealing with the conversion of life, the movement away from the old life lived under the power of evil to the new life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. True conversion is a turning from one way of life to another. Christ calls us to be converted to him, to make him the pattern of our lives, to make our living and dying a living and dying in him.

~ Robert Weber

“This Advent we look to the Wise Men to teach us where to focus our attention. We set our sights on things above, where God is. We draw closer to Jesus… When our Advent journey ends, and we reach the place where Jesus resides in Bethlehem, may we, like the Wise Men, fall on our knees and adore him as our true and only King.”

~ Mark Zimmermann in Our Advent Journey

Insomnia ~ Peace

Pss. 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

Peace

I have quite a few friends who suffer from insomnia. Now mind you they are all God loving people, so when they say they have insomnia, I scratch my head. I’m not talking one or two friends either, I’m talking like 10-15 friends all suffering with the inability to sleep and stay there. So if your reading this, I’m not targeting you, I’m trying to understand the condition, the disease.

We live in a world of stress, noises and images that all clog the mind. I used to have disrupted sleep when I was younger but I knew it was from the stress of the day and the long arduous days and nights of simply living as a drug user and alcoholic. But after coming clean, clearing my soul and conscience of the poisons intoxicating my body, I honed in on ways to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Granted I was twenty-one when I came clean and am now nearing 50, I still rest peacefully and comfortably for seven-eight hours a night. Some of my tricks to get me to this point are now conscious forming habits that led me to just keeping still and falling fast asleep.

It all might change again in my later years but for now, I’m relishing the peace that washes over me every single night and I carry it with me throughout my waking days. What are my tips and how do you attain the peace? I don’t know if it will work for you because most are chronic sufferers that have had this struggle since childhood and have tried everything to no avail. You have my sympathy.

Look at the list for symptoms of insomnia:

Difficulty falling asleep

Awakening during the night

Not feeling well rested

Daytime tiredness

Irritability, depression, or anxiety

Difficulty paying attention

Increased errors

Tension headaches

Distress in the stomach

Ongoing worries about sleep

That’s quite a list. Do you see yourself with ANY of these symptoms? One or two probably doesn’t signify chronic insomnia but more than three; you’re a chronic insomniac.

We’re not going to add medications to the list here because the older you get or the more medications you take can be a cause for sleepless nights. But the main cause of insomnia, especially chronic insomnia that which you’ve had since you were a child, is stress and anxiety.

As a sufferer you may fool yourself into believing you don’t have any depression or stress. You may lie over and over again making excuses with it’s the meds, it’s the noise, it’s the ______, you fill in the blank. What lies do you tell yourself? Let’s face it, you’re stressed! Whether it is meeting the standard of what other people see in you, bills you can’t pay, the job you hate, or facing old age, stress is the killer. Yes KILLER! If you’re happy and content with that, then read no further.

The Mayo Clinic reports: “Sleep is as important to your health as a healthy diet and regular exercise. Whatever your reason for sleep loss, insomnia can affect you both mentally and physically. People with insomnia report a lower quality of life compared with people who are sleeping well.” 

Do you remember as a kid our parents told us that if we had trouble sleeping to count sheep? Do you know why? What does sheep have to do with the inability to sleep? Well for starters it’s a way of focusing the mind on something other than your stressful thoughts. It’s a form of meditation.

Meditation is a secret tool I implemented in my early days of clearing my mind of stressful distractions and it has been an essential tool in finding a peace like never before. Some may laugh and scoff claiming it doesn’t work, but you DO know God has placed very simple tools in our hands, like herbs instead of drugs, to help aid us with our diseases and illnesses that take over our bodies. Meditation is a tool from God to use and aid us in stress-filled times.

Pss. 63:6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.

Many people listen to audiobooks when they’re trying to fall asleep, this is stimulating your mind and the very reason it doesn’t work for insomniacs. Some listen to music but again this is stirring the mind and doesn’t have long-term effects. To find sleep, one must relax the mind.

What is MY method? I’ll share, but first let me tell you I am not without stress, depression and illnesses so don’t think this is just coming from a happy-all-the-time gal. I have experienced many depths of darkness but I still enjoy seven to eight hours of SLEEP!

Before falling asleep there are things I do first, like pray. Not for myself, not for my situation not for me me me. I like to pray for others in need (there is always time to pray for me). I’ve said my prayers.

The second thing is to have my rainfall cd playing in the background. I love rainfall and thunder and since snow makes no sound, rain is my choice. You might have another comforting sound to focus on but mine is rain.

Begin focusing on the sound. Stress creeping in? Put it in a box, a cardboard box, for safe keeping until tomorrow, right now you need to focus on the drops. Bills, things to do gnawing at you? See the paper of the bill? See the word? Place it in the box. Picture the box floating in the midst of stars, millions of stars, the box looks quite small doesn’t it? You’re placing whatever is stressing you into the box as each distraction tries to get through, place them one by one in the box. If it gets full, start a new box!

The box will get full as you fill it with your worries, y’know. If you don’t have enough self control to focus because of a pain your feeling or the thoughts are too numerous, this box trick might take some time before your nights are filled with rest.

The box or boxes, are floating in the universe. You see them, you know they’re your worries, but the drops of rain make you realize the box can’t get wet. Drip after drip the box moves out into the solar system, you see the paper fluttering from the boxes; worries all stored for another time, you see numerous boxes and all your problems are in there. You’re focusing on the box as it is floating…floating…you sleep.

You’re going to try this night after night. It’s not a one-try deal. Repetition and perseverance is what’s going to make this work. Now if you’d rather think of your worries and focus on them, then you will be maintaining the disease and keeping it alive for years to come. Please don’t tell me you like stress and enjoy restless nights of sleep, it is up to YOU, your mind, your conscience and your very SOUL to be WORTH the change.

God Bless!

Lent: Day Thirty ~ Power in Prayer

Prov. 15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

Power in Prayer

I love to hear the words, I’m praying for you. That means a person is actually calling out to God with my name and asking Him to bless me. But wait, is everyone who utters the words I’m praying for you mean that they are praying?

The heart of a Christian is bathed in prayer. Prayer is the cleansing, the healing, the nurturing of the spirit. I believe the world is bound to prayer. I think even the atheist in some way believes deep in his/her soul that there is a God. The reason they call themselves atheist is because God didn’t answer a prayer of letting their mother live while she lay dying, or maybe their sister died and they prayed for her to live.

Usually something tragic has to happen for an atheist to not believe, or they are raised by a non-believer and adopted that belief system. But to give up on God because of unanswered prayer? That is just silly. They seek proof of a physical existence and are never satisfied with any answer they receive.

Humans are fashioned to pray. Some believe they are just talking to their conscience and that there is no force or spirit driving them and when they pray they are actually praying to themselves. I hate to burst their bubble, but God is hearing them. Will God send a bolt of lightning down and give that person all that they prayed for? Nah, He’s waiting for them to acknowledge that He exists. When their prayer is answered will they thank God?

People falsely assume that prayer is about asking and receiving and just because they asked and didn’t receive they turn from Him. Prayer is so much more than asking and receiving, taking and taking, it’s about compassion of the soul.

I like to meditate. I like to go so deep within my mind that the universe and all the cosmos responds to me and it is in that place I voice my prayer, fervent prayer.  I can feel the energy flow slowly through my veins, pulsating through my body and reaching into the depth of my heart making it beat to the drums of the orchestral heavens.

Pss. 54:2 Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth.

Prayer to me is not found in a virtual emoticon, it cannot be conveyed as a heartfelt prayer that way. Prayer is found (to ME) in the words something like, “I’m lifting you in prayer,” assuming the person praying knows what the lifting you in prayer means. But prayer is never found in non-words. People asking for prayer are desperately reaching out to God’s children and they need to hear/read words to comfort them in the struggles they are going through. I cannot and will not diminish someone’s pain by not giving him or her comforting words of my offered prayer.

To me, lifting someone in prayer means I am going into a deep meditation of compassion where I sweep myself into the pit of my stomach and feel the churning rising up within me encompassing the outer banks of the cosmos in a compassionate plea to the Almighty Lord of my soul. The Holy Spirit is there in the realm of conscious meditation and He hears the calling of a need out of your compassionate plea for another.

Saying the words, ‘praying’ does not necessarily mean that a person is praying but their thought of prayer for you is heard. When people extend their words out in number to pray for the same thing it is then felt and when lifted inside you, it is received then answered.

Prayer is the mighty power of the Lord, mounted up inside of you weaving through your thoughts and is carried to the outer banks of the spiritual realm. Our impassioned plea reaches through a timeless expanse into the ear of the Creator and all His creation. This is where our soul resides and this is where the Holy Spirit dwells awaiting prayer.

Can people pray for themselves? There is no particular way to pray but if you are praying selfishly asking the Lord to send you money, or to pay your bills, or to bless you with riches beyond belief; please know that those prayers are heard but will not be answered in the way you think or want them to be.

If you are hungry, He will give you food. If you are tired, He will give you rest. If you are thirsty, He will give you drink. If you are poor, He won’t give you money. In the depths of prayer, there is no evil. Evil only resides in the man who embraces sin. Where there is prayer, satan can not cross the boundaries lest you allow him in via greed and selfishness.

Our soul calls us to pray. Fervent prayer is the rich soil in which you will plant the seed of love and allow it to grow to the magnitude that darkness can never enter. Through prayer you will never know hate, you will never feel the need to release any anger that is welling inside you. Prayer is the calming affect of peace that your soul craves and if all men believed in the power of prayer, there would be no wars.

Prayer is the very essence of your soul. It is calling you to a union that binds you in the love and precious Light of the Lord that resides there. Prayer is the very magnet that draws you to God. Some will fall to their knees and place their hands together, some will raise their arms in praise of the Mighty Deliverer, but prayer is never entered into lightly. Your words become power and there is Power in Prayer, use it wisely.

2 Chron. 6:40 Now, my God, let, I beseech thee, thine eyes be open, and let thine ears be attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.

How to...

Remain a writer!

**************

I’m here to tell you that YES, I am a writer. It has been proven by the long hard struggle I had after never wanting to write again, and as I faced the dark, the fear of writing again, I gained clarity that I had never expected.

I wanted to throw in the towel of writing, as ripped to threads as the towel was; I was tossing it in and giving up. But like I said, something happened, I went back to where my love of writing began.

I signed up for the class, and ask anyone around me that knows me personally and supported my ups and downs, knew I was resurging again and my love of writing would return. Granted it was not the session I had foreseen, but then again, is anything really as we foresee? No, that is why we have the unknown.

I was stepping into the unknown not knowing how old and new friends alike would receive me. I was coming out of the dark and allowing whatever slapped me upside the face to do as it pleased. I walked out with my head held high and continued the journey that I feel; God himself had set me on.

You see, God gave me this gift of writing and when I was down, I knew I had to rest and sit back a ways from it all and drink in everything that had happened. I meditated, prayed, and asked for something that would surely fill my life again.

Sure enough, as beau got his license back after being blind for three years, he found a job, and here I was not writing? Well we can’t have that now can we? So the class was my first step in reclaiming what was rightfully mine, my writing.

From the very first week I was bubbling with words. I was blogging again, writing my poetry, and I was feeling whole. Yeah there is always something that wants to knock you back down a few rungs, but I was determined to keep on climbing! While being isolated and kept away from the rest of the course and what could have been an exciting re-entry into the world of writing for me, it turned out to be less than the glitter in my step that I sought. If you can say BORING, it was that and so much more.

I kept climbing week after week, writing and enjoying my time writing, everything and everyone else disappeared into the backdrop of my mind. As the classroom dwindled to barely anything there, I kept going on, encouraging the two or three that was there still plowing ahead, and I myself was feeling like a hermit, alone in the catacombs of life.

Instead of allowing myself to feel bitterness and vengeance, I chose to ride above the clouds, and saw to it I had an end. Closure is what I feel now. I never got that last year because I was too busy being hurt, so in this session, I sought closure and I got it.

I can now turn and be the writer that God wanted me to be. If He wants me to teach you all, that is fine. If He wants me to be a novel writer, I’m going to be the best novel writer I can be. As many will now move on to NaNoWriMo, I will stand back and let them frolic, while I soar. I might do it alone, but I am doing it from a much better place. I’m HEALED and I AM FREE!

Welcome back to the writing world Joni!