Poetry Sunday ~ I Am Here

Jer. 23:4 “And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD.”

I am here

I am here Lord thirsting for your presence

Carry me away in the fruit of your essence

I am here

I am here

I am here to bask in your radiant light

Bathed by your breath in the midst of my fight

I am here

I am here

I am here Lord with the door open wide

Waiting for your touch to fill me inside

I am here

I am here

I am here with you Lord my arms raised high

I worship you Father with every tear that I cry

I am here 

I am here

I am here like a shepherd that sheep will follow

I am also the carcass all empty and hollow

I am here

I am here

I am here waiting for you to carry me home

To the place where shepherds and sheep freely roam

We are here

We are here

All praise and Glory to God!

Matt. 9:36 "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."

Quotation Saturday ~ Advent

From the internet

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

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

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

~ Michelle Blake, The Tentmaker

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

~ Joan Chittister, Listen with the Heart

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

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

~ Robert Weber

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

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

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

~ Robert Weber

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

~ Mark Zimmermann in Our Advent Journey

Still Waiting...

"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."
Isaiah 40:31

***

Ahh, we’re here still waiting. Since I don’t give my perspective on this too much, today I think I’ll break away from all of the f2k bashing and just get down and talk about me.

They say I’m loved. Out here in the middle of a potato field, and I’m surrounded by love. I look to my left, to my right, and I’m alone. Where is everybody?

Here lately I’ve been doing a cleansing of sorts. Getting out of my system the things that are hindering me from growing, and I have to tell you, in about three weeks...I am going to be breathing free again.

May ninth was an eye doctors visit that gave me a whole lot of hope. I ran around here cleaning the house like a mad woman, I felt sucked into the vortex of happy and promise, and slowly the weeks began to pass. I put off doctor visits for Adam because I didn’t want to have to cancel them at the last minute when we got, ‘the call’.

The call? Yeah, the anticipated call to get to Omaha NOW, we’ve got a cornea! Yes, my fiancé is awaiting a cornea so he can see again. And awaiting is what we are doing. Day after day, we wait, the phone rings and we run to it, all summer long this has been the case. We’ve occupied ourselves with, for him audiobook reviews and myself, mowing and cleaning.

Now with Adam in school, we’re still waiting. Beau missed an August 11 appointment with the eye doc because back in May, they said it was a ‘follow up’ visit, after the surgery. Well she called us and let us know, that that visit was a mandatory visit to keep him on the waiting list. So back to the eye docs we went in the beginning of September, and tomorrow another physical at the primary doctor.

I sure wish they were more clear with their information. It seems like all a big secret until the day you’re under the knife letting them plunge into your eye. And one wonders why I’m stressed? Then there's the Lion's Club lady...

I wasn’t even going to do f2k this session because of the added stress I’m under but after a new laptop arrived, free to me, I agreed to do this session, and now I wish I would have just listened to my heart, instead of feeling pressured. I have to remember me, because no one else knows, or understands the pressure I’m under.

They say they care, but really? It is just part of their daily ritual to spew out of their mouth. “I care” then they’re on their way going about their happy-go-lucky life. But wait...it isn’t a happy go lucky life is it, I have to remember that. They wake to sit at the computer, they long to ‘see’ names, they yearn to be a part of something and eagerly in their own isolated way, they find it online. In their loneliness, the people online are all they have.

Me, I have more and am grateful and would do well to remember that my online friends love and care for me, I may be all they have in a stressful, lonely, longing day. Me, I have potatoes! :)

Words from The Clarion Call; Kay says: The world frowns on sitting and waiting when they can't see why we are waiting. We won't be popular if we say, "No," to something that seems to be the right thing. We must walk in the Spirit, listening for God's voice. We must be looking for His direction all the time. We must also NEVER make assumptions about what God wants us to do.
Waiting is often not easy. It takes practice to learn how to wait. The more we purposely wait on God before we act, the easier it gets.

Let GOD do His Work!

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. 

~Leo Buscaglia

***

You know what bothers me more than anything? Is when you’re waiting for something and everyone around you is in more of a hurry up, get ‘er done mode than you! That should make things go smoothly, right? Less tense for you? As if you haven’t got enough on your plate?

I can not tell you how many times in the past month I’ve heard, “Any news yet?” or “Hear anything yet” When I simply said, “No, haven’t heard anything. I WILL let you know when I do.” So do they think I’ve heard something and am keeping it a secret? Do they seriously think this is info I can sit on and keep for myself?

Some people know and respect the tense situation. The anxiety of it all and they keep their mouths shut and just are an arm of support during this time. But seriously, I think all the rush rush rush, lets get it done attitude is what cost us a successful outcome last time and I’m wondering, will it hinder it this time?

My friend at church yesterday said, “Well I hope the call comes soon.” And I said, flat out, “It is in God’s time that the call will come. I don’t care WHEN it comes, I’ll just WAIT ON GOD!”

We live in world where patience is not accepted. You sit here waiting, day after day, you move forward with patience in one hand, faith in the other. But when people insist on putting these thoughts of  “Hurry up” or “Can’t wait” or “What’s taking so long.” Are they the ones who lack faith in the patience process or do they feel that they have some form of control when they can’t even be patient and wait without handing you the tension.

No one is eager or more in the ‘waiting’ mode than beau, who awaits this cornea transplant operation more than ANYONE! Second, I guess, would be me, since we’ve walked through this together hand in hand, patiently, anxiously, apprehensively and everything in between. But I never and I mean never, wake and say, “Sure wish that call would hurry up and come in.” How selfish is that statement? This isn’t about ME or YOU, or anyone but BEAU!!! Is the hurry up mode going to have a different outcome than the wait and SEE, mode?

As people sit in the background fretting, the when’s and hurry ups, I sit here and just pray. Sure money is important, but I do believe that God will handle and take care of EVERYTHING down to the last penny. There is no NEED for worry! But go right ahead, if that is what makes you get through this, then worry away. But I’m telling you, I WILL let you know when I hear something. PROMISE!

Me, I’m just here. Let me know when *I’m* needed, Lord.

Still Waiting...

Job 14: 14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

***

I just thought I’d give some form of update on the waiting. Everyone is asking, “Have ya heard anything yet?  Anything yet, anything yet,” and it echoes in my head over and over again.

No! We haven’t heard anything yet, and we’re still waiting.

Two and a half years ago, I would not have ever expected to be here at this place in time. We never expected total blindness to sweep over my beau, and for us to be uprooted from our mundane life in Texas, and be brought here to Nebraska with our heads lowered basically in need of everything.

I cannot tell you enough how much the Lord has been instrumental in everything, every phase of our existence. Sure he has had people help us, but it is not for the people to say “I helped” it is for them to say, “Give all the glory to God!” Because it is ONLY because of God that they were even able to reach out and help!

The waiting... sure, our heart skips a beat when the phone rings, but really, we’ve been waiting for two and a half years, this leg of the waiting is no different. The way I see it is God is just tying up loose ends. I told you we needed $3000 dollars for this operation to take place? I sit in awe at the Lord at work, seeing to it that all we’ll need is gas money to get to Omaha, and I have a feeling, an instinctual feeling, that He even has THAT taken care of!

I don’t stress over the waiting, or worry or anything like that. I know my job will be to physically get the man to Omaha and take care of him in his recovery. God has my job already worked out, so I  go on with each day, and participate in the routine of each morn. This is life folks. This is what it’s all about. You move forward, day by day and drink in all the the Lord blesses you with. Worry is a waste, impatience is just wrong! And wanting is not really what the Lord wants from you, He wants you to rest, in the faith, that He and He alone will handle ALL things.

Beau may feel totally different. He is the one waiting to SEE again. He’s the one who has been through the wringer with hope after hope dashed, anticipation arriving at a dead end road, hope being squashed like an over-ripe tomato on the asphalt road. He may have a totally different take on ‘The Wait’. Me? I ain’t going nowhere. :)

We were all kids once. Do you remember Christmas time when you still believed in Santa Claus? Only to find out he wasn’t real? Didn’t you wonder who would bring that one important toy that you had always gotten and were sure that good old St. Nick was the deliverer?

This is totally what waiting for that call from Omaha is like! It is like waiting for Christmas to arrive, knowing that there is a special gift awaiting the day, and realizing it is by the Grace of God, that the package, gift, blessing, will be delivered!

This my friends, is what WAITING is like!

And on a positive note: We have a follow-up appointment already in place for August 11th! So lets hope the doc had good insight on the operation taking place BEFORE the 11th! PRAISE BE TO GOD!!!

If you have sat in the background and watched all of this unfold, make sure you keep an eye on our amazing Father and what HE will do next! :)

***

Ps.27: 14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

Out with the Old...

Pss. 33: 3 Sing unto him a new song; play skillfully with a loud noise.
***

Wow, can you believe another year has gone by? I just looked at the calendar and it is the 15 th of December already. The new year will be beginning in a little more than two weeks and have I gotten anything done this year that I had set out to do? No.

I have never been one to make plans. It always seems that you make them, something comes up and the plans that you had planned on for weeks or days falls apart and then you need to shift gears and make new plans.

I have been writing my blog almost religiously. I like to keep my posts current and active. I like to teach new things or share with you, so THAT plan worked out well. And as we wind down the year, I must wonder if everyone is ready for this holiday? Are you eager to begin the new year and shuffle this one behind you and scoot it nicely under the bed? I sure am!

I know one of the major things that worked out this year was growth in my faith. I had always assumed I was nicely content with my faith, but one should never get  too content with ones faith. Whether you’re Christian, Buddhist, Catholic, or Muslim, there is always room to grow and journey with your God.

You can say, “No, I’ve learned all that I can.” But I have to disagree, with every single day of your learning/living, there is always something new where you scratch your head and say, “Well, I didn’t know that.” Ever have one of those days? Well geez, in my case every day is like that.

The new year started off on a high note but by July, it all started having a domino effect and tumbled downward day after day. What-with doctor visits and preparing my son for his first day of school, taking beau to Omaha on a few occasions, hopes rising and falling, then God putting a halt to all the toppling of the outcomes by saying, “Wait, did you run all this by ME first?”

Since it is Him who has complete control, we all stopped and said, “What will you have us do Father?” And that is when beau decided to wait on the Lord, Adam decided to pray for his enemy, and I, I continued writing like a news reporter gleaning all the days/weeks news.

So as you head into the new year, look behind at the old one and ask yourself, “Have I learned anything this year that I never knew before?” I bet nine out of ten of you will all shake your head in agreement and give a resounding, “Yes!”

Move forward into the new year with joyful anticipation knowing there is something new waiting for you next year! You don’t have to make plans, just know in your heart that it is waiting for you around the corner!