Sometimes it's like you're a flag on a flagpole and you just have to hang on.

Sometimes it's like you're a flag on a flagpole and you just have to hang on 

There are so many instances where this statement applies...Sometimes you are in a job where you keep working your but off and you keep getting passed up.....hang on.

Sometimes you have an addiction that tempts you daily.....hang on.

Sometimes you are  tormented by your own anger tempting you at every turn to blow up....hang on.

Sometimes you are just plum tired and have to keep working...hang on

Sometimes anxiety courses through your mind and affects your body, too, and you can't control it....hang on

Sometimes the temptation is the quiet type, like depression that cuts like a knife in your heart, and it's all you can do to hang on.

Sometimes it's all of the above at once, in a hurricane force gale....and you have to hang on for dear life!

I was having a day like that yesterday....and talking to God usually helps. He usually leads me to a comforting scripture or message of some sort.  But .....

                                                  there 

                                                   was

                                                  only

                                                 silence.

 I tried confessing my sins.  I asked for prayer from friends.  I tried just listening.........nothing.             Nothing worked to get me out of my oppression.

The only verse that was last in my mind that morning before going to work, was .....Wait Upon The LORD......so, I did.....only barely.......I was like a scrappy mess emotionally.....like one of  those flags that have seen its better days,  but are still out there, flying,  hanging onto the pole.

I'm writing this to encourage you.  At the end of the day,  I finally got my message from the LORD.  It was simply BELIEVE.  A lot of the things that were tormenting me were problems that I have been dealing with. The rhetorical question hanging in my mind was......

Are you going to believe?   

Are you going to believe things are going to get better or are you going to hang onto your pessimism, your grouchiness, your "I hate (fill in the blank-with whatever you are hating right now)"  attitude?    It really is that simple.

You still have to endure the dark days that feel like you're in a tunnel and you are never going to get out.  But on the other side of the tunnel, you are faced with 

What               will                you               believe?

I CHOOSE to believe things are going to get better with the situations/problems that I am facing.  I CHOOSE to  believe we am going to come out on the other side, victorious!   I CHOOSE to believe, that though I am a flag on the flagpole today,  tomorrow I will be walking on solid ground across the bridge of faith to an unknown GOOD plan that God has for me!

As for me and my house,  we will serve the LORD....Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. 

Joshua 24:15

I am giving credit in this article to the LORD, of course, and also to Steven, my husband, who inspires me and encourages me every day to CHOOSE BELIEF......because that's how he lives his life!

the tender hands of God (with awe)

 My God,  You are so tender with me

Even, espcially when I am harsh with myself

God, my God 

how you love

with passionate abandonment

Sip the sun

 

As I sip the sun on brilliant Saturday morning, 

my imagination takes me to the mansion overlooking the wide valley with the creek running through it.  

I imagine its me sitting up on the cozy glass-enclosed porch viewing the scenic beauty and musing about the morning or taking a stroll onto the overhanging deck, cup of warm brew in hand.  

breathing in the cool crisp clean air of winter and the magnificent scenery.  

but atlas,  I labor along the creek bottoms, following a deer track in the early rising sun... 

THIS is my preferred workout.  

There is no sight of the creatures, now,  only the evidence of matted down grass in places and  some bones along the edge of the creek (succumbed to a pack of coyotes, no doubt) the abundance of which  I heard in evidence on a previous evening walk; the multitude of yips and howls which sent me scaling back up the hill from whence I came.  

But in the day, I am fearless and the creatures of the night are the ones in abeyance (for now).   

The only one, the marvelous mutt by my side

As we sip the morning sun together in our morning nature walk to otherworlds

Peace... Restful Sunday steeling into my soul

 

Pure Sabboath

Watching the Robins

Seeing the Geese with their flashy white reflecting dazzingly in the sun

The water turning into liquid gold, lapping the shoreline

The occasional call of a herring gull

the roaring of distant falls as a backdrop

a slight breeze rustling the prairie grass at my feet

The hammock beckoning

Sunday steels into my soul

 

I am free because I forgive those who have hurt me, including molestation.

I am free because I walk in faith.

I am free because I look to Christ every day for the strength to do the above things.

The slimmest sinew of faith is stronger than the biggest barge of doubt and disbelief

 

I have lived fear.

I have made personal acquaintance with it.  I have actually relied on it, like a [very] bad best friend. 

Fighting fear and anxiety has been an exhausting battle for me that has spanned decades.  As anyone knows that has had this battle, it is not an easy road. 

I have to say some days my faith feels as strong as a blade of grass...but it's really is amazing....He is really just trying to get me to have faith and even if I give Him a hair-breadth of faith.....it really is strong enough to hold me, because He comes in through that hair, that tiny electron or quark, and all of His Strength comes in with it.  

Anxiety coupled with self-consciousness makes me want to shut down and close in on myself, because it feels safer, but ironically it is not.  The road to confident stability and victory lies in opening up and looking to Him.

This morning, the social anxiety was pounding against me.  I looked to Him and saw myself.  He showed me, it was like I was cringing, expecting something terrible to happen.  That revelation changed me.  I was able to show compassion to my students and lead them in a calm and kind manner. 

There are times I just long for Heaven and Home because I get so tired of it all, but I know He has a purpose for me, for my life, anxiety and all.  I also know there are people and children out there that I am sent to, to help.  This makes this arduous life worth living.  Them.  The children I serve and the people I have yet to help.

God bless you in Jesus name

 

What you speak, you Glorify

 

I'm just tossing this around in my head,

but I was thinking about some horrible things I know that have happened to people.....like hideous, unimaginable things.....And I thought of some of the people I know that are still living after these things have occurred.  

I was thinking,  are we going to 'glorify' the evil things, the bad things that happen by thinking about them, thinking we can never get over them?    If we glorify God and good, we need to think and say, yes,  these things happened.  They are obviously works of twisted demons.  However, I'm going to say, LOOK at WHAT GOD HAS DONE!  

 I don't mean to demean any suffering that anyone has been through,  but please don't let the DEVIL and the EVIL that he has perpetrated through people win!  We let it win when we 1). don't trust God to heal (turn to drugs & alcohol or other devices for the pain) 2). we don't give the evil to God and TRUST HIM to RECOMPENSE HIS VENGEANCE!    

The more we talk about the good the God has done, saved us, redeemed us, set us free.....all the beauty in the world and in people, but mostly just GOD Himself, we are glorifying GOOD, GOD.  

It's not that we can't talk about what happened.  But I think when we do, we always need to preface, suffix it with......God can take bad and turn it into good. 

We need to get off of our (okay I need to, lol) fixation with the bad.  

In God, there is no darkness at all....He's 100% positive. 

So, this also goes for the little snubs and insults that we receive from others.  Are we going to let them go...are we going to engrave all the good that they've done into our hearts with indelible ink and let those other things, slink away, like the demon that instigated them without (glorifying) or drawing attention to them?

Glorify the good and thereby glorify God.  

I feel like I'm missing SO much in this little 'talk' and just scratching the surface. ...And as usual, I am 'preaching' mostly to myself!