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!

When God Speaks.....

 

Today, I had had a day more full of 'church' than usual.  I also didn't eat supper.

I say that because sometimes I think God speaks more clearly to me (maybe I hear better), in these circumstances, but He told me to go to the park.  I had seen a man there yesterday that I was concerned about, so I thought maybe he's still there and maybe God wants me to witness to him.  

But He told me to hurry.  I didn't have time to grab everything like I usually do (I always make sure I have everything I might possibly need, lol).  so, I left quickly.  

The man was there and I had a nice conversation with him.  At some point when I was about to leave, he said to me, it's a good thing you stopped by when you did, I was about to turn in!

He kept bringing up God in the conversation.  We talked about where he was going and had been and a few other things. I asked him if he wanted to read my booklet.  We read a few pages, but it was getting late and the bugs were eating us up.  I said, 'it sounds like you already know about God'.  He said, yes, I just read Isaiah, today.

Anyway,  it was cool.  Also, the thought occurred to me that since he was painting houses, that maybe he could help me.  I asked him if he could take out a window, and he said, 'yes'.  that's what I do, is construction.  I just think it's God showing Himself in amazing ways to me.  Because no one has been showing up that I have hired to do work for me and I've been praying about it to God, because I would really like to get this house done before school starts.