Poetry Sunday ~ I Was Weeping

Christ-mas display in Texas 

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.

Poetry Sunday ~ My Country Tis of Thee...

Isa.24:5 “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.”

My Country, Tis of Thee…

My country tis of thee

No land of liberty

Of thee I plead.

Land where my father died

Land where all children cried

Where man will always burn inside

For once, let FREEDOM reign.

My country tis of thee

No peace I ever see

Of thee I bleed.

Land never filled with pride

Land with arms open wide

Where man cannot safely hide

Why is FREEDOM pain?

My country tis of thee

No truth will set me free

Of thee is greed.

Land lost to all that chide

Land where no man abide

Where loyalty is put aside

My FREEDOM’s slain!

My country tis of thee

I long to trust in thee

Of thee great seed.

Land where the ground has dried

Land where no fruit complied

Where others all deride

Let FREEDOM not be vain.

Hos. 4:7 “As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.”

It Strikes Me...

Prov. 31:25 (NLT)“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” 

It strikes me…

Well, it hit me again, I was walking through Wal-Mart and it strikes me as odd at a number of people not even paying attention to what they’re buying. They just look, grab, and place the merchandise in the cart. Me, I’m scanning every label, reading every ingredient, more times than not replacing the product back on the shelf, even when it says organic.

Now that I know what I’m looking for at the store, it sure makes shopping much easier, because I can avoid the aisles with stuff I don’t need and if hubby wants something, he goes off on his own to get it without making me venture down the ‘toxic aisles’.

Then something hit me this week. I rounded the bakery section and was heading to the checkout and it caught my eye, a pink shirt with the decal on it ‘FIGHT FOR THE CURE’. As I got closer to the shirt, touched it, looked at the bold lettering and the pink ribbon, tears began to well up in my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry in Wal Mart. I knew what the shirt was saying, I knew all too well. 

You see, I always looked at those things and just became saddened for other women who fought, were fighting, or had lost someone. But for me? I never associated the pink with me. I never saw myself as a ‘one day that’ll be me’, no, I never let it cross my mind, I never grasped that straw.

And here I was gazing down at the pink shirt, touching the fabric, running my fingers over the letters and realizing it is me. That decal is referring to me. I’m one of them; one of the hundreds of thousands of women who this pink ribbon stands for. I felt small, I felt like an ant in the middle of the store with all the big humans passing by not seeing me carrying the heavy crumb. They were passing by not giving me a second glance. I was nothing on their radar. They were hurried and rushed and I stood there just looking at this shirt.

I let it go. I didn’t want the pink, I didn’t want to associate with what the shirt stood for. I in no way wanted any part of it. Just like the disease that is running through the very cells of my body, I don’t want any part of it. I seek normal, I just want what I deemed to be normal back and yet as I run my mind through the reality of it all, I have to let it go. Normal will never come back and this new lifestyle is the new normal for me. I have to accept that.

As we were driving home I asked my husband what the shirt said. My brain to me said FIGHT THE CURE, and my husband said no, it said fight FOR the cure. So as I held that pink shirt in my fingers, my mind was telling me a truth FIGHT THE CURE. That is my reality. THAT is the shirt I want to wear.

To me fighting FOR the cure could mean giving the oncologist their rights in filling innocent women with poisons. It is putting your support behind the victimization going on and treating everyone like little gathering ants. Give them a crumb here and there but don’t you dare give them wings! Ants can’t fly and by allowing them to think they can is going to start an entire new breed of ants! Fight FOR the cure could also mean that there has been no cure found. The oncologists give you pacifying drugs but chemo is in NO WAY the cure, so we women must FIGHT FOR THE CURE to be found.

And to me FIGHTING the CURE means just that, fight the very thing that doctors are feeding millions of women. Fight what truth they believe and set out to find your own leg to stand on. Fight everything they hold like poisons to be the ‘cure’. Because as I’ve learned over these past eight months, the doctors are only selling you what the pharmaceuticals are selling them. I could be 100% wrong, but again, all that I’ve learned in the past eight months tells me that I and thousands of other people are feeling the same thing I am and trusting their instincts and finding what works for them!

Our bodies were created with an immune system. That immune system is in place as a healing mechanism that the human body utilizes. To me, not trusting God’s creating abilities, is in a sense not trusting God at all. When you look at a DNA strand, do you realize how intricate that strand is and all it stands for? The strand is God in an intimate shower within you.

Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (NIV)

When you were little, didn’t you come to depend and trust your father? You looked up to him and held him in the highest esteem and trust. When he told you something, you believed it to be true and to this day, I can almost guarantee you utter the words from time to time, “My daddy always said…”
Why would we think that our Heavenly Father is any different than ‘our daddy’? 

If truth be told. God is our daddy and we can trust Him as we walk. Just like your earthly father, He will never lead us down the wrong path. We’ll stumble, we’ll fall but he’ll see to it that his gentle loving hand lifts you back up and sets you on the right path again. We just have to trust Him like we trusted our daddy all of our lives. He did NOT give me this illness, that’s like saying he led down the wrong path like he made me destroy my body. Nope, we all know where sin comes from and my torturous life led me to this illness, not God. 

It strikes me as kind of odd that people put more trust in a human than the intricate, intimate Creator. Maybe it’s just me; maybe I’m the odd one. I separate myself from this disease so it doesn’t own me. I face the enemy with the Sword of Truth. I strike the lies before it strikes me!

James 4:8, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (ESV)

The Sacred Plant

God's Sense of Humor

this flourishes in my backyard

Ecc.  7:3 “Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.”

The Sacred Plant

Used for centuries as a medicinal plant that has healing power. It is sad to me that the stigma surrounding this plant has us, the people, brainwashed. I at times feel like a part of a herd of cattle in a pen all waiting for slaughter. I’ve used this term metaphorically before but I can’t bring it home enough for people to understand and let it sink into their head. 

When I say I am all for the legalization of Cannabis for medicinal purposes or other, I’m called a pothead, even jokingly, the term hits hard because I’m suffering and the oil is out of my reach. As of right now, if being a ‘pothead’ would heal this disease, then bring it on. If I were to ask a doctor to help me retrieve medicinal cannabis to heal this disease, they would tell me there is not enough scientific proof to back up what I’m saying. Yet there is proof, and no one wants to aid the healing of a human race smothering in disease and illness. This plant above is called 'Ditch Weed' and it grows wild in Nebraska.

Legalization is allowed in a few states but the other states are behind on the cattle drive. If cannabis could be harnessed, we’d have no national deficit, but the high and mighty powerhouse, Federal Government, and the pharmaceutical companies only think of the billions that they can be made. The doctors would rather prescribe oxycodone, methadone and morphine and other drugs than to SAVE LIVES. Are you brainwashed by them too?

Endocannabinoid system - The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is a group of endogenous cannabinoid receptors located in the mammalian brain and throughout the central and peripheral nervous systems, consisting of neuromodulatory lipids and their receptors. In other words, our bodies are wired to the healing of cannabis 
You'll have to copy and paste this link because, for some odd reason, blogger won't allow it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannabinoid_system

God created a beautiful system that makes up our bodies as a whole. To heal the inner body we would need to touch the Trinity aspects of the mind, body, and soul. You cannot just heal the body via drugs, you cannot heal your soul of sickness without healing the mind. While my aunt (by marriage) stated clearly that it was pharmaceutical drugs that have kept people alive. She holds confidence in the medical field. I hold no confidence in them. They want to kill me, drug me, and lead me to slaughter.

The past five days I’ve been pretty much down in the dumps. Depression had me in its grip and I needed to claw my way out through mud sliding through my fingers as I neared the top. I didn’t want to write, I didn’t want to express any joy or sorrow, I hit a roadblock and there I was in the grips of desolation.

Honestly what hit me was seeing people so happy. Freely living life content and sound. My mind plays tricks on me and I see those people living a false life because no one has a perfect life but that is what they portray. They’re not sick with a disease that threatens to take their life. Some are, I’m not minimizing your suffering. I see them eating, drinking and being merry, and me, I’m out here fighting for my life with herbal supplements and being shunned because I’m not in the same pen as all the rest of the herd of cattle.

Gen. 1:29 “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

Cannabis is a gift from the Creator for us to heal ourselves. Before big pharma came along, people treated ailments with herbs. Ancient cultures have healed for thousands of years before drugs were used, so telling me I’m ‘off my rocker’ for wanting to heal holistically, I’ll call you quackers for wanting to heal with drugs. Drugs don’t HEAL, they pacify, herbs HEAL! They are natural God given healers taken away from us and replaced by thoughts that DRUGS heal, herbs are for ‘quacks’.

Advocates for the Sacred Plant:
Julius Axelrod - 

Dr. Sanjay Gupta - 

Alice O’Leary Randall
Robert Randall - 

Irv Rosenfeld –

Cannabis patented by our government – the same people patenting cannabis are the same people filling our jails deeming it an illegal drug, the same people feed the herd toxins to survive.

Deception, greed, and fear are what rules this nation. Our choices in what we do will determine not only our future but the future of mankind. I’m watching a new series (yes, I’ve watched many in these four months) titled The Sacred Plant, this was the first one with a serious disclaimer:

“Disclaimer: This message is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient please either destroy this e-mail immediately and don't rely on its contents, or return it immediately to the person named above. Thank you.”

It’s pretty sad when there seems to be a healing potential being repressed and kept from us in the pen so we’re not released to our own will of free thinking. You might think you’re a person with your own free will and thinking capabilities but you were programmed to think and believe that. The ones out here taking seriously our own free will and acting on our own, are being met with stigmatization until we’re thought to be ‘whacko’ because we don’t follow the massive herd being led to slaughter.

Our veterans are being used as guinea pigs and that doesn’t upset you? 
But the Government is sabotaging those medical studies. Read this to see for yourself how they (the government) supplies bad cannabis to Johns Hopkins University for PTSD studies on Veterans. The government is having a hard time harnessing a weed that could make them trillions of dollars. 

Ditch Weed

Thank you to all of the advocates who stand up for what you KNOW and believe in! Thank you for staring in the face of the enemy (our government) and quite bluntly spitting in their faces. I pray that I have the strength that you have and can become a solid activist for a cause I believe in. I WILL overcome and be back to myself, I just needed a wake-up call.

To think, I could eliminate twenty supplements for this one highly priced, illegal healing oil that is a natural herb. Thanks, Nebraska, for nothing! 

Wake up people, we’re a brainwashed species being led to slaughter. “Heil Hitler”

Feeling Sad

 Writing this, thinking of Christopher I look out the window and see this. 

Col. 3:15 “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”

A Sad Day

I could feel the sadness brewing at the beginning of the week but when Thanksgiving arrived it hit me like a Mack truck running me over, and my body left to lie on the cold concrete as the truck kept going. I always get sad around the holidays missing my family but it hit me harder this year I think because my one and only living son had to work.

I could feel the hustle and bustle coming through my screen as my days are not much more than sitting behind a screen writing my feelings down or cleaning and scrubbing the house to my liking as I prepare for the Christmas season. I just like a clean house so it tends to keep me busy on a daily basis.

It was 34 years ago on Thanksgiving day that I lost my firstborn son. I often think of what my son would be like had he been able to live in this crazy world. Sometimes I’m thankful that he didn’t have to endure years of pain with me as a failing mother and that he resided with his heavenly Father who would shield him from the world's animosity; it doesn’t hurt any less, after all, Christopher was still born!

It’s too long of a story to get into but the gist of it is, the sharp stinging pains started on Thanksgiving Day in 1982, and a doctor visit the next day confirmed my nine-month fetus was lying in a tomb, my body. A week would pass before the dead lifeless baby was delivered and it was one of those changing points in my life that affected me for life. 

Every Thanksgiving Day has been a kind of memorial day for me (no one else) when I think of that day. I don’t cling to the sadness just for that day but the days that followed leading up to Christopher’s birthday, December 2nd. This year was no different as my husband and I sat at an empty table alone, eating our scrumptious dinner that I was ever so grateful to be eating.

I consider myself to be a strong person but there are two days that buckle me to my knees and that is Astri’s birthday and Christopher’s birthday, my two angel babies that didn’t have work to do on earth but had plenty to do in heaven!

So maybe you can sympathize with me as I eagerly made the turkey, the mashed potatoes, yams, and dressing this year but the meal when done, would only fill my husband and my stomach. Tears streamed down my face during prayer as I was missing so much, feeling so empty waiting to be filled. This was Adam’s first Thanksgiving away from the table and I felt the emptiness in the core of my bones.

I watched as family after family rejoiced in spending time with one another. Picture after picture of sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles all gathering around for what was to culminate in a family tradition. Family time together, that is what Thanksgiving is to many people but I do know a few who celebrated alone and maybe no one offered a prayer for them (but me) because they were too busy being thankful for what was in front of them.

I think in some way I shaped my own family tradition of loneliness on Thanksgiving Day and not really understanding or comprehending what Family Tradition is all about. My family back home celebrated in their own non-traditional way. My brother invited my mother to his house, my other brother went to his families home, while my other two brothers and sister all ate alone, like me. (My one brother is homeless, the other alone in Tennessee, my sister's kids all ate at their friend's house, I guess, because tradition is not the norm for my blood family)

It’s pretty sad when you miss family because of a death and they’re no longer with you to celebrate, or you live too far away to get together for the turkey day celebration, but it is quite downright pathetic when you have a big uncaring family and you’re left alone on the holiday even without a simple holiday greeting of Happy Thanksgiving! Just so you know, *I* DID make the effort to extend a greeting to those blood family members who are my ‘friends’ on facebook. A huge family and two replies, wow that made my day.

Now my virtual family all replies when you say Happy Thanksgiving to make you feel like some part of their family and celebration; that takes the sting off of feeling depressed during the holiday. Had it not been for them, I would have probably spent the day puddled in tears, feeling hurt and throwing myself a pity party.

My writing break is not over yet but I just had to get this off of my chest and writing is my only healing spot. Thank you all for reading but most off all THANK YOU for allowing me to see traditions through your eyes and letting me know that families DO exist in the world today! Thank you for sharing you with me!

See it or not, this cross was for me. 

Reflecting

google image

sad tree

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

A Reflecting Post

I’m writing this on Monday, September 7th a day before the election that will change the world. I could already feel the rise in change at the beginning of the year and my fellow man didn’t let me down. They began the year consumed in hate and carried the angst all the way through to November and surely through December with the outcome no one will like.

I saw hypocrites crawl out of the woodwork like termites in dry-rotted wood all taking their place in the march to destroy whatever pleasantries one has known in America. I’ve been writing my heart out this year taking my stance with Christ and my love for Him, never to be swayed by the vermin of society who has taken a stance in the mire. 

Sadly, I can count on one hand the people who stayed true to their beliefs and didn’t succumb to the rallying cries of animosity. It is as if believers were on a collective conscious stream where we gathered together knowing the destruction had unfolded and they/WE were not going to be a part of it, they would fight against the flow and stand firmly with their faith!

I will add to this writing on November 9th when the shock of what the humans have done sinks in. Are they going to all stand proud? Are they going to rally together and continue with their bashing and displeasure? Are they going to boast of their love of God while raging at their brother?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you for showing me that you CAN be stronger in Christ by not allowing the antagonism to wash over you and carry you into the swamp of a broken democracy, a shattered people. I am proud to call you friend as I’ve watched this entire year, as you stood separate from the indignation and finger pointers who added to the demise of our country.

My brothers and sisters, you stood tall in the face of a challenge. You brought God to the world and were messengers of the Word and never let the hate filter in. You never strayed. Yes, we may all be sinners, but God NEEDED us to be strong for HIM, and so many in the world have let Him down but you, you stood firm FOR Him. For that very reason, I know you are truly blessed and will continue to be the Light the world needs to see in this time of darkness.

Words from my dear friend, Bob Hembree, the day before Election Day 2016:

“Most of us agree social media has contributed to the ugly current of distrust toward our social institutions, the foundations of American stability. This includes legitimate news organizations, the sciences and all three branches of the government. We pick our news sources based on our prejudices, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Lies have more weight than truth if they agree with our politics. We create enemies on impulse, decide who is a criminal, then create the crimes. When legitimate news reporting disproves these charges, they too become the criminals, the accomplice’s, the co-conspirators. When the truth no longer matters, what's left but chaos? It doesn’t matter who wins the presidency tomorrow. The damage is done. My vote is not for the individual, but for the party best able to handle damage control. We need all the sanity and empathy we can get.”

I’ve been around for quite a few elections in my life but never have I feared one the way I do this one. Will we wake and act as if this year filled with angst, destruction, and chaos never happened? I don’t think so, I think they’ll wake with the same resentment that they carried all year. Will they accept change, male or female there IS going to be change. This sentence stuck with me from Bob, “Lies have more weight than truth if they agree with our politics.”

I now wait to see what the morning after brings. 

11 9 2016 ~ Reality sets in

the morning after

I’ll have to admit first that I did not stay up and wait and see what the people had done but I rose this morning turned on my computer to see Hillary’s smiling face in the headline. Oh, it was just a split screen picture; Donald Trump was squished to the left of the box that announced we now have a reality TV star for President of the United States.

The headlines down the google page read like this:

2016 Election: Donald Trump Wins the White House in Upset NBC - News.com
Featured: Donald Trump's Stunning Upset -The Atlantic
Trending: Donald Trump wins the presidency in stunning upset over Clinton - Washington Post
Live Updating: Election Night live blog: Trump's historic upset and the last cliffhangers --The Mercury News
Republicans keep control of Congress - CNN
Allies scramble after 'huge shock' of Trump victory – Politico
Trump victory sparks angry protests across California: 'Not my president' -Los Angeles Times

And don’t even get me started on the facebook wall.

The reality of all of this is that we are not United States, we are bullies and get what we want by bullying, misleading, lies, dishonesty. The Missouri pick three (obviously fixed and nothing random about it) 666? I question everything in my world.

What was once a world power has now become the laughing stock of the world! You did it people, aren’t you happy? You kicked, you screamed, you whined, you pushed, you shoved, you lied and threw a tantrum and now you’ve gotten your way. Does it feel good? I wouldn’t know because what I feel in the pit of my stomach is not a fluffy feel good churning. 

I woke to find a different world surrounding me. I see people are in shock for what they made into a reality. I feel tremors under my feet as the earth is quaking in fear. As we reflect on the year that could’ve been, make note of the year that was because the spinning of the globe has only just begun to collapse. Hold on tight to your loved ones, ignore the reality, as many people think I do, and realize this is the new world of Reality Television and we the people are the stars. 

I Stand with Christ!

John 11:35 "Jesus wept."

On This Day

1 Cor. 15:2 “By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.”

On This Day

On this day last year my dad passed away. This week has been a culmination of tears and memories leading me down memory lane. Every phone call to my mother this week has been of her rehashing the weeks that led to the final week which led to the day that my dad passed. I sat and listened allowing her to let out her grief so maybe she would find solace.

She tells me over and over again how my brother in Tennessee is still taking it hard and he let’s her know repeatedly how much he misses my father. Then there is the story of my sister who (now has his car) is driving around with a picture of my dad on the dashboard and how she wears the memorial necklace ALL the time.

I haven’t heard from ANY of my siblings since my dad passed. The last call to my brother was last year when he said, as we ended the call, to stay in touch and I did try, but as you can imagine he has his own family and doesn’t really have anything to do with any of his siblings anymore. There comes a time when the letdown is not worth the pain attributed to the lack of communication from siblings.

I can’t handle people saying over and over, “But that is your family; your blood.” I only have one dear friend who told me to just let them go and move on, the pain is not worth it, and he’s right. 

These past thirteen years haven’t been the easiest on me but I feel a peace here I’ve never had in my entire life. I feel loved; possibly for the first time an unconditional love that I only thought existed in fairytales. This time it is real because I feel it in my bones, in every essence of my being!

This week has been a stroll down memory lane. Many of the memories I’ve buried and plan to keep there but some memories good or bad surface like hot springs bubbling in anticipation of an explosion; none of which I’ll let come to fruition because I’m all about healing.

The bitterness inside will have to wait to eat away at me because this peace I feel now will not be ruined by any kind of confrontation and where my family is concerned, a simple chat is always a confrontational debate. 

Everybody grieves differently and while I wake and think about my dad daily, I don’t cry on a daily basis because I know he is at peace and don’t want us carrying on. I have to admit the only regret I have is not seeing him before he died and well, I’ll carry that with me to the grave but I’ve already told my mother that I won’t be coming back for her funeral either, not out of disrespect but out of love. After she leaves this earth, there will be not a thing tying me to that crutch of a place that tried strangling me to death all those years. She said she understands.  

That’ll be just another reason for my family to justifiably disown me and I’m okay with that since I’ve come to terms with my not being able to return. I’m at peace knowing I can move on in life alone but not ALL alone, I do have family here that has embraced me like their own and I have the most loving and understanding Heavenly Father.

So while I grieve on the one-year anniversary for my father’s death, I’m at peace knowing he is at peace and no longer suffering. While my family is back home living with regrets of what did or didn’t happen in their life, my only regret is not seeing my dad alive, one last time. And if I don’t get to see my mother one last time alive, I’ll deal with that regret when it happens. Until then… my poetry is what bound them to me eternally. 

Luke 1:79 (KJV) “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Poetry Sunday: God Is Crying

Isa. 22:5  "For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains."

God is Crying

God is crying once again

The ground is wet with shame

Man can’t see the pain God’s in

Your senseless acts to blame.

God is crying can you hear

The rumbling sounds that stir.

Heaven shakes as tears roll down

The earth to Him’s a blur.

God is crying can you see

The echoes mount the sky

Signs that leak from the clouds

But man dare not ask why.

God is crying do you know

More souls ascend, He bleeds

Fear tears down our only hope

Of fruit within his seeds.

God is crying can you taste

Corroded corpses embers

Here among the righteous 

Godly earthbound members.

God is crying can you feel 

The trembling of His feet

Earth erupts in quaking stance

To rhythmic tapping beat.

God is crying feel his grief

For man has left Him lonely.

I alone will take a stand

To hug Him once if only.

© Joni Zipp

posted on:July 15, 2016

repost 7 17 16

Goodness Makes The Badness Go Away

John 14:21 (NIV) "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

“Goodness makes the badness go away”

This song was a part of the Smurfs Christmas special one year. They sang the song to dispel an evil curse that was poured over them by mysterious dark man. Even Gargamel was under the curse and only the Smurfs could save them.

The lyrics go like this:

Goodness makes the badness go away.
Goodness makes you happy every day.
Badness cannot start if there's goodness in your heart.
Goodness makes the badness go away.

This song came to mind as I posted my blog. Yesterday I tried to post a blog about the evil taking over the world but wouldn’t you know it, a force kept me from logging in as our internet went out completely in the morning and didn’t return until bedtime 10 pm. So I posted my blog, The Legion Puzzle, on 6 16 16. Ironic isn’t it, that 666 is in the date?

The earth is being swallowed up by the evil permeating the souls of humans. In the news, images, lies, deceit, corruption all smother the mind and keep it away from the goodness that might be had in a day. Yes, there is goodness in the world but when you wake in the morning, is that the first thing you think about? Is all the good in the world the first thing you read about or fill your mind with? 

The newspaper, online or offline, never focus’ on the good happening in the world, they have to target all the bad and ill will that is suffocating humans in every part of the world. People find pleasure in reading about a botched facelift, they cheer on broken marriages, they post and repost about all that is wrong in the world and rarely posts about the good going on in the world. 

There has to be more than the rescue of animals that makes the good news rounds. While I’m all for the saving of animals lives, isn’t there ANY good happening out there in the human form? Are people so consumed with sharing all that is wrong in the world isn’t there anything going right?

Is it possible for goodness to make the badness go away? Am I just a dreamer who wants nothing but good things for this world? Am I alone in my quest to see a turnaround? If every single human alive today took one day out of their lives to consciously become aware of the hate they’re spreading and instead traded it in for something positive, I DO believe the world could be changed.

But such as it is, we don’t want a universal good in the world. We’ll justify our anger by saying, “Well he’s not spreading love and good thoughts, why should I?” That is the problem, you see? You are so worried about what the other person is doing and not caring about what YOU are putting out into the world. 

We live in a click-bait world where you see something interesting on facebook, click it and share because someone said you are heartless if you don’t share. You then have opened the door for advertisers and prey to follow you around posting what they KNOW you’ll click and as a bait, you snag it up and are ensnared and are also blindly walking into a web of deceit.

We live in a self-serving world; ‘if it doesn’t benefit ME than I’m not interested’ attitude. So I’ll ask, doesn’t goodness interest you? Does sharing good positive thoughts hurt you? No? Then why cling to anger and hatred as a daily sport?

I know that this is a political year, and I know everyone has their opinions of who is the best choice but the way I see it, the darkness has taken over the world so much so we are left with two bad choices. This is the way that evil works. You don’t get to choose the best man/woman for the job, you have to choose what is offered universally and there is nothing good left in the world; no light at the end of the tunnel.

Control the input that seeps through your veins and into your mind demeaning your brain. I’m so tired of the ‘If you’re a true friend, you’ll repost this’ as a way of GUILTING me into action. I cannot be made to do anything I don’t want to do but I see so many committing the action because I guess they ARE a true friend? All of us who don’t repost are just normal, non-caring, insensitive souls.  I see fewer people on facebook because it has become a mission of some to destroy the many people and their joyous being.

Why is the world wrapped in badness and sadness? Why do people choose pain over joy? Why is evil over saturating the innocent? Why has darkness swallowed the Light? You can’t blame religion, politics, the Muslim, Islam, radical Islam on this alone. No, EVERY single person who chooses hatred over love is a part of the problem. Your anger and rage should be targeted at YOU! 

A friend’s friend C. Amsden wrote: “Hate is so much easier and less painful than love. Hate allows us to feel superior and righteous. Love tears at our guts and emotions. It leaves us vulnerable and weak. Hate builds an altar to our own egos and lets us worship our own perfection. Hate is never really about the person it is directed toward, it is always about the person it stems from. Love is always about the person receiving it, not the one giving it. Hate is the ultimate selfishness.”

We now accept sin as a way of life. There is only one defense and that is love and forgiveness. Here are the words from a man who just lost his daughter in the Orlando, Florida brutal carnage. 

"We forgive the shooter. We talked about it," said Deonka's father, a pastor who runs a nonprofit that helps the poor and elderly. "Hatred will find a way to destroy you, so we forgive the shooter. It wasn't very hard to do. Anger was in me and there was no place to release it. Forgiveness was the way to release it." 

Can goodness make the badness go away? I fear I’ll never find out. I fear it is too late. So continue what you’re doing and never change. We’re right on the path that was set at the beginning of time.

They're all IDIOTS!

Prov. 15:1 “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

How does that feel? Don’t you just love it when a ‘so called’ Christian stands out in plain site calling people idiots? That speaks volumes to the kind of person he/she is, I mean seriously isn’t there another way to hate people or nations, provinces, races, colors, ideologies? To disagree is one thing but to name-call, that is just harsh words to stir up anger. 

What I see when people name call are people who are racist, prejudice, ignorant slanderers that would not hesitate in calling a handicapped person a derogatory name either, or someone overweight belittling names or a mentally challenged person a demeaning name. It is the nature of haters to hate everything they possibly can and love only, what, their own mother?

This is a sad world when all you can do is register hate to begin your day. Are you telling me that your life is so boring that you have nothing better to do in life but spread hate, hate-filled posts, ignorance, lies and disgusts? I thought I had a sad life because of all the love I have for nature but surely the hate-mongers are desperate for attention. Oh don’t worry, they are not alone because they rally the numbers behind them and have the innocent victims falling in line to agree and cheer on their hate rant. I guess it is justified but the vicious cycle actually makes me want to puke. Just as my posts anger people for whatever reason because I don’t share in the hate? 

Prov. 19:1 “Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.”

A couple of months ago the singer Prince died. The social media lit up in condolences and sympathy while the haters did nothing but add the dislike for the man. Was it because he was black man? Or his religion wasn’t the same as theirs? This weekend Muhammad Ali died after a long battle with an illness but he died happy and content. That made the jealous ones sit up and fill to the brim their hatred of the man who didn’t do one thing wrong to them, but oh wait, he was Muslim. 

You see, in this country, you cannot be any other religion. You can only be one political party and you MUST agree with the masses or you are up the creek without a paddle. If you do not conform to one way of thinking you are the one shunned for being different among the crowd. 

I wonder if this is what the Native Americans felt like when the Polish, German, Irish, British, Jews came over and put them in their own little private corner of the world and tried to force their religious and political beliefs on them.

In America, you can be Jewish and you’re accepted and praised, you can be Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Baptist, Jehovah Witness, Lutheran, Methodist, Buddhist and any other religion except Muslim. God forbid should you be a practicing Muslim in America because that is SO un-American and no person will accept you. Yes, that IS what the Native Americans feel like. 

The hate-filled people will say that the Muslim are killers. Muhammed Ali was a practicing Muslim, was he a killer? Aaron Hernandez is a killer, OJ Simpson is a killer but they were probably of the right religion and that is why they are idolized.

I don’t even think America is divided by religion in my eyes, we’re divided as the people who love, and the people who hate. You either fit in or you don’t. Get over yourself people, America does NOT own the world and does not own religion. You so-called Christians need to learn how love, practice what you preach and stop all the hating any one or thing that doesn’t conform to YOUR expectations.

What to do? Well, what I do is I bask in the glory of the trees, the earth, the fields coming alive, the colorful birds singing and chirping, the sun rising and lending shadows to the earth. I rejoice in my Father who is in heaven and gave this beauty for me to behold, love and appreciate. Am I wrong for loving the human species the way Jesus loved all men? Am I so naïve to cherish all that I have in my life and not want for more?

I am content, I am alive and I LOVE. Alleluia, Amen!

Invisiible

This is a self-portrait

(sarcasm)

Invisible

Ephesians 4:25 ESV “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”

Sometimes you can feel totally invisible standing amid the crowd but when you look around, maybe they are enjoying all the beauty out in the world that they don’t see you standing right in their face.

From a June 3rd, 2014 post of mine on facebook – “A Grackle Tale – Sure they’re just annoying blackbirds but I love all birds and animals and communicate with them in some weird ways. Yesterday when one seemed distressed, I immediately went out to see what was wrong. She was looking down in the garden and just being so noisy; I assumed her baby fell from a nest or something. But she was just cawing and cawing and not going down to the garden where she had her eyes fixated on.
Many of her Grackle friends had joined her in a show of support but she was the only one cawing out. They sat in the tree in numbers watching her and ready to respond.
I noticed an empty black flowerpot had been blown into a divot in the garden and just lay there, unable to get out of the hole. 
I looked at her she at me and I said, “What, is this what you’re so excited about?” All the birds stirred as I moved toward the pot; her hanging close by watching me intently cawing and cawing. 
I picked up the pot, set it away on the nearby table so she could see it. The cawing stopped…she and her friends flew away. She thought the black pot was an injured grackle!
Moral of the story? When one person suspects their friend is in trouble, she makes a loud noise so her surrounding friends can support her and help if any danger ensues. Danger gone, the birds (friends) fly away, relieved.
Surround yourself with friends and prayer – all danger and fear will subside.”

There is another moral to the story but not as good as the first one. Sometimes when a friend puts a call out for help, many turn a blind eye and ignore. Humans are not like birds, I do believe we’re the lesser of the species. I’ve never met an animal with an ego as big as humans. Sure this makes people keep their control of not wanting to help but it is also an insult to the injured party.

It’s a harsh reality when you’re invisible. Sometimes I cause my own invisibility because people don’t like what I write. I hit a guilt nerve that resonates through people. Their ego has them thinking I am talking about them in specific when what I write is off the top of my head and is aimed at NO ONE. 

But you see, it is okay because the Lord never said it would be easy, or that you’d be liked for loving Him, no this road isn’t full of ‘everyone likes me’. This road is full of people who have the ‘run-and-flee’ mechanism built into them because what I say is holding a hidden truth that sends people into a guilt phase.

I’m not qualified to preach and preachiness is a big turn off for me. Some of my posts might come off as me being preachy but let me tell you, I speak from my heart, not from a scholarly know-it-all level. Usually, when I post, it comes from something I’m experiencing and I seek out answers as I write and more often than not, my only solace is the words in the bible.

Rom. 3: 9 “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
[10] As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
[11] There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
[12] They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
[13] Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
[14] Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
[15] Their feet are swift to shed blood:
[16] Destruction and misery are in their ways:
[17] And the way of peace have they not known:
[18] There is no fear of God before their eyes.
[19] Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
[20] Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
[21] But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
[22] Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

That’s it my fellow man, we are all sinners! I throw my sin out there in the open for all of the world to read while many choose to hide behind their sin, so they can commit the sin over and over again and feel no guilt. 

1 Corinthians 6:20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

This is what I try and offer to people. To glorify God. It hurts me to see so many who claim to love God but do nothing to glorify Him. This is all I live for, to aid the weak birds fluttering around. I try to offer my assistance to help them stand and walk on their own. I fear my invisibility cloak will not allow those who NEED the help, to see me offering an extended hand. 

1 John 4:20 “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”

May God bless each and every person reading this.

The Box

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

The Box

It came without fanfare it came without ribbons and bows but it was the box that I was anxiously waiting for with memories of my father. It looked like any other box that comes in the mail, all wrapped in brown paper and taped beyond belief. I had quite a hard time getting into the box and it smelled kind of funny.

My mother had been building on my excitement the entire month when she said what was going to be in the box (minus my necklace) that still to this day has not been made ready by the funeral director!

This season has not been an anticipated season and to be honest, I’m quite down. I lost one of my favorite aunts in the beginning of the year and just last week I lost one of my favorite uncles, AND I lost my father at the end of October which is kind of putting a damper on my celebratory Christmas spirit!

My concern lies with my mother who is a brave ol’ soul enduring a lot and being a comfort to my aunt, her sister, in her time of need. Friday, the day of the funeral, I was supposed to go see Steven’s family and when Thursday came, I told him I just couldn’t do it in all good conscience. I was down and didn’t want to say anything that I’d regret. I couldn’t wear a mask and pretend all is right with the world when my world was crushed, my heart broken and my spirit in a quite stir.

My days on Facebook have halted for a spell because it is full of cheer and happiness. Can people REALLY be all that happy? It’s possible but I don’t know, I think they wear a mask over their sadness and make the world think they’re all happy as a horse. It could be my own sadness seeing things that aren’t there and that is totally possible too because I’m in a serious funk!

The box – it lifted my spirits on a day shadowed in death; it arrived. There was some good news and… some bad news. The good news was that it arrived! The bad news is that the Old Bay seasoning that my mother sent had been damaged, meaning in transit the lid popped off and splattered all over everything. The m&m bag was split open (shut up Benning) and Steven was a sport (the m&m’s were for him) ate for the first time Baltimore seasoned m&m’s!

She had put in there the funeral cards, some pictures, three lighthouses (for Adam), and two seasonal throws, one for me and one for Steven. They certainly gave new meaning to the SEASONal blankets, covered in Old Bay. Mind you that Old Bay is hard to come by out here in the midwest and that is why she sent it to me from Baltimore, land of the crab lovers.

Then my most prized possession that I was awaiting, the binoculars! These binoculars have sentimental value beyond belief! My dad acquired them from the shipyard he worked at over 40 years ago and they have been everywhere; Ocean City, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, and of course Maryland. My dad treasured these naval binoculars.

I held them in my hand, while dusting off the Old Bay, and could feel my dad’s hands wrapped around them. I put my eyes to the peepholes (ouch) and just a little burn from the Old Bay but they were here, in my hand, in MY possession! Every child in my family wanted these but they were the first thing I asked for when I got the sad news my dad had passed.

After the arrival of the box, my mood swung from happy to sad and then happy then sad. I was and AM on a roller coaster of emotions and I want off! I felt sad that I had turned down a visit to see his family but in all honesty, it was for the best. We all walked away happy and that is truly what I wanted.

Now onto Christmas…

“Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer. Cheer to all Whos far and near. Christmas Day is in our grasp, so long as we have hands to clasp. Christmas Day will always be just as long as we have we. Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in hand.” Dr. Seuss,  How the Grinch Stole Christmas

A Not So Merry Christmas

Job 17:7 “Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.”

Well yesterday I wrote about people being offended by the term Merry Christmas, but today I’m going to write about the not so Merry Christmas. When I was younger I had joyfully wished an older woman a Merry Christmas. She blurted out, “It’s not so merry to me, I just lost my husband.”

I almost cried because I in no way meant to intentionally hurt her feelings but how was I to know she had just lost her husband? I know we don’t mean Merry Christmas as a bad thing but to others who are mourning a husband, or grieving the loss of a child or who are just alone at Christmas with no family, to them it is not a ‘Merry’ Christmas. We need to be sensitive to them, not because we want to be politically correct, but because we need to have a compassionate heart for people and what they might be going through during the Christmas season.

If someone was to wish me a Merry Christmas, I’ll just nod my head and say thank you and wish them one but only I know that this isn’t going to be the merriest of Christmas’ for me, it just isn’t. I’m definitely not going to blurt out, “I just lost my dad, what’s so merry about it?” 

My husband lost his father over twenty years ago and the death of his dad isn’t as fresh to him as the death of my father is to me. I’m not minimizing his loss in any way but he never talks about his dad or the love that they shared, it’s just a mute point. He still has his siblings and mother to share the season with and I have no one. I have his family, I know, but understand it just isn’t the same as hugging MY mother in her time of need.
My mother is back home going through the days of loneliness without me there and it is going to be a very sad Christmas for me not being home. This will be her hardest Christmas ever.

I’m not trying to bring anyone down with this post, by no means. I want to see people happy and celebrating the season for all that it is; a joyous season. Just because I’m not going to be decking the halls and prancing around singing Ho! Ho! Ho! doesn’t mean that you, if your truly happy, shouldn’t be celebrating the joy of the season.

This will be the first year that I write a solo poem for my mother for Christmas and I already told myself that it isn’t going to be a sad one that will have her crying and missing my father and also missing me being there. Nope, I’m going to try and write a sappy, funny limerick to make her smile! I’ll share it with you, my readers and see what you think of it before sending off, assuming I get it done in time. 

My mother already sent a ‘gift’ for Steven, Adam and myself but the real gift will be ‘The Box’! The box I am anticipating like a kid waiting for Santa. The box will be filled with memories of my father and just a couple items that he treasured. I long to hold a piece of him in my hand one last time, to allow the aroma of him to sink into my nostrils and know that he touched the items and loved them. It will be a tear-filled day for sure.

My mother was waiting for a necklace with my dad’s fingerprint on it to put in the box, which she bought from the funeral home, but it wasn’t ready so she’s sending me the box anyway and will send the necklace at a later date. She bought one for my sister and me, and my brother bought her one with my dads ashes in it that will be worn close to her heart where my father will always remain. 

So there IS some joy in my season yet to be had and that is feeling my dad close to me as I sit missing him. While many of my siblings are dealing with guilt of not knowing my father as well as they would have liked, I don’t have that guilt because in my heart I know we had a special father/daughter relationship where I told him I loved him, frequently when I called home. My last words to him were, “I love you, dad!”

Pss. 69:29 “But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.”

Growth

Rom. 2:19 “And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,”

How can one expect to grow if they are always clinging to the negative fundamental seedlings of non-growth? I see it all too often; people I used to admire, respect and care for feeding off the vulnerable of society in hopes these folks share in their negative thought process.

I love reading people and their positive thoughts. They wake up proclaiming the love of God with WORDS, they continue on in their day with positive WORDS and for some reason, I’m drawn to them like flies to sugar.

On Facebook I have 86 friends. Wow, you might say, only 86? She must be unliked/unloved/unfriendly. Well allow me to tell you, I choose my friends wisely. I don’t just accept friendships to LOOK like I’m popular; I accept friendships of people I truly want to be friends with. That’s pretty hard when you have over 1,000 so-called friends and only a few who you are actually friendly with.

I used to have 89 friends but it is obvious that some have unfriended me because I won’t get on their Political Cruiseship of hate bashing, or their color/race bashing, or their sexual preference bashing. Nope, I am me, a happy go lucky person wanting and NEEDING to share love, period!

Out of my 86 friends I can honestly count on two hands how many of these people I would love to meet and have coffee with in a nice surreal atmosphere. A handful to me is pretty sad, you want to know why? If most of these folk are this political crazy and being the megaphone of injustices in America on facebook, what must these people be like sitting around a table?

Here’s a  meeting scenario for you:

You meet one of your online friends for the first time. Your excitement is building as you assume they’re at least right in the head, right? You meet at Starbucks.

You go to sit down and he says, “Not at THIS table, let’s sit over here.”

“What’s wrong with the table I picked?”

“Well you can see that gay couple can’t you? I won’t sit next to THEM.”

“Seriously?”

Or let’s take this scene:

You meet and want to attend a church service with them, assuming they are okay with a service.

“Not that church”

“WHY?”

“They allow gays, I won’t sit and worship MY God with a bunch of homosexuals! Or even attend a church allowing such!”

*scares me* "Who IS your God?"

Imagine my jaw dropping and my eyes about to burst out of my head as I rush to just leave the visit completely! Surrounding myself with people like that will have a negative impact on me spiritually.

Some will say, “I would never do that.” Wouldn’t you really? Why? As a show of how good you are for real? Then why would you show this sickening side of yourself on a Social media wall where you have hundreds if not thousands of friends looking at you?

Sure, a good post here, a funny post there, then WHAM ‘hate post’ threaded into the weaving of scripture and love. That’s the way many work these days. I’ve lost friends because of my love of Christ posts, but I’ve not removed anyone for their love of the drama posts. If they act this way on a Social Wall, what are they like in reality? Character is built by what you project.

I had to actually deactivate my family facebook account for a few weeks where I have even less friends. When did facebook go from a friendly place of life event sharing to a world of a political platform, drama of everything wrong with this or that party (note: more this party than that party), or everything WRONG with the world??? This is people and their daily lives, really?

I sit back and watch the soap opera Facebook Unleashed, in slow motion and am just left wondering, ‘and they wonder what is WRONG with the world?’ I find myself looking within on many levels and share only the positive things I see and feel around me. Anything negative I might glance at, I don’t allow it to sink in like a sponge and spew venom day after day. Boy, that must be a boring and unfulfilling life that one must lead.

I’m from the old school of you reap what you sow. If all of these people are reaping in the hate, they must be sowing it too. I can only pray for them and try to emit Light and love to the world in hopes one day someone will grab onto it and hold it in their hand and rejoice with it the way I have and try to do daily; not just for show for REAL!

To the few that I would love to meet – keep your light shining bright, I see it and feel as if I know you already on a much more personal level. God has blessed your hearts and souls and I am honored to call you friend. I can only hope that my light will shine as bright as yours one day!

To the others – keep working on it, you might get there someday. God bless!

“6+3= 9 but so does 5+4. The way you do things is not always the ONLY way to do them.

Respect other people’s way of thinking.” A Message of Light post on FB

I will truly keep that in mind.

1 Cor. 4:5 “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.”

Quotation Saturday

A candle and rose for Eyrline Morgan

Pss. 48:14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.

DEATH

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
― Langston Hughes

“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
― William Shakespeare

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”
― Sarah Dessen

GRIEF

“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

“Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.”
― José N. Harris

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.”
― Sylvia Plath

MOURNING

“The only things I regret, and the only things I'll ever regret are things I didn't do. In the end, that's what we mourn. The paths we didn't take. The people we didn't touch.”
― Scott Spencer

“The size and height of the tree determines how heavily the ground will shake when it falls. The cassava tree falls and not even the pests in the forest are aware. The baobab tree falls and the whole forest looks empty! Such is human life!”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.”
― Roland Barthes

“During the prayers of the day, there was one less “amen”.”
― Phindiwe Nkosi

My dear friend Eyrline Morgan passed away on January 16, 2015. After struggling through many illnesses she finally succumbed and went home to be with our Heavenly Father. The writing community (WVU, F2K) and the world look a lot dimmer today without her shining soul.

A post from Eyrline nine months ago in our Inspirational group:

A PRAYER
Be still my heart, God's in the sky. He has the answer To your cry = = = Be still, my heart.
Dear Lord,
Please give me strength, to find His way.
Please build me up from day to day,
That I might help someone to find His way,
 
Grant me the strength and courage, too,
To live a life, Sincere and true.

Rest in peace, E! We love you!