I Needed a Break

Romans 12:9-15 NASB~ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

I took a break.

I took a break from writing, from facebook, from the world. I was going to do a series on depression but it made me depressed so I put a halt to that.

A few weeks ago, a dear friend and owner from my old stomping grounds Writers Village University asked me if I’d be interested in working the boards again. I was in a funk and thought, maybe this was God’s way of waking me out of it.

My mind reeled. I haven’t been really active on the site in many years, I’ve been a behind the scene support member but that was it. All my writing has been non-fiction here on my blog and that’s about all I wrote. I wasn’t letting the tainted world in and I ‘thought’ I was good. I wasn’t.

I was really getting depressed when I went to facebook; pictures upon pictures of things, just meaningless things over and over again. Whether it be a lost animal, lost kids, dogs, cats, challenges, quizzes, food (more food than I care to look at in one day), selfies, endless emoticons and the list goes on and on. Basically, facebook was becoming meaningless, to ME. There has to be something more to life out there.

A few months ago a dear friend had made a remark on all the pics I was posting. He was wondering if I had any thoughts of my own. I stopped posting pics, except of Boo, one of the cutest and most popular dogs ON facebook. My facebook life changed. I saw what he saw and realized, while I love the friendships, all of whom I know and no one is a 'random' pick of the day friend, the feed is tiring to me and quite depressing.

Other folks LIKE, LIKE, LIKE pics pics pics, but I now was seeing with different eyes. I was seeing how annoying it had become, then it depressed me. I focused on my garden, mowing, finding new dishes to make for my family and just enjoying the unseasonably cool summer we were/are having.

***Please note: I LOVE all the family pics, and the flower pics that people take and share, and especially all the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and mountains and all the PERSONAL pics that people share! And I am not without fault, I can be a pic posting maniac, but again there has to be something more to life. People HAVE to have real thoughts of their own, right?

Tiring of the unhealthy eating habits of the many, bored with coffee, depressed at being there for everyone else and no one being there for me, Bob approached me and said three words, “Are you interested?” I snapped out of the fog that held me captive and responded quite surprisingly quick, “YES, Yes I’m interested.”

I began a sort-of training for the task by my dear friend Priscilla whose very big shoes I was being asked to fill.  Both Bob and Priscilla thought I was up to the task and they had faith I could do a good job. It’s amazing what two people’s confidence in me did FOR me.

I told Bob that I KNEW I wasn’t up to handling ‘the calendar’ portion of the tasks and he assured me, “We’ll think of something.” After quite a few of rare-for-me sleepless nights, Pris emailed me and said she’d stick with the calendar! Talk about praising God. I was so thankful.

F2K (fiction 2000) was fast approaching. That’s a writing course I love too; an extension course of WVU. I signed up, boldly too I might add and began writing again.

I could now feel the fuzzy days becoming clearer. I was being pulled back to my gift of writing and that is what God had intended for me all along and He has this funny way of seeing to it we’re keeping up our end of the bargain.

While depression can be debilitating for some, to me it is a time of a forced-fast; a time to reflect and see what’s right and what’s wrong. A time to take a look and in the midst of looking realizing there is more to life than mundane functions. God didn’t put us here to go on day-by-day treating life with a menial attitude. He put us here to flourish and prosper. And I’m pretty glad that two people had the faith in me, which allowed me to once again have faith in myself. Thank you Bob and Priscilla!

Poetry Sunday ~ Fiery Pit

Isa. 13: 8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

Fiery Pit

Alone in the fiery pit

No one near to see

Flames licking at my side

The walls that smother me.

Heavy eyes raised to glance

The yellow, orange and blue

Holding me within its grasp

Feet cling to the floor of glue.

I cannot move; no hands reach out

I’m caught in the raging flare

The sound is all but deafening

In its race to singe my hair.

Is this a dream I can’t wake from

The abyss alarmingly real

My limbs are numb as the blaze erupts

There’s nothing for me to feel.

Why do people pass right by

Not hearing the harrowing screams;

Is a smile enough to make them think

All’s normal or so it seems?

Alone am I in the fiery pit

While people are blind to the pain

They’ll live the fantasy that all is well

As I dance in the fan-flamed rain.

Move on you sleeping nation

Your hypocrisy is wearing thin.

Pretending to care and moving on

As I peel my melting skin.

 

 

Quotation Saturday

"The heart knows its own bitterness and a stranger does not share its joy" ~ Proverbs 14:10

I have chosen these quotes in light of the death of a beloved man who always made everyone else smile but was really crying on the onside. I know too many suffering with depression and maybe now is the time to bring this illness to the light of day. No more hiding!

SUICIDE

“…They think of suicide as a quick route to oblivion, an escape. Far from it. It merely alters a person from one form to another. Nothing can destroy the spirit. Suicide only precipitates a darker continuation of the same conditions from which escape was sought. A condition under circumstances so much more painful.”
~ Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come

“If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease. . . Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about their lives.”
~ Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
~ David Foster Wallace

“A lot of you cared, just not enough.”
~ Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“Did you really want to die?"
"No one commits suicide because they want to die."
"Then why do they do it?"
"Because they want to stop the pain.”
~ Tiffanie DeBartolo, How to Kill a Rock Star

DEPRESSION

“As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide.”
~ Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”
~ Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral's Kiss

“Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would.”
~ Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.”
~ Sylvia Plath

LONELINESS

“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”
~ Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”
~ Maya Angelou

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
~ Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
~ Mother Teresa

“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, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

JUDGMENT

“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”
~ Henry Ward Beecher

For in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.”
~ Galileo Galilei, Frammenti e lettere

“You are constantly told in depression that your judgment is compromised, but a part of depression is that it touches cognition. That you are having a breakdown does not mean that your life isn't a mess. If there are issues you have successfully skirted or avoided for years, they come cropping back up and stare you full in the face, and one aspect of depression is a deep knowledge that the comforting doctors who assure you that your judgment is bad are wrong. You are in touch with the real terribleness of your life. You can accept rationally that later, after the medication sets in, you will be better able to deal with the terribleness, but you will not be free of it. When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better.”
~ Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“With a hint of good judgment, to fear nothing, not failure or suffering or even death, indicates that you value life the most. You live to the extreme; you push limits; you spend your time building legacies. Those do not die.”
~ Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

The Demons Within

Isa. 38: 18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

From RST: “Robin (Williams) was blessed with a gift to bring joy and laughter to millions of people. NO ONE THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN FULLY UNDERSTANDS THE ABOUNDING GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST! Scripture tells us not to say this one will go to heaven or this one will not. We don't have the authority. I hope he IS a brother in Christ. How about instead of passing judgment or spewing malice and hardened opinions, we who are Christ's followers lift up his family and loved ones in prayer. After all Christ IS abounding, unfathomable, never ending love. Hope, faith, and love and the greatest of these things is love. Hope to see Robin Williams in the kingdom one day! He will be missed until then.”

I read a beautiful article on suicide here.

While I’ve suffered depression and rose from the ashes, on many occasions the flames still seem to smolder never really smothered. I do have Jesus as an anchor in my life and always have but I wonder, if on the edge of suicide, will Jesus reach in and pour water on the flames surrounding you, so you don’t die? Well, we know He could, but He doesn’t impose His free will on our free will. If we consciously made the decision to kill ourselves, that is OUR CHOICE to do so, and the Lord doesn’t stop the act.

The above article really hit the nail on the head for me. Depression often feels like you’re inside a burning building and the only way out is a window that you jump through to what inevitably turns out to be your death.

You see, depression stems from a loneliness. A place where you’re surrounded by people but always feeling alone. Sometimes even a rich person, who has tons of friends, is always seemingly happy is fighting on the inside the loneliness that has enveloped him in a fiery fan of flames.

How do I explain the inner demons that we humans struggle with on a daily basis? I don’t think *I* can and I certainly don’t feel a psychiatrist can. People and doctors can try; they can provide pills to dummy you up so you don’t feel anything or give you words of encouragement, or even hand you a bible and say, “Read this, you’ll get better.”

The loneliness pit is a place where you finally take a look at YOU and you’re not happy with what you see.  I had an uncle who was a sufferer of PTSD from the remnants of the Vietnam War. He sought help and while the government gave him help it was never enough to lift him out of the pit. He had friends and even turned to them on the day he committed suicide. He went around telling them, “I’m going to jump from a bridge today, I’m done with it all.”

They all laughed and scoffed saying, “Here have a beer”, or whatever the drug of choice that was offered him, gave him no comfort, no release from the pit. They had heard it before many times, many attempts, with no success.

He went and jumped off the Francis Scott Key Bridge to his death. The problems with his prior attempts was, the bridge wasn’t high enough, so this time, he made sure it was. He had cried out and no one heard, no one took serious the seriousness of a death threat.

I imagine before Robin Williams death (pure conjecture here) when on the night before his death as his wife was leaving the house, he assured her over and over, “I’m fine, really.” Always the people pleaser, he didn’t let on to his own wife the depths of the pit he had fallen in and brushed it off in a joke and sent her on her way. He would then turn, go up the stairs and have a conversation with his loneliness, the pit of demons that let him know, “We’re here for you!”

No thought of family dwells in the pit. No external love resides there. Jesus is certainly not hanging out in the pit of your worst thoughts, you’re dangling by threads of insanity, all of which are being held by demons edging you on to a place of comfort, coddling you, caressing you, welcoming you. A place you don’t need to please anyone, a place that surrounds your mind in a blanket suffocating any thoughts except that of YOU and what YOU’VE become.

You’re not dangling in thoughts of love and family, thoughts of joy and happiness, no, you’ve taken up with the demons of comfort that are whispering all the things you want to hear; things about YOU, there’s room for no one else in the smothering pit.

When someone says they’re depressed. Whether clinically or just depressed (sad, lonely, hurt, aching) Please don’t laugh them off and hand them an answer that works for YOU, this is their battle, one you CAN’T fight for them and one you can’t lift them out of.

Don’t tell them they ‘should’ do this, or they ‘should’ do that, that is the worse thing you can say. What they need to hear is that you’re there for them. They need to know you care, and often people ‘claim’ to care and be concerned, but then they disappear thinking the person is fine. The person is in a fiery pit with their inner demons and you think they’re fine? Nice assumption!

Don’t ASSUME, be willing to listen! LISTEN, not spew should’s and should not’s, LISTEN. More than anything, while in the pit of depression, people are too eager to please OTHER people, make them laugh and smile; when all they needed was for one person to LISTEN. And no one ever has the time, to just listen.

If the many friends and family surrounding Robin Williams had LISTENED, would we be talking about his suicide? I can’t answer that, I’m only talking from my pit.

I praise the Lord every day that He stands with me in my pit, dousing the flames bit by bit, but other people don’t have the company, they are in the pit alone; alone and smothering.

If you’re ever in the pit with no one who will listen and death looks much better than facing life, please call the Suicide Hotline – 1-800-273-8255. Keep the number in a handy spot on the fridge, sometimes we never know that the person right beside us is about to make the wrong choice.

You might give up on Him, but He will NEVER give up on YOU!

God Bless You!

Poetry Sunday ~ In the Catacombs of Lonely

John 11:35 Jesus wept.

 In the Catacombs of Lonely

The darkest despair, fills the air

In the catacombs of lonely.

I claw my way to find the day

A freshness for me only.

A solitary face adorns the walls

Desolation my sole friend

I carry chains of emptiness

That will never come to an end.

Deserted am I, to sit and cry

My tears that no one hears.

Abandoned is all call to love

Fills me with unwarranted fears.

The deepest despair has filled the air

In the catacombs of lonely

The mottled cape o’er me draped

As if it’s for me only.

A Friend to the End...

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

A Friend to the End…

I first met Benning in 2003 during my first F2K class. We were not supposed to wander the rooms but the rebel in me had me wandering and I run into him. He called me ‘toots’ our very first meeting and I’ve liked him ever since.(an endearing name he calls many)

He didn’t chastise me for wandering, instead he said I’d make a good mentor and that is when my mentoring days began and a friendship blossomed! My writing was taking off but I was finding more joy in teaching, helping and learning along the way.

I eventually became a lifetime member of WVU thanks to Mr. Hembree and by this time more and more friendships were just the seeds I needed to add to my flourishing garden. Benning and I were mentor’s on many levels, sharing tips, pointing out each others wrongs and rights but each day, each passing week, our friendship was growing forming a special bond.

Something happened a few years back that I won’t regurgitate, but I was no longer a mentor and instead of Benning just letting me go and wallow in my own self-pity party, he joined me and stood by when it was one of the most difficult times in my writing career. That’s just the kind of guy he is though. I thought I was special but guess what, each and every person who knows him thinks they’re special too, and I bet they are to him, in their own way.

Through PM’s, emails and facebook we never let our friendship go sour. We’ve had bickers and bites, and many food fights, but at the end of the day, we each wished each other well and rose the next day to banter all over again.

I never took him for a ‘bible’ toting kind of guy, but a year or so ago, like me he began posting scripture. I always got on him about before you post it be sure you live it first. You know, a sort of practice what you preach kind of thing? I think this was his way of getting in tune with God. I was really glad to see this growing change in him.

I remember a time when he went almost a year without the internet, did THAT hinder our friendship? No way. He’d go to the library almost everyday, to get a book of course, AND to drop me an email asking me how I was doing and letting me know how he was doing. Yup, our friendship just kept growing and growing.

So here I sit today missing my friend and his banter. You see, he had a heart attack a little over a week ago and it called for immediate surgery. A week after his surgery he is still on oxygen after being incoherent for a week and just yesterday he was taken out of the Critical Care Unit and put into his own room.

Still not running the halls and causing a ruckus, (which I’m sure he’ll be doing soon!) this is a step in the right direction and I await the day I get an update from his family saying, “He walked and talked today.” Or better yet, “He’s out of the hospital and is resting at home.” Well he won’t be resting at HIS home but his folks’ place since he needs SOMEONE to take care of him.

This is a man who always goes out of his way to make everyone else smile, a man who shares happy faces and emoticons as if it was bread for the day’s meal. He’s a happy go lucky guy now in the hands of the Lord who is walking him through a healing journey. One we’ve all taken at some point in our lives but now it is his turn.

After he returns to the virtual world (six weeks or more) and he weeds through the many, many well wishes on his facebook wall, sorts through emails and Get Well cards, he’ll come here and read this blog post and know that I will not give up on him and allow him to wallow in any form of self-pity, I am his best friend and his friend until the end. It’s amazing to see what a little writing journey for me brought into my life for a lifetime. I miss ya, Ben! Get Well Soon!

Thank you Lord.

Mark 5:19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.

 

 

Poetry Sunday ~ He's Lost

1 Pet. 2: 25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

His eyes, glazed over by

A darkness that crept in

While he slept

His heart full of emptiness

That swallowed him

As he waited.

His nails, filled with the dirt

He clawed from the keyboard

As he surfed.

His bile, morally corroded

By the lust in him

As he fed

His mind, self-absorbed

By a bloated ego and pride

As he’s led astray

His soul, claws and gnaws

Lost to the netherworld

As he dies.

2 Pet. 2: 15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

 

 

Living in Sin

Jer. 50:6 My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.

People love to read about OTHER people having hard times and struggling with life. Take for example what you read everyday (whether internet or the newspaper) Is the first thing you read about a lost dog whose found its owner? Good things happening in the world? No? You read about the house fire that took lives and a home. You read about all the negative things happening in the world and why? Because humans are wired to relish other people’s pain, it seems to me.

Please don’t give me the bull about it being the only thing that is being reported. That’s just hogwash, it is what you CHOSE to read, isn’t it? Just like my blogging days, you don’t read the Feel-Good posts (some do and I thank you) and my uplifting words, I get amazingly more hits when I talk about everything that goes WRONG in my life. Humans are hard-wired that way.

Now onto me living in sin: Here’s the gist. I am living with a man and am unmarried to this man. Period! Right? WRONG! It is sinful, I know this but it continues? I have been with Steven eleven years now. Sure it would be so easy to just walk away and give up on this friendship entirely but is that what would please Him?

Last year my friend at church encouraged me to get the much needed divorce from my ex to make things right with God. My ex kept saying for years that HE’D file and by last year and still no filing, I took it upon myself and God saw to it that everything went smoothly and the divorce was finalized. My friend also assumed that the divorce would open the door and allow Steven and I to be married, but a proposal never came. Did I weep and stomp my feet demanding marriage? No. Why? Because I really didn’t want ‘marriage’.

I am a female, living with a man. And that’s a sin?  I’m not having adulterated sex, hosting orgies, skipping from man to man, no, I’m a female living with a man who is taking care of me and my son; food, shelter, and the comfort of not being alone. And THAT is a sin? I don’t understand what makes one sin different from any other sin. Sin is sin, I get that.

So my church is against the ‘appearance’ of living as a couple and not being married in a spiritually blessed union. But isn’t judging me by ‘appearance’ a sin also? What makes it okay for them to sin? When mine is wrong ‘in their eyes’.

Last year when we had a ‘meeting’ with the pastor he flat out told me to leave Steven for a few months, date other people, and live life ‘outside of sin’, and if we found our way back to each other, marry, and THEN live together.

WHAT?

First of all, Steven is a caregiver! For eleven years he has taken care of me and we both have struggled through disabilities (his blindness and my arthritis in my back) and yet he STILL takes care of me. He knows I’m not eligible for S.S. or any other means of assistance from the government and yet he STILL takes care of me.

Second of all: Where would I go? No money. No family. Nothing. Just a son who still needs to get his license to get a job and a CAR!

Thirdly: Meet other men? No thank you! I have been with two men in my life and three strikes I’m out! So no, dating another man is not an option for me.

This judgment of ‘living in sin’ has placed enormous guilt on me. I never felt guilty before everyone started saying, “When are you two getting married?” and “Living in sin is a sin not accepted by Christ!”

So are they telling me that if we walked up to Christ, He’d look us in the eye and say, “I can’t help you as long as you are living in sin.”? Really?  Is this the Christ I’m eternally faithful to? Am I disillusioned?

NO I’M NOT!!!

I KNOW what the bible says about marriage. The sanctity of marriage is a spiritual sacred step that two people take in binding themselves together, til death do they part! Steven and I don’t feel that for one another and that is wrong? This is where my confusion creeps in.

I love Steven, he is my best friend who knows every ugly thing about me and I him. We’re roommates and nothing more and I’m being judged for living with my best friend? I have taken this to God and HE doesn’t judge us. HE knows us, our situation and has NEVER put on our hearts to get married so as not to ‘live in sin’. HE knows our sin, sent his Son to DIE for our sin and when people go around judging other people for their sins, I’d like to say, he who is without sin, go ahead, cast the first stone!

When I met my ex, I was 15. I married him at seventeen and we stayed married for twenty years before it fell apart. We knew it was broken and we made the decision to part. He let me down. I was spiritually bound to him for life and he let me down in a big way.

The blossoming friendship online grew to a physical friendship in person with Steven. I knew he didn’t love God the way I did and I thought I could ‘help’ him find God. Not by force, just by happenstance meaning by things that happened, he’d turn to God. And sure enough he did but then this trivial thing with the church happened and he’s giving up on God? How sad to watch his nine years of growth go right down the tubes. I think ego and pride, YouTube, gaming (works of satan) stepped in and snared him.

And now satan wants me to step aside and leave Steven to him? I don’t think so, satan! That is NOT how I roll! I will stay until he tells me to leave. I will be a caring, loving friend for his lifetime if he needs me to be. I will continue to show him how Christ works in MY life and maybe, just maybe one day he’ll be swayed BACK to Christ. Just because he’s giving up on God does NOT mean God is giving up on him!

Prov. 28: 10 Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit: but the upright shall have good things in possession.

Discouraged

Blessed are those whose every instinct, every impulse, and every passion is under the control of God’s Spirit! They will be right with God, self and others and enter the life which God alone can give.

(Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ) Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:8-11

It is with great sadness that I write this. I’m feeling a bit discouraged and I feel THAT is what satan wants. How does one of great faith get discouraged?

I attend church on a weekly basis, I am spirit-filled on a daily basis, I spread love, scripture, the Word, light and love every chance I get, so how and WHY am I discouraged?

Let me tell you. People discourage me, recently my very own church has discouraged me and life in general is discouraging. People who share hate and scripture within three posts just about makes me lose faith in all humanity. Seeing people LIKE filling their screens with hate/judgment and watching others in agreement downright scares me.

I’m a sinner and it depresses me that I’m a sinner. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much love I spread, I’m still a sinner. I try NOT to sin but here I am LIVING in sin.

Things have changed at church since Pastor Mike left. We knew it would but didn’t think it would be so drastic as to discourage people from coming to church but here it is, the change that wasn’t for the better.

We’ve attended this church for the five years we’ve been in Nebraska. Whenever we had a need out of desperation we would turn to the church and lovingly they’d reach out and help. It wasn’t like we were sucking the blood out of the church and using them to give, give, give; we were desperate not having anywhere to turn and the church made us feel like helping us was a good thing on THEIR part. And yes, we DID give back to the church, just so you know.

On July first we hit a desperation level. Our propane was critically low, meaning we’d have no hot water, no stove, etc. Steven works and pays the bills but the propane has just been too hard to catch up on and they wouldn’t give us more until the bill was PAID IN FULL. So of course we asked the church, our church, the loving place you turn to in time of need. The place that makes you feel good knowing that God-loving people will reach out to you and lift you up.

That didn’t happen this time. We were asked to come in and fill out a ‘request’ form, stating our need and it would be ‘reviewed’, AND we’d have to meet with one of the pastors. No problem, we’re desperate. We went in and filled out the request.

Steven went in, had the ‘meeting’ with the pastor the next day and he said he’d ‘be in touch’. Five days passed and the pastor called and informed Steven they could only pay HALF and that another ‘meeting’ was needed.

WHAT???

Steven was wearing thin. The ‘meeting’ was set up for the FOLLOWING Tuesday the 15th because we were busy helping his mom after the major storm damage that she had. His sister had damage too, but she has kids to help her so we focused on mom on his day off. Tuesday was his other day off so that was the set meeting.

The meeting? It would be about us living in sin. It wasn’t about the help we needed, our cry out in desperation, any counseling on money management, it was going to be about us, living in sin! After the meeting, the bill would then be ‘partially’ paid.

Steven caved. He was hurt, depressed and angry. He went to church Sunday with some cartoon T-shirt on of the Thundercats? Something he has NEVER done. I saw as he was going down. I have NO CONTROL over his fall.

He cancelled the meeting. Told the pastor we hit a critically desperate point in our propane and would seek another way to get help. Pastor said he’d still like to have ‘the meeting’. Steven said no and that was that. He told me he could care less if we ever went back to that church. “How about another church?” I asked. He adamantly said, “No, I’m done.” He’s giving up on God.

So that’s where I am; lost and confused holding onto my faith and love of Christ. I did find comfort from a dear friend at church. *I* am not in a relationship with my church, I’m in a relationship with MY GOD! THAT should never be discouraged from mere mortals!

I’ve had no posts because my connection to the internet was limited. After a visit from server providers, they told us a few limbs on a tree were keeping our signal at its lowest. We set out yesterday and with teamwork, we removed the limbs and carted them off to the incinerator to be burned. They were too big, so they went beside the incinerator. The internet was back and all was happy!

Happiness is always short-lived. We were relaxing and watching the limbs burn and even put a couple of marshmallows on the fire… until a police officer came, squelching the ‘happy’ feeling with one breath! He said a neighbor must not like us. He called off the fire department, which was deployed, but it was too late, they arrived, fining us $150 bucks for a burn without a permit!

Seething anger filled my body. A hot despicable unleashing of very colorful words left my mouth. Satan was winning. (I did wait for the officer and the fire dept. to leave before I let my anger show at my nosy neighbor who called the police and is extremely jealous of us.) I didn’t confront them I just let off steam in the house and slowly composed myself and let it go.

But now *I’M* discouraged. Too much is happening!!!

Words of comfort from another dear friend:

These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NASB

"With all the beauty He surrounds us with daily and with all we get so busily involved doing, perhaps the trials and troubles are good to remind us to stay close to Him because though sometimes it seems to go on forever, this is all temporary."

I’ll hold onto that. I just pray Steven could understand.

Please hold your comments of “Jesus died for your sins, you are forgiven.” Jesus did NOT die so I could LIVE in sin! More later this week…

Is Freedom Free?

Matt. 24: 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

Is Freedom Free?

What is freedom? Our forefathers fought for our freedom; Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, etc. etc. But today we live in such a culturally diverse land, exactly which religion is free? We are being overrun with immigrants, and do they get to have the same freedom of THEIR religions or is it jut the Christians?

We have the Jewish who have practiced their religion in America freely, the Catholic’s have had a prominent roll in America, now we’re being bombarded with the Muslim religion and I just have to wonder, what religion is going to be stopped if we are to remain a FREE country? Did our forefathers mean ALL religions? Unfortunately they didn’t have a time machine and the ability to see into the future.

Sometimes I have a hard time loving my country. While some will blame ONE president and continue down a hate-filled non-Christian like path, others will blame the real culprit, the screwed up congress. While some, like myself just scratch my head in wonder. How did we become so messed up?

Eighteen members of the Republican Party have served as president for a total of 88 years, while only fifteen of the Democratic party served for a total of 85 years. Now while many many Americans BLAME the Democratic Party for everything from why they don’t own a home, to why they can’t find a better job, to why their mother is a practicing Atheist, are they really blaming ANY party or just their own misgivings and shortcomings?

People die on a regular basis and now days in America, everyone blames Obamacare. I hate to tell you this but back in 1974 my grandmother died of Lung cancer. She HAD insurance and this year my cousin died of cancer at the age of thirty WITH insurance, so why are hundreds suffering with cancer now saying it is because of there lack of being insured under Obamacare that they are losing the battle with cancer?

I’ll tell you why. NOBODY wants to die and EVERYONE wants a fighting chance with healthcare. I’m going to tell you a little secret, as hurtful as it may be, not everyone will live even if they HAVE healthcare. Hundreds of millions have died with healthcare before all this Obamacare came about so who did they blame then?

I just read of a veteran who died three or four minutes away from the emergency room because the hospital had to wait for an ambulance to transport him, which took thirty minutes to arrive! He died before they arrived. Hospital protocol called for him to be transported via ambulance as opposed to nurses or doctor’s wheeling him over to the emergency room not three or four minutes away.

This is America people! This is the country who sends men and women to war to bravely fight for OUR freedoms while we sit tapping out our hate for the president of the year of your choice, for them only to return home and have that very government turn their backs on THEM?

This is the country thousands flock to seeking FREEDOM, get free meal tickets, free homes, free healthcare, while American veterans suffer?

Yes we have more freedom than say Russia, China, Africa, North Korea but at what expense is this FREEDOM? At the expense of our own men and women? We are a Godless nation. I can’t be proud of that. While everyone else is out celebrating the fourth of July with a family picnic, plentiful food, fireworks and celebrating with alcohol I’m sure, do they realize what we even celebrate fourth of July FOR? Freedom? Tell that to the vet who died!

While I can see hundreds maybe thousands of pictures ‘honoring the men and women’, ‘honoring this country’, I don’t get it, I just don’t get it. Posting a pic doesn’t seem to be honoring them, paying their medical bills is honoring them and that is just what our government should do.

While I’m very happy to be IN America, it is at times like these I’m not very proud to BE an American. And it has nothing to do with any ONE president it has to do with a culmination of bad choices of MANY presidents that makes the U.S.A a laughing stock.

Jer. 17: 17 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

Proof is in the...DNA?

Daniel 2:19-23 (NIV)
During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said: "Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king."

Proof is in the...D N A

Deoxyribonucleic acid, also known as DNA, is a scientists dream. He comes into the equation to study it and more times than not we buy what scientist sell us. Humans very readily accepted what Darwin was selling when he sold to the public the theory of Evolution. People all over readily accept some scientist selling some theory that the Earth is only 6000 years or so old, and humans are so easily confused, they don’t know WHAT to believe anymore.

Oh, they give an excellent story, and they even back it with what they deem as facts so humans eager to believe buy the fabricated story, and that’s just what it is, a fabricated story. So to this scientist, geologists are wrong, Paleontologists are wrong but HE is right? And you so readily buy it?

I’m not!

But he has facts you say? Let me ask you, have you SEEN the facts and touched a fossil to be able to say, “I know this to be true?” No? Then it is heresay. So much of that going around these days no one knows what to believe. I read the bible and you might ask me, “Have YOU seen the facts?” And I’d have to tell you in all honesty, yes.

You see, God doesn’t work with the facts in rocks or dinosaur bones, God works in your heart and soul, the very essence of the core of your thoughts. If you find Him there, you don’t need Him to write it on paper or some screen to show you the facts, He’ll give them to you first hand.

Recently I was led to something on the net that had me scratching my head for a second. ‘Proof of God Found’!! Wow! Finally, man has found proof? It’s about time. (I say that because I already had proof but to read that a scientist had finally found proof was kind of interesting.)

It seems WIT (Wyoming Institute of Technology) say that they found God in DNA strands. While studying DNA, junk DNA to be exact, the part of the DNA that didn’t seem to have any function in the human body. I’ll let you read the story, you be the judge.

1 Cor 6:19 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.”

As the story states, God has left a message in our DNA. Why hasn’t this rocked the world? Why hasn’t this been front-page news if they found proof of God. I’ll tell you why. Because people don’t want to believe there IS a God. God could stand right in front of them and breathe in their faces, but they’d shrug it off as a hallucination. Man would rather believe in scientists who study rocks than the scientist who studies DNA.

Now you’re going to ask if I believe all of this to be true? Let me just say this, I’ve ALWAYS known God was in me, within my very DNA. I’ve never had PROOF because I’m not a scientist but I never needed proof or have I had the need to tell the world, for what, them to laugh and scoff? My proof is IN ME. As is any proof YOU need, it is IN YOU. It’s not out here in a scientists lab, it’s not on the web waiting to be discovered, it’s where it has been since the beginning of time!

Now I didn’t stop at the above WIT page, I dug further for this ‘God in DNA’. I found that a similar article was written in 2011. Basically saying the same thing but it had a different ‘message from God’. This is fascinating news and for three years it’s been hidden in the catacombs of the internet? The media is so caught up with movie stars and who shot whom, and some soccer events, and sometimes they report on disasters and stuff, but proof of God? Oh, that’s just silly!

Now let me tell you another fact, from the mind of ME! God left messages in the stars too, he left messages for humans and some thousands of years ago, people WROTE about them and actually made up this thing called ‘The Holy Bible’, but still, you’ll find disbelievers because they have no PROOF! Daniel didn’t need a scientist and neither do I!

For scientist, the proof of God’s existence is out there in the stars, the proof is in our bodies (DNA), to you and me, the PROOF, my friends is right before your eyes everyday in the message God Himself gives YOU! Think about it.

Commitment

“There can be no half hearted disciples, because the essence of following Jesus is a total commitment… a disciple who will not deny self will never have any positive influence on anyone.” ~ Mark C. Black

We were reading a bible study a couple of weeks ago and it was about commitment. Not just to Christ but in relationships as well. I got sidetracked with my other posts and thought I’d come back to this one and when I seen Duke Taber speaking of commitment I knew it was time to get back on track and write about commitment.

The bible study said something like, “If you can’t commit in a relationship how are you ever going to commit fully to your relationship with Christ?” This scared me a little bit because after 11 years with Steven he has never wanted to commit to a marriage. I have been committed and wanted a marriage but I’m not one to force the marriage issue on anyone.

It speaks volumes to me because while he has become closer to God, he still has not wanted to commit to marriage for whatever selfish reasons he has in mind. To me, if he can’t commit to a woman, just how much has he really committed to Christ? This I strongly wonder.

I have stood by him through thick and thin, in sicknesses and health, through triumphs and through failures and through it all I still love him and am committed to him to where marriage is the next step, right? I guess not and it really has me thinking what Jesus expects from US as a human race? Does He expect us to halfway commit?

Not at all! He expects us to fully commit and that means denying self = selfishness, put our SELF on hold and think of others first. We can’t sit back and enjoy our sinful ways and not expect consequences. Pastor Dave said something a few weeks back that drove this home for me. He said our salvation is bought and paid for by the blood of the cross, it is non-refundable. BUT, don’t ever think there is no consequence to your sin!

I, as a committed Christian, am aware of the consequences of MY sin. When my truck went into a ditch a few years back, I knew rightly so it was a consequence of my sin. Now some will shrug off the consequences of sin as “Hey, stuff happens.” Sorry to burst your bubble but nothing EVER happens without a reason. When you become aware of the consequences, you become more aware of the sin and are less likely to commit that sin again. Well, most anyway, not ALL.

Now, back to commitment. When you commit to Christ you are committing all you own, all you have, all you are to Him and only Him. You’re not allowed to halfway be a Christian. You can’t honor or admire other gods, because that would be the false idol that you are relating to and if you can’t relate to Christ and all He commands, then you my friend have not committed to Christ FULLY.

2 Tim. 1:12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Being a Christian is a commitment, like marriage, not just lip-service you pay to look good to others. A commitment is more than reading and believing. Let me ask you this, you say you listen to sermons on TV or the radio, you read, you believe. My question is this: If something happens in your life (a sickness and illness or a death) are those TV people gonna stand beside you and comfort you? Are they going to see you through hard times? NOT AT ALL.

It might be enough for you to go it alone with your pride saying, “I’m not alone, I have Christ.” Allow me to tell you, in your commitment to Christ, He placed the fellowship of Christians (church) to surround you and comfort you PHYSICALLY, not in some virtual realm.

You ARE committed, right? How? All the way or halfway?

“You can be committed to Church but not committed to Christ, but you cannot be committed to Christ and not committed to church.” ~ Joel Osteen

Poetry Sunday ~ Within the Ethereal Night

Isa. 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Within The Ethereal Night

Somber still is the ethereal night,
A sheltered home for inner flight
Darkness embedding mystical light
A flurry of bouncing spheres.

Cascading over inclement beams,
Caressing colorful starlight seams
Clustered into radiant teams
 Behold the glorious sky.

Beguiled by blistering thundering sound,
Blatantly making my heart to pound.
Cautiously savoring what I have found.
Transcending the sublime.

Whispering winds wash over me
Whisking wisely to eternity
I'm bathed amid the endless sea
I touch the other realm.

Flawlessly floating back to earth
Feasting on fruits of heaven’s birth
Finding favor of my self worth
I grasp the truth within.

Quotation Saturday

1 Chron. 29:9 Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the LORD: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy.

It has been a week of pain, no worry, relief and joy. Through all of this God is still my compass.

PAIN

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
~ C.S. Lewis

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
~ Oprah Winfrey

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
~ James Baldwin

“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”
~ Lance Armstrong

WORRY

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
~ Corrie ten Boom

“The more you pray, the less you'll panic. The more you worship, the less you worry. You'll feel more patient and less pressured.”
~ Rick Warren

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight.”
~ Benjamin Franklin

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry, saying, ``What shall we eat?'' or ``What shall we drink?'' or ``What shall we wear?'' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
~ Matthew 6:25-34

RELIEF

“I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.”
~ Winston Churchill

“Relief is a great feeling.
It’s the emotional and physical reward we receive from our bodies upon alleviation of pain, pressure and struggle. A time to bask in the lack of the negative.
And yet, think about it—relief is really the status quo, a negation of the suffering, a nothing in itself. It is the way things were before the pressure and struggle began.
So, is it a step back? A regression?
Or is it an opportunity to regroup, start over, and move in a different direction?
Use your moment of relief well.”
~ Vera Nazarian

“I wish that the last breath of your life is a sigh of relief.”
~ Saleem Sharma

“She is no longer a solitary being. She is a million different parts, each reborn, granted the miracle she prayed for in the months before her death, to be completely healed.
Death is the price for rebirth.
Death. Who would have thought it would come with such great joy? Yet, after long years battling illness, death is suddenly more than welcome.”
~ Victoria Kahler

JOY

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
~ Tom Bodett

“I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
~ Anne Frank

“Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.”
~ Fred Rogers

“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin