New Year Blanks

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

January 1st, 2019

I was asked in a dream what one scripture if I could choose, would define the coming year. Some people choose a word, some a scripture. It doesn’t really mean that your year will be defined by what you choose, it basically says, hey I remember this one. This one touches me on many different levels.

I choose this one because while I don’t judge people I do sin. Everyone sins. I don’t wake up and try to sin, just the opposite, I wake and try NOT to sin. Big difference. It seems everyone else wakes up and just sins without care. Again, I'm not judging, I just disagree with that kind of living, but whatever works. So this scripture will define my blank posts for the year. If I miss a day of writing. This scripture will define my blank page days, and be a fill-in as I continue writing, healing and telling you, the rest of my story. It will also remind me that I DO sin! But God still loves me! 

My New Year began on Tuesday, January first, at least that is what the calendar said. My friends who know me, know I don’t celebrate ‘the New Year’ per se, I celebrate my new year on Easter. Instead of a pagan holiday, I turn Easter into a holy-for-me day, my New Year will begin, I will start anew! 

January first… a day like any other day. No physical therapy. Just me enjoying my new freedoms as I heal. I can now make my own breakfasts, wash dishes, do laundry, dust furniture and vacuum, and a major can-do is I can SHOWER! I did that over the weekend as well as my housework. Today was a rest day before we dismantle Christmas. Frigid temps would keep the doors closed and the heater on as we wait for a predicted thaw for the rest of the week.

May the New Calendar Year be a blessed onset of righteous living! May I grow even more Spiritually as the days progress and I work on becoming ever closer to God. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

The Rainbow... a promise from God! 

Resurrection Sunday ~ My Happy New Year!

1 Peter 2:24 KJV “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”

Resurrection Sunday ~ My New Year Begins

By the blood of Christ, I am healed

The truth of Him to me revealed

I do not walk in doubt and fear

From Him I’m fixed it’s ever clear

My suffering is but a small measure

Of the life I live, one that I treasure

Although a shell, my soul’s at home

My body on earth is free to roam

Slithering in the illness came

The ashen rider with death as a name

Catching me weakened and off guard

Knocking me down, leaving me scarred

I rose from the ashes scattered about

Reached for the Lamb, behind me doubt

Fear melted faces of those around me

Until the Light was all they could see

An orchestra of Angels plays a tune

Wraps me in their heavenly womb

I walk with Light and love by my side

The Lord is my Shepherd, my only guide

As Holy Week ends with a signified seal

My journey goes on, I continue to heal

The sidelines are full, friends and angels cheer

On this day I begin my Happy New Year!

Acts 4:22 “For the man was above forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was shewed.”

Refiners Fire ~ Perfection

Zech 13:9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”

I’m Not Perfect!

I sometimes feel like I come across as a miss-know-it-all. Let me stop you right there in that thought, I am the farthest thing from known perfection since my son was born. To me, he was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen!

Guess what, he grew up and is not perfect either! Wow, how did something so perfect, reshape and transform into an imperfect being? Life, that’s how. Life happens to all of us and instead of being perfect we are refined. We are but grains of sand in a shell waiting to become the perfect pearl.

We are an imperfect species and as we grow we, in all of our instabilities, try to refine ourselves to become the most perfect beings possible. To me, there is only one way to achieving such status and that is to allow the Holy Spirit to live in me and take up a residence in my soul.

Only through the storms are we going to find the refiners fire to go through the hailstorm and shape our inner beings into something of perfection. Maybe not what perfection is to you but what perfection is to me. Since we’re all on different paths leading to different places we will all achieve our own perfection in our own time. Maybe not even in the time that we want or expect but by the Holy Spirits time. 

As I woke today and encountered a double rainbow I knew right then that there was a beauty that was going to encompass my entire day. If I were to allow negativity to drive my day it would have wiped the slate clean of such beauty so early in the morning.  The sun was struggling to peek through heavy clouds in the east while I was facing west and there it was a double-arced rainbow alight in wondrous color right before my eyes. 

I tried with all my might to see the beginning and the end of the rainbow and what I saw was myself, standing midway underneath the joyous arc. I smiled taking in all the beauty and became one with the luminous shape, so much so, I stood in the quiet coolness of the morning and allowed the aroma of the crisp air to shape my day.

As the day progressed the clouds swallowed the rainbow; lightning crashed as thunder erupted in a calamity of rumbles unleashing a torrent of rain that washed over the parched fields. I sat in the stillness of the darkness that had blanketed the room. The rain, calling me to write…I embraced my inner peace of perfection and sat to write today’s blog. 

No, no one is perfect and judging people for their imperfections makes you even less perfect than the Holy One had intended when he refined the pot of gold He shaped you into. He never left you alone to sort out this thing we call life. He never once made you feel that you had to achieve perfection because one thing I’ve learned, He loves us the way we are, only because in his perfection He created you! You ARE perfect in His eyes.

When my son drove off today to go to work in the rain, my maternal instincts wanted to worry about the muddy roads, the nighttime driving when he comes home and all the worries a mother faces but the words ‘I love you, mom’ as he drove off, was like a rainbow of peace washing over my soul. I thought of him going off in his own direction perfecting what his soul means to him. 

Peace has completed my day!

May the Light of the Lord wash over you all and bless you on your individual journey.

Poetry Sunday ~ Unity

Gen. 9: 13 “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.”

Unity

In the midst of beauty lies

Darkness gathered round

I heard it in the stillness there

Uncertainty with a sound

Join the voices calling out

Be one with God and man

In the stirrings of the heart

The Light to which I stand

The rainbows arc dances loud

Across the sunlit sky

In the back a darkened shroud

I hear the people cry.

Rain explodes from the span

Puddles form from drops

Divided in a darkened sky

A rainbow then erupts.

One color never shines alone

They join to cast a bow

A shower of solidarity

Men and women wish to know.

Only God can be the judge

Of man and earthly sin

The rainbow is a promise

Of the flood we’ll never win.

Gen. 9:16 “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”

 

 

 

Grains of Sand

Job. 6:3 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.

Grains of Sand

Shards of glass, window broken

Words unsaid, never spoken

Lining up the grains of sand

I reach out to grasp a hand.

No one sees me standing there

Arms outstretched in deep despair.

Calls unheard, emotions dripping

Grains of sand, my fingers slipping.

Fragments of a former storm

Threads just barely keep me warm

I extend a trembling hand

Seeking out one grain of sand.

There along the barren shore

I am offered an open door.

Carried from this desolate land

Rainbows blink on grains of sand.

Prov. 27:3 A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.

 

 

Poetry Sunday ~ Soul Storm

~ Soul Storm ~

Beyond the tempest storm I see
a rainbow waiting there for me
clouds they merge then pass me by
my eye always on the erupting sky.

The storm boils over without warning
lasting through the mumbled morning
I wait with hope for the sun to win
against this beast the angry kin.

He gnaws and gnashes, biting trees
he shreds the land then heads for seas
Finding joy in causing  pain
Unleashing torrential slashing rain

I think destruction is its friend
he takes away the ability to mend.
But does he know you have more power
within your grasp through every hour?

The more he taunts and tries to break
the more you seek the rainbows wake.
You know its there; it’s in your view,
holding hope and all that’s true.

The rays burst out of the hidden shell
erasing the storms evil spell.
the arc of promise rears its head
the rainbow shows your faith’s been fed.

Amazing Grace

I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises. I will boast only in the Lord; let all who are helpless take heart. Ps 34:1-2 (NLT)

Are you there God? It’s me, Joni.

Have you ever felt like your voice is echoing in a tunnel and no one is hearing? I’ve never really felt like that because I always knew God was listening, as He was talking to me along the journey of Stevens blindness, He spoke, I listened. I never really asked anything of myself, I just kept praying for everyone else in need.

The power of prayer is simply amazing. When I send out a prayer for someone or say to a person, I’ll pray for you, those are not empty words that stop at just words, I really sincerely pray for that person. I won’t go into the amount of prayers I’ve said or for who, but I can say that the persons prayed for come back to me and say, “I FELT your prayers.” All Glory to God.

So when I send a prayer into the tunnel, it doesn’t have an echo, because of all the prayers it is bumping into. The tunnel is full of prayers and when I say, “Are you there God, it’s me, Joni,” I know God will hear my prayer. He forgets no one.

People think I’m crazy because when they ask or tell me to do something, I have a tendency to say, “I’ll see what God says,” or I’ll wait to hear what God wants me to do.” and if He says wait, I wait, patiently, sometimes in deep pain, struggling, gasping for air, but I wait, and God answers in a resounding brilliance of rainbow colors.

I don’t mean He puts a rainbow in the sky for me, (although sometimes he has done that.) But He layers his answer in a colorful rainbow that only I hear, and obey. ROYGBIV
Red-- “REST my child for you are weary”, Orange-- “OPEN your heart and let the Light shine through.” Yellow -- “YOU are my child and never forgotten.”, Green -- “GRACE from your Lord and Savior surrounds you.” Blue -- “BE one with all that I AM.” Indigo -- “I am the Lord your God.”, Violet -- “ VALUE all that you are!”

Then He adds... “You are not alone.” And then gives me a hug that is like no other warmth of the universe surrounding me.

How can you ignore that? Maybe you don’t hear Him? Maybe you’ve been so busy with reading the scripture, you never really gave it a chance when it came to actually living the scripture. I am not perfect by no means, I am a sinner like each and every one of you and think myself nothing more, but I strive, every day I wake up, and listen for the rainbow, I strive to make my day full of Glory to God.

I rose today, along with the glorious sun and felt, His Amazing Grace...
...was blind...but now... I SEE!!!

Thank you Lord, for prayers answered! Praise be your name!

NOTE: We are nearing a holiday, where people are lonely and need our prayer. Thanksgiving and Christmas should be a time for celebration and giving thanks. This weeks posts will be for the needy, the less fortunate, the ones no one cares for, but Jesus.

Matt. 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Poetry Sunday ~ The Wonder of Wonders

Gen 9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
***

The Wonder of Wonders
(c) Joni Zipp
***
The wonder of wonders
of the night
the stars are still
the moon is bright.

The wonder of wonders
of the sky
if only we knew
the answers to why.

The wonder of wonders
of hidden meaning
take it all in
as one who is gleaning.

The wonder of wonders
the master has spoken
I give you the rainbow
as a token!

All rights reserved: copyright © Joni  Zipp

Poetry Sunday ~ Soul Storm

Soul Storm
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp
Beyond the tempest storm I see
a rainbow waiting there for me
clouds they merge then pass me by
my eye always on the erupting sky.

The storm boils over without warning
lasting through the mumbled morning
I wait with hope for the sun to win
against this beast the angry kin.

He gnaws and gnashes, biting trees
he shreds the land then heads for seas
Finding joy in causing pain
Unleashing torrential slashing rain

I think destruction is his friend
he takes away the ability to mend.
But does he know you have more power
within your grasp through every hour?

The more he taunts and tries to break
the more you seek the rainbows wake.
You know its there; it’s in your view,
holding hope and all that’s true.

The rays burst out of the hidden shell
Erasing the storms evil spell.
the arc of promise rears its head
the rainbow shows your faith’s been fed.
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp

Poetry Sunday

A Rainbow's Song

You descended upon me

as a fine billowy white cloud.

Wrapped your essence around me

absorbed all of my gray,

to rain your love on me.

You carried me blissfully away

into the warmth of the sunshine

to create a beautiful rainbow's song.

You enveloped me with the

flaming passionate reds.

Gave me the blue hues

of an infinite sky.

Showered me with the yellows

of purity

Blossomed around me

the fragrance of aromatic oranges.

Planted me safely

in a field of wondrous green.

Your love has been a song to my soul…

an everlasting rainbow's song…

To infinity…and beyond.