Thursday, October 7, 2010

An Epiphany Moment

Epiphany is defined by Answers.com as "A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something. It is a "Christian festival celebrated on January 6 and "one of the oldest Christian holy days."

I had a dream last night of the song, "Rainy Night in Georgia," and I could hear Ray Charles singing it. That is such a pretty song. There is one line in the song that says it all, "Oh, have you ever been lonely, people?" How can anyone listen to that song and not be moved. There is a lot of lonely people in the world. I know what loneliness feels like. I think for most of my life, I was lonely, and then one day, the Lord changed all that. I know that he walks beside me, and holds my hand, and I never have to feel lonely anymore, because he is always there. I hope that this thought helps someone today. You know what is really lonely? is to believe in God in your head, but not to have him in your heart. Won't you ask him into your heart today? He will come in, and heal that lonely place, and he will hold your hand, and you will never be lonely again.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

My tear stained pillow

I've been lonely
most of my life
when I needed to be held
I hugged my tears in the night

I wake up with no one beside me
in the dark room I lay
It's four o'clock in the morning
how I wish for love today

Love in a family
is what's passed down
there may not be enough
love to go around

So I'll hug my pillow
and hang onto my tears
cause loneliness is the only love
I've known all these years.
Note
This poem was written before I found Jesus who healed that empty place and who is always there for me and now I don't have to feel lonely anymore.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

911 Story

On September 11th my day began as usual, up around 6:15 am to see my daughter off to school and then to sit down with my Bible and a cup of coffee. As I lingered over my reading in Psalms I couldn’t seem to shake a “profound sense of sadness” and began to weep. I decided to pause and call a friend in Maine, we help each other, both divorced single moms with one daughter. I placed a call at 655 am to her work place and we chatted. I then decided to go for my morning jog. As I went outside to my patio I noticed two Chicago peace roses were perfect to be cut, they weren’t ready the day before. This bush was put in the ground many years ago, so it’s a rare sight to get beautiful roses still and they were side-by-side and identical. I walked outside to start my jog and looked up and saw a beautiful rainbow. I remember thinking to myself by not coming out when I did I might have missed this! As I was jogging I ran by my neighbor who also grows roses and I told him about my two that were beautiful. Upon returning home, as I was walking up my sidewalk I almost couldn’t believe it; in my butterfly garden I saw three unique species of butterflies, a rare sight. Once in awhile I might see one but this is what I’d hoped for someday. They were so pretty and I watched them for a few moments thinking, my patience had paid off, they’d found my garden! As I went inside the patio I decided to cut the roses before they opened anymore and then I noticed my very first flower on my bleeding heart vine. I was once again amazed at all the blessings of they day! A bleeding heart flower is white and has two red flowers in the center of the white. So I thought I would let my friend know with a quick call back that I was feeling better now. That call was placed at 8:33 am. It was through a phone call I learned of the tragic events of the day and had to turn on the television to see what I, like many others couldn’t believe. It wasn’t until days later I learned that my parents always flew Flight #11 American Airlines from Boston to Los Angeles every September to see his sister who lives in Palm Springs. He had said it was too expensive to go this year. Also, in 1982 I had dined in the World Trade Center at “Windows of the World.” Before the attack I had told my minister I was sad with the way the world was going. I’m happy that we’ve drawn together. To me the good far outweighs the bad, not to minimize everyone’s losses. My sister’s death in 1983 affected me in a profound way and I truly believe I became a better person because of it. I’d like to close in saying this, in a symbolic way as when they rolled the stone and Jesus was not there, I’d like to think in the same way that the people that haven’t been found in the World Trade Center have risen and become angels. It’s a nice thought, isn’t it? If anything I’ve said can help someone in their grief, I’d be honored by that, but more importantly give God the glory. God Bless you. Note: my rose bush died after the last two rose bloomed.
(Heartstrings, a collection of poems and stories copyright 2002 Library of Congress)

A Wild Mustang Named Star

Got a sweet story to tell you. It is about how I met some country folks, here in Smithfield, North Carolina. On a trip to Maine from Florida, I had stopped over in this town and stayed overnight in a lodge. One night, I took a walk down a long country road, and a dog followed me home. Her name was Precious. She happened to be a boxer, and she brought three people together before she left this earth. They wanted me to come and visit again, and being as it is at a time in my life, where I am trying to find out where the good Lord would have me to live, it seemed fitting to come now. The peacocks, who were on top of the barn seemed to remember me. An animal never forgets it when someone feeds them...I noticed a new horse named Star. It seems that she was rescued from a family who had not been taking good care of her. She was of a beautiful dark brown coat, though thin, and I found out, not trusting of people. My friend told me that she had originated from the outer banks of the Carolinas. I went on over to her and I held out my hand, and she moved over to the other side of the fence and put her head down. In that moment, I felt sad for that horse. You see, I have had a hard time in my life trusting people, and I knew just how that horse felt. You love people and they hurt you. Right there, I wept a few tears as I thought to myself, that I had been like her. But my Jesus, he showed me that if I would just place my trust in him, he would fill that empty place. So, I went into the house and peeled about eight apples. I decided that I was going to try and feed Star. I put those apple peelings on my hand and I waited for her to come right on over at my coaxing, but she did not right away. She looked at it, all the while looking at me with that look of distrust. So, I had a thought to toss it to the ground to have her see that I was trying to feed her, and she would see that it was good, and then we would start building up some trust between the two of us. And I talked to her in a sweet voice. Well, next thing you know, I was standing there and she was eating out of my hand. And I just loved the way she took it so gracefully and how she nuzzled my hand, and the feeling of what had been accomplished between us. We worked up to carrots, and noodles, and I must say the man of the house was quite surprised, since she would not eat out of his hand, and when I go over to her stall now, she comes right on over to see me. She is learning to trust me, and I sure like it when she caresses my hand so soft and sweet, and I remember when I was a little girl back on the farm in Appleton, Maine, when I first learned how to trust a horse.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Sexual Immorality in the Holy Bible

Old Testament

Genesis 18 The Three Visitors

The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way.

Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him."

Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.

The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham approached him and said: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."

Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?"

"If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it." Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?" He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."

Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"

He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."

Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"

He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."

Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"

He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it." When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

Genesis 19 Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.” "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."

But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

"Get out of our way," they replied. And they said, "This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them." They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.”

Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. The two men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place.

The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it." So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, "Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished" When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them.

As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" But Lot said to them, "No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life.

But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I'll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared." He said to him, "Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it." (That is why the town was called Zoar.

By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

New Testament

1 Corinthians 6:9-20

“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

"Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also."

"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit."

"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

Galatians 5:19-21

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and dedauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

1Thessalonians 4:3-8

"It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him."

"The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit."

Note
The Lord God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish. Because he loved his creation so very much, he sent his son Jesus to die on a cross for our sins, past, present and future. But, his grace is not a license to sin. We must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him. As the preacher taught today, "set our minds on divine things, not on human things." Love is sacrifice. Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice: death by crucifixion. But, on the third day, God raised him from the dead. And you can have a new life in Jesus because of his resurrection power. You only need to repent of your sins, and ask him to forgive you, and he will come into your heart and make you a new creation. Jesus changed my life.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Respect Life

God’s word says, “But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts, I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly” (Psalm 22:9-10).

"Since 1973, over 45 million legal abortions have been performed in the United States.” When the Constitution was signed, it read that the people would have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Our Nation was founded on Christian principles, “One Nation under God.”

God cares about life and he cares about the unborn. Yet, as I did my research on Wikipedia, the biggest reason that people (25.5%) gave for having an abortion is that they wanted to postpone childbearing. And the next biggest reason (21.3%) was that they couldn’t afford a baby.

Isn’t it sad that the baby, who is a human being, a living breathing life, had no choice? The word of God says, “Thou shalt not murder,” but unfortunately a baby in the womb has been reduced to something equivalent to a “blob of cells”“nothingness,” not a baby, with a beating heart.

There is no excuse for taking the life of another human being and God’s word says that he knew our name before we were even conceived. His word is clear. What choice will you make? Make the right one, won’t you? Abort means to “terminate before completion.” An innocent baby has the right to “complete” his life the way God intended it.

Don’t abort an innocent baby. Get a sonogram and see that the baby inside of you is a living, breathing, human being, blessed by God, before they were even conceived. And he is the giver and taker of life, there is no other like him. He brought us into the world and only he can take us out, by the stroke of his mighty hand.

If you are reading this and have had an abortion, you must know that God can forgive an act of abortion, but only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins.

If you repent and ask Him to forgive you through Jesus Christ, our intercessor, he will. And then you must turn from your sin and live for Jesus, who atoned for your sin when He died on the cross and said, “It is finished.” Say no to abortion. Don’t believe the lie. A baby is a life, even in the womb. Respect life, won’t you?