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Our greenway system is so beautiful that in spots it is almost like being in the middle of the Smokey Mountain National Park and Gatlinburg, but you’re still in the middle of a busy and growing city. Enjoy your day!
Dear Lord, I pray these people may come to know your overwhelming and unconditional love for them not just intellectually, in their minds, but in their guts, their hearts, may they feel it. That they will let you become intimate with them, and they can know that you created the earth with such beauty for them to enjoy and take pleasure in out of your great love for them. Amen
Will You?
The pain increases
Oh what if it never ceases?
What will I do then
What can bring it to an end?
Where is that God
That said he wants to heal
Now as from this incessant pain
I kneel
Where is my helper now?
Slowly a light starts within
My chest
A knowledge evolves
As I try to resolve this test
Will you still love me?
What kind of question is that?
I turn from it and pray
Again inside my head
Those words have another say
Will you still love me?
If your circumstances
I do not change today
Do not give you
Exactly your way
Will you still love me?
I seek only those worthy
Of my higher calling
For an enemy’s lies
Do not be falling
Following me will not
Always be easy
Before your eyes
I will not always be pleasing
Your world now is lost
To save it I paid a terrible cost
Now will you be willing
To suffer a loss
To follow me?
FREE read the first two chapters of my book, WHEN HEAVEN SIGHS, here at Book
Pick Up Your. . .
As children we get told
Pick up your things, your mess
Clean behind yourself
Oh, how our parents we can test
As older we grow
But as we become adults
By someone much wiser than I
From an ancient book of old
We are each & every told
To pick up our cross and Follow Him
Notice. . .
He did not say
Pick up your money
Or your pleasure
Or your lusts for
Material possessions
He said
Pick up your troubles,
Pain, suffering
And follow me anyway
Try each & every day
Within His footsteps to stay
Christ did not live a life
Of luxury
Pleasure
While here not
even particularly loved
Except from the Holy Father above
Denied Himself
Became obedient
Even when He was sent
To that tortuous cross!
Counted it all as nothing, all a loss
For us paid a most excruciating cost!
Cannot we do the same
To follow His Glorious name?
To find your life you must lose it
And if you are not willing. . . ?
Not willing to sacrifice for Him
Then worthy of Him are we not
His words, not mine!
Matthew 10:37–39 Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Christ does not mean not to love your family or neighbors, only to put Him first! Praise God for his love, mercy, grace and forgiveness!
The First Calm
It happened under the skies
Of the very first dawn
Rays of light breaking
Placid horizon in yellows,
Pinks and reds
It was the first Calm
A new world, pleasant
To the eyes and soul
Broken out of deep, dark
Nothingness
By ancient words and voices told
In a Holy Book
Life exploded
Upon a spinning globe
Of dirt, air & water
Animals, man & plants
To each by a loving hand
Did the Creator grant
Relationship
With Himself,
The Ones who stirred
The darkness
Into life
Nothingness
Into something
Desired to associate
Fellowship
With our forms of dust
Only asking for a return
Of love, respect
& our trust
This was the first Calm
This perfected peace
Between all forms of life
And the Creators
Between all of Their creation
& Themselves
There was not a hint, scent
Of strife
Until man,
Supposedly the highest,
Decided to rebel
And follow the wrong voice
Made the ultimate mistake
Available, the worst choice
And everything fell
Plants, animals, earth
Spun out of the original plan
Subject to terrors
Never meant or intended
By our Creator’s gentlest
Of hands
And so we lost
All of us
Paid a dearest cost
To suffer in pain,
Showed disdain for the Ones
Who made us
And so in tears we lived
And lost
The First Calm
Original Purpose
What seems almost
Like an eternity ago
Before that moon
Cast its silver glow
Powerful, in joy
Words were spoken
Out of dark nothingness
A world was begotten
An all-powerful Creator
Because He loved
The idea of us so much
Reached down and
With a single touch
Started His own universe
With care and a little time
Embarked upon a thought-out plan
Someones in His image made
To share all of their nights & days
In His Joy & Presence
That original purpose, that plan
Was for all of His creation
Sky, earth, animals and man
To share in His Glory
That fantastic, stupendous Beauty
That loves everyone the same
Even enemies get to watch
His magnificent displays
Of love, mercy, justice, kindness
& that miraculous forgiveness
& us?
Well, we were meant to be
For all of His creation to see
Image bearers of the same
His power, light, glory &
Holy, beautiful, name
But we failed,
Rebelled as the ancient tale
Written in a Holy Book is told
To someone else our souls were sold
And evil entered our lives
Separated, lost
Until we were given
A second chance
But it came at the highest cost
GOD HIMSELF DIED FOR US!
To return us to that
Original purpose
Shed his blood to return
To us His Glory
So please pick up the Book
And read the most beautiful
Of all earth’s written stories!
My Child is Not My Child
They look so peaceful,
Serene, innocent
These sleeping children
Of mine
But for this brief period
Of time
Them just to myself
I cannot truly bind
Inscribed upon their
Hearts, their very souls
Is an image of another
By my inner voice
This I am clearly told
Coming through our bodies
As mother, father
But not by us created
They have been stamped
With the face, image of another
In one family, all sisters, brothers
With only one True Father
They are God’s children
I have been given the gift
Of taking temporary care
Each day I must give them wings
So they themselves may upward lift
Their tiny bodies & souls
He commands this is my only goal!
So with each prayer
Said by the moon’s waning light
I must release them
With a heavy sigh
Upward thru the skies
Into the all-loving hands of
Our Truest Father’s Power & Might!
