But. . .And that’s a big But

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Life down here on the face of this planet can get terrible, horrible and hellacious. All you have to do to have proof of this is to look at the children living in desperate poverty, women caught up in human trafficking and children caught up in child prostitution rings, and the list goes on.

My own start in life as an orphan was terrible and traumatic. I too can understand suffering first hand from my own life as most of us can. It can be at times so difficult to almost impossible to understand intense levels of pain whether it’s physical or emotional. It can feel so devastating——but, and this is a Big But, God sees and knows your pain. He loves you completely and totally. He is there in the middle of your suffering and can turn it around. Pray deeply over your situation. Stay connected to a spiritual community that can pray for you. Prayer demolishes strongholds!!

We all ask why the pain. I still cannot understand all of that mystery, but do not leave out the but God is there with you in the middle of the pain. Paul in Romans 8 says in the middle of his suffering ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’. The sting of pain in this world does not come close to the glory of our new life we will have as believers in Jesus of Nazareth and his power and glory. Revelation describes our new earth and new Jerusalem in such vivid terms of unimaginable beauty. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him. Could it be that in comparison to heaven’s stupendous, fantastic beauty all our pain down here will be as if we had only slightly stubbed our toe?

The pain of life down here is real, and I by no means would belittle the suffering of anyone. It hurts, and this does not mean we should not try to alleviate suffering whenever it is possible for us to do so. We are to be the hands and feet of God and Christ. Three of the most beautiful words in the Holy Scriptures are God is love 1 John 4:16. Further down in verse 21, And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (NIV) gloryofgod

Spring Rites

I could not resist! I like to take photographs along our greenway system where I live. A few of the spring flowers are out in bloom and there are mounds of heavy-headed groups of honeysuckle. The air is full of their wonderful smells.

The trail winds over a river and along a creek. I even got to enjoy the company of a fine-feathered friend. Hope you can enjoy your spring and try to get outside to enjoy the natural sights our Heavenly Father has created for our pleasure.

Pure Innocence

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I have talked about my beautiful, little autistic grandson, Baric Micah, in an earlier blog post. He has the sweetest disposition and is so precious to us. We enjoy taking care of him. He sets an example for us every day.

There has been placed in him such a pure innocence. He cannot comprehend in a lot of ways good and bad. His filters for danger are not what a normal child’s would be, and we have to watch him closely to keep him from hurting himself. He likes to climb on everything!

But oh, when he loves on you. Like I said, he just loves so purely and so innocently. He came up to me the other day and kept leaning on me for me to hug and kiss on him. It’s wonderful. I get as much out of it as he does. I can’t forget the day I was just sitting, and he came in and leaned his head toward mine. I thought what is he trying to do then he leaned in and kissed me on the lips. Granted it was a little wet and slobbery, but it was wonderful. He walked across the room and did the same to my husband. His mother has been so good about making him feel loved.

I think this child-like, totally innocent and trusting type of love he demonstrates is how God wishes us to love Him. It is the kind of relationship with our great and wonderful Creator we were meant to be in. We were created by love, through love and for love’s own pleasure. Praise God. Have a wonderful day!!

A Repeat

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Here is a repeat of a blog I wrote in October of 2018. I will never forget this experience and hope that it helps your faith in some way. Praise God!!

For years now, I guess about 7 or 8, I have been wanting to talk about, tell, something that happened to me one night. I have only told family members about it since I’m not very good at standing up and talking in front of people or telling things to people. I guess I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me.

I have sleep apnea. I don’t know if you know what that is, but that’s where when you lay down on your back to sleep the muscles that hold up your soft palette at the back of your throat relax so much that the palette itself collapses downward and completely blocks your airway and totally shuts down and closes your airway. In other words, you stop breathing. It is dangerous and can kill you. I did consult a doctor about this. I do not think I could sleep with one of the breathing machines they use so I sleep with the head of my bed raised and try to stay on my sides. As long as my head is raised and I’m on my sides I am okay.

However, one night before I realized what was going on with me, I went to sleep one night and somehow must have gotten off my side and into a position that was not safe. I woke up suddenly and was in a different place.

I remember feeling a slight tinge of fear but was mostly confused, thinking where am I?? All around me was nothing but deep blackness until suddenly I could see this spiral of beautiful, puffy white clouds spiraling off into the distance. I did not want to look at the far distant end of the spiral because I had this sudden knowledge that if I looked at it, there would be no going back. Somehow I just knew that. Don’t know how, but I just did, but I was not given a choice. I had to look at the end of the spiral, and so I did.
Next, let me say that I had no physical sensation at all. I was fully awake, fully conscious, but there were no physical sensations. I had no awareness of a body.

To get back to where I was, as soon as I looked at the end of the spiral of clouds, I was in the other place, but this one was different. This beautiful, beautiful light was everywhere. It glistened and shone like nothing I have ever seen. But the light was alive. There was an intelligence or presence inside the light. Like nothing I have ever experienced.

It was so bright it almost hurt to look at it and the colors of the rainbow were moving through it constantly. It was so bright that I turned to look away, but again, I was not given a choice. I had to look at the light so I did.

When I turned to look at it again, suddenly it felt like somebody had taken me and thrown me as hard as they could up against a brick wall. There was this really hard boom, and I was back inside my body. Totally awake but back inside of my body going “What just happened to me.”

I laid there for a few minutes, thinking about what I had just seen and experienced. I moved around a little trying to get my bearings back and then decided the only thing it could have been was for a few minutes or less, because it happened so quickly, so very quickly, is I think I died! It is the only explanation I can think of.

I believe for a very few brief seconds, I was allowed to see some of the glory of the Living God. The light was beautiful beyond words. I wish everyone could have seen it. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

The only reason I wanted to tell this is I hope it will reassure everyone that there really is life after death, and that God is more beautiful than any of my weak human words could ever express.

I pray that the living God Himself will bless your day and your whole life and that you can get to know Him better. He really does love you very, very much. God Bless You.

Shame!

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Children in the Old Testament were generally held to be a blessing from God. Childless women groaned over their lack of ability to get pregnant. In our present culture, an unborn child can be seen to be an inconvenience that can be destroyed because someone does not wish to interrupt their lifestyle to raise it.

I saw a huge billboard the other day on the side of the road which stated ‘Abortion is Healthcare and a Right’. The only thing I can say to that is it is not healthcare. Pregnancy is not a disease to be healed. It is a usually a very normal condition. Today with all the new medical advances we have in this country, there are very few pregnancy problems that doctors cannot overcome for the sake of the health of the mother.

If abortion is a right, what about the right to life of the unborn human inside the uterus. Back in 1951 when I was born if abortion had been as accessible as it is now, more than likely I would have been murdered with the rest of the other slaughtered unborn. I was illegitimate and very unwanted. My biological mother was not married to my biological father. If I had been aborted, I would not be sitting here today typing on this computer, my husband would never have known me and my child would never have been born. Why can we not see that we are killing people not clumps of cells!

As a Christian, I cannot help but believe that our churches and our country will have a price to pay if we do not speak out strongly against the wholesale genocide of the unborn. God does not ignore the weak and oppressed people of this world. Children cannot speak out for themselves so much of the time. As adults we are to be their protectors. Shame on us, especially followers of Jesus of Nazareth, if we do not try to do something to protect the unborn children of this world. Jesus fussed at his apostles for trying to stop the little children from coming to him and said we must come to Him like little children. For such is the kingdom of heaven.

You can always give money to a pro-life organization and can easily donate online. Put pressure on our congressmen and senators. It will be the shame of this country and especially the Christian churches if we do not speak out on behalf of the unborn just as it was the shame of the southern churches for not speaking out against slavery. Shame on Us!

Your Day

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Dear Lord Jesus, This is your day. All over the world people will be celebrating that the tomb was empty. It’s your resurrection day! Praise God! Thank you for taking my place on that cross. Thank you for giving up your eternal throne of glory to come down here and save all of us from the most powerful to the least of us. Thank you for wanting all of us.

Bless you Lord for the beauty of your face and the beauty of your great heart. Thank you for your great power and authority. Thank you for wanting to give us a new heaven and new earth. We wait in anticipation for the redemption of our bodies also. Again, Lord Jesus thank you. In your holy name I pray Amen!! christasgod2 praisegif2

Priorities

We as Christians in this rich country of America sometimes have our priorities mixed up. There is nothing wrong with having a few nice things in life and some pleasure, but we should never forget the oppressed, the unloved or the weak of this earth.

I came into life as an orphan having nothing. When I look in the faces of oppressed children, I see myself. If you want to be Christ to this world just go out and love it, especially hurting children. There are so many charities for children. You can even give online!

Again, God never meant for this world to be the way it is. There’s nothing wrong with a little pleasure and fun in your life, but we should not place too much importance on who wins what golf tournament or football game, the size of our house or car.

Want to be Christ to the world? Just go out and love it! Have a blessed day and week. Praise God!!!

All for an Apple??

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Often people say they don’t want to believe or don’t believe in God because He allows suffering. All of the suffering came into man’s life because we chose it. God warned us and told us if we ate of the tree or in other words disobeyed His command we would suffer and die. But we chose to listen to the wrong voice and fell hard into a world where we no longer lived in a perfect paradise.

The world is the way it is because we are what we are. And we chose this. We were living in perfection with someone so wonderful and with the most beautifully loving and kind heart, but we spit in His face and said “No, I want to do it my way.” In other words we rebelled and listened to the wrong voice.

God is just allowing us to have what we chose. It was our choice to turn away from His perfection. God allows the bad suffering in the world but does not cause it. That’s a huge difference. He is allowing us to reap the consequences of our poor behavior and our poor choices. If He did not allow suffering, how else would we learn the consequences of our poor choices. Please don’t blame God for our bad behavior.

Also, the question is not why does God allow the suffering, but why do we allow it? Just think of it, except for the physical illnesses and natural disasters, all other pain is caused by how badly we treat each other and refuse to love the way we were created to love. So where is our responsibility in all of this? Man has to accept the responsibility he plays in all of our pain.

May God Bless Your Day.

Spring. . . Finally!

This winter we have had a record breaking amount of grey skies and rain. I mean record breaking so much so we were all getting cabin fever from having to stay inside. My little grandson is autistic, and one of his favorite things to do is go outside and play in his backyard and on his swing set. However, with all the rain, he was caged inside. His mother is really, really glad to see the sunshine.

Yesterday was sunny. All the pink bud and red bud trees are out in full bloom along with all the fruit trees. They’re all beautiful!! Glad to see the sunshine.

Hope everyone has a blessed day, and try to get out and enjoy good weather wherever you live whenever you can. Praise God for all His blessings!

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Chewed Up and Spit Out

I was born into this world with no home. I was an orphan, traumatized and abused. I had the hot breath of Satan in my face from the second I popped from the womb. But after 68 years of life and getting to know God and Christ better, I have come to believe in some ways it was a blessing. When life chewed me up and spit me out and left me empty, it personally pushed me to pursue a heavenly Father more than if I had had a great childhood. I believe that may be one of the reasons God allows suffering, to make us more needy and desperate for Himself. When you search for me with all your heart, you will find me.

So even if the whole world turns its back on you, you have a Heavenly Father who adores and passionately loves you. Let the power of Christ and His Spirit fill you up. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Won’t you let Him love you into Paradise before it’s too late?

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