January Second Blank

Rom. 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

January Second

Today, my insomniac husband slept while my insomniac son wanted to come to the house and do his laundry. I prepared to get ready for my day of Physical Therapy. Now my sessions are getting more interesting with learning new things that I can do. I walked up a step last week and tested the use of a cane, instead of the walker or wheelchair. I passed with flying colors if I do say so myself.

Today I showed my son my ability to walk from one end of the room and back using just my cane! I used to think the cane made people look at me and judge me but now since my vanity has been shelved, I walk with my head held high using my cane. Not walking for three months makes you appreciate every step you’re allowed!

I love hearing the excitement in my son's voice when he says, ‘Wow mom, that’s awesome!’ Or ‘This is great, look how far you’ve come!’ I never realized how much I loved the praise but it does motivate me to keep going on and do one more thing different each day! Thank you, son! Now I somewhat understand why God loves us to praise Him, it motivates Him to do one more thing different for us each and every day.! 

Today, I made two laps around the PT gym. It’s not a big place but the laps were enough to cause me to break a sweat because I had done other exercises also, like the step up, step down exercise. I don’t think you realize how for granted you take a simple step! Whether it is a step to walking, a step leading into or out of the house, or a lazy walk to the kitchen! Appreciate every step because one day when it is abruptly taken away from you, you’re not always given a chance to regain what was lost. 

An open path leads to steps you’d might otherwise miss. Keep your eyes open for God’s mysterious ways. He has a tendency to use the weak and broken, not the pomp and arrogant. Be humble, friends.

May God bless the journey He has planned for me this year. May I be motivated to keep my chin up when it gets trying, and I remember to love when I see so much hate. 

The path I'll soon walk again!

His Time

Pss. 103:3 “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;”

In His time, not my time!

All of last year I seemed to be soaring in the healing department. I was walking with no pain, a copious amount of sleep and nary a bout of muscle pain. I had always heard the term ‘no pain, no gain’ in the world of fitness meaning you have to feel the pain to gain the insight and strength to lose the pounds (or in my case the dis-ease) you want. But here I was exuberant because I got the chance to forgo the pain and soar right onto healing. That’s not how it works, my friends. 

It’s ironic that had I gone the chemo route I would have been expected to suffer, for a year or more of treatment, surgery and draining negative talks with doctors, slice, dice, pokes and prods all leading to an insane amount of pain and non-healing. Did you know that the ancient Greek word for "pharmacy" means "witch" or "witchcraft"? I have read that the root meaning can also mean "poison". Why is this an acceptable form of so-called healing?

But when you go the route of God and natural healing you’re expected to heal in the genies blink of an eye and show the world how almighty powerful He is against sorcery and witchcraft. I honestly think too many people live in a fantasy world when living the life of a Christian. They read but don’t understand. They listen but never hear. They ignore the truth and expect – yes expect --  a miracle to take place instantaneously!

2 Cor. 12:9 (NIV) “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 

Yes, God has the power to instantaneously heal, but where is the learning, where is the understanding, where is the weakness? This day and age as we look out at the world, we can see that God is at a standstill when it comes to the humans and their disobedience. He has allowed us to learn from the mistakes we’ve made over the years but instead of learning, we are stomping on all that we were taught. People think they can do what they want and handle things the way they do and go to God as let’s say, the ‘backup’.

God does not take lightly to being the backup plan when things go wrong. When he says ‘trust in Me’, ‘have faith’, He means just that but today people don’t know what that means and so they use Him as the backup if things go wrong. They never really trust or have faith and that is the very thing that has made the condition of the world what it is because of lack of faith.

All action is dependent on belief. When you don’t fully rely on God you are leaning on your own understanding and building up walls of anxiety, worry, and stress. The Lord says we’re to be anxious for nothing. God expects us to not go to ‘people’ for truth. Did Jesus follow people or did people follow Jesus? Was He one of many or one of a few?

1Thess. 2:13 “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”

Wisdom cannot come from man it can only come from GOD! So here is what I’ve taken on when refusing the chemo route. I’m walking with God and working to rebuild my immune system. Disease and illness is not something God does to you. He did not give me cancer, I and my lack of caring for my health gave me cancer. I’ll say it again, DNA is only a small portion of the reason I have what I have. Unhealthy eating is the very reasons we will ALL experience illness in our lifetime.

1 Cor. 3:18-21 “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;”

God created all of the scientific principles that science wants us to adhere to but when we turn to God, science wants us to toss God out of the equation. That is just wrong to me. Do you realize that the American Cancer Society would have to disband if ever there was a cure? Billions of dollars would fall out of the hands of 'pharma', 'witchery', 'poison' plan. I'll use God’s health plan. And as such, the alternative treatment and headway are tossed out as quackery never giving healthy living a chance in the trial-n-error stage because we’re taught that food and nutrition have nothing to do with your health and imminent illness.

When I seemingly had a setback in December, boy did people expect me just to bounce back with a tweak to my diet. What they don’t realize is that my trials are not that snappy and that is not how God works. I have to have PAIN and SUFFERING to be FREED from this disease. Just soaring into healing with no pain will gain me nothing but an ego. I’ll feel accomplished and above all others and THAT is not what I’m here to learn and gain. That is not God's plan!

Deut. 7:15 “And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.”

Your disease is as much spiritual as it is physical. YOU and your thoughts are the cause of your anxiety and illnesses. You began early on in life on a path of fear and anxiousness (stress) and no drug is going to take away what you spiritually placed on your path. We keep treating the symptoms of these diseases and never take on treating the underlying CAUSE. I chose God’s natural health plan for myself. In my quest, I study, research, learn and grow but not without PAIN and struggle.

I need you all to know that impatience and doubt is not what I carry. I don’t expect instantaneous results when healing. I don’t want this to be a journey of ease. I want it to be the journey that He’s led me to; a journey of FAITH and TRUST. Is the walk easy? By no means! His time is not our time and we need to have the utmost faith in that, if you don’t then your journey may get a little more painful than mine, imagine that.

Prov. 31:26 "She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness."

Too Much to Handle?

Pss.118: 17 “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

Too much to handle?

What God has done for me…

I’ve never really been a fan of the fictional Super Heroes of the comic world or of the TV/movie world; it’s just not my thing. I’ve always admired the real heroes of the world that took great steps in saving/rescuing/training or changing the people of the world that walks around with blinders on bumping into wall after wall.

The real heroes are the ones with an uncanny strength that endures the prickliest of situations. They walk amid the cactus without getting pricked, they see the rose not the thorn, they hear the Word, not the world; those are the real heroes.

I never saw myself as one of those heroes, that is until…this Lenten season lent me clarity of something and now I see differently. I look around at people who say they are going to diet or give something up and fail in epic proportions after just a month of forgoing the very reason they started the diet in the first place. Their strength is weakened by temptation.

I watch as addictions pull tighter and tighter on the purse strings. I had to watch first hand as my husband wrestled with giving up sugar, Pepsi, and other addictions only to be pulled right back in within two months. I’m not the type of woman who lays demands at my husband’s feet and says change this or else, I don’t judge others for trying something and failing, all I can do is give them a sight of what successfully overcoming the temptations looks like, and sit and watch them walk or fall. 

I realized something this month, I have the strength of a T-Rex and the weakness of the T-Rex with its small little arms unable to reach the very ground he walks. I have the gentleness of a Brontosaurus that sees herbs, leaves, and plants as the nutrition of choice. I also feel that the likes of me are extinct in nature and I forage looking for someone, something, anything that shares my determination to live. People are remiss in understanding the strength needed to survive in this world today. They give up all too easily or turn a blind eye, puffing themselves up literally and metaphorically.

You might say that I’ve not always been this strong and you’d be wrong. I didn’t realize it when I was young of course because I was too busy surviving. I didn’t just one day ‘decide’ to be strong, give something up, take the road less traveled, this was my nature from my very beginning. I think I only just realized my strength, in seeing others falter over and over and unable to show very little semblance of strength. 

Okay, where did my strength come from? I can only attribute the unending strength of God Himself. I hear over and over that ‘God never gives you more than you can handle.’ That little piece of solace is based on:

KJV: 1 Corinthians 10:13 “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 

ESV: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

AMP version simplified for you: “No temptation [regardless of its source] has overtaken or enticed you that is not common to human experience [nor is any temptation unusual or beyond human resistance]; but God is faithful [to His word—He is compassionate and trustworthy], and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability [to resist], but along with the temptation He [has in the past and is now and] will [always] provide the way out as well, so that you will be able to endure it [without yielding, and will overcome temptation with joy].

I believe that God does give you MORE than you can handle and this is where your strength is built up and sustained but notice also … “but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

I look back at my life; psoriasis arrived on the scene at around fourteen about the same time I converted from Catholicism to Christianity. Tempted by the wiles of men and alcohol, one man in particular whom I ended up marrying and staying married to for twenty years. At twenty-one, the legal age to drink, I gave up alcohol and further pursued the God who ‘provided a way out’ so I was ‘able to endure’ the path or what I like to deem ‘the road less traveled’! 

At thirty-seven, God was pulling me in a different direction. He had seen that not only had I endured but all the trying to save those around me I had done failed. He then called me to a completely different set of surroundings but I’d have to give up ALL of my possessions, save for my child, clothes and a few writings and odds and ends, that was it. I followed. The length of His arm was all that I had to strengthen me and it was enough to carry me over one thousand miles away.

Six years of reflection, healing, and growth were my years in the Texas sun. Then we were called to the center of the United States in the form of the heartland in the Midwest called Nebraska. It was here that my husband went blind, and had his sight restored two-and-a-half years later. It is here where I grew in strength for my Lord and Savior, feeding off the purity of souls that He surrounded me with physically and virtually. It is here where arthritis appeared and my body weakened but my strength kept growing and growing.

I thought I had had ‘more than I could handle’ but God poured out a little more in way of the life-changing diagnosis of Cancer. Yup, the Big C is what I was now dished out to overcome and strengthen myself with. I thought for sure I had met my end but God assured me that it was only the beginning of His plan! What was even bigger was that He asked me to trust in Him and not man to be the Almighty Healer that He is! This is where many people say, ‘C’mon now, that is just too far! God would never do that!’ Well, guess what people, He did, to ME! He gave me MORE than I could handle!

Now the task in front of me was to trust in Him [not man], lean not on my own understanding [ego], and use the very talents I was given [writing and research] as a tool in building an even stronger me. Onward I go, fast after fast, feast after feast, sight after site, [yes you read that right], and person after person I will change as I grow and hopefully teach them a lesson they can carry with them as they too are given ‘more than they can handle’. I am now a hundred pound weakling overcoming the impossible with the strength of David fighting the massive Goliath.

As I watch the weakened fall, I hand you strength to carry on in Him who is the Almighty Healer with an arm and hand stretched out to you and all you have to do is surrender your ALL [not just small portions ie: I’ll give up this but not that]. I believe it is at that time where you’re given too much to handle that you will find YOUR strength in enduring what God can do for you. 

1 Chron. 16:34 “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.”

What I leave Behind

Job.30:18 “By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.”

*No poetry Sunday, I have too much to say

What I'll leave Behind

Being hit this week with the diagnosis of cancer has left me in an emotional state that is totally foreign to me. I’m a person of light, love, and hope and this week I was tossed out onto the battleground of a disease that has plucked many members of my family (whether blood or friends) away and out of my life.

It started with subtle signs about a year ago in 2015, the year my aunt succumbed to some kind of cancer and my non-blood uncle to lung cancer. The signs were there but I brushed them away trying to hide from them so they didn’t see me and begin to form on me. I do know they went the cut me open, spread the disease, and radiate me, only for the diseases to stay dormant a year or two and resurface, wiping them out entirely. This is the way it was for members of MY family.

I’m thinking that this is the unexpected earthquakes or avalanches, tornados or hurricanes that come in and rattle the very routine existence you live. Day after day we routinely wake, have coffee, shower, go to work, sit on facebook and many do it day after day thinking possibly this is all God has planned for my life.

I was asked what I’m feeling right now and honestly, I don’t feel. What is on my mind is what I might have to leave behind, then with this morning's sermon I was smacked with the reality that this is just God shaking up the routine I call life.

Have you ever lived through a tornado, hurricane or earthquake? Did you lose anything? Well for some, they lose EVERYTHING while some lose a little, and some nothing at all. Sometimes lives are lost and the ones left behind have to sit in wonder of what just happened and try to grapple with the reality that their lives were shaken completely off the axis of routine living. 

You may think that your life is going to end because you can’t live without routine but let me tell you, God does not like people to become stagnant and stuck in a routine for months or years on end and this is the reason we have shake-ups in life that come completely out of nowhere.

My routine life is going to be shaken up big time. I will no longer wake, sit at the computer, write and surf the web, nope it will be slammed with test after test, surgery and possibly radiation for days on end, week after week, then I’ll either be defined as a survivor or a victim. I choose survivor, but MY plan might not be God’s plan. My husband’s routine of waking and sitting on the web, playing his games, surfing YouTube will be massively shaken but I’ll see him trying to cling to what he thinks is HIS routine not realizing that God is in control of ALL OF OUR routines! Hubby will try to remain in control when basically we’ve never been IN control in the first place.

While I think about what I might leave behind, my husband, son and my family I also have to think of what lies ahead for me and that is the journey to our amazing Father. Yes, no matter what I am put through I will still see God as amazing. He doesn’t want me to focus on what I’m leaving behind, He wants to chisel away all routine brick and mortar and place my eyes on the spiritual route that my life has been and will continue to be in the hereafter. 

Day after day I wake and want to just wallow in a bucket of tears, and that’s okay because right beside me is my Amazing God saying, I can carry this load for you, I’m here for you. Isn’t that amazing? When we think we can’t take anymore, can’t cry one more tear, we have God, the Comforter ready to carry the weight of the load. We might think he’s forgotten us but no, it is during that time He is remembering all the beauty He created in you and looks and says, “I did good! She’s beautiful!” That my friends, is my solace, knowing God sees the beauty in me that he created and I gave to the world.

As much as you want to cling to that routine fantasy life, and hide from the reality that has shaken your world via tragedy or illness, keep in mind that it is NOT your life, it is God’s life. Just because you bought and own that new electric self-driving car it is not yours, it is in the hand of something more powerful and electrifying than you.

When a tragedy strikes and your comfort of a routine is gone, don’t fight to get the mundane actions of a day back, take this time to seize the opportunity to CHANGE your routine, because rest assured if you don’t, God will!

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

Peeve Of The Day ~ "Just Get Over It."

1 Pet. 4:12-13 “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

My peeve of the day? People minimizing pain.

“Just get over it.” 

“Suck it up, buttercup, life goes on.”

Yup, those words right there grate on my nerves like screeching nails on a chalkboard. Telling someone to just get over their pain, depression, or anxiety, whatever burden they bear or cross they carry is minimizing what they are going through on a daily basis. 

If you’ve been through the depths of hell and have come back to tell the world about your experience that’s just great, you’re the one human God has chosen to break the gates of hell but if you’ve suffered in similar pain as someone else, don’t minimize what they endure daily by telling them to just get over it because YOU survived a similar pain.

You don’t know the pain someone is going through unless you’ve walked in his or her shoes and I’m pretty sure no one has walked [metaphorically] in another person’s shoes. No, we are on our own path in life and while you may have comparable pain, similar circumstance, identical health issues, you need to know that the person enduring the affliction owns what is happening to them, it can’t be borrowed or stolen it has to be LIVED.

Offering sympathy is one thing but comparing your incident with their daily struggle takes away the healing that they have in place and the prayer that they utilize by making their illness seem like they will just ‘get over it’ when that is not the case at all. They need time to drink in the healing that they are going through so they can make plans for what they need to change (if anything) and possible routes they might take.

Can you imagine if we were all on the same exact journey? Life would be no fun that way and would we all arrive at the same destination? Of course not. Just because the journey was ‘similar’ does not mean they are the same. Life is like that sometimes, we all think we’re headed to heaven but we do nothing in our life to get us there.

Reading and believing the bible isn’t going to get you there. Attending church isn’t any assurance that heaven will be your end destination. People tend to be misinformed when they think that the outward appearance of being a Christian is going to get them into heaven. 

All Christians may ‘appear’ to be the same but that is the farthest thing from the truth. We all are different in our journeying path but the one thread that unites us in a genetic strand of life is the blood of Jesus Christ running through our veins. 

Our disability isn’t what bonds us together. Our illness doesn’t define who we are in the living world. Our outward appearance isn’t the link to an eternal heaven. The only thing from the physical realm that is universally ours that we carry into the spiritual realm is LOVE. Love binds us all. Without love, the path will lead straight to hell and there will be no coming back to tell us about it on twitter, or facebook or through images on Instagram. 

So before telling someone to just ‘get over it’, or to pray more, hope for more, be more to the world; dig into the depths of your soul and find the love that lives there. When you want to hate…find love. If you feel the need to compare…do it with love. When you find a burning fire in your soul…douse the flames with love. 

Love is one of the hardest paths to journey on. You might think it is a simple task but tapping into the well of love on a daily basis is a struggle we all must face. You can give someone directions but that doesn’t mean they’ll follow them. Just as life and the trying storms we muddle through; we own our journey, it is ours alone. We might all strive to get to the same destination but we’ll all take different routes to get there.

May the God of love bless you all!

1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

Amen!

The Well Is Dry

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 

– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

The Well is Dry

After writing yesterday, I prayed about what I wrote and the reason behind why on earth would I share such a pity party post? Well, I know why, because even I have my bad days. People think because I laugh and make them smile that there is nothing wrong in Joni’s world, well let me tell you, there are things wrong in my world! 

Is it possible to focus too much on the Lord, therefore alienating yourself from the rest of the world? Am I to blame for all the angst in my life? I sometimes think I am. 

I’m trying to get back into writing and my well is dry. I woke this morning with a renewed faith when cool air kissed my cheek in the middle of summer. It was 6o degrees and a storm was about to erupt when all of a sudden, a poem came to my mind. The rain began falling, the thunder cheered with lightning displayed across the sky.

Was this God cheering me on? Was He letting me know He was right there and hasn’t left my side? It is as if He was filling my well with water to drink and words to write. The poem I wrote was, God is Crying. I normally write a poem, let it rest a day, then come back to the poem and fix anything that doesn’t work for me. Through the thundering morning and cool rain showers egging me on, I felt the need to post the words right away, so if you see something wrong with the poem, take it up with Him.

Proverbs 16:9 (NIV) “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”

I sometimes wrongfully think I’m in control of my life when I know full well God is in complete control. When I whine of the pain I’m in and cry about the reasons my disability hinders me from doing what *I* want to do, I have to remember who it is I work for first and foremost. If anyone remembers (you have to go back to my posts from 2011-12) my disability hit me after my hubby got his sight back after being blind for two and a half years. The many hours behind the wheel driving to and from Omaha, sometimes two times a week, (6-8 hour trips) took its toll on the lumbar portion of my back.

Had this happened while he was blind, I would have never been able to do the work that I felt God had called me to do and that was to take care of my man. Yes, that was basically the job I signed up for when I met my beau but it was so much more than that. God had His hands in the stew the entire time and he decided to whip it up a bit to see how I handled the situation. 

I’m allowed a day or two to feel sorry for myself, by dagnammit, no one else will or does for that matter so I feel I have to have my bad days or I’ll never rise up and be more than the pain that defines me.

It’s weird how me having a bad day warrants hits on my blog out the gazoo! My happy, joyful posts might get 13-20 hits but my woeful, pained posts near the hundred and over hit mark, how odd is that? When I began this blog, it was all about the writing craft and when I decided to make it about God, I no longer wrote for other people, the hits or the followers, I took on the challenge to write what God wanted me to write and what I felt that He spoke to my heart to say to the world.

I no longer write to satisfy everyone else, I never LIVE to satisfy others; I only live for God, pain and all. I realize that God has me this way because my heavy lifting, hours upon hours of driving, snow shoveling and overworking myself days are over. I would have never stopped so God made sure I stopped, maybe so I wouldn’t further damage myself, after all, He did see ahead of the steps I take, this is His plan and not one of my own selfish making.

Sure I would love to be able to walk normally again, to dance while dusting, to skip while vacuuming, to meditate while mowing the lawn but that is not God’s plan for me. His plan is for me to rest. Maybe he has something big planned or maybe not, maybe the walk in the cornfields is His plan for me. Nah, I know that is not His plan, He told me so. Now you’ll have to tolerate me a little longer!

I’ll end this post on a happy note. While my husband is complaining that the 61 degrees and rain is too cold for the month of July (he LIKES the 100 degree days), I am relishing the dampness of an eight-hour rainfall accompanied by a dark overcast sky with stormy weather erupting every half hour or so. I have washed clothes, dried clothes, and folded them all because my back loves cooler temps and affords me more mobility than normal. Praise be to God.

I have written two blog posts today and all is right with the world…for today. May you look at God’s plan as the master plan for your life and your own plans as selfish fodder. Life is already too short to be giving up when YOU are done, always remember it will last until God is done!

“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” 

– Mother Theresa

MTOC ~ Day Four: Mysteries of God

Philippians 3:13-14 (NIV)

One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

I should be dead right now. When I was three-years-old my brother and sister were pushing me on a swing when my cries to stop pushing me higher didn’t get them to stop, they continued until I jumped off the swing and flew toward the wire fence, catching my wrist and slicing it like a thanksgiving day turkey. I have the stitches to prove it. I should be dead but I lived.

You’d think that by doing all the drugs I did as a child LSD, PCP, the enormous amount of marijuana, and not to mention my overdose on alcohol would have killed me, but here I am, alive to tell about it. People like me should be dead but here’s the thing, I think God had a plan. I know many of you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in something greater than yourself and you know why? Because you’re selfish, you think of you. I didn’t mean that to be judgmental, I meant it as an observance on MY healing.

I was not one consumed with myself, I put others before me. Sure I was a bad kid but I always thought of the other people before I thought of healing myself. I turned to God because I had heard he was a great healer and after the loss of my firstborn child (at sixteen) to stillbirth, The Holy Spirit consumed me and helped me during my grief and stayed with me to this day.

When you care for other people, which means you love, you can’t have love in you without God being in you because God IS love. Some people see it that way while others just see love as an emotion. Many religions and spiritual faiths revolve around love. Love is the center and the God of their faith, period.

As dysfunctional as my upbringing was, I never knew what Meth was or heroine, and I NEVER stuck a needle in my arm; in some form, that was my saving grace. At twenty-one years old as I started down the path of change, I watched many ‘friends’ die by making the wrong choice in life. Whether it was by an overdose, a shooting, jail, or trying to reform, death was surrounding me but yet I was alive and breaking free. I didn’t see it as scientific, I know it wasn’t ‘luck’, I never believed in coincidence, the one thing that was left was GOD. God saved me and HE guided me. 

My twenty-year marriage wasn’t ALL that bad as I seem to paint it, we had some pretty good years and the birth of a living son. It was toward the end when we started growing apart instead of growing together. I saw a future in writing. I was witnessing my growth and seeing the impact that God was having on my life. I saw my growth and healing and my ex didn’t want to grow and change for the better, he just wanted to control and obsess. 

So I wound up in Texas after giving up all of my earthly possessions. My husband gave me two weeks to get out of ‘his’ house. I took my son and saw a brighter future for him than the Baltimore streets would have ever allowed.

I had met a stranger online and for ten months we got to know one another on a spiritual level. He wasn’t a George Clooney prince coming to save me, he was more of a John Cusack silent knight in shining armor coming to my emotional rescue. My husband knew he had lost the battle to control me so he let me go and feigned defeat. 

The night before I left, Steven and I went to my sister’s for dinner and to say our goodbyes to the kids. No one showed up except my mother. My sister and I left on bitter terms because I had sat a rock on her precious oak table. I told her my Rock was the reason I had the strength to follow on a path that will lead me away. To this day, I still have the rock, the physical one AND the Spiritual Rock! 

Alone in Texas, I had to redefine myself; learn to love this stranger on what was now a physical level. It didn’t happen immediately and we had to grow to be better people and as a team WE chose God and the church (or did God choose us?) My son, Steven and I all grew together to become one family, united. Again, it was not luck, not science, no coincidence involved, it was something greater and more spiritual that drove us. 

Six growing years in Texas for me when we found a fork in the road called blindness. We had to move to Nebraska and surround ourselves with his family who could empower us to get through a very troubled time. His family is one that had God in their lives instilled early on by grandparents. The light of their ancestry shone round about us as we embarked on this journey. On April 26th, my deceased daughter Astri’s birthday, we sailed (or I drove) off to the safe haven of the Midwest.

Strength washed over us, the Church was our anchor and his family was the boat that drifted us into a safe harbor. Miraculously his sight was restored two and a half years later, prayers were answered and as we anchored ourselves to the shore, six years after we arrived in Nebraska we were united in marriage surrounded by my son and his mother. 

The mysteries of God is there for everyone to behold but again we live in a world where everyone but a few are consumed with themselves; what they can get out of the world, what the world owes them and who is to blame for nothing happening the way they planned. The Mysteries of God are unraveling before me, and the only way for me to relay the story is to fulfill my purpose and my dream and that is to WRITE. 

God Bless you ALL!

Ecc. 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:” 

Fear: A Driving Force

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 

1 John 4:18

There is something going on in my life that I’m not quite ready to share with you at this time but I can say that fear has tried to creep in and take over. Also allow me to say that I’m not one to succumb to fear, I live through faith. 

Recently I have been taking everything at face value. It is what it is. I allow outside influences to steer my thoughts and I’ve never done that before because I’m so focused on God. Here lately the dark one has been doing overtime trying to get me to live in FEAR! My prayer and meditation remains on God but again, outside influences and negativity try to seep into my being. 

“Fear is an acronym (I received this in my email this weekend from Bible Gateway) False Evidence Appearing Real.” How did they know I was dealing with this? Oh, they didn’t but GOD did and made sure the message was sent to me and received!

Lent for me is always a time where mysteries are revealed to me. The Greek meaning of mystery is defined as: what was not known but is now revealed. My body is going through some earthly changes; changes that scare me and have me dawdling in fear, but I can’t and won’t live there because I have an immense faith that there is something greater going on.

As I walk on faith, people will come at me saying but you have to be looked at, you have to see a doctor, you have to do this and do that, you can’t just rely on faith. I would like to slap them upside the head but I won’t, I’ll just simply say, “Thanks for caring but this is my cross to bear.” (I know, I can see your eye roll from here.)

God has a plan and that is to get His message across and He can be as subtle as the dark one when it comes to conveying a message. He wants and NEEDS us to walk on faith to find 'perfect love' and He’ll carry us the rest of the way on this little blip we call life. If you think for one moment that these fifty, sixty, one hundred years of life that you live on this planet is all that there is, you are sadly mistaken. 

We are on a mission for Him and He uses every way possible, even deaths, for us to see the Light. Take for example people who run on and on about what they hate of the Muslim people. People they don’t know and have never met. Don’t tell me because you’ve met a couple of them you hate all of them, really? And what they’ve done to the Christian faith?  (more in a later post about the Crusades)

God at work does not mean everything He does is rainbows and beauty, some of the things that has to happen HAS TO BE ugly, or no one would sit up and take notice. Take the Muslim women who have converted to Christianity secretly. You assume all Muslims are killers and worship a false god. Do you know that many are over there sacrificing their life for Jesus? How else can God wake up an evil nation? Because I choose not to HATE, I’m considered Un-American, really? Well I consider you who hate unChristian. Touché. May I ask if you hate Jews in America? Germans? Mexicans? No? Just Muslims?

When you spew hate, you are doing the Muslim’s work for them, they are feeding off fear and hate and you are feeding off of what they are planting while God is busy at work trying to get you and them to see Jesus, to spread LOVE not to spread hate. If that is your mission, you are no different than the very Muslims you abhor. When I see the slaughtering and pillaging I see God at work and see the Muslims realizing that this Jesus is bigger than anything they’ve ever imagined. They are delivering a message from OUR GOD without even knowing it, which is why I said God is subtle. He KNOWS what He’s doing.

Romans 5:15 (NIV) “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”

If dying for Christ is wrong; if God is wrong for taking lives; if we’re just here to read and believe, then this is a sad day to be a Christian. Take note: It is NOT a sad day to be a Christian, this is the time to stand up for Christ and show the people of the world that Jesus IS worth dying for in every way imaginable. Fear does not rule our world! But I see many who feed on the same venom those they despise feed on. You cannot bring people to Jesus through loathing what you don’t like in the world. 

If I have to die to show you how Christ lives then I am honored to be a part of this master plan and if satan thinks I’m going to go in fear and feed off of what the hatemongers wish me to take a bite of, he has another thing coming because the only thing I fear is what is left behind and that is leaving my family. But I’ll take Jesus over my family any day. 

This brings to mind a beloved worship song:

Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!
And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us.
And if our God is with us, then what could stand against.
And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us.
And if our God is with us, then what could stand against.
Then what could stand against.

Think of this song and the power of YOUR God before you spew your next rant of antagonism. 

Poetry Sunday ~ I was weeping...

John 19:25-26 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

I was weeping…

There were some who placed Him on the cross;

while others pulled His linen to toss.

Some were poking spears in his side

while women below were weeping and cried.

I was weeping.

Men were standing there mocking Him

some laughed and scoffed as His eyes grew dim.

Wails could be heard all across the way

as God put an end to the longest day.

I was wailing.

Some contend He was a guilty man

but only God knew his master plan.

Carried off to a cold empty tomb,

women followed; their faces bore gloom.

I was full of gloom.

In three days she came looking for

a Man that laid in the tomb no more.

Run and tell men to praise and sing

The Lord has risen, our Savior and King!

I was singing!

While many stood in disbelief

there were some who felt great relief.

Not all men nailed Him to that cross

Some people wept and felt the loss.

I was weeping.

Matt. 28:5-9 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Why is writing NOT easy?

 ^ Concordia, Ks. Convent ^

Why do people wrongly think that becoming a writer will be easy? Writing is hard work!

In this strange chaotic world, there are so many writers out there trying to break out of the writing world into the published author world. Many think they can just join a writing site and instantly become a writer and that no effort is needed to becoming a published author.


They are sadly mistaken. I’ve seen over the years people who just think they can become a writer by either retiring or giving up their job in say, in the military, doctors who felt the writing bug all their lives, nurses who on the side embark on the writing bug journey all the way down to the stay at home mom who needs time to kill so they use writing as an outlet.

I know quite a few who have succeeded and many who have failed and left the writing world behind to sit on the Social Networks or in chat rooms to feel as if they are still connected to writers in some way, any way. I even know a few who write, just for the love of writing, no monetary gain in sight, they just love writing.

Another misconception is that they are going to become a writer making mega-bucks and are soon slapped upside the head with the reality, that writing is WORK, not a walk in the park leisure stroll where you write, publish, make tons of money, and treat the family to trips to Disney World.

I’m going to lay out some tips for you as a writer, on becoming a writer and achieving the goal you’ve set for yourself. Always remember, writing is WORK, treat it as such and only then will you reap any rewards.

1) PLAN – For starters, you have to set a realistic plan. You’ll be writing for thousands of hours and you need to be willing to accept that it is going to take years and years before there is a payoff. (Sometimes sooner if you WORK at it.)

2) STRATEGY – You have to have a strategy. Like your plan, you have to be willing to have a strategy that will make those thousands of hours payoff in the end. I’ve seen success stories, so I know it can be done.

3) SET GOALS – You’ve made your mind up that you want to be a writer, now what? Set an achievable goal. One you can reach. Don’t write a novel and give up on offering it to a publisher. I’ve seen many who pays hundreds of dollars to self-publish thinking their work is THAT good, and when it fails, they too feel like a failure as a writer. Although, I’ve seen some who self-publish and keep on doing it because even one copy of their sold novel is better than a sitting-in-the-drawer novel. Whatever your goal – achieve it!

4) FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED – Writing is all well and good, but unfinished novels are worthless. They sit collecting dust, hanging by a thread on the blanket you’ve never finished knitting. Do you want a blanket that’s only half way completed? No warmth there, is it?

5) SUBMIT -- Send your work out on a consistent basis, each week, each month, whatever you’re comfortable with. Follow the guidelines! One word over the wordcount can get you tossed out, so remember, you’re no exception to their rules. They make the rules, you follow them, strictly!

6) KEEP TRACK – You’ll need to keep a folder of all the markets and publishers you’ve sent your work to. Keep it organized so you know where just to look when they come accepting! Make sure you tell them it is a sim. sub., meaning simultaneous submission, and notify each when it has been accepted.

7) MARKET YOURSELF – Whether on Facebook or Twitter, you need a marketing strategy as well. Sell your personality by telling friends, neighbors, loved ones, and fellow writers that you’ve submitted and await their response. This will get evryone excited for you, even if you get rejected, they’ll be your support to keep you going full steam ahead.

8) PROMOTE – Promote yourself, not just to writers because that to me is like Pespi selling Coke. Promoting to fellow writers is good, but they, most of the time are not your targeted buyers. Promote yourself to targeted buyers. Now if you’ve written a book to aide writers, then by all means, promote to the writing community. But a sci-fi novel is not going to be swallowed up by the writing community in which you’ve been a part of for years.

9) WRITE – Continue writing, (not over-editing) even if you’re getting no reward as in money. If you don’t keep pushing the pen, or keys on the keyboard, you will surely dry up and become a frozen lizard stuck to a pane of glass. All dried up with nowhere to go.

10) BREATHE – Take time to breathe, drinking in your reality as you pursue your dream. This is where you’ll continue to find the inspiration you need to keep on going. To become a writer, you need to WORK at becoming a writer. Nothing else will suffice in this dog-eat-dog-world.

So what are you waiting for? GET WRITING!!!

Master Plan: part II

Gen 1: 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
***

Well yesterday’s post got a lot of positive responses with the folk over at facebook who I share some of my work here with. :) So today I’m going to write about another master plan and that’s the one you’ll need to write a story.

Whether it is a short story or a novel, you will need a master plan. Not much unlike God’s plan for our lives and all He did to create the universe, our writing needs to shape up just as if we were the Creator himself. We are in essence a god to our characters because we are the creator of our intricate stories. They look to us to feed them and nourish them.

What will we need? We will need to breathe life into a character. Allow the person to shape a world. Make a mountain out of a molehill. Give your character a place to live and play. Give them a strong name. I think Mike and John are overdone. Choose something unique so that your reader will be walking around with the name on their tongue as if they just bit into an m&m or something. Like Odd Thomas, the name is quirky, but it clings to you like gumdrops to the roof of your mouth.

We’ll also need a help mate to carry the story along. Male or female, this character is necessary in creating scenes within this bubble. Allow them exploration of the world you’re creating. Give them full reign of the playground but withhold the ‘tree of life’ from them. As they explore and find the tree, perhaps the antagonist will lure them away with a good conflict that will bring your story to new heights.

An antagonist will surely add to the story to fill in all the juicy parts. Think satan running rampant and wreaking havoc on the earth. Surely your Adam and Eve will be finding new life, discovering new things but they’ll also be tempted to do the wrong thing in this right world that you’ve created.

Now that you’ve had the seed planted, don’t take seven days to create your world, take 30. An entire month of 2000 words a day. Don’t spell check and edit as you go, create! Do you think the Lord stopped on day one and said, “Now let me think, I gave Adam a backbone, but I don’t like it, delete?” No, he kept on creating, and when He had finished, Genesis 1: 31 “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
 
Write the entire month, no edits, no looking back. Create a masterpiece that the human race will look back on and one day say, “This is very good!”

Master Plan

Job: 14:9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
***

Have you ever prayed and the prayer not been answered immediately when you wanted it to be answered. Did you ever wonder why? Here lately things have been happening, all part of a Master Plan.

First of all, beau lost his job in Sept. of 2008, we prayed and prayed. Beau went blind about eight months later. More prayer. I could feel the tides moving, shifting, swaying. I could feel the power of prayer working and the good Lord swirling his answer to our prayer into our lives. No one else could feel it as I watched doubt sweep many. I sat, patiently waiting as I know a Master Plan takes time, sometimes years to get it all into the whirlpool to spew out results.

There were many changes that had to take place, inside and outside. There was construction of a new person, there was re-shaping of minds, there was miracles being displayed. But I’m telling you, if you’re not a believer, to you it all looked like a case of bad luck.

I don’t believe in luck or coincidence, so I prayed, rejoiced, praised and felt the earth moving in a direction that swayed my inner soul. I watched as impatience sweltered, looked sorrowfully as some strayed from their faith, sat in awe of the wondrous work of a living rainbow take shape. I never lost my faith once because I know the secret of the Master Plan. It’s no secret really if you know the Lord. Master Plans take TIME!

You see, when you pray, God already knows the answer to the prayer but he really wants to get the full throttle of effectiveness out of the prayer. He wants to not only answer your prayer, He wants to change as many people as He can along the way. He wants to lay a hand on everyone possible so they see the beauty of prayer and the wonderful Glory of, a Master Plan!

As beau, Adam and I had to move, figure out where to go and what to do, jumped over hurdles, figure out a few techniques and made the enormous leap of our lives, that is the leap into Gods arms, knowing He’d carry us, we’re now still reaping the benefits of the Master Plan!

I look down the gravel path and see many faces, lives altered by everything that we’ve gone through. All of our actions and reactions are all a part of the Master Plan. Is it just us three who are being transformed? No way. Many peoples lives are being touched. If you are reading this, you my friend are not exempt, you too are a part of the plan! Feel it, embrace it, know it is bigger than you and I!

It’s not about ME, me, me, or you, or my beau. We’re just instruments; a part of an orchestra that plays in Heaven and the music is divine to my ears and the Master’s. His plan, His time, His Glory!

A True Christmas~ God's Plan

Jer. 1: 10 See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.

***

Yesterday was Christmas and boy what a Christmas, God had a plan. My summation of the day as I think God had intended.

Christmas eve the snow was falling, like feathers from the sky it was drifting down and blanketing the ground with its beauty. We missed the Christmas eve service because it was canceled due to the lovely picturesque snowfall. It was dangerous too and God wanted everyone safe at home. God had a plan!

December 25th is not really Jesus’ birthday, but this is what man has turned into the Lords Birthday and we supposedly celebrate it as such. Man has a plan too and that is to turn the day into a light festival, gift giving, receiving bounty of treasures, hustle, bustle and ignorant to the true meaning of the day. God had a plan!

Since He knows we are to celebrate His birthday on this day, He made sure this is what we did. I can’t speak for the rest of the states because I imagine they all went on their Christmas voyage of visiting family, eating lots of food, and lets not forget getting and giving gifts!

My Christmas was supposed to be spent with the in-laws, since that is the only family I have here but God had a plan. I did too and that was to celebrate Jesus’ birthday in deep thought, contemplation and gratitude of my life! Could I do what I planned surrounded by sounds of the family? The hustle and bustle of the day?

God had a plan! I arose Christmas morning to the sounds of chimes clinging and clanging due to the high winds. I looked out the window and couldn’t even see the road! There before me were treacherous blizzard conditions out there with snow drifting in every direction, visibility was nil; I almost expected to see a few decorations to go blowing by like in the Rudolph show?

God had a plan! He gave me MY Christmas of wonder and glory. I sat in contemplation of all that I am grateful for in my life! Our family visit was put on hold and we celebrated with good food, laughter and joy...high winds and SNOW! This was a blessed day because I got to feel and sense all that the meaning of Christmas truly is.

Many friends had the same Christmas where they sat, watched movies and just spent the day at home with each other or alone, but they all FELT the true meaning of Christmas! Some complained about the snow and not getting out of the house. Some washed over Jesus’ birthday like it didn’t exist and that Christmas was all about THEM. God’s plan was to weed those people out! He now knows who had a truly glorious Christmas in honor of HIM! Alleluia!

Now, on to see what God has planned for the New Year! :-)

May you all be blessed and find the true meaning of this season wrapped in your heart, forever and ever...AMEN!
**

Luke 2:8-14 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.