Seasonal Change

Pss. 90: 6 "In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth."

Seasonal Change

It seems like a seasonal change is going on in my body and mind. In the Spring I’m flourishing and growing, writing until my fingers hurt then by fall I’m ready to go dormant and wither into the sunset and put my year long trek of blog posts behind me. It’s not even the New Year yet. 

I did have a goal at the beginning of this year and that was to surpass last year’s posts. So far I beat the 112 posts mark pretty easy. Now to surpass 2013, not so easy as September has arrived and I just want the year to be over already. Maybe the cooler temperatures arriving next week will whisk me away into a writing frenzy and my goal will surpass 2014! Hey, I can dream but the one thing I can’t do is give up!

2013 – 162 posts, 2014 – 182 posts, 2015 - 112 posts, 2016 – 155 so far. A grand total of 1699 posts thus far – Definitely surpassing my goal from when I began this venture. 

~  Amen  ~

Topics – the elusive thought for a topic is becoming harder and harder as sources become overwhelming to my little brain. Then there is the reality that I must live life and not just sit behind this windowed world because things need to be taken care of around my home.

I feel lost amid a sea of falling leaves that are slowly being taken from their tree source and left to lie on the ground waiting to be raked and put into a pile on my almost ready to be sleeping garden. Even my flourishing garden wants to rest from a heated summer where little has fallen from the sky to quench the thirst of the dry land beneath.

I thought I’d at least make my blog writing to the November election when the chosen one will be hung out to dry on the social media clothesline.  The news media will spin their web of deceit just in time for Halloween when all the masks will be evidently seen from people and politicians alike and I get to be here at center stage to watch the show. Yippee, how depressing.

I think about giving up writing all the time but I won’t allow the phase to suck me down the drain with all the mask-wearing people. I actually have a goal set and I don’t like giving up. I don’t care how depressing the world around me becomes or how hard they try to tighten the noose around my neck with their gibberish; I can’t give up!

I sometimes feel like my posts are coming off as peeved or angry but I have no intention of writing from anger. When something bothers me, like lies and deceit, I write about the liars and deceivers so that maybe, just maybe, everyone else can see that people they know and trust are misleading them also. Maybe they don’t even care if the bullring hanging from their nose is leading them around. This is why I feel like discontinuing my writing so I can just have a break from the grammar-etiquette police and the judgmental masked socialites, who know who they are. 

I don’t have all of the answers and I surely don’t pretend to know it all. I lost my ego years ago when reality swallowed me up as the social media frenzy was seizing control of the world. I am not a pretentious person putting on a show for you all to read, what you see is the real me that some of you like but some are taken aback by my over-the-top honesty.

“Did she really just say that?” Yes, yes I did. 

Sometimes my openness corners me into a cage, leaving people to poke sticks at me through the bars, feed me their delusion or ready to pull their shotguns out because they see me as a big gorilla trying to save a small child. (Think Harambe, the almost endangered species) 

There you have it, the truth of this entire post, I’m an endangered species being forced out of existence by an all too willing mass that would rather shoot me down rather than lift me up. I’m telling you here and now, I will not go out quietly. I will look down the barrel of your gun proclaiming HE IS ALIVE! I AM ALIVE! All the capitalizing in the world isn’t big enough to make you HEAR the WORDS (or see) because blindness is an epidemic that is sucking the life out of the living.

Seasons come and seasons go

Dreams may come and dreams may flow.

No one knows from where I grow

As seasons come and seasons go.

Ex. 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

Poetry Sunday ~ Lil Green Patch

 Ex. 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

***

Lil Green Patch

Where flowers in a field did prance

the moonglow perches ready to dance,

coyotes howl, the elk they call

on the crux of the rising fall.

Spilling over are leaves on the lawn

silently I await the dawn.

Darkness lingers as frost gives rise

I wipe the stardust from the skies.

Little hearts all take a bow;

shooting stars kiss me somehow.

They reach across the open plain

sprinkle down like falling rain.

Drizzled in an earthly show

something grander is here, I know.

Within my mind, I speak to them 

give a little of all that I am.

An earthly angel they see in flight

to bear to them a heavenly Light.

The heavens open in a fury

to Him I tend to give all glory.

Awakened now from this dream

everything is, as it would seem.

From the pages I dispatch,

the joy I found in a lil green patch.

From Oct. 2010 © Joni Zipp

Quotation Saturday

Jer. 48:10 “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”

LIES

“When you look at the past without God’s eyes, you subject yourself to deception. The past no longer exists and God doesn’t linger there. However, Satan will show you whatever you want to see and believe, so you will be trapped in an emotion that cannot communicate truth, beyond what you want to remember.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Anything is better than lies and deceit!” 
― Leo Tolstoy

“Perhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.” 
― Christopher Hitchens

“Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult....Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings -- much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.” 
― George Eliot

EGO

“The ego relies on the familiar. It is reluctant to experience the unknown, which is they very essence of life.” 
― Deepak Chopra

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” 
― Bill Bullard

“The Ego is a veil between humans and God’.”

“In prayer all are equal.” 
― Jalaluddin Rumi

“Arguments should always be held in private. Audiences inflate the ego.”
― L.J Vanier

SELF

“You are who you are when nobody's watching.” 
― Stephen Fry

“Don't look to the approval of others for your mental stability” 
― Karl Lagerfeld

“We carry about us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is not only innocent but young -- not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age -- and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words.” 
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

“I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are.” 
― Richard Paul Evans

STRENGTH

“To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn't stop until the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one's place in the world. To say 'I am here.' To say 'I am.” 
― O.R. Melling

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” 
― Lao Tzu

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
 ― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.” 
― Christian D. Larson

OPTIMISM

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” 
― Oscar Wilde

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” 
― Anne Frank

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” 
― Marcus Aurelius

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adopted

Eph. 1: 4-6 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

Adopted by Christ

I was not physically adopted. I was actually born into a big enough family and being the baby, my brothers and sister set out to insult me and belittle me and make me feel as if I was an unwanted adopted child. I looked for someone to love me and value me as a child and I only found unconditional love from God. That really set me apart from the family because they all were set in their ways and had their own beliefs so when I was in ninth grade and became a born again Christian my family of  (in name only) Catholics didn’t take to the announcement of my conversion too well.

They all deemed me brainwashed, that the school I was in was a sinister cult because they were teaching me about Jesus. They thought that the family of Christians in my school was teaching me of the dark places that I would be tempted to go when all they offered me was an outlet; the protection of a God who wanted nothing in return but me as His child. Wow, how sinister yes?

Adoption is a conscious choice to make someone a part of the family. I consciously was choosing God over my blood family. Did this decision keep me from going down a darkened path? No way, you have to remember I had a big family (aunts and uncles too) that were all alcoholics, it was the norm. No one stood outside the realm of the family circle to stand up and say ‘protect this child’ but I knew with every fiber of my being, that God was the one and only who was going to protect me.

I never realized the dark force had such an enormous pull on every being around me. When my old friend called last week and said, ‘you were never allowed to be a child.’ The flashbacks came flooding in like a dam bursting open unleashing the darkened waters that tried to drown me.

No one knew that I walked in fear for most of my life. They didn’t care to know, what they did want to know is what I could do for them on any given day. Whether it was babysitting, cleaning, or supplying them with what they needed. Yes, I was a Cinderella thrust into an entire family of ugly stepmothers.

People wonder how it is that I became so close to God and wanted to tell the world about Him. Well let me tell you, when you walk barefoot on coals of fire through the pits of hell and God is the only one that stretches out His hand and found you worthy of being saved, you’d want to tell the world too. 

I’m sure you’ve read stories about people donating hearts to save a life and the recipient wants to meet the family in person to thank them? Or a rescuer who pulled you out of a car sinking in floodwaters, you need to see that person again face to face to shout out a thank you and hug them for their unconditional act of kindness. That’s what God has been to me, a life preserver, literally. My rescuer whom I HAVE to meet face to face but in the meantime, I’ll tell the world about Him.

“The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.”

~ John Ruskin

After the expanse of my rebellious childhood, if that’s what you want to call it, where alcohol was on hand by eight, marijuana by age ten then a host of other drugs were scattered in my path and I could have become like the addicts you see wandering the streets today. It wasn’t until I overdosed at twenty-one on whiskey, (yeah, death and the whole out of body experience) was I able to open my eyes to a brighter Light that saved me and I would tell the world of this Man that reached into the depths of death and pulled me out, saved me and shaped me into the woman you see (or read) before you today. 

Some people had parents that guided them to the straight and narrow; some had mentors that piloted their route but me? I had an all-loving God who saw in me something I could not see myself. God made me feel chosen, accepted, valued and loved whereas my biological family made me feel – just here.

Sometimes life is like that, you are placed in a loving, caring, nurturing family while others get placed in the center of a tornado and made to fend for themselves. But I’ve found through very many of the years of my life that it was only through the storms that I was being groomed by an ever-loving God who turned this mess into able-bodied lover of Christ WILLING to spread a message of LOVE across the many channels within my grasp. He has never given up on me and I will NEVER give up on Him. I just gently await the day I get meet this Savior, face to face. I day I was adopted by Christ was the best day of my entire life. 

Deuteronomy 26:18 "The LORD has today declared you to be His people, a treasured possession, as He promised you, and that you should keep all His commandments;”

My life was never perfect

Nor did I claim it be

Maybe people will love me

When they read my history.

~ Joni ~

UnAmerican

The American Flag at Fort McHenry

Baltimore, Maryland

Pss. 136:1 “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.”

UnAmerican

I’m jumping on the bandwagon here. I’ve been called un-American so many times it makes my head spin. Why? Not standing for the National Anthem? No. Not picking left OR right? No. I’ve been called un-American because I don’t like chocolate or fatty foods like bacon and enormous amounts of cheese. Well I’ll be!

I don’t think this post is really about being un-American as much as it is going to be about what riles the world, gets under their skin, irks people to no end. If the cause does not fit into the norm, meaning the [supposed] majority, then you are on the outside, the minority. If you’re black you’re in the minority, orange, minority, alien minority. What if you’re Irish or German does that count you as a minority too? Are the majority of Americans Irish and German? I don’t think this day and age they are. 

It makes you think. What does it mean when someone calls you un-American? I respect soldiers who were drafted at a young age and basically forced to fight for this country. I admire the men and women who choose to continue to fight for this country day in and day out. But does it make me un-American because I don’t and won’t conform to what YOU might want me to post on facebook, Instagram, or twitter?

I was and never will be someone who votes because you tell me I HAVE to vote or be called un-American. When the National Anthem is on, STAND, place your hand over your heart! Say the pledge of allegiance daily. Well, we want our kids to pledge allegiance to a flag for twelve years of their life and we get all riled up because some lying meme says it’s going to be taken out of schools? Americans want everything THEIR way and you’re UNAmerican if you disagree with one or two people who don't think like you think.

I think that our founding fathers when writing the Constitution knew back in the day that God (or mere mention of Him), our rights or our liberties would continue to be an issue in the distant future. I don’t think they thought that allowing people from other countries here was going to be such a big issue but here we are being our American selves and not wanting immigrants to share in our wealth and prosperous land. (I say that loosely as I look around at other countries, impoverished nations and their debts.)

You know, I find it quite amazing that individuals are not allowed to think for themselves, speak out about something they don’t believe in or are shamed because the small brained feel it necessary to be louder than the minority of people who just want to be heard. I thought we had rights to protect us but year after year, political figure after political figure wants to change the way things are run.

I blog today because it is my right as an American to say what I want to say but to lump me together with the other billions of Americans is offensive to me because I am not like them or you for that matter. I don’t read the ‘what people are talking about today’news. To be honest, I go to facebook and see what people are griping about, reeling about, who is offending whom on this or any given day. Then as the writer in me takes over, I research and see if it is worth blogging about. More times than not, the answer is no because I won’t conform to what the masses expect from me. I won’t be a part of the hate brigade and if that makes me un-American, then so be it, off with my head!

Yup, I’m all about God and I’m sure that offends the majority of people but I don’t care. I don’t live to serve man and debate about who’s right and who’s wrong; I live to serve God. Not a country, not a flag, not a battalion, not a president, not anything but God, so yes, if serving ONE God makes me un-American, then Hail to the King of Kings! 

God you reign, God you reign!

Forever and ever… God you REIGN!

Peeve Of The Day ~ "Just Get Over It."

1 Pet. 4:12-13 “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

My peeve of the day? People minimizing pain.

“Just get over it.” 

“Suck it up, buttercup, life goes on.”

Yup, those words right there grate on my nerves like screeching nails on a chalkboard. Telling someone to just get over their pain, depression, or anxiety, whatever burden they bear or cross they carry is minimizing what they are going through on a daily basis. 

If you’ve been through the depths of hell and have come back to tell the world about your experience that’s just great, you’re the one human God has chosen to break the gates of hell but if you’ve suffered in similar pain as someone else, don’t minimize what they endure daily by telling them to just get over it because YOU survived a similar pain.

You don’t know the pain someone is going through unless you’ve walked in his or her shoes and I’m pretty sure no one has walked [metaphorically] in another person’s shoes. No, we are on our own path in life and while you may have comparable pain, similar circumstance, identical health issues, you need to know that the person enduring the affliction owns what is happening to them, it can’t be borrowed or stolen it has to be LIVED.

Offering sympathy is one thing but comparing your incident with their daily struggle takes away the healing that they have in place and the prayer that they utilize by making their illness seem like they will just ‘get over it’ when that is not the case at all. They need time to drink in the healing that they are going through so they can make plans for what they need to change (if anything) and possible routes they might take.

Can you imagine if we were all on the same exact journey? Life would be no fun that way and would we all arrive at the same destination? Of course not. Just because the journey was ‘similar’ does not mean they are the same. Life is like that sometimes, we all think we’re headed to heaven but we do nothing in our life to get us there.

Reading and believing the bible isn’t going to get you there. Attending church isn’t any assurance that heaven will be your end destination. People tend to be misinformed when they think that the outward appearance of being a Christian is going to get them into heaven. 

All Christians may ‘appear’ to be the same but that is the farthest thing from the truth. We all are different in our journeying path but the one thread that unites us in a genetic strand of life is the blood of Jesus Christ running through our veins. 

Our disability isn’t what bonds us together. Our illness doesn’t define who we are in the living world. Our outward appearance isn’t the link to an eternal heaven. The only thing from the physical realm that is universally ours that we carry into the spiritual realm is LOVE. Love binds us all. Without love, the path will lead straight to hell and there will be no coming back to tell us about it on twitter, or facebook or through images on Instagram. 

So before telling someone to just ‘get over it’, or to pray more, hope for more, be more to the world; dig into the depths of your soul and find the love that lives there. When you want to hate…find love. If you feel the need to compare…do it with love. When you find a burning fire in your soul…douse the flames with love. 

Love is one of the hardest paths to journey on. You might think it is a simple task but tapping into the well of love on a daily basis is a struggle we all must face. You can give someone directions but that doesn’t mean they’ll follow them. Just as life and the trying storms we muddle through; we own our journey, it is ours alone. We might all strive to get to the same destination but we’ll all take different routes to get there.

May the God of love bless you all!

1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

Amen!

An Overly Obsessed World

Job 26:6 “Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.”

An Overly Obsessed World

There is a sickness running rampant through the veins of society as a whole. I’m not finger pointing a color, culture, nation or country; nope I’m pointing fingers at human beings, well those things walking on two legs that CALL themselves humans. Judgment? No, just an observation of the reality that we all have to face.

We are hell bent on destroying the world in any manner that we can. I am hard pressed to see any generation over the years that didn’t bring about some form of destruction on the world. I sometimes wonder if God didn’t create the world just to watch us totally annihilate the planet we live on, and you wonder why we’re looking to see if Mars is habitable? We’re obsessed bringing about the destruction of earth.

All you have to do is turn on your computer and it is evident. I have a mother who has never used a computer so she has to see it firsthand on television or read about the ruination in the newspaper. And we all know that those forms of information are lies that the media allows through our open window.

Ezek. 31:16 “I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.”

We are:

Destroying the atmosphere – I see this in contrails and the emissions from cars. The slaughter of perfectly healthy trees to make way for roads and more homes to house more and more people who are spreading out into the world by the billions causing us to be in astronomical debt for the extinction of the human race.

Destroying the waters – Polluting waterways is nothing new but a new exterminating process is underway in the form of pipelines running under the sea or river ways. Yeah, I don’t see a catastrophe happening there. 

The oceans are just vast graveyards for bodies and excrement that we relieve ourselves from, thinking the garbage hides on the ocean floor not realizing the chemicals bleed into the water taxing an already deplete ecosystem. 

Destroying farmland – By justifiable means of chemically treating our food sources and justifying our decision, we are encouraging unhealthy spores of illness to arise in a nation wrought with cancer killing illnesses on the rise and it is not going down. New illnesses are bred from the misdirection and misinformation being fed to humankind.

Matt. 10:28 “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Destruction by overmedication – We have a world dependent on drugs, prescription or illegal sources, we dish out medication like a daily dose of candy on Halloween night. Hand the person a pill to pacify their illness, make money and raise addicted children who need the same meds, daily. When the pacified child no longer feels good from the meds he/she has been prescribed to all of their life they seek out a stronger (illegal) drug to quiet the demons eating them to pieces.

Destruction by monetary gain – If there is a dollar to be made, rest assured destruction is not far behind. Whether earned, begged for, borrowed or stolen, money is all part of the downfall to humankind. Money is the root of all EVIL!

Isa. 28:15 “Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:”

Destruction of morality – There is a massacre taking place by the elimination of morality on a grand scale where even our newborns are being exploited. Humanity is obsessed with nudity, sexual pleasures, defiance, brazenness, naiveté, and gullibility.

We obsess over breast – to the point that something that is supposed to be beautiful between mother and child has become a contrived exploitation of a viral epidemic where breastfeeding is no longer a bonding moment between mother/child, it is between mother and the virtual world.

Prov. 27:20 “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.”

We obsess over sex – to the point that millions of dollars are made by legal ‘gentleman’s clubs’? ~ Seriously, what kind of GENTLEMAN lusts over naked women? 
Pornography sites, illicit boob-bearing hamburger joints, all the way down to the barely-there costumes of the surgically enhanced cheerleading squad; sexual deviation is another legal sickness that will never be addressed. 

We obsess over looks – So much so, that beautiful women have themselves sliced and diced to ‘look’ better when all that the surgery does is makes them look like an ego driven living Barbie doll; plastic and not real. We’re obsessed with the real and the surreal. The fantasy and the delusion of fabricated truth.

We’re obsessed with rights and being right in a world where everything is wrong! We’re obsessed with clicking and baiting; we’re obsessed with primping and prepping. We’re victims of having or being had. I, as a God-loving woman, (Christianity doesn’t live on this earth anymore) have become a delicacy to the masses that are trying to devour me and ridiculed because I won’t be a part of their game plan.

Pss. 9:17 “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”

I won’t do the YouTube boob bait. I won’t partake of the Instagram food bait, the facebook, I’m  right, you’re wrong bait or any-other-virtual-predator bait. We are an obsessed nation with baiting you with legal sinful pleasures that you later justify as just being normal.

Prov. 15:24 “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.”

I have come to the conclusion by merely observation that this world is NOT God’s world this is satans domain and we’re all in hell digging and clawing ourselves out of the pit to gain access somewhere in the heavens. May God have mercy on our soul!

Pss. 86:13 “For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.”

Poetry Sunday ~ My Talent

Matt. 25:15 “And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.”

* ~ * My Talent * ~ *

God asked me to use the talents

That He has blessed me with

The sharing of the Word I hear

The truth and not a myth.

I sent the Word into the world

A message delivered to me

It was a ripple on the lake

For all the world to see.

The words they entered in my ear

And out of my fingers bled

My gift of writing words to you

Is where my soul was led.

God was pleased when he saw

My talent not gone to waste

The gentle words about His Son

I fed the world a taste.

Some people sit idly by

Saving earthly treasures

Their talents, gifts and so much more

With all their worldly pleasures.

Rise up you sleeping people

For the new world that awaits

The life that’s left behind you

As you enter heaven’s gates.

Matt. 25:23 “His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

Competitive By Nature

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (NIV) “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” 

I called my mother the other evening, like I always do every night and twice on Saturday and Sunday, but this time it went to the answering machine as she waited to hear my voice and then pick it up. 

I asked, “Why the machine. You have caller ID?”
She retorted, “Why all the questions, you writing a book?”
I sarcastically replied, “Well yes, yes I am.”

I could tell right away she was in ‘a mood’ the kind I tolerate since my dad has passed and she clings to so much bitterness, for his death and for her being left alive, alone. I just try and be the relief pitcher and comfort her in any way I can. Since I’m the only child of six who talks to her on a daily basis, I take the brunt of her moods from a distance. 

To be honest, I cherish these phone calls to my mother because I know there will come a day when I don’t hear her voice on the other end and I’ll be alone without any communication from the family I once had. I don’t miss my family like I do my mother because we were never really a family in any sense of the word; we were competitors in the field.

You see, when I was born, I was the sixth child of a family all vying for a prize, the prize being the attention of my mother and father. My sister had held the baby position for three years and here I come into the fray as the fresh living competitor baby, the new attention getter, the new baby with a nickname, the baby that would, in her mind, replace the love my parents gave to her, and so she set out my demise from the day I was born. 

I can tell it was a bitter competition to her from the stories she’s told all of her life, I guess in a way to make me feel guilty for being alive? A way for maybe getting me to go far away from the family so she could take her position as the center of attention? I don’t know, I just surmise an intuitive guess. And yes, my writing will hold the story whether they ever see it or not, this is MY story, not theirs; my truth, not their jumbled mess of perception.

Granted I was a tattle-tale brat but I did not deserve, at three-years-old to be pushed on a swing so high that I’d fear for my life and jump off the swing to be caught by a chain link fence, the kind with the barbed-wire looking top? Yes, I have the ugly memory and nasty scar to prove it and over the years my sister vehemently denied it was her doing the pushing but my brother. Gee, that didn’t make me feel any better.

She gave me my first cigarette at eight, my first joint of marijuana at I don’t know what age, the damage is real though, it was young. My first beer, my first jump in a raging river, my first kiss from some boy she set me up with. Also the first voice I overheard whispering when I was sixteen, “She should’ve just had an abortion.”

This was a real competition, not some contrived imagination of my overly drugged mind that went right into my twenties when at the time I was closer to my brother and she wanted that position but he didn’t want a relationship with her. My entire family fought with the battle of Dad loved me more, mother liked you best, neither of them liked me and there I was the baby, the relief pitcher who would try to bring a broken vase to the table and try to glue the pieces back together. And it bled into my late thirties when I finally left home and left all the bad memories behind and never looked back.

While the world is busy bustling with sharing all the beautiful moments of their family, pictures abounding of happy times, I often wonder when people say that they too had a hard life or trying times where are THOSE images? Mine are either in a box somewhere or lost in the portals of time. I understand it though when people aren’t as ready and willing to share their trying times as I am. It’s okay, we all have our own way of healing or hiding behind masks.

People are not willing to share the ugly times, that’s ‘their little secret’ that they’ll carry with them to the grave. Sometimes they’d rather people only see the good and happy posts spread out on Instagram and Facebook so that people visually see the good life they had or have when deep down the pain and hurt comes out in snide remarks.

I myself sometimes use humor to hide my pain but really it doesn’t hide it too well, I think humor, to ME, is just a form of medicine I use to help with my healing. I love to laugh, I love to see people laugh, I love to share my pain and most of all my GROWTH, through smiles and laughter. Some may see it as me letting too many skeletons dance freely out of the closet but hey, we all need to let them free some time or another, I’d rather do it sooner rather than later when they decide to jump out of the closet as regrets. 

It all boiled to a steep head last year in October when my father passed away. I no longer wanted to be the relief pitcher. The last straw was the poem that I wrote for my father to hear on his deathbed since I couldn’t be there for one of the hardest days in my life. My sister held the poem in her hand and withheld reading it, a scar that singes burning hot to this day at just the thought. 

Don’t say I’m mean and unforgiving for not sharing any love for a lost family. Respect me for the forgiveness I HAVE shown and chose to move on from it all, in a healing place for ME! The best thing I carry with me from my past is my son! And I will continue to give him the best part of me and we’ll have our very own memories, good ones that outweigh the bad ones. He said to me this morning, "You're not a phony like everybody else, you lay things out in the open."

Wow! Thank you, son. Not only does he see the real me, YOU see the real me too! Nothing phony or fake here, people!  

Sail On, Joni

Lam. 3:24-25 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

Time heals all wounds

That is one of the biggest lies I’ve ever heard. Time might heal the part of you that was wounded but as proof the hurt existed, you’re left with a scar. I have a scar on my left wrist with a whole lot of stitches and the scar nor the memory of the three-year-old that incurred the scar has ever healed and went away. 

I always joke and say that my sister had it in for me from birth when I took her place as being the ‘baby’ of the family but more and more as time and years pass, it’s no longer the funny that I thought it was back then. As my past comes back to haunt me and the wounds resurface as the scars metaphorically reopen to leak blood onto the written page, the anguish along the lines come with the broken path.

The choppy waves are hurtling me so to speak, in a way I had not anticipated. You see, when you’re finding healing, you move forward and help others like you to move on in life. Sharing the same hurts and pains with another is just a way of being in tune and picking up the spiritual channels that drew you, as friends, together on the same wavelength in the first place. 

I have a circle of friends that I met, maybe at first it was writing that drew us together but as the years go on I tend to learn more about the people and the common thread that ties us all together. More times than not it was God and His mighty power that drew us all together in one way or another because He knew we’d need and rely on one another for support to get us through those choppy waves where we felt all alone out on the sea.

A man came to my rescue thirteen years ago and as the sea began moving to and fro the waves crashed all around leaving me with somewhat of a disillusionment until we both reached a shore where we could be at peace with one another and grow. Any lesser of a man would have dumped me a long time ago with all of my insecurities, paranoia and anxiety-filled world but my now husband is still here, holding my hand through all of this. While I accept his quirks and unsavory characteristics, I find we are a scale that has balanced one another nicely. 

God placed new people, a new life, a new beginning in front of me that I embraced and soared with so as not to look back, only occasionally look down at the scars and remember from whence they came. All too often the scars are from the family I left behind. And when I hear people say things like, ‘it is the only family you’ll ever have.’ I’ll have to disagree because it may be the only blood family I have but my new loving family that God placed me with doesn’t leave scars of abuse in their trails to be reckoned with. 

Sure, my friends can be blunt and unknowingly hurt my feelings but that is okay because I learn from them and find healing in their spoken words whereas my blood family cuts to the bone of my existence and holds no shame or offers anything that remotely looks like an apology. I can’t help the family I was put into but I can embrace the family I have now as a blessing and THIS is why I will remain an optimist because I have HOPE in every tomorrow. A wobbled walk or not, I’m alive and I breathe in each new sunrise and thank the Lord for the friends I call my spiritual family that I have surrounding me here in my later years. (later to me) This is the childhood I yearned for, the one that will walk with me to my death and mourn the me that they’ve grown with and have come to love and respect.

My long lost friend who called me did say something that I found to be true. He said, “You were never allowed to be a child. You were made to grow up too soon.” 

While the wound seeped open I remembered with loving care the family of friends I have now who will comfort me during this seepage. While God is my Rock, they are the sand that this mighty wave crashes onto to find relief.  

Lam. 3:26-29 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.

He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

Heal Today...Gone Tomorrow

Fort McHenry cannon looking toward

the Francis Scott Key bridge

where my uncle took his life

Pss. 30:2  “O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.”

Heels today… gone tomorrow

You ever have one of those days where everything is going along fine. Then you see something and reality smacks you upside the head? We’re doing some fall cleaning here; we get to the cluttered closet and there sits a box of shoes. Heels that I’ve never worn. 

I said, “I have to get rid of that entire box.” 
He replied, “Well when you can walk again, we’ll pull them back out of the box.”  

Tears filled my eyes and kept on filling. The reality is…I’ll never be able to walk normal again. Just thought I’d share that with you all as I release some of this anguish I’m lugging around.

I used to love wearing high heels, not real high, just a classy kind of heel with jeans or a skirt; then about four years ago, with too many Omaha trips (eight hours round trip) high-heel wearing came to a screeching halt. I remember going to the doctor and she sent me to the hospital for some x-rays and a day later it was explained that I had lower lumbar facet joint arthritis. Sure, some meds and a highly paid chiropractor could offer some relief, but that's just it, a false relief, not a healing plan.

Here I was, still enjoying my youth and am told that I have arthritis and as many of you know, that is a chronic disability that doesn’t just go away. I had tried to wear my lower heels and even they were awkward to walk in and the limp in my stride didn’t sync with a low heel. I was relinquished to tennis shoes and even they were getting uncomfortable mainly in the summertime heat. I did buy some comfy sandals by Earth Spirit (yes, WalMart brand) but don’t ya know, I can’t wear them in the winter now can I? 

I have my up and down days where I feel sorry for myself and the me I once was but have to learn to accept that this is the new me and whom God created.  But when we were cleaning out the closet and the box with my heels in it passed me by, I cried. I admit it, it hurt to see a part of myself shoved in the basement never to be seen again. I think my husband was trying to make me feel good when he said the words, “When you walk again.” The reality was and is, I’ll never walk normal again.

My dear friends try to comfort me, “there is Hope,” they say. My first thought was yeah when I get to heaven and can run free! They mean well, they really do and I won’t for one minute minimize the love I feel for them or from them, and the comfort they bring to my life but understand, I was one on the go woman all of my life. You don’t fit into the same jeans you wore twenty years ago by NOT being an overly active woman. Then yesterday…

Heal today… gone tomorrow.

I don’t know what the universe is trying to tell me when yesterday I answered my phone, thinking for one idiotic moment it was my sister calling to tell me about her daughter. No, it wasn’t her, it was an old friend who called me last year some time (he got the number from my mother) and wanted to rehash the past just like he did last year when I stopped answering my phone because I AM NOT ABOUT MY PAST!

I told him last year that I didn’t want to talk about that stuff but he just kept going on and on, “Do you remember…” You name the memory, I remember it with all its hurts and pains that I let go of, in vivid painstaking detail. His call started that way this time in asking where my ex-husband lived (they were friends) and talking about my abuse until I finally said, “I’m really busy right now.” (Joni is a terrible liar! Luckily I WAS busy!)

He said, “I better let you go or I’ll keep talking and talking.”
My instant reply was, “yes you will but call me when I have FREE minutes, like the weekend.” I seriously was trying to hang up without hurting his feelings because that’s just the way I am, then and now, I don’t like to hurt ANYONE. I just wish he had shown me the same consideration because I know I won’t be answering the phone this weekend. 

For thirteen years I wrestled with my pained past. When I first left Baltimore and left my family and past behind, I got caught up in a tornado of healing as memories whizzed passed and choked me into anxiety attacks where running off alone in the rain on darkened streets were my only solace. I would lie in bed cradling my pillow as tears soaked the very sheets where I slept. I was in a better place but it was a place of healing that had to be measured by agonizing sickened memories of the past.

Haunting is the only way to describe the lingering past. A ghost that would appear out of nowhere when I least expected it and scare me into a non-drug induced panic attack. I don’t take drugs for my pain and dealing with what I’m dealt in a meditative God loving fashion is all I’ve ever known to do. 

A close friend once told me that I needed to just let go of those memories and the people who hold those memories if all they’re there for is to hurt me, why hold on? Yes, that meant family and old friends who think rehashing an excruciating pain-filled past is what the future is all about. 

My now and my future is all about healing. My pain is washed away with every rainfall and I release the past as if it never existed into a tornadic funnel to be released wherever it may go. I will not allow thirteen years of healing to be scrubbed by one phone call of the bitter past. I face my tomorrows with the prayerful meditation that I have known to grow me into a hopeful tomorrow.

I woke this morning only to be hit with news of an earthquake where a dear friend lives. I prayed. The universe will leave something in my life called HOPE, LOVE and COMPASSION; he arrived to let me know he and his family are well. 

Praise be to God!

Poetry Sunday ~ Seasons in the Sand

Matt. 19: 24 "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Seasons in the Sand

On wayward sand, I stretch my hand

as frothy water flows

on the solid Rock, I stand

relieved of passing woes.

The seasons of my mind are lit

with every wistful shower.

The Spirit’s here where I sit

to fill my every hour.

 Morning comes He breathes in me

the dawn of a new day.

He gives me sight so I can see

the path I went astray.

On wayward sand, I stretch my hand

granules in my clutch

I'm taken by the wavy band

the grains I dare not touch.

It's much easier for the camel

to pass through the needle's eye

Than you who’s merely mortal

to seek answers in the sky.

The seasons of my mind unfold

His Word for me to preach

As ribbons of the Truth be told

like footprints on the beach.

Quotation Saturday ~ Seasons - Changes

Pss. 55:19 “God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.”

SEASONS

“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
[Letter to Miss Eliot, Oct. 1, 1841]” 
― George Eliot

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” 
― Lewis Carroll

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.” 
― Yoko Ono

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."

[Meditations Divine and Moral]” 
― Anne Bradstreet

“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cézanne

 “The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.” 
― Henry Beston

“SEASONS OF LIFE

Sometimes I fall
And feel myself slowly wilt and die,
But then I suddenly spring back on my feet
To go play in the sun outside.
I am no different than the weather,
The planets or the trees;
For there do not always have to be reasons
For the seasons turning inside of me.
The magnetism that swirls
In the sky, land, and sea
Are the exact same currents found twirling
In the electric ocean within me.
I am a moving vessel of energy.
And if my emotions do not
Flow up, down,
Within and around,
Then I am not alive.” 
― Suzy Kassem

CHANGES

“Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.” 
― Joss Whedon

“Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life - that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.” 
― Victoria Erickson

“The purest form of faith happens when you reach the bottom of your reasoning and find there is nothing that you can do that will make sense out of what you have been through.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Sacred blessings and divine opportunities appear in your life disguised as unforeseen changes and challenging circumstances.” 
― Miya Yamanouchi

“When you receive God's love, it means you're getting close to Him, spending time in His presence, opening your heart to Him, seeking to know Him, and desiring to be more like Him. Remember that choosing to receive God's love changes your life.” 
― Stormie Omartian

Refiners Fire ~ Perfection

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

I’m Not Perfect!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace has completed my day!

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

Justified

Isa. 28:12 “To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.”

Justified

Do you want to know how I come up with my blog topics? Believe it or not, I pray. I wake in the morning and pray for all the sick on my prayer list, then I ask God’s guidance on what to write for the day. I don’t always get a reply on what I’m to write about so I might skip that day as I wait, patiently!

After prayer, I open the news of the day, open facebook also, to find a plethora of topics but usually one topic will stand out a few times and God lets me know, write about THIS!

I so wanted to write about my niece getting her purse returned, after losing it somewhere sometime during her day, by a young black gentleman after he had found the purse on his way work, and returned it to my niece at ten thirty in the evening when he returned home.

My niece cried because she was so happy to not have to renew her license and cancel all her credit cards and she thanked the young man profusely! She even gave him twenty dollars of the fifty that had been inside. I’d also like to add that this was in Baltimore, Maryland. The place you only hear bad stuff about and never the good stuff. 

As I continued searching for a blog  post, a few things stuck out and THAT is what God wanted me to write about, while my nieces story is a beautiful one God wanted me to know that there is something more important to write about at this time and maybe, all of the stories will mesh together? I’ll have to finish this before I know. 

Getting it right with God is a struggle all Christians go through and at times I never feel worthy enough of His love. I’ve already blogged about that one in a feeling unworthy post. But let me say this first and foremost, I AM WORTHY of God and that is all that matters to me. 

I loosely call myself Christian because all Christians are not the same. These days they are drinkers, self-righteous, judges of all. I do understand that we are ALL different and on different paths. Jesus (NT) himself didn’t choose perfect people to carry his ministry, and God (OT) certainly didn’t pick perfect people that He created to do His work. Nope, He picked the most imperfect people He could find; maybe that is why He chose ME to be a writer. For some reason He had faith in me and that I’d carry my testimony/His ministry to His people. 

Ecc. 9:7 “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.” 

Ephesians 5:18 ESV “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,”

Proverbs 20:1 ESV “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”

You see, God has called us ALL to carry His ministry. Not to drink, get drunk, whoop it up and praise God or claim to be His all in the same stinking drunken breath. 

We justify what we do so we don’t feel so bad but the only one who is going to judge us for allowing ourselves to be led astray is our One and Only Savior. We ALL walk a dimly lit path, we find the Light but then get led astray by all the inhumanity in the world that gets us unsettled so we turn to drink to justify the reason we’re sitting alone in the dark with a bottle in our hand. Some find the Lighted path only to continue on struggling to stay on the very straight and extremely narrow path.

As I walk the path, for ME, I do not believe in the drink and be merry babble. For one, you’re not drinking to be merry, you’re drinking to get drunk, bottom line. It makes you feel good, it unfurls your twisted tongue, it has you allowing your loose lips to sink ships. Thoughts are free to roam the wilderness and usually, the wild is not a place to be alone because you’re bound to get bit.

When a person comes to Christ, he (or she) is new to Christ and struggles daily to get it right with God. I understand that they’ll still drink it up, curse like a sailor, call themselves Christian just so they fit into a society over running with Christians but they have yet to learn the true meaning of the word, Christ-like. Christ was not a drunk, and I think He knew the right words to use so as not to come across as a liar and hypocrite. 

I often think about what it must have been like back in Jesus’ day. Here He was gathered around a table with His twelve chosen, knowing He was going to His death. When they took a drink of wine, did they all yell out, “Let’s finish off the bottle.”??? I seriously don’t think so; it was not a merry event to celebrate.

In the course of the Last Supper, Jesus divides up some bread, says a prayer, and hands the pieces of bread to his disciples, saying "this is my body."[metaphor] He then takes a cup of wine, offers another prayer, and hands it around, saying "this is my blood [metaphor] of the everlasting covenant, which is poured for many." ~ source Wikipedia

The church is the way it is today because people divided up what was right and what was wrong; what was/is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Some churches look down on the homeless and only reach out to the parishioners in need, not everyone in need. Some churches look down on homosexuals by judging them and letting them know they are not right with God because you know, God made them judge and jury of the people. Divided the churches are.

Eph. 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

I myself CHOSE to get my life right with God and follow His Son to the cross and weep prayerfully at His feet. We are not called to judge others because we feel they are beneath us, we should judge ourselves, our actions, our ways, our character, and virtues, only then should we call ourselves Christ-like. 

This post didn’t end the way I intended but it did help me see that there are good people out in the world trying to do what is right, whether FOR God or because of God. Goodness is all around and as soon as we stop justifying our negative actions and living the way WE want, we’ll see the good in the world or the world will never change.

God bless you all!

Blessed Bounty

Joni's blessed bounty of 2012

Pss. 136: 25 “Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever.”

He’s In Here

As many people think of Christ up there looking down on all you do, or over there watching you, or even beside you walking with you, that’s a good feeling because you know He’s on the journey of life with you.

Now think of Him right here, IN you instead of over, beside or under. It’s like this: Say you’re invited to dinner and the host has a bountiful display of food for you, over there. That’s what reading the bible is like, the bible is over there sitting, just waiting for you to partake from. 

Okay, now the host says the food is ready, go and fix yourself a plate. You walk toward your bible, pick it up and begin reading. As you fix your plate you put all of the good food on there and then she says, don’t forget the broccoli, but you hate broccoli but this looks so nice you oblige her and take a few stalks. 

You begin reading your bible, filling yourself with all of the good stuff, happy, cheerful, loving good stuff then it happens, you’re full but have yet to touch the broccoli. There are some dark, bitter tasting words in the bible that you just want to gloss over but you don’t want to leave the host hanging so you indulge.

Oh dear, you’ve touched on rape, incest, murder, and polygamy. You’re tasting the bitterness of the broccoli and just want to spit it out and pretend you never had it but you begin to chew and chew and read and read so you can understand that ALL of the bible is the Lord’s buffet, broccoli and all. Mingled with the good is the ugly and all those words are left for you to discern whether you continue in the meal.

Now, you’ve finished the entire meal, you’ve read the entire bible, sat it on the table and wiped your mouth of any leftover gravy that might be on your lips. You walk away full, filled with the meal you’ve just eaten, filled with the words you’ve just read. You can see it as a fictional tale because honestly, some of that stuff was over the top fairy tale stuff. A whale swallowing a man and for three days he was in the stomach. A man called to build a big ark to carry two of every animal away from the impending flood, a man lying with the lions. Give me a break, right? (Oh there’s more crazy stuff for you to read)

You thank the gracious host and are on your way home, only to realize instead of leaving the bible on the table, you’ve taken it with you and it’s sitting in the other seat as a companion on the ride home. Your mind starts going over the wonderful meal you had with the mashed potatoes and delicious brown gravy, the juicy steak, meaty turkey and ham all of which melted in your mouth for you to savor on the way home.

The vegetables were a bit over the top with the likes of spinach and okra, eggplant and corn, carrots and yams, then the broccoli, the bitter tasting broccoli which climbed back up into your throat allowing you, in the quiet confines of your car, to let out a loud releasing burp. Ah, now you feel better. 

As you approach home, you glance over at your bible, you realize that there was some truth in there that you might want to believe like loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek when someone hurts you and forgiveness, yeah you like that one, the ability to forgive.

You arrive home. Do you leave the bible in the car, take the book with you, or place it in the trunk because it really wasn’t something you’re into? Your mind lingers to the host, the creator of such a grand meal that the remnants are still lingering in you. The piercing eyes, the heart of gold, the sweet laughter of a child on the merry-go-round, the host is lingering.

Imagine this: God being the host. He’s created such a grand meal in  the way of planet earth, giving you everything to partake of, the good, the bad and the ugly bitter tasting remnants. Man and woman were happy at one time with all of this bounty, so much so we had a day of celebration called Thanksgiving for all that we have.

Today, man has left the host in the trunk of the car pretending they didn’t partake of any of the hogwash they read over dinner. Some people got out of the car remembering the bible and took it with them carrying it close to their heart and went in the house to place it on the table, so it would always be close to them. 

What I’m saying is this, some people put Him back there to take Him for a ride, some put Him over there so they can glance at him once in awhile, while some see Him up there looking over them as they journey through life and me, I see Him IN HERE, my heart, my soul, my veins to always carry Him and His words with me and savor every last drop. How about you? 

Poetry Sunday ~ Lift Me... I Fell Today

Job 14:22 “But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.”

Lift Me… I Fell Today

I fell today upon my face

At Jesus’ feet here in this place.

I bowed my head in humble grace

The Lord spoke to my soul.

I fell today at His feet

My eyes are sore my body beat

Chin now raised our eyes did meet

I praise the One who makes me whole.

I fell today my body pained

He washed a heart forever stained

I thanked him for all I’ve gained

As we take our heavenly stroll

I fell today but then He lifted

The weakened me whom He gifted

The me who once He’d thought had drifted

Redeemed I’ve reached my goal.

Quotation Saturday ~ Change ~ Faith

1 Cor. 15:51 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,”

CHANGE

“We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.” 
― Walter Mosley

“You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.” 
― Sue Grafton

GROWTH

“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” 
― Anaïs Nin

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” 
― Hunter S. Thompson

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.” 
― Rumi

LIVING

“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” 
― Louise Erdrich

“She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. 'Time' for her isn’t something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.” 
― Roman Payne

“People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.” 
― Charles Bukowski

FAITH

“I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery. ” 
― Brennan Manning

“Fear is the glue that keeps you stuck. Faith is the solvent that sets you free.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Faith is not so much something we believe; faith is something we live.” 
― Joseph B. Wirthlin

“We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray.” 
― Corrie ten Boom