Closing Up Shop...Soon!

Gen 2: 2 “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

Some of you might or might not care but I am closing up my blog for a while. I have given you ample time to read my story, learn from all I’ve shown you and time to benefit from my hard work and research. I have not fiddled around once, I’ve given you my heart, my soul, and my truth. It’s time for me to rest, but not really rest.

Some will say for me to leave my blog open so others can learn from it, but honestly, if you’re not from my inner circle, you can read it when my story hits the bookshelves. If you’re from my inner circle then you should be fully aware of my story, my stance, and my advice. As for total strangers reading and gleaning from my words? They’ve had their chance and five to ten hits a day doesn’t warrant an open blog.

My Spiritually Family knows who they are! Daily or occasionally my link will slink up their newsfeed and they’ll click and read or roll and scroll. I’m okay with that because I am at peace with the timeframe of all that has happened, from diagnosis, to fracture, to healing to HOME. When all is said and done, it’s time to write and put together my story! I have nothing against self-publishing but I’d like to go a different route if possible. I don’t know, we’ll have to see where God leads me. And no, I'm not in a hurry, I'm going where God leads, not where man or the old selfish me wants to take me.

God’s not done with me by a longshot. He now wants me to focus on me; my writing, querying, my publication. As a writer you know the rules, my work cannot be anywhere on the net. Even as an unseen personal blog my works, my words, my strategy, and my end game are already out here for the world to see, as such, it is considered published work.  And yes, I’ve done my homework on that too, it cannot be already published and I am willing to give publisher's publishing rights to my work.

If you’re reading this now, know, you are my family, my friends, my supporters and followers who have watched me grow in writing and in life. Now I am going out into the fields of life to see what is out there waiting for me to blossom. Wish me Godspeed because I am once again, following where He is leading.

I will NOT cease to exist out here, I am going to become a somewhat reclusive writer who peeks out and checks on everyone from afar. You’re my inspiration, so I need to see what motivates you and keeps you going. My writing friends will KNOW where to find me, where this honing of my writing skill all began! 

My Spiritual Friends will spot a post or two from me on Facebook. I’m not going anywhere I’m just letting you know which way my writing is heading. If nothing pans out and I give up the ‘old let's get published’ game, I’ll let you know, but I think one thing you have all learned from me is, Joni never gives up!!! 

I wish I could thank you all by name but I can’t because each and every one of you hold a special place in my heart and life. If you click like on this post, I thank you, you’re the real people that keep me motivated every single day. If you like a post on my progress, you’re my growing Spiritual Family who really does care how I am doing. If you don’t like this post and a month down the line you wonder where my blog is, I’ll pray for you, you need more light in your life, I’ll pray! If you post a comment then delete it thinking I didn’t see it, I saw it, and now wonder. I pray for you.  God was out here performing a miracle and you missed the beauty of it all.

Maybe I’ll be inclined to start a NEW blog… a new adventure, whatever the case may be I’ll still be around, alive and the woman you’ve all grown to love. May you all find the truth I’ve shown you. God is alive and still in the business of seeing miracles through. May you all learn to understand HIS time and not selfishly of your own time. Patience IS a virtue. I’m living proof that the diagnosis of cancer is NOT a death sentence! Trust, faith, and patience! 

God Bless you and me on the journey of a lifetime! 

Angel Always... Godspeed! 

Good and Bad Days: We All Have Them

Matt. 13:48 (KJV) “Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.”

Good days and bad days: we all have them

I’m sure we all have our good days and bad days; we know they’re bad when things go wrong and we see them as good when everything falls into place like a row of dominoes. While yes, I admittedly suffer from PTSD, I myself see more good days than bad and to me, they are all positive steps toward my healing. 

Jer. 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

As home slowly becomes more familiar to me, I feel the healing in the core of my being. The first few weeks though, of being home, felt like an unending carousel ride. That very first Monday I was Mrs. Popular in that everyone wanted a piece of me. I had calls from the home health nurse, the physical therapist, my oncologist office and the Cancer Center’s radiation office. Emails were sounding in from my mother in law wanting to come see me, sister in law auntie and uncle, everyone wanted a piece of this broken woman and how do I tell them all to just SHUT UP in a polite manner? 

My first Monday morning was an assertion day, I was going to take hold of my surroundings, my activities, and my appointments. I was not going to be TOLD to come here, or do this or do that, I would tell THEM what I was willing to do! I was going to take back what I lost!

First up, the home health nurse, Mandy, the woman I had only met on that day I was exiting in an ambulance, yes, she could come. Physical therapist, yes she was allowed. The oncologist? I’ll see you sometime next week. The radiation nurse, I asked if it could be put off for a week as I regained my bearings now that I was home. They were fine with that, setting me up the following week for my two (week) five-day sessions. Ten treatments in all to the healing left femur.

The emails were more targeted to my husband than me because it hurt to type on my laptop. I didn’t have a bend and stretch out mobility, I had a stiff-as-a-board-lay-there-and-be- good, semblance. Computer stuff would have to wait for a spell. I’d send out a 'hey' to friends and let them know I was still alive and as I knew they would be, they were more than understanding and just happy to know I was home. 

Monday was going along smoothly except for me missing my husband who had to go to work with worry on his mind trying to remember if I was set up well enough to be alone. Since we fibbed a little to get me home, I assured him I would be fine, and I was. As scary as the surroundings were, I was HOME and that was good enough for me! 

Now keep in mind, I had not bathed in twenty days. A wipe-down at the hospital but not a thing at the nursing home! Not a wipe, not a rag, nothing! I even used my own kleenex when I had to do my business. So when my mother-in-law wanted to bring his uncle to the house because he’d be ‘in town’, I had to say no way! I was not up to ‘visitors’, I needed to HEAL. I needed time! It all felt so rushed and the kaleidoscope began with its pretty colors and I was getting dizzy.

She said she understood but could her friend from church bring out food? I think she mentioned cookies or something. I told hubby to gently say, NEXT WEEK! Dang. I loved that everyone was so concerned, but I felt like the people who just lost a family member and friends would clamor to come over and bring food at the most inopportune time. Not to be rude but please send love, condolences and give them some space and time. Not a month, just breathing room. Please, don't turn this into how you lost someone and loved those people doing that for you. I appreciated EVERY bit of stirring also. I was suffocating and I needed to BREATHE! 

All appointments set, I slept. I slept and slept some more. Now it was time to move onto healing. The home health nurse brought me a hair-washing cap. You place it on your head, rub your fingers intensely and voila, your hair is water-free washed. It worked marvelously! She supplied an ample amount of body-wipes, and hubby he produced a bucket of water and a rag where I felt refreshing water on my face for the first time in twenty some days! Moving right along. 

I did have the nurse in tears, not bawling because they need to maintain distance and composure in their job, but her eyes were brimming at the sad painful story I’d tell. I had to get it off my chest so each person, professional or family, my story spilled into their ears and leaked from their eyes. They were shocked, then amazed at the strength I carried. I made it perfectly clear it surely was not me, it was God that they saw IN me! 

My healing was nothing short of astonishing to all who were witness to me. The radiation nurses saw me go from gurney to wheelchair within a week. From assisting me onto the slab to minimal help to no help needed at all. This was happening in a ten day period of time! 

My oncologist even showed signs of wonderment at my speedy recovery time. Not only my Oral Chemo and blood cell count healing time but my physical mobility healing time. All were displaying awe and wonder and were quite vocal in letting me know that this was nothing short of amazing. Doctor’s will not touch the ‘miracle’ label, but here I was, in their face, a living breathing healing miracle!

So as I have good days and bad days, it is all a part of the intricate veins of healing. People sometimes think healing happens in the blink of an eye but they need to know and understand how to appreciate the time and effort that goes into producing a work of wonder. Noah’s Ark wasn’t built in a day, the great Pyramids didn’t appear out of thin air and Jesus Himself took nine months to make a physical show. One step at a time is truly meant to be one breath at a time, and it is never our time, it is always His time. 

All praise and Glory to God! AMEN! 

Ecc. 3:11 (NIV) “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Settling In...PTSD

1 Sam. 10:26  "And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched."

Settling in...PTSD

Settling into my home was not as easy a task as you’d imagine. Happy-go-lucky Joni was a shell of a being. The nurses had noticed in the hospital and nursing home, and they didn’t even know me, the physical therapists saw it, and my family just assumed I was sad. No, the trauma I had experienced was a little more than depression or sadness, it had all the earmarks of PTSD.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not a light analogy of depression or sadness, it is a severe trauma that is triggered ever so lightly by sounds, pictures, faces, or names. It is a fear so intense that not even the Light of God Himself standing beside you can wash away, it is THAT severe. People who don’t have PTSD will never comprehend the magnitude of pain a person suffers through.

Last year is almost a complete blank to me, except for the trauma. Have you ever opened an MS page and saw a blank screen staring you straight in the eye and you felt a trembling panic for a few seconds not knowing what you were there to write? Every morning I open my eyes a blank page lay before me; what I put on that page shapes my day physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. What people say or do become triggers like a bullet waiting to be tapped and released from the barrel, words can shoot a person down. Without even knowing the triggers, friends, and family set off a ticking time bomb inside the psyche of a person suffering from PTSD. Anger, fear, frustration, guilt, and shame all become an open floodgate in the way of tears streaming down my face at any given time. At home, the doctor's office, the physical therapist office, or even in the food store, tears unleash without warning.

When my home health nurse noticed my PTSD along with my physical therapist, I was put in touch right away with a counselor. While I liked Dee, she was more about telling me her story than hearing mine. It was fine because that is the kind of front I put up, I’ll help you, you can’t help me; it’s an unbreakable barrier. I basically thanked her for listening and sent her on her way as I cringed inside. I was broken.

I could see the pieces of myself scattered on the floor. I wanted ever so much to take a whisk broom and scoop the particles onto a dustpan and toss them in the trash but I was immobile, disabled. There was no scooping going on any time soon. I would sit in the silence of the house, meditate in the quiet of aloneness, and pray to the only God I know and worship. Only He could get me through this, in time. HIS TIME, not my time. Here we go again.

Settling into my new surroundings would have me fearful of nightfall. Sounds would ricochet off the walls while shadows would pirouette. You would think that home was familiar surroundings but to me, I felt as if I was an orphan dumped off to this house with a family I didn’t recognize.

As the fragments of my life lie on the floor, images of last year shine like a mirror swaying in the sun, blinding me as I see good and bad portions flailing about. This trauma was not a phase I was going to laugh my way out of as if nothing bothers me. Each step I take would be like tiptoeing in a minefield, a trigger to tears or to laughter, to pain or to joy. I don’t have a choice in the matter, I just tread lightly and make every day a new day, every step a step toward healing.

God's time is not my time as I stroll along the healing path. I’ll endure the steps I needed to take to get me to the healing sea where I will eventually take a luxury dip and swim like a fish in open waters. Right now I’m still in an saltwater aquarium awaiting release in the open sea. God tells me ‘patience’, ‘faith’, and most of all ‘TRUST’, and in Him is where I’ll find my healing. The Joni I remember is still there in the windowed world… it's just going to take some patience, faith, and trust to find her again.

Lam.3:23 "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

The Story Continues...Miracles To ME!

Isaiah 26:9 (NIV) “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

Miracles to ME

The staff that I had surrounding me during my hospital stay was quite amazing. My office oncologist paid me a quick visit when I first got to my room after the femur surgery. I would then be turned over to his colleague oncologist who works at the hospital, Dr. Biscuit. (I will not use real names!) 

Besides Dr. Slim, the surgeon who did my leg, one of my miracles was my oncologist who showed up at the right time in my journey. Remember the ER doctor gave me an oncologists name? It was Dr. Biscuit, I did not see him for my initial consultation. Dr. Bradley was the office oncologist who put me on oral chemo. Dr. Biscuit was all about IV chemo being the ONLY healer and I only met him AFTER I was in the hospital and already a patient with a protocol with Dr. Bradley. 

Dr. Biscuit and I never saw eye-to-eye in the beginning. His philosophy was one thing (slaughter/drugs/chemo), mine was the other (natural)! And you know who was whom, and you probably get a picture of who won. Dr. Biscuit is the one who WRONGLY put me on a stool softener, a steroid, something for indigestion, just a bunch of unnecessary drugs! After a bad night of stomach upset, (I won’t go into the gruesome details) I had a talk with the nurse about the DRUGS I was taking, she then put me in touch with Dr. Biscuit to straighten this pill mess out! 

I DID NOT need a stool softener! I drank tea in the morning, a NATURAL stool softener. He also had me drinking Ensure, another form of laxative! I told him NO, along with my pain meds, I wanted my vitamins A, B12, C, D3, and my oral chemo, that was it! It got changed very quickly I might add. Too many people just accept that the doctor knows what is best. A doctor DOES NOT know your body OR how it will respond. My body KNEW something was wrong with all the drugs and it let me know, too!

Then came Dr. Leeb, he was a radiologist. After a lengthy discussion with Dr. Biscuit, my husband, son and myself, Dr. Leeb would be the administrator of the radiation. NOT TO MY BREAST, to the spreading pain/cancer in my shoulder, and hopefully put a halt to what was spreading in my hip, the one that had surgery. The other hip, so he says, is too far gone, but we’ll start. Okay, all in agreement! Five days of dragging me across the bed to the gurney (in pain) to the x-ray table, then drag me to the radiation slab, then back to the gurney and back to my bed/room. This was hell in itself, but I endured. I’d also endure ten more days of radiation on my leg, from the nursing home.

My room number was 3203 by the way - my birthday - 3 23. Another top question was, ‘what is your pain level?’ On meds it was a four-five, on the dragging me all around days, the pain was at a 7-9. MY BOWELS ARE FINE!  Yeah, I was tired of that one but… little did I know, a reaction to the oral chemo I was taking, was vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, and skin changes. Peeling ugly pink skin. NONE of which I had, and that PUZZLED the doctors. I was in the rare 30 percentile of ‘not affected’. Good to know two weeks into the DRUG intake.

After the doctor and I were on the same page, we got along better. He came in one day with his how are you doing, any changes banter, then he said something, yes, to ME a miracle was taking place. His exact words were, “After reviewing the x-rays and bloodwork, and upon physical inspection, it seems that the oral chemo is working. Whatever we’re doing is working.” My lymph nodes were shrinking, my tumor was shrinking, my x-rays were showing physical signs of my leg healing also. All was good. Little did they know that not for one moment was I attributing the Chemo drugs to being the reason I was healing. 

You see, all of that was happening BEFORE I started the Oral Chemo, but the OC I believe sped up the healing, along with my vitamins! I may be onto something. We had a discussion about my protocol and he had mentioned that the people in Europe reacted the same way to the Oral Chemo as my body was reacting. In America, 70% of people were having adverse reactions and THAT is why they were not recommended. I told him it all had to do with my diet and nutrition! His comment? “Are you going for a Nobel Prize here? A conference of doctors have already surmised it was the diet but we hit a dead end.” HA! I’m onto something friends! Believe it or not, I was having a positive effect on him also. His final words to me on his last visit was ‘Godspeed’! 

Another incident I had was with a wound care nurse. She was sent to change the dressing on my breast. As I had told you all in previous posts, that my breast leaked and therefore after bathing it with saltwater, I placed a non-stick gauze over it to protect my garments. Since entering the hospital I had not changed the gauze and I knew I was in the best place for it to be seen and taken care of. I told her it was ugly before she proceeded to take off the gauze. She said, “Oh my.” I was taken aback and asked, “Is it that bad?” She replied, “Not at all, it looks GOOD. What were you doing for it? I know you were taking excellent care of it, that’s for sure.” A deep sigh of relief washed over me. I told her about the saltwater bathings. She agreed that it looked well taken care of and that she had seen much worse case scenarios with breast cancer patients, so yes, to keep doing what I was doing. We’ll take the best care of it we can here, she said, and they did take the best care THEY could. 

Then there was the Palliative nurse, Jan. She was the nurse sent to be on my side and didn’t allow the doctors to bully me, but remember she works FOR the hospital. She was a semi-tall sweet woman with short bobbed blonde hair. Her voice was very soothing and relaxing and I felt comfortable telling her anything. She visited me daily, allowed me to cry on her shoulder, offered options to heal, and didn’t allow doctor Biscuit full reign of the floor.

One day I was sitting in the recliner (as opposed to being bedridden) and Jan upon seeing me, smiled, she was pleased with my progress since seeing me the day before lying in the bed. She said to me, “I have a little something for you,” she put out her hand and offered me a small book and went on to say, “This randomly fell onto my desk yesterday out of the blue as I was going through stuff on my shelf. I looked at it and thought 'who would benefit from this, Joni' that’s who.” It was a book of daily prayers and affirmations. I smiled, I cried and offered her a hug. Such a dismal reason to be in the hospital but God saw to it that Light was brought to my door on a daily basis! I tried to offer the book back before I left the hospital, thinking it was on loan but she said, “Oh no, you keep it, that book was meant for you when it fell on my desk!”

Then there was the visit from a clown. Yes you read it right, my mother-in-law and I were just sitting there chatting and my husband had gone home to shower and in the room walks a clown. “Would you like a visit from me and my friend?” She was holding a stuffed monkey. I had tears in my eyes and exclaimed, “YES! I need a visit to cheer me up, no offense, mom.” Daisybug the clown went on for twenty-five minutes of corny one-liner jokes to make my day. God really does know me and knew what I needed to cheer me up!

The list goes on and on of the miracles that happened those twenty days I was away, and this list is just some of the ten days I was in the hospital! I had wonderful physical therapists who visited daily and would leave me with exercises to do myself and I would leave them with laughter and smiles. That is what made me so strong in ten days to be released. I had attentive nurses and one day an intern stood for an hour detangling my long hair that had gotten itself knotted in just a couple of days.  I was being transformed from immobile to mobile, from bedpan to commode mode, from weary and teary to beautiful laughter and smiling. It was now time to be released. A single flower from my vases was handed to nurses, doctors, interns, physical therapists, home health aides, cafeteria workers who brought me food, and even the cleaning ladies! Anyone who helped me in any way, I gave to them a smile and a gratitude flower. My work here was now complete.

Psalm 95:1-2 "O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms."

Poetry Sunday ~ Time is Short

John 16:32 "Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me."

Time is Short...

Time is so short life is so sweet

There is no reason to repost a repeat

Over and over the same old stink

Missing kids, adults, dogs on the brink.

Political banter of who’s right and wrong

Hatred spread for far too long.

Claiming to love country and fellow man

Proudly boasting from where you stand.

I sometimes look and feel great shame

There’s no sign of God and love you claim

The social realm is for you to stand tall

Making life look like you have it all.

Why not spread truth, a message convey

Not the sinister life of a hypocrites day

God has a story for you to share

If only you’d take the time to care

Time is so short and life is so sweet

Nature subdued and health incomplete

The media has blurred the beauty within

Whitewashed all truth and amplified sin.

Poetry Sunday ~ Autumn's Gate

Matt. 6:22 "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

Autumn's Gate

The pumpkins sit

nestled in the cold

surrounded by dry

leaves gone old.

The empty feeder

lonely and bare

swings to and fro

in autumns air.

The wind lifts death

skyward bound

places it gently on 

the frost-kissed ground.

The season seen

as ill-spent time

the leaf now burrowed

in mud and grime.

The secret's hidden

in the sleeping season

with eyes on the sparrow

gives Spirit new reason.

Matt. 25-26 "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Against The Wind

Mark 6:47-48 (NIV) "Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the 

lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them.” 

Against the Wind

When you’re in as much pain as me, you have a lot of time to just sit and think. Sitting is not good for me because the longer I sit the harder it is to get back up. But lo and behold, I’ve had time to think.

I have a dear friend who worries about me. I love that anyone thinks of me but this friend goes above and beyond in caring for me and well yes, he’s concerned about my progress, understandably so. 

I was moving along so nicely, appeared to be healing at record speed then BAM! It seemed to halt. What on earth happened? I tried analyzing and over analyzing but in time (God's time) I figured it out. A raging wind came that’s what happened, tossing me about to and fro.

Mark 6:48 “And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.”

Did you ever notice that when you pray, you sometimes (mostly all the time) have to wait for an answer? Some of the time we don’t get the answer we want because we hastily let our minds go to work instead of allowing God to do His job. Yup, that was me. As much as I say I’m listening to God, I strayed off course because I wanted things done in my time!

MS Word keeps crashing. Let's try again.

Nebraska doesn’t have the tumultuous waters but it does have the horrendous gusting winds to either push or halt me in its path. I was sailing along enjoying my journey, patting myself on the back, admiring my own strength, and could actually see and feel a healing taking place as I soared. Then the winds came and stopped me and my ego in its tracks.

Well, it was morning when I tried writing, it is now afternoon and the zone has closed. I hope I can get back to the point I was trying to make if this gives me a chance. I notice whenever I try saying how good God is, something causes this to crash and it was crashing like mad this morning but now I’ve gotten more than five sentences in without a crash. I know as soon as I get in the zone it will crash, or some higher force in the realm of my computer's insides is fixing the little hidden bugs that are trying to keep me from writing.

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah…getting the wind knocked out of me by the gusty winds. I was soaring along in my healing when I suddenly got the wind knocked out of me but the unseen force was more my arrogance, in hindsight. I’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong and I can blame the wheat bread, the gluten, the one time cheat but I knew deep down none of that was the cause. 

I prayed. For months I prayed and while I wanted an answer pronto as I kept writing, and my concerned friend kept asking, I was at a loss why I was not getting the response I wanted or the time frame I wanted. Well, because GOD IS IN CONTROL, not me and He’ll respond when HE is good and ready. I need to learn patience! And it would do good if my friends knew patience as well. [winkwink]

Last week when I had my mowing spree and I even weed whacked; my underarm started hurting, quite specifically my lymph node on the side of the tumor. It had been showing signs of swelling and I just thought oh great add a thunderstorm to the mix of pain. As the sea swelled and I was being tossed around, pain, cane, back, everything swirled and swirled around me and I was just ready to give up and eat whatever I want and give up on this whole protocol thing. Put me in a hospice and let me go. 

I didn’t bail on my protocol, or on the rough seas churning about, I continued to paddle against the wind. I looked up on google ‘pain in lymph nodes' the other night and was reminded (I covered this when I was first diagnosed) that the lymph nodes are our defense mechanism. If they are swelled then they are in there kicking butt against an invading illness.

Google response: “Lymph nodes become swollen in response to illness, infection, or stress. Swollen lymph nodes are one sign that your lymphatic system is working to rid your body of the responsible agents.”

Last year upon diagnosis, I was told they were going to slice this tumor out of my breast and take some lymph nodes with it. Can you imagine? Had they taken my lymph nodes, I have nothing in my immune system fighting FOR me, they would destroy a portion of me that I NEEDED to heal!

Did you ever notice that when you pray, you sometimes (mostly all the time) have to wait for an answer? Some of the time we don’t get the answer we want because we hastily let our minds go to work instead of allowing God to do His job. Yup, that was me. As much as I say I’m listening to God, I strayed off course because I wanted things done in my time!

When I checked out lymph nodes on google and as I already knew, lymph nodes are a defense mechanism. My swelled nodes had me concerned and my husband of course worries with every pain I have so I try not to tell anyone anything because they read too much into it and want a hasty healing, not the slow one that the CANCER seas are going to take a person on. It is what it is, my friends, cancer is ugly no matter what route you take on the healing journey. This illness can't just be prayed away, or expected to miraculously disappear.

What causes lymph nodes to swell? I repeat! Google says: "Lymph nodes become swollen in response to illness, infection, or stress. Swollen lymph nodes are one sign that your lymphatic system is working to rid your body of the responsible agents." 

Read that people! LYMPHATIC SYSTEM WORKING TO RID THE BODY of [FOREIGN AGENTS]. My lymph nodes that doctors wanted to take away are in there FIGHTING FOR ME! Had they taken them away, I'd have nothing to defend me against this crud. My immune system would be shot, my nodes gone, and I'd be disfigured, more than the forty-seven pounds of weight loss has granted me. 

My Bible Gateway email this [yesterday]morning spoke directly to me! I was carried away by the storm not seeing the full picture.

Mind you that all this week the emails were about college or kids getting out of school etc. etc, but this [yesterday] morning it was targeted RIGHT AT ME! While I'm out here in the midst of a storm, Jesus hasn't forgotten about me, no not at all, He's right here WITH me! Imagine how foolish I felt when I'm always telling everyone else to have patience then realize I wasn't being patient myself! I was just as eager as you to see this crud OVER and DONE WITH! 

My prayers were answered in this little email and in prayer. God is still with me and has been all along! No, the crud is not over and done with, we still have a long way to go but the one thing I can say is that through the back-breaking daily pain, through every step with my cane, I know God is with me as I heal! The first half of my journey, when I was walking and soaring, was what the finished product will look like. Now, this half of the journey is the pain and suffering I must endure, the cross I must carry. Imagine if the first leg of the journey was all pain and suffering. I may have never made it to the second or third part of the journey. I would've given up! Allowed fear and negativity to show me the way. Now that I know what I'll look like healed I am all the more determined to see this through to the end. 

God works in mysterious ways, my friends. Trust and patience are the tools to see you through. I am no longer sailing against the winds. I'm riding along with them, and am at a place where I am SUPPOSED to be; not where everyone thinks I should be, or where I WANT to be, but where God has positioned me, in His time! 

All praise and Glory to God! 

 Isaiah 41:10 (NIV), “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” 

Gateway to Health: Meditation

John 15:5, 7, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing … If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (NIV)

Gateway to Health: Meditation

I’ve covered a lot of ground with my Gateway to Health series. While I weave in my illness, it is not the central focus as last year. I was finding my feet for the year and needed to throw the journey out for my spiritual family who is standing behind me with their support. Their support means everything to me as I heal. I’ve shown you how your diet and change all leads to healing not only for me fighting the Big C but for you who might be fighting another form of illness.

Here’s a simple thought for you; if you’re overwhelmed by stress you will NOT lose any weight no matter how hard you try changing your diet and lifestyle. Stress hormones have a nasty habit of programming the body to store fat, especially around your beltline.

According to the statistics floating around out there on the web, chronic stress is the root cause of 90% of your disease and weight gain. Stressing and worry cause us to blindly eat, turning to sweets or alcohol to try and soothe what is in our overactive minds. Anxiety robs our attention from all of the good energy that we used trying to change and makes it so by the end of our busy day that we have nothing left to motivate us into continuing our healthy eating habits.

There is some good news people, you can unleash years of stress with meditation and restore some semblance of peace to the body you overwork with a kaleidoscope of thoughts. Relaxation of the mind will allow you a better nights sleep and essentially allow you to be strong enough to face the changes you're trying so hard to implement into the new you as you embark on the Gateway to Your Health! Meditation has helped me throughout my life and has been an essential part of my healing this current illness.

Put quite simply, meditation is breathing, releasing and focusing. I assume people hear the word meditation and think that it’s not within their belief system as only Buddhist adhere to meditation. You would be 100% wrong in that assumption!

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

Pss. 119: 99 “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.”

Meditation is a relaxation technique of the mind. It knows no religion or belief system. It takes practice but as you master stress releasing, you’re guaranteed a new way of thinking, a promising way to fall asleep, a comforting woven blanket of protection when you’re cold. 

People often say they don’t have time to learn meditation. That is so ironic to me because they can find hours upon hours to sit on the computer searching news, spewing hate, being a part of a collective conscience of similar minds achieving nothing of quality in their day, yet they have no time to meditate to de-stress their mind? Ironic.

You have time to read your bible right? You have time, maybe an hour or two to read a book on your Kindle? Find time in your day to just release the stress, relax and breathe. Nothing else. No clouding thoughts allowed into this room. You’re emptying the closet of all the unneeded baggage you have piled up. Slowly cleaning out piece by piece each article that holds your attention during any given day.

In a sitting position, back straight, ears plugged as you close your eyes, listening to the sounds streaming in from your earphones, let the days clutter float away. Visually watch the garbage be carried off. No thoughts of bills or what you’re going to do tomorrow, or what’s for dinner, or worry or stress is going to surface. Nope, all those thoughts are not allowed in here. You are going to think of NOTHING for ten, twenty, thirty and eventually forty-five minutes. When you do this as a daily routine, a relaxing habit you will form and look forward to at the end of your busy exhausting day. 

Life WILL change. You can’t give up because meditation didn’t work the first time. You’re going to push on, days into weeks, weeks into months will have you cherishing this one quiet time in your day. You’ll come home after a long hard day at work, settle into the sounds of nothing and wonder why you haven’t done this for years. 

Rom. 8:5 “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.”

If you meditate on the word, a change of your perception will take place as your negative thoughts turn into positive. Your pessimism will be shifted into an optimistic approach to life. If you meditate to music with no lyrics, tones, and beats with no instruments, all are part of a meditative technique. Close your eyes, breathe and focus on nothing but the sound coming through your earbuds. Start a short session of twenty minutes until you have them lasting thirty to forty-five minutes. Find parts of yourself you thought you lost in nothingness.

Ezek. 24:25 “Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters,”

Find a balance. There are times to worry, times to over think your plans for the future, politics, crime in your state, the craziness of this country. Meditation time is for YOU not for thoughts, not for worries, they’re gone, if only for that one moment in time. Allow yourself a peace you’ve never known before. Allow the window of your conscience to be clearly seen through, not washed over by dirt and debris that has built up over the years. Free your mind of clutter. I can guarantee, as time goes on (not a day or two of trying) TIME goes on, eventually, when you try to fall asleep at night, you’ll remember taking out that rag during your meditation time. You’ll pull out the Windex and begin cleaning up your thoughts of the day, leading you to some form of rest, and eventually a good nights worth of sleep.

I find a nice warm cup of green tea also helps before bed. Alcohol stimulates the brain activity, tea calms it, sugar awakens the sleep you so strategically misplaced along your lifetime. Eliminate alcohol, regulate your sugar intake, know what causes stimulation and save that for morning time, but the nights, they are yours and yours alone, stress and worry are not permitted.

Take the time to take care of you! Your mind is an essential part of any healing that will ever take place from ANY disease that ails you. If you can’t find peace of mind, plan on being sick for a very long time. THAT will be your life. It’s not a picture I see ever and if I’m diagnosed with an illness, I know my MIND played a big part of bringing it to my doorstep; change the mind, change the outcome, point blank!

Isa. 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

Lam. 3:21 “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.”

Ever Changing

Heb. 13:8 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”

Nothing Stays the Same

As time passes by we see change whether it be in our physical or spiritual growth, our hair, our lifestyle, or our habits, nothing stays the same, it all advances over time. One thing I can assure you is that God does not change, He stays the same for you and me, I believe so we don’t get lost in confusion like every wind of doctrine that flows down the pike or every headline that grabs our attention.

Even the machine that runs our body like our organs, immune system, and DNA has remained the same since the very first man walked the earth. Sure they change with the abusive or neglectful treatment we give them. The more we try to destroy our organs the harder they fight to live for us. I wonder why when someone kills themselves we call it a suicide but when people slowly kill themselves over the years, we call it bad life choices? Is there a difference? Sure, shock value. That has to be it.

There was a day when the word cancer never graced the lips of even the elite doctors. It really didn’t become a problem until the advent of technology. The Industrial Revolution took its toll on our health and well-being with car emissions, processed food, and so much more. We embraced this new age of speed like a kid to candy, we took harmful pathogens at face value never caring if they were damaging parts of our bodies that might not ever be able to recover.

In countries where food is scarce, the Big C is minimal. Why, because those people have to eat off of the land. Here in the Western Civilization, we’ve been given toxins in abundance. It’s as if our government is TRYING to slowly kill us and from the zombie's I see walking around, Americans are all okay with being the cows led to slaughter. And we wonder why people just snap, eh?

Kristi Funk, a breast surgeon to Joanna Kerns, is noted on record as saying this about BC, “It (BC) is under our control and has to do with lifestyle choices, which we can absolutely control,” she says. “If all women would control these things to her best ability, we could absolutely eradicate 50 to 90 percent of all breast cancer.”

If you read from the link, you’ll see that I didn’t pull this dietary change out of my hat and I’m crazy insane (okay, that’s a given) but seriously this is REAL. I’ve done an immense amount of research, and have come up with the best method of saving myself, with the hand of God of course. Maybe it is time for people to wake up and see their surroundings and understand what is REALLY killing them. If you have ills and pains the cause 99.9% of the time is all found in your dietary habits. I know some people are stronger than others in curtailing the abusive behavior to their body but it is not too late to change.

We live in a fast-paced, hurry up, me-first world. We wander from one fast food restaurant to the next looking for the better tasting-deal to feed our faces. We sometimes buy a salad because we’re trying to falsely tell our minds and bodies that we’re eating well. We go to higher-end restaurants because we think they will sell better-for-us food when in a nutshell, they are feeding you contaminated toxic beef/chicken/turkey/fish all GMO modified at some point and your veggies were all treated with round-up. Just short of adding round-up as a condiment with the salt-n-pepper shakers, that you’d NEVER use, but the glyphosate toxin is okay if it is hidden in your food. There’s something wrong with that.

You may reason with yourself that glyphosate is only toxic when taken in at high amounts, you’d probably more than likely be right. Allow me to say, the crops of this western world have been chemically treated FOR YEARS, so yeah, taken in small doses there is no rise in you becoming a cancer statistic, but eaten daily over say ten-fifty years? You’ll SEE why there is a rise in cancer/illness rates. You don't just easily excrete the toxins, like an oil spill in the Pacific, there is always damage left behind.

Funny (not really) how the news media is quick to report (falsely or otherwise) of someone’s death but report about ways to prevent or CURE an illness? Yeah, healthy speak is taboo in this demented nation.

We’re supposed to follow along like kids being led by a rope to all stay together. We’re being herded into a corral of overweight, slowly withering human beings. We’re addicted to food and we ‘try’ our best to overcome our food addiction. As we feed our faces, dripping with gravy, washing our meal down with a KNOWN toxic ‘diet’ cola, we don’t feel good about our choices but we do nothing to change. or stop the poison from entering your mouth. 

Change is for the warriors, change is for leaders, and change is for other people. You know, even God changed His mind. Do you remember the story in Genesis about the tree of good and evil? Adam and Eve were told to NOT eat of the tree or surely they would die!

Gen. 3:3-4 “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:”

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.”

She ate of the tree; while they didn’t physically die, on the day that Eve devoured the forbidden food, a part of our souls perished that we fight like warriors to regain. That is all I’m courageously doing in this healing phase of my life, regaining what was lost.

The most I’ve learned since this illness is that God wants us, yes US, to be disciplined. To learn discipline we must endure pain. We must become warriors of not only the physical world but also the spiritual world, which in the end basically, is where we wind up.

My challenge for you today is this - Don’t just vocalize the words of the bible actually LIVE the Word! Become disciplined. Change your world, become the warrior God created you to be.

Job 36:10 “He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.”

Total Eclipse of the Soul

Prov. 3: 5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Total Eclipse of the Soul

I wasn’t expecting too much yesterday because weathermen tried to ruin the suspense but I was hoping I would get to see the once in a lifetime total solar eclipse in its totality and let me tell you, it was everything I expected and MORE! I set my lounge chair up outside directing it toward the sun. About ten minutes before the moon began its trek in front of the sun, I posted my blog yesterday. Sloppy as it was I was in a hurry and wasn’t much caring about typos or grammar at that point, I wanted to witness the breathtaking total solar eclipse, the spiritual experience of a lifetime.

I hurried outside, plopped in my chair and the hours passed by like liquid pouring from a cup. My neck has been in a lot of pain this past week, I think from sleeping wrong but yeah a lot of pain for days now. I couldn’t sit in the normal lawn chair, I had to use the one that enabled me to stretch out allowing me and my neck a relaxing position without hurting myself.

I lay there, glasses on and sat watching, waiting, wanting. For some reason, I was expecting something metaphysical to happen because when I watch the stars, the clouds, the leaves, nature, in general, I always have the experience to write about even if it’s meant to be just for me. But yesterday, the eclipse was for millions to witness but would we all see it the same way? Would we all feel that universal connection to the heavens?

My tee shirt logo

Hubby purchased tee shirts a month ago in eager anticipation of what was going to unfold. As the day the eclipse was set to happen, you could feel something brewing in the air even upon waking. Now we’re in no way extravagant, but we felt we needed to mark this day in history by something more significant than a picture. A tee shirt was our little taste of extravagance for the special day. The above pic is mine and my son's workplace provided their own tee's for the occasion. This event is big for Nebraskans.

The entire week leading up to the day had been sunny but forecasters called for this special day to be huddled in clouds. At best the eclipse would be hit or miss. Not expecting anything because of what the weathermen said, I still waited on the Lord to put on a spectacular show; if he can move mountains and part the sea, He certainly can make sure the clouds are moved so that those who needed to see the blazing glory had the chance. 

The temps were in the eighties. the breeze swift and I could feel myself getting a little anxious. Like a teenager anticipating a first date, I awaited my escort to show up. The shadows were playing tricks; dancing silhouettes spun on the ground. The sky looked like a fluorescent light bulb casting shadows in a strange flickering light.

Shadows on the ground minutes before totality

As the moon crept over the sun the sky was slowly becoming the celestial event of a lifetime for me. As it neared totality, the wind ceased. The birds quieted. My husband and I basically were holding our breath. Do you remember the scene from The Ten Commandments movie where Moses is facing the burning bush? He took his shoes off because he was on the Holy ground? That is exactly how I felt as the minutes ticked toward totality, the seconds became the moment, and totality kissed my face, brushing my hair in darkness, whisking my mind to a euphoric high. The sky darkened, the stars briefly appeared, birds silenced as crickets chirred to life.

It happened, the gentle kiss upon arrival, a ring of fire lit 'round the moon. I could see a pinkish light to the right of the moon as if to blush at seeing me. The rest of the circle was a shiny silver plate setting at the King’s castle. Then something happened I wasn’t expecting, tears flowed from my eyes and I bowed my head in the palms of my hands and thanked the Lord for this chance to see His beautiful creation in full splendor. Points of light shone round about like a silent explosion. I bawled my eyes out trying to see all this beauty while fireworks went off in the background twenty miles away in the instant darkness graced the earth. I was basking for a moment in the presence of my Lord.

Totality

While I’m seeing images from around the U.S., some real and some obvious fakes, some over filtered, some raw, there is nothing like actually viewing with your naked eye. Nothing captured what I actually observed with my own eyes, heart, and soul. For a twinkle in time, people stopped, the earth paused in adoration, kids stopped texting and saw the event that would give rise to higher thoughts. My hubby used his eclipse glasses as a shield to click a picture of the total eclipse. He took one with his phone and one with the camera. Me? I was lounging in awe, silently rejoicing in my Lord for the majestic event of the day, looking forward to when we’d meet again. While not everyone was consciously focused on the same thing, I was only focused on Him. Not the sun, not the moon, Him, just Him, the One and Only Son!

Dan. 4:3 “How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.”

Acts 2:19 “And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:”

Letting Go ~ To Astri and Christopher

Matthew 18:10 ESV “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

Letting Go

They say my wounds are open

That I must set you free

If I am ever to heal myself 

Of this illness now in me

I loved you and your brother

You left me here alone

So many years I cried for you

Although you’re not my own.

They say this cut is pretty deep

That it could halt my healing

I need to find a peace within

So yearly I’m not reeling.

I need to let God do His job

His need for you was great.

I'm worthy and I’m honored 

To give Him all the weight.

I release you to the heavens

Where I cannot come as yet

God still has some work for me 

As your place, I can’t forget.

Go now little children

Let your voice be heard

I give you to my Lord above

As the stars are being stirred.

I find a peace in knowing

That you’re in a better place

We all are being used now

As we’ve all been saved by grace!

I cannot shed pained tears for you

I know you didn’t die

You were with me but a moment

Before God gave you wings to fly.

Angel Always… Godspeed

God has blessed you both! 

Christopher Alexander (12-2-82) and Astri Celia (4-26 04)

My children who were STILL born!

Always loved and never forgotten

Galatians 1:15 ESV “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace,”

That Time Of Year...

Job 17:11 “My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.”

That Time of Year

Well, my friends, it’s that time of year once again. You probably think I’m referring to the merry and joyful time of year with the lighting of the Christmas trees, the sounds of Christmas carols ringing through the air, the aroma of pine scent wafting through the house, children anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus with a little countdown calendar to Christmas hanging on the fridge. If you think that is what I’m referring to, you’d be wrong. 

This is the time of reflection for me, that leads to my New Year in April (Easter is my New Year, for those who don’t know me). Reflection is sometimes one of the hardest things one must do because being faced with truth, direction, and discernment; one is pulled in many directions of an emotional roller-coaster ride.

For nine years I’ve been writing this blog and statistics show more than five of those years two hundred and some odd days a year were spent writing and bringing a Light to your world. You may or may not see it that way but as you scan over the years of posts, you will be hard pressed to find anything negative that I’ve brought to your world.

1 Cor. 14:1 “Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.”

[12] “Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church.”

I take my faith, God and my gift of writing very serious as many of you know. I’m not judging you and saying you don’t take your God given gift(s) serious, on this blog I am defining me at ALL times and if you see YOU in my words, well then Praise Be, I’ve done my job!

Heb. 2:4 “God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?”

I know some of you don’t see writing and not getting paid as a ‘real’ job, but let me tell you, it is the most richly rewarding ‘job’ of my life, and personally I don’t see it as a job unless you understand that all I do, I do for Him! This is why when I make a decision on something, I take it to Him and see what HE has to say about my decisions. It sounds crazy, I know, but it is my way of life and the way I’ve been since I can remember.

Last year the three deaths in my family hit me pretty hard, and a recent death of my too young to die, cousin. I know, all deaths take a certain toll on each individual but they hit me like I had not expected, scarring my heart and allowing a mountain of emotions and flashbacks to remain unmoved; an aunt, an uncle and my father all taken away from this earth. People say, “They’re angels in heaven now,” but you don’t know that for a fact and not even I can be certain that is where their souls drifted off to, thus leading me to a reflective and contemplative year, this one, 2016. (Please, this is not a debate on heaven and hell or a weakening or strengthening of faith, it is ME seeing to it that this mountain is MOVED! With God’s help of course.)

Hence my decision to shut this blog down, I did not just pull this decision out of my hat, I have been contemplating since the New Year began but the political infestation of negativity kept me writing to bring you LIGHT in an extremely darkened world. I’m sure you all know everyone was a victim of this political disastrous negative year. I watched as what I deemed pillars of strength in the ‘Christian’ community crumble and buckle to the negative impact of the role politics played in their lives. They were hurtful, hate-filled, anger driven, they stood on a higher than though pedestal, sweeping their voice around the social platform waving words as truth but realizing as they scraped themselves off the floor by years end, they were just victims of satan’s very cunning lure.

I don’t know if the people held any shame in their actions but I myself stood strong in the face of satan and spit in his face and walked with my Lord. There are repercussions with taking that stance just so you know. I AM NOT being judgmental here, lest I am judging myself, but the past two years have really given rise to ME and where I need to go. While my gifts of the Lord will continue to grow and soar, it might mean that writing for YOU may not be in the cards for the coming year, I don’t know yet.

Pss. 100:3 “Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

My Spiritual Family, I do not label you as left or right, nor does God; you have stood firmly behind me on my journey all of these years, some new to my world, some who have been here for the long haul, you know who you are, and God has BLESSED me with each and every one of you! I don’t take our friendship lightly and I take into consideration your sage advice always.

I have another health crisis biting me in the face and this coming year will be a challenging one as I face it with faith but I’ll need your prayer always as I endure, it’s what keeps me going. Will I blog in the New Year? Will I close this down? I go with God and what HE tells me to do because He knows that I have utilized my gift and done everything for Him. I will never change that and I don’t care how much satan’s minions attack me, my God is greater than him and THIS I am CERTAIN of!

While this isn’t the merriest of Christmas’, I must say first, God is still making His presence known in my life whether it is the lost packages we ordered being FOUND, one on my neighbor's back lawn where I would have NEVER looked but my stray dog Riley led me to it via her dragging off her water bowl and me searching for it and finding the Lost Box! All the way to the parcel my mother sent arriving on my doorstep as we watched A Christmas Carol, and right as the ghost of Christmas past surfaced so did Riley’s wagging tail hitting the door alerting me to the gift on my front steps at 7:00 in the evening. Many memories of the past were in that box! I thank God He sent me Riley, a stray dog who has a heart of gold. 

God is Good, God is ever present and life in the coming year will be welcomed. I thank you all for being a part of God’s plan for my journey and may all of our New Year be blessed! 

Pss. 95:7 “For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,”

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good life! 

Deut. 4:32 “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?”

Poetry Sunday ~ Autumn Trees

Pss. 96:12 “Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice.”

Autumn Trees

Flaming fire of autumn trees

Lights the sky with ample ease

Flowing like a river stream 

Catches on the sunrise beam

The open orange of autumn trees

Catches light on mornings breeze

Drifting down with somber sound

Leaves now whimper on the ground

Amber glow of autumn trees

Whispers sounds of rolling seas

Brilliant hint of heavens door

Hues abound of winters lure

Radiant red on autumn trees

Winter waits with summer tease

Vibrant color mornings gold

Frost unveils the seasons cold

The Beginning of the End

Matt. 24:10-11 “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”

The Beginning of the End

I don’t normally go off topic but Monday I did an NFL post about the entire franchise smelling like a manure farm. Today I’m not going too off topic but I rarely, meaning never, do a political post and this is more about the end being so close I can taste the bitterness swirling in my mouth and people need HOPE.

I’ve noticed that people who were all in and about the political arena, meaning friends, that sit back and use the social media as a political platform to state their views, have all but been silenced by the lack of someone running that they can actually get behind.

Now that it has been narrowed down to two people, no one wants to put their voice behind them for fear of being laughed and scoffed at in the social arena. Some are standing by their party; some are sitting quietly in the background picking on the other party, I guess so that they appear involved but from afar.

The entire fiasco reeks of the beginning of the end. Some will say the end has been happening for years now, some will state facts (chuckles) that they KNOW the end is here, where me, I’m going on my instincts and what they are telling me and it doesn’t feel right, I can tell you that.

A few years ago there was talk of Martial Law. I’m not a political person so I laugh at the mere mention but I do not laugh when all the scoffers are laughing at the Bible and calling it a book of fairy tales. 

I find it quite amusing that the non-believer can call it a book of fairy tales when I have never in my life read a book that has been so accurate in foretelling the future than the Holy Bible. There was 400 years of time that passed between the book of Malachi and the beginning of Matthew. Upon reading this (same link as above) you can see the ‘so-called fairy tale’ take on more shape and meaning.

Prophecy has been around for centuries and while some don’t want to believe that we’re living in the end times all they would have to do is read the Bible to see what prophecy says about the end times. While I’m not a prophet nor claim to be, I’m a writer and as such I dig and dig as I research a project to bring you the most informative (information I’ve gotten) information I find, and most of it agrees with my views. Granted, your truth and research might find something completely different.

Age of the Earth: 

Did you read the link – Temple Mount? I read the entire thing and this paragraph stuck out to me as what I am trying to convey here. 

“It is amazing how God utilizes history to work out his purposes. Though we are living in the days that might be termed "the silence of God," when for almost 2,000 years there has been no inspired voice from God, we must look back -- even as they did during those 400 silent years -- upon the inspired record and realize that God has already said all that needs to be said, through the Old and New Testaments. God's purposes have not ended, for sure. He is working them out as fully now as he did in those days. Just as the world had come to a place of hopelessness then, and the One who would fulfill all their hopes came into their midst, so the world again is facing a time when despair is spreading widely across the earth. Hopelessness is rampant everywhere and in this time God is moving to bring to fulfillment all the prophetic words concerning the coming of his Son again into the world to establish his kingdom. How long? How close? Who knows? But what God has done in history, he will do again as we approach the end of "the silence of God."”
~ Ray C. Stedman

We are at the most hopeless point in U.S. history. There has never been an election where BOTH parties were so unfit for the job they wish to undertake. Are we living in the Beginning of the End? Judge for yourself. In my opinion, no choice you make this election year is the right choice. God has purposed it this way and your vote is… the Beginning of the End.

May God be with you all!

2 Cor. 6:2 KJV  “(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)”

2 Cor. 6:2 NIV For he says,“In the time of my favor I heard you,

    and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.